Quote

In many large urban areas, the majority of working age African American men now have criminal records and are thus subject to legalized discrimination for the rest of their lives. It is viewed as normal in ghetto communities to go to prison or jail.

Michelle Alexander

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Michelle Alexander
Age: 56
Born: 1967
Born: October 7
Author
Human Rights Activist
Lawyer
Professor
University Teacher
the United States of America
Men
Records
Prison
Ghetto
Rest
Thus
Urban
Working
Subject
Criminal
Age
Areas
Discrimination
Community
Large
Communities
American
Majority
Jail
Legalized
Lives
Subjects
African
Many
Normal
Criminals
Viewed

More quotes by Michelle Alexander

Image
In fact, in some countries there are actually voting drives conducted in prison! But here in the U.S., we seem to take the idea of democracy a bit less seriously and people are denied the right to vote not only when they are in prison, but also upon release in many states.
Michelle Alexander
Image
The War on Drugs, cloaked in race-neutral language, offered whites opposed to racial reform a unique opportunity to express their hostility toward blacks and black progress, without being exposed to the charge of racism.
Michelle Alexander
Image
Of course, no one should be trapped in bad schools or bad neighborhoods. No one. But I think we need to be asking a larger question: How do we change the norm, the larger context that people seem to accept as a given? Are we so thoroughly resigned to what is that we cannot even begin a serious conversation about how to create what ought to be?
Michelle Alexander
Image
There are more African Americans under correctional control, in prison or jail, on probation or parole, than were enslaved in 1850 a decade before the civil war began.
Michelle Alexander
Image
I think it's critically important that the people who have been most harmed by mass incarceration, by mass deportation, by neoliberalism, by all of it, not only have a voice in crafting these platforms but emerge and are supported as real leaders in these movements.
Michelle Alexander
Image
What does this system seem designed to do? As I see it, it seems designed to send people right back to prison, which is what happens about 70% of the time.
Michelle Alexander
Image
Middle-class white children, children of privilege, are afforded the opportunity to make a lot of mistakes and still go on to college, still dream big dreams. But for kids who are born in the ghetto in the era of mass incarceration, the system is designed in such a way that it traps them, often for life.
Michelle Alexander
Image
Incarceration rates - especially black incarceration rates - have soared regardless of whether crime has been going up or down in any given community or the nation as a whole.
Michelle Alexander
Image
The mass criminalization of white men would disturb us to the core.
Michelle Alexander
Image
One in three young African American men is currently under the control of the criminal justice system in prison, in jail, on probation, or on parole - yet mass incarceration tends to be categorized as a criminal justice issue as opposed to a racial justice or civil rights issue (or crisis).
Michelle Alexander
Image
One study conducted in Washington, D.C. indicated that 3 out of 4 black men, and nearly all those living in the poorest neighborhoods could expect to find themselves behind bars at some point in their life.
Michelle Alexander
Image
Since the nation's founding, African Americans repeatedly have been controlled through institutions such as slavery and Jim Crow, which appear to die, but then are reborn in new form, tailored to the needs and constraints of the time.
Michelle Alexander
Image
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness.
Michelle Alexander
Image
Our system of mass incarceration is better understood as a system of racial and social control than a system of crime prevention or control.
Michelle Alexander
Image
The dramatically different manner in which we, as a nation, responded to the crisis presented by drunk driving and the crisis caused by the emergence of crack cocaine speaks volumes about who we value, and who we view as disposable.
Michelle Alexander
Image
We have not ended racial caste in America, we have merely redesigned it.
Michelle Alexander
Image
We must build a movement for education, not incarceration. A movement for jobs, not jails. A movement that will end all forms of discrimination against people released from prison - discrimination that denies them basic human rights to work, shelter and food.
Michelle Alexander
Image
For children, the era of mass incarceration has meant a tremendous amount of family separation, broken homes, poverty, and a far, far greater level of hopelessness as they see so many of their loved ones cycling in and out of prison. Children who have incarcerated parents are far more likely themselves to be incarcerated.
Michelle Alexander
Image
Private prison companies are now listed on the New York Stock exchange and are doing quite well in a time of economic recession (and depression in some communities). But that's just the tip of the iceberg.
Michelle Alexander
Image
Of course it would make far more sense to invest in education and job creation in poor communities of color, rather than spend billions of dollars caging them and monitoring them upon release.
Michelle Alexander