--- title: "Meaning & Key Takeaway of: After reading The New Jim Crow, Michelle…" description: "\"After reading The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander's stunning work of scholarship, one gains the terrible realization that, for people of color, the Am..." image: "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/44d/david-levering-lewis-44621_color_after-reading-the-new-jim-crow-michelle_532281.jpg" --- # After reading The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander's… ![“After reading The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander's stunning work of scholarship, one gains the terrible realization that, for people of color, the American criminal justice system resembles the Soviet Union's gulag—the latter punished ideas, the former punishes a condition.” quote by David Levering Lewis](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/44d/david-levering-lewis-44621_color_after-reading-the-new-jim-crow-michelle_532281.jpg) [Download](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/44d/david-levering-lewis-44621_color_after-reading-the-new-jim-crow-michelle_532281.jpg) [Open image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/44d/david-levering-lewis-44621_color_after-reading-the-new-jim-crow-michelle_532281.jpg) > “After reading The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander's stunning work of scholarship, one gains the terrible realization that, for people of color, the American criminal justice system resembles the Soviet Union's gulag—the latter punished ideas, the former punishes a condition.” [David Levering Lewis](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/david-levering-lewis/) ## About This Quote This interpretation was drafted with AI assistance. It is one reading of the quote, not the author's own explanation. The quote highlights how the U.S. criminal justice system disproportionately targets people of color, functioning like a modern gulag that punishes a social condition rather than individual wrongdoing. **In simple terms:** The system punishes a group’s status, not just crimes. Key Takeaway Recognize and challenge systemic bias. Themes racism justice systemic oppression inequality Mood critical somber urgent Type analytical political educational When to use this quote - legal reform - community advocacy - policy analysis - education initiatives Key Concepts structural racism mass incarceration social control Questions to Reflect On - How does labeling the system a “gulag” affect reform efforts? - What alternative frameworks better capture its nuances? A Different Perspective The analogy may oversimplify complex legal differences between the U.S. and Soviet systems. ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ No ratings yet [Color](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/color/) [Criminal justice](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/criminal-justice/) [Criminal justice system](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/criminal-justice-system/) [Criminals](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/criminals/) [Gulag](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/gulag/) [Gulags](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/gulags/) [Ideas](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/ideas/) [Incarceration](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/incarceration/) [Jim crow](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/jim-crow/) [Justice](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/justice/) [Justice system](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/justice-system/) [New Jim Crow](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/new-jim-crow/) [People](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/people/) [Reading](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/reading/) [Realization](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/realization/) [Scholarship](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/scholarship/) [Soviet](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/soviet/) [Soviet union](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/soviet-union/) [Unions](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/unions/) ## Related quotes > [Over all, there are now more people under “correctional supervision” in America-more than six million-than were in the Gulag Archipelago under Stalin at its…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/adam-gopnik/over-all-there-are-now-more-people-under-correctional-supervision-in/) [Adam Gopnik](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/adam-gopnik/) > [The Gulag Archipelago, 'he informed an incredulous world that the blood-maddened Jewish terrorists had murdered sixty-six million victims in Russia from 1918 to 1957!…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/aleksandr-solzhenitsyn/the-gulag-archipelago-he-informed-an-incredulous-world-that-the-blood/) [Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/aleksandr-solzhenitsyn/) > [Where did you learn your charm—the gulag?](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/nalini-singh/where-did-you-learn-your-charm-the-gulag/) [Nalini Singh](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/nalini-singh/) > [Left-wing zealots have often been prepared to ride roughshod over due process and basic considerations of fairness when they think they can get away…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/margaret-thatcher/left-wing-zealots-have-often-been-prepared-to-ride-roughshod-over-due/) [Margaret Thatcher](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/margaret-thatcher/) > [From the Soviet gulag to the Nazi concentration camps and the killing fields of Cambodia, history teaches that granting the state legal authority to…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/pete-du-pont/from-the-soviet-gulag-to-the-nazi-concentration-camps-and-the-killing/) [Pete du Pont](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/pete-du-pont/) > [Nobody who's ever been to Gulag is a pacifist.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/william-f-buckley-jr/nobody-who-s-ever-been-to-gulag-is-a-pacifist/) [William F. Buckley, Jr](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/william-f-buckley-jr/) > [Guantanamo has become the gulag of our time.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/irene-khan/guantanamo-has-become-the-gulag-of-our-time/) [Irene Khan](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/irene-khan/) > [When I was in the gulag I would sometimes even write on stone walls. I used to write on scraps of paper, then I…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/aleksandr-solzhenitsyn/when-i-was-in-the-gulag-i-would-sometimes-even-write-on-stone-walls-i/) [Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/aleksandr-solzhenitsyn/) > [ So more and more black folk tend to be well-adjusted to \[Barack\] Obama's presidency, but does that mean they're well-adjusted to injustice? Because we… ](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/cornel-west/so-more-and-more-black-folk-tend-to-be-well-adjusted-to-barack-obama/) [Cornel West](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/cornel-west/) > [“More than 2 million people found themselves behind bars at the turn of the twenty-first century, and millions more were relegated to the margins…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/michelle-alexander/more-than-2-million-people-found-themselves-behind-bars-at-the-turn/) [Michelle Alexander](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/michelle-alexander/) > [As described in 'The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness,' the