If we want to do more than just end mass incarceration—if we want to put an end to the history of racial caste in America—we must lay down our racial…

- Michelle Alexander

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 refus…

- Michelle Alexander

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 bi…

- Michelle Alexander

We must build a movement for education, not incarceration. A movement for jobs, not jails. A movement that will end all forms of discrimination again…

- Michelle Alexander

Arguably the most important parallel between mass incarceration and Jim Crow is that both have served to define the meaning and significance of race …

- Michelle Alexander

There are more African Americans under correctional control, in prison or jail, on probation or parole, than were enslaved in 1850 a decade before th…

- Michelle Alexander

The nature of the criminal justice system has changed. It is no longer primarily concerned with the prevention and punishment of crime, but rather wi…

- Michelle Alexander

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 na…

- Michelle Alexander

Many offenders are tracked for prison at early ages, labeled as criminals in their teen years, and then shuttled from their decrepit, underfunded inn…

- Michelle Alexander