Caste system Quote by Michelle Alexander

“Historians will likely wonder how we could describe the new caste system as a system of crime control, when it is difficult to imagine a system better designed to create—rather than prevent—crime.” quote by Michelle Alexander — Download Open image

““Historians will likely wonder how we could describe the new caste system as a system of crime control, when it is difficult to imagine a system better designed to create—rather than prevent—crime.””

Michelle Alexander

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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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“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…

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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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More Caste system quotes

Class - or the economic status of individuals - is evident in all societies, some very well stratified by a rigid caste system determined…

F. Sionil Jose

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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…

Michelle Alexander

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Many immigrants do not talk about what they endured back home. They were fleeing that world, and when they left they didn't want to…

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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…

Michelle Alexander

“The impact of the new caste system is most tragically felt among the young. In Chicago (as in other cities across the United States), young black men are more likely to go to prison than to college. As of June 2001, there were nearly 20,000 more black men in the Illinois state prison system than enrolled in the state's public…

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“there is no inconsistency whatsoever between the election of Barack Obama to the highest office in the land and the existence of a racial…

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“B.R. Ambedkar believed the tale was not so much about Ram’s character as it was about the unsustainability of the caste system that needed…

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Arguably the most important parallel between mass incarceration and Jim Crow is that both have served to define the meaning and significance of race in America. Indeed, a primary function of any racial caste system is to define the meaning of race in its time. Slavery defined what it meant to be black (a slave), and Jim Crow defined what…

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“While the Reconstruction Era was fraught with corruption and arguably doomed by the lack of land reform, the sweeping economic and political developments in that period did appear, at least for a time, to have the potential to seriously undermine, if not completely eradicate, the racial caste system in the South. With the protection of federal troops, African Americans began…

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“Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess.…

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