cyclical rebirth of caste in America is a recurring…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/michelle-alexander/as-described-in-the-new-jim-crow-mass-incarceration-in-the-age-of/) [Michelle Alexander](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/michelle-alexander/) > [“Ninety percent of those admitted to prison for drug offenses in many states were black or Latino, yet the mass incarceration of communities of…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/michelle-alexander/ninety-percent-of-those-admitted-to-prison-for-drug-offenses-in-many-2/) [Michelle Alexander](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/michelle-alexander/) > [The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/michelle-alexander/the-new-jim-crow-mass-incarceration-in-the-age-of-colorblindness/) [Michelle Alexander](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/michelle-alexander/) > [“Today my elation over Obama's election is tempered by a far more sobering awareness. As an African American woman, with three young children who…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/michelle-alexander/today-my-elation-over-obama-s-election-is-tempered-by-a-far-more/) [Michelle Alexander](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/michelle-alexander/) > [Michelle Alexander's brave and bold new book paints a haunting picture in which dreary felon garb, post-prison joblessness, and loss of voting rights now…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/lani-guinier/michelle-alexander-s-brave-and-bold-new-book-paints-a-haunting/) Lani Guinier ## More by David Levering Lewis > [“To safeguard the holiest symbol of their Catholic faith, the Toledo churchmen, escorted by a small cohort of armed nobles, had fled with the…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/david-levering-lewis/to-safeguard-the-holiest-symbol-of-their-catholic-faith-the-toledo/) [David Levering Lewis](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/david-levering-lewis/) > [Let This Voice Be Heard fulfills the mandate of biography at its best because Maurice Jackson has captured the history of a great moral…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/david-levering-lewis/let-this-voice-be-heard-fulfills-the-mandate-of-biography-at-its-best/) [David Levering Lewis](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/david-levering-lewis/) > [“Returning to Cordoba immediately after the slaughter, Mughith established a precedent of historic political and religious impact. 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E. B. Du Bois attempted virtually every possible solution to the problem of twentieth-century racism...scholarship,…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/david-levering-lewis/in-the-course-of-his-long-turbulent-career-w-e-b-du-bois-attempted/) [David Levering Lewis](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/david-levering-lewis/) > [Isabel Wilkerson's The Warmth of Other Suns is an American masterpiece, a stupendous literary success that channels the social sciences as iconic biography in…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/david-levering-lewis/isabel-wilkerson-s-the-warmth-of-other-suns-is-an-american/) [David Levering Lewis](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/david-levering-lewis/) > [“In any case, the royal remains of the last Goth to rule Hispania were never found-only his magnificent white stallion, still saddled and dead…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/david-levering-lewis/in-any-case-the-royal-remains-of-the-last-goth-to-rule-hispania-were/) [David Levering Lewis](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/david-levering-lewis/) [Explore all 9 David Levering Lewis quotes ](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/david-levering-lewis/) ## More Color quotes > [We never really perceive what color is physically!](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/josef-albers/we-never-really-perceive-what-color-is-physically/) [Josef Albers](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/josef-albers/) > [A Light exists in Spring Not present on the Year At any other period - When March is scarcely here A Color stands abroad…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/emily-dickinson/a-light-exists-in-spring-not-present-on-the-year-at-any-other-period/) [Emily Dickinson](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/emily-dickinson/) > [The color of somebody's skin or the way he wears his hair or clothes has nothing to do with anything.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/anonymous/the-color-of-somebody-s-skin-or-the-way-he-wears-his-hair-or-clothes/) [Anonymous](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/anonymous/) > ['Lovecraft Country' is reclaiming all these pulp genres for people of color.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/misha-green/lovecraft-country-is-reclaiming-all-these-pulp-genres-for-people-of/) [Misha Green](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/misha-green/) > [When I haven't any blue I use red.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/pablo-picasso/when-i-haven-t-any-blue-i-use-red/) [Pablo Picasso](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/pablo-picasso/) > [Now I am in the place I call this wide wide Heaven because it includes all my simplest desires but also the most humble…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/alice-sebold/now-i-am-in-the-place-i-call-this-wide-wide-heaven-because-it/) [Alice Sebold](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/alice-sebold/) > [A well-fashioned day - with a beginning and an end, a purpose and a content, a color and a character, a feel and a…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/jim-rohn/a-well-fashioned-day-with-a-beginning-and-an-end-a-purpose-and-a/) [Jim Rohn](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/jim-rohn/) > [It is sometimes said that scientists are unromantic, that their passion to figure out robs the world of beauty and mystery. But is it…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/carl-sagan/it-is-sometimes-said-that-scientists-are-unromantic-that-their/) [Carl Sagan](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/carl-sagan/) > [If you're white and you're wrong, then you're wrong; if you're black and you're wrong, you're wrong. People are people. Black, blue, pink, green…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/bob-marley/if-you-re-white-and-you-re-wrong-then-you-re-wrong-if-you-re-black/) [Bob Marley](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/bob-marley/) > [Today, at Harvard, any student with the currently fashionable color of skin is given rights denied to students of the currently unfashionable color.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/al-capp/today-at-harvard-any-student-with-the-currently-fashionable-color-of/) [Al Capp](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/al-capp/) > [Orange is my favorite color overall.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/dale-earnhardt-jr/orange-is-my-favorite-color-overall/) [Dale Earnhardt Jr](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/dale-earnhardt-jr/) > [To evoke in oneself a feeling one has once experienced, and having evoked it in oneself, then by means of movements, lines, colors, sounds,…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/leo-tolstoy/to-evoke-in-oneself-a-feeling-one-has-once-experienced-and-having/) [Leo Tolstoy](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/leo-tolstoy/) > [We have to keep in practice like musicians. 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