In 2004, there were more black men disenfranchised than in 1870 - the year the 15th Amendment was ratified, prohibiting laws that deny the right to vote exclusively on the basis of race.
Michelle AlexanderRead
Like Jim Crow (and slavery), mass incarceration operates as a tightly networked system of laws, policies, customs, and institutions that operate collectively to ensure the subordinate status of a group defined largely by race.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote highlights how mass incarceration functions as a system that perpetuates racial inequality, similar to Jim Crow laws and slavery.
In this quote, Michelle Alexander draws a parallel between historical systems of racial oppression, such as Jim Crow laws and slavery, and the contemporary issue of mass incarceration in the United States. She argues that mass incarceration is not merely a result of crime or individual wrongdoing but operates as a comprehensive network of legal, social, and institutional frameworks designed to maintain the subordination of racially defined groups, particularly African Americans. This systemic nature suggests that addressing these injustices requires more than reforming laws; it requires a profound societal shift in understanding and dismantling embedded racism.
Themes
Mass IncarcerationRacismSocial JusticeSystemic OppressionJim Crow
In practice
Example use cases
During a debate on criminal justice reform, this quote can illustrate the need for systemic change.
More from Michelle Alexander
All quotes →My experience and research has led me to the regrettable conclusion that our system of mass incarceration functions more like a caste system than a system of crime prevention or control.
Michelle AlexanderRead
The United States imprisons a larger percentage of its black population than South Africa did at the height of apartheid. In Washington, D.C., our nation’s capitol, it is estimated that three out of four young black men (and nearly all those in the poorest neighborhoods) can expect to serve time in prison.
Michelle AlexanderRead
We have avoided in recent years talking openly and honestly about race out of fear that it will alienate and polarize. In my own view, it’s our refusal to deal openly and honestly with race that leads us to keep repeating these cycles of exclusion and division, and rebirthing a caste-like system that we claim we’ve left behind
Michelle AlexanderRead
No other country in the world imprisons so many of its racial or ethnic minorities. The United States imprisons a larger percentage of its black population than South Africa did at the height of apartheid
Michelle AlexanderRead
There has been an outpouring of anger and concern because of the actions of George Zimmerman, a private citizen who profiled a young boy and pursued him and tried to confront him, perhaps. But what George Zimmerman did is no different than what police officers do every day as a matter of standard operating procedure.
Michelle AlexanderRead
Similar quotes
If you grew up white before the civil rights movement anywhere in the South, all grown-ups lied. They'd tell you stuff like, 'Don't drink out of the colored fountain, dear, it's dirty.' In the white part of town, the white fountain was always covered with chewing gum and the marks of grubby kids' paws, and the colored fountain was always clean.
Molly IvinsRead
You can be tweeting strangers and saying, 'Don't say that,' but are you saying that to your friends? How about your mom? Your boyfriend at the dinner table who says something homophobic? If you're not saying the same things in person that you're saying online, then what are your tweets doing?
Luvvie AjayiRead
The one public system in which America goes out of its way to provide services to African-Americans is prison.
Nicholas KristofRead
I don't want to flee, nor do I want to abandon the battle of these farmers who live without any protection in the forest. They have the sacrosanct right to aspire to a better life on land where they can live and work with dignity while respecting the environment.
Dorothy StangRead
Hot weather brings out snakes and slaveholders, and I like one class of the venomous creatures as little as I do the other.
Harriet Ann JacobsRead
In a sense the quest for the emancipation of black people in the U.S. has always been a quest for economic liberation which means to a certain extent that the rise of black middle class would be inevitable.
Angela DavisRead