Jim crow Quote by Michelle Alexander

““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 may understate the impact of felony disenfranchisement, because they do not take into account the millions of ex-felons who cannot vote in states that require ex-felons to pay fines or fees before their voting rights can be restored – the new poll tax.””

Michelle Alexander

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Jim crow Mass incarceration Voting rights

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The uncomfortable reality we must face is that California, like the nation as a whole, has treated generations of African Americans and Latinos as…

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“Seeing race is not the problem. Refusing to care for the people we see is the problem. The fact that the meaning of race may evolve over time or lose much of its significance is hardly a reason to be struck blind. We should hope not for a colorblind society but instead for a world in which we can see…

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Since the nations founding, African Americans repeatedly have been controlled through institutions such as slavery and Jim Crow, which appear to die but then…

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“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…

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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…

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“Civil rights protests were frequently depicted as criminal rather than political in nature, and federal courts were accused of excessive “lenience” toward lawlessness, thereby…

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We cannot 'fix' the police without a revolution of values and radical change to the basic structure of our society.

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If we continue to tell ourselves the popular myths about racial progress or, worse yet, if we say to ourselves that the problem of mass incarceration is just too big, too daunting for us to do anything about and that we should instead direct our energies to battles that might be more easily won, history will judge us harshly. A…

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The mass incarceration of poor people of color, particularly black men, has emerged as a new caste system, one specifically designed to address the…

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“[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…

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If you take into account prisoners, a large majority of African American men in some urban areas, like Chicago, have been labeled felons for…

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Explore all 381 Michelle Alexander quotes

More Jim crow quotes

“It is also clear that structural racism is beating down the black chef. It started with segregation; black chefs in the South were either poorly paid shadow figures (often women) working for all-white establishments, or were locked into their own neighborhoods in Jim Crow. Nashville Hot Chicken wasn't a pan-Nashville dish; it was locked behind the walls of racial separation.…

Michael W. Twitty

“Jim Crow repeated the old strategies of the reptilian powers of the air: to convince human beings simultaneously and paradoxically that they are gods and animals. In the Garden, after all, the snake approached God's image-bearer, directing her as though he had dominion over her (when it was, in fact, the other way around). He treated her as an animal,…

Russell D. Moore

The welfare state has done to Black Americans what slavery (and Jim Crow and racism) could not have done. . .break up the black…

John Stossel

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Racism is not just slavery and Jim Crow. It is the daily violence that is enacted on our communities each and every day we…

Cori Bush

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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

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You cannot be responsible for Jim Crow. You can not be responsible for racism. This is much more a problem for the person exercising racism.You are confronted with the reality of racism when you go in the streets, when the eyes of others come upon you. [James] Baldwin goes back with you to all the experiences you went through and…

Raoul Peck

As a southerner born after the epic events of the civil rights movement, I've always wondered how on earth people of good will could…

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The perpetuation of slavery, the exile and extermination of American Indians, and the passage of Jim Crow laws weren't carried out at the bidding…

P. J. O'Rourke

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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…

Lani Guinier

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Let us look at Jim Crow for the criminal he is and what he has done to one life multiplied millions of times over…

Rosa Parks

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“A new civil rights movement cannot be organized around the relics of the earlier system of control if it is to address meaningfully the racial realities of our time. Any racial justice movement, to be successful, must vigorously challenge the public consensus that underlies the prevailing system of control. Nooses, racial slurs, and overt bigotry are widely condemned by people…

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