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
The rules and reasons the political system employs to enforce status relations of any kind, including racial hierarchy, evolve and change as they are challenged.
Interpretation
Political systems adapt and evolve in response to challenges against status hierarchies, including racial disparities.
In this quote, Michelle Alexander highlights the dynamic nature of political systems and their ruling frameworks. She asserts that as societal challenges arise against established hierarchies, such as those based on race, these systems will evolve in order to maintain and reinforce their authority, dynamics, and control. This emphasizes the ongoing struggle for equality and the necessity of vigilance in confronting systemic injustices.
In practice
This quote can be used in a discussion about the evolution of laws and civil rights movements.
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.
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.
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.
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
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
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.
[A] mere demarcation on parchment of the constitutional limits of the several departments is not a sufficient guard against those encroachments which lead to a tyrannical concentration of all the powers of government in the same hands.
The constitution has broken down. We have no enemies except the ones we select and direct towards the nearest nuclear bombs. They need an enemy to provoke, a diversion. This is the mentality of tenth-rate people who are in politics because corporate America likes them. They are malleable. They give them contracts to build missile shields that will never work. It's deeply corrupt.
Israel must never be expected to jeopardize her security: if she was ever foolish enough to do so, and then suffered for it, the backlash against both honest brokers and Palestinians would be immense - 'land for peace' must also bring peace.
We've had every official in Hawaii, Democrat and Republican, every news outlet that has investigated this, confirm that, yes, in fact, I was born in Hawaii, Aug. 4, 1961, in Kapiolani Hospital.
Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them.
I'm tired of hearing it said that democracy doesn't work. Of course it doesn't work. We are supposed to work it.
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