The love affair between black folks and the Clintons has been going on for a long time. It began back in 1992, when Bill Clinton was running for president. He threw on some shades and played the saxophone on 'The Arsenio Hall Show.' It seems silly in retrospect, but many of us fell for that.

Michelle Alexander

Bill Clinton presided over the largest increase in federal and state prison inmates of any president in American history.

Michelle Alexander

Bill Clinton championed discriminatory laws against formerly incarcerated people that have kept millions of Americans locked in a cycle of poverty and desperation.

Michelle Alexander

In my view, the most important lesson we can learn from Dr. King is not what he said at the March on Washington but what he said and did after the march. In the years following the march, he did not play politics to see what crumbs a fundamentally corrupt system might toss to the beggars for justice.

Michelle Alexander

I am still committed to building a movement to end mass incarceration, but I will not do it with blinders on. If all we do is end mass incarceