It doesn't matter if that felony happened three weeks ago or thirty-five years ago - for the rest of your life, you've got to check that box, knowing full well the odds are sky-high your application is going straight to the trash. Michelle Alexander More Quotes by Michelle Alexander More Quotes From Michelle Alexander Certainly youth of color, particularly those in ghetto communities, find themselves born into the cage. They are born into a community in which the rules, laws, policies, structures of their lives virtually guarantee that they will remain trapped for life. It begins at a very early age when their parents themselves are either behind bars or locked in a permanent second-class status and cannot afford them the opportunities they otherwise could. Michelle Alexander ghetto color opportunity The mass criminalization of white men would disturb us to the core. Michelle Alexander white-man mass men In a growing number of states, you're actually expected to pay back the costs of your imprisonment. Paying back all these fees, fines, and costs may be a condition of your probation or parole. To make matters worse, if you're one of the lucky few who actually manages to get a job following release from prison, up to 100% of your wages can be garnished to pay back all those fees, fines and court costs. One hundred percent. Michelle Alexander numbers pay jobs If the drug war was waged in those communities it would spark such outrage that the war would end overnight. This literal war is waged in segregated, impoverished communities defined largely by race, and the targets are the most vulnerable, least powerful people in our society. Michelle Alexander powerful race war By waging the drug war and "getting tough" almost exclusively in the 'hood, we've managed to create a vast new racial undercaste in an astonishingly short period of time. Michelle Alexander tough drug war People charged with drug offenses, though, are typically poor people of color. They are routinely charged with felonies and sent to prison. Michelle Alexander drug color people 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 community color jobs 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 prevention crime social The wave of punitiveness that washed over the United States with the rise of the drug war and the get tough movement really flooded our schools. Schools, caught up in this maelstrom, began viewing children as criminals or suspects, rather than as young people with an enormous amount of potential struggling in their own ways and their own difficult context to make it and hopefully thrive. We began viewing the youth in schools as potential violators rather than as children needing our guidance. Michelle Alexander struggle war children We must muster the courage, we must find the will, we must do what is necessary to build a truly transformative movement that will end the history and cycle of caste in America. Michelle Alexander movement ends america The fact that our legal system has become so tolerant of police lying indicates how corrupted our criminal justice system has become by declarations of war, 'get tough' mantras, and a seemingly insatiable appetite for locking up and locking out the poorest and darkest among us. Michelle Alexander legal police justice war Our entire political system is financed by wealthy private interests buying politicians and making sure the rules are written in their favor. Michelle Alexander favor politicians rules political I think most people have a general sense that when you're released from prison, life is hard, but, you know, if you work hard and apply self-discipline and stay out of trouble, you can make it. But that's true only for a relative few. Michelle Alexander you work life people When we pull back the curtain and take a look at what our 'colorblind' society creates without affirmative action, we see a familiar social, political, and economic structure - the structure of racial caste. The entrance into this new caste system can be found at the prison gate. Michelle Alexander look society political action Now that private prison companies have found that they can make a killing on mass incarceration, these private prison companies are now in the business of building detention centers for suspected illegal immigrants. Michelle Alexander immigrants building prison business Although our rules and laws are now officially colorblind, they operate to discriminate in a grossly disproportionate fashion. Michelle Alexander laws rules now fashion In a sense, mass incarceration has emerged as a far more extreme form of physical and residential segregation than Jim Crow segregation. Rather than merely shunting people of color to the other side of town, people are locked in literal cages - en masse. Michelle Alexander more segregation color people Felons are typically stripped of the very rights supposedly won in the civil rights movement, including the right to vote, the right to serve on juries, and the right to be free of legal discrimination in employment, housing, access to education, and public benefits. They're relegated to a permanent undercaste. Michelle Alexander legal discrimination vote education The sprinkling of people of color through elite institutions in the United States, due to affirmative action policies and the limited progress of middle-class and upper-middle-class African Americans, creates the illusion of great progress. Michelle Alexander great progress color people As described in 'The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness,' the cyclical rebirth of caste in America is a recurring racial nightmare. Michelle Alexander caste new age america
