“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
“Saying mass incarceration is an abysmal failure makes sense, though, only if one assumes that the criminal justice system is designed to… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
There is a system of racial and social control in communities of color across America. — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
Mass incarceration is a massive system of racial and social control. — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
“If the movement that emerges to challenge mass incarceration fails to confront squarely the critical role of race in the basic structure… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
'Slavery by Another Name' is an important book that I think all Americans should read, about how, following the end of slavery,… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
Sociologists have frequently observed that governments use punishment primarily as a tool of social control, and thus the extent or severity of… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
“The language of caste may well seem foreign or unfamiliar to some. Public discussions about racial caste in America are relatively rare.… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
Our system of mass incarceration is better understood as a system of racial and social control than a system of crime prevention… — 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
