The nature of the criminal justice system has changed. It is no longer primarily concerned with the prevention and punishment of crime, but rather with the management and control of the dispossessedMichelle Alexander
Rather than rely on race, we use our criminal justice system to label people of color 'criminals' and then engage in all the practices we supposedly left behind.Michelle Alexander
We have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it.Michelle Alexander
In the era of colorblindness, it is no longer socially permissible to use race, explicitly, as a justification for discrimination, exclusion, and social contempt. So we don't. Rather than rely on race, we use our criminal justice system to label people of color 'criminals'.Michelle Alexander
As a criminal, you have scarcely more rights, and arguably less respect, than a black man living in Alabama at the height of Jim Crow. We have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it.Michelle Alexander
Seeing race is not the problem. Refusing to care for the people we see is the problem.Michelle Alexander
What has changed since the collapse of Jim Crow has less to do with the basic structure of our society than with the language we use to justify it.Michelle Alexander
We are witnessing an eerily familiar replay of history, in which a new system of racialized social control is emerging from the ashes of the old.Michelle Alexander
We have allowed our criminal justice system to get carried away with the war on drugs to such an extent that it has become a war on communities of color.Michelle Alexander
Today's lynching is a felony charge. Today's lynching is incarceration. Today's lynch mobs are professionals. They have a badge; they have a law degree.Michelle Alexander