“Seeing race is not the problem. Refusing to care for the people we see is the problem. The fact that the meaning… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
“A new civil rights movement cannot be organized around the relics of the earlier system of control if it is to address… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
“We should ask ourselves whether efforts to achieve "cosmetic" racial diversity- that is, reform efforts that make institutions look good on the… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
“The liberal philosophy of race relations emphasized the stigma of segregation and the hypocrisy of a government that celebrates freedom and equality… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
Arguably the most important parallel between mass incarceration and Jim Crow is that both have served to define the meaning and significance… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
In the 'era of colorblindness,' there's a nearly fanatical desire to cling to the myth that we, as a nation, have 'moved… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
“Although it is common to think of Jim Crow as an explicitly race-based system, in fact a number of the key policies… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
“The Supreme Court has now closed the courthouse doors to claims of racial bias at every stage of the criminal justice process,… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
It is no longer socially permissible to use race, explicitly, as a justification for discrimination, exclusion, and social contempt. So we don't.… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
We have avoided in recent years talking openly and honestly about race out of fear that it will alienate and polarize. In… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
“The racial dimension of mass incarceration is its most striking feature. No other country in the world imprisons so many of its… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
“In a nation still stuck in an old Jim Crow mind-set - which equates racism with white bigotry and views racial diversity… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
The clock has been turned back on racial progress in America, though scarcely anyone seems to notice. All eyes are fixed on… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
“In the era of colorblindness, it is no longer socially permissible to use race, explicitly, as a justification for discrimination, exclusion, and… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
“Ninety percent of those admitted to prison for drug offenses in many states were black or Latino, yet the mass incarceration of… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
I think this mythology - that we're all beyond race, of course our police officers aren't racist, of course our politicians don't… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
“The process occurs in two stages. The first step is to grant law enforcement officials extraordinary discretion regarding whom to stop, search,… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
We have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
“The War on Drugs proved popular among key white voters, particularly whites who remained resentful of black progress, civil rights enforcement, and… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
People return home from prison and face legal discrimination in virtually all areas of social and economic and political life. They are… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
The problem that we face as civil rights lawyers and advocates is that its extremely difficult to prove race discrimination because the… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
“Segregation laws were proposed as part of a deliberate effort to drive a wedge between poor whites and African Americans. These discriminatory… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
“Despite claims that these radical policy changes were driven by fiscal conservatism...the reality is that government was not reducing the amount of… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
Once you're labeled a felon, the old forms of discrimination - employment discrimination, housing discrimination, denial of the right to vote, denial… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
I say we haven't ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it. — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
If you ask for good schools, you aren't likely to get them. If you ask for jobs or economic investment, you won't get that… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
The uncomfortable reality we must face is that California, like the nation as a whole, has treated generations of African Americans and Latinos as… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
“Seeing race is not the problem. Refusing to care for the people we see is the problem. The fact that the meaning of race… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
Since the nations founding, African Americans repeatedly have been controlled through institutions such as slavery and Jim Crow, which appear to die but then… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
“Felon disenfranchisement laws have been more effective in eliminating black voters in the age of mass incarceration than they were under Jim Crow…These figures… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
“That was King’s dream—a society that is capable of seeing each of us, as we are, with love. That is a goal worth fighting… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
Activists take the risks, while advocates are professional tinkerers with the system. What's necessary is for those who are advocates to support those who… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
“Civil rights protests were frequently depicted as criminal rather than political in nature, and federal courts were accused of excessive “lenience” toward lawlessness, thereby… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
We cannot 'fix' the police without a revolution of values and radical change to the basic structure of our society. — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
If we continue to tell ourselves the popular myths about racial progress or, worse yet, if we say to ourselves that the problem of… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
The mass incarceration of poor people of color, particularly black men, has emerged as a new caste system, one specifically designed to address the… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
“[T]he slave went free; stood a brief moment in the sun; then moved back again toward slavery. —W.E.B Du Bois, Black Reconstruction in America… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
