Michelle Alexander Quotes About Today

• Podría decirse que el paralelismo más importante entre el encarcelamiento masivo y Jim Crow es que ambos han servido para definir el significado y la importancia de la raza en Estados Unidos. De hecho, una función primordial de cualquier sistema de castas raciales es definir el significado de la raza en su época. La esclavitud definió lo que significaba ser negro (un esclavo), y Jim Crow definió lo que significaba ser negro (un ciudadano de segunda clase). Hoy en día, el encarcelamiento masivo define el significado de la negritud en Estados Unidos: los negros, especialmente los hombres negros, son delincuentes. Eso es lo que significa ser negro.

  Michelle Alexander

  Mean, Men, America

  "The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness". Book by Michelle Alexander, www.huffingtonpost.com. January 5, 2010.

• Today there are more African-Americans under correctional control, in prison or jail, on probation or parole, than were enslaved in 1850, a decade before the Civil War began. There are millions of African-Americans now cycling in and out of prisons and jails or under correctional control or saddled with criminal records. In major American cities today, more than half of working-age African-American men either are under correctional control or are branded felons, and are thus subject to legalized discrimination for the rest of their lives.

  Michelle Alexander

  War, Men, Cycling

  "Legal Scholar: Jim Crow Still Exists In America". "Fresh Air" with Dave Davies, www.npr.org. January 16, 2012.

• Today it is perfectly legal to discriminate against criminals in nearly all the ways that it was once legal to discriminate against African Americans. Once you're labeled a felon, the old forms of discrimination - employment discrimination, housing discrimination, denial of the right to vote, denial of educational opportunity, denial of food stamps and other public benefits, and exclusion from jury service - are suddenly legal.

  Michelle Alexander

  Educational, Opportunity, African American

  Fuente: www.truth-out.org

• There is a tremendous amount of confusion and denial that exists about mass incarceration today, and that is the biggest barrier to movement building. As long as we remain in denial about this system, movement building will be impossible. Exposing youth in classrooms to the truth about this system and developing their critical capacities will, I believe, open the door to meaningful engagement and collective, inspired action.

  Michelle Alexander

  Meaningful, Believe, Doors

  Fuente: www.truth-out.org

• Most criminologists today will acknowledge that crime rates and incarceration rates in the United States have had relatively little to do with each other.

  Michelle Alexander

  United States, Littles, Today

  Fuente: www.truth-out.org

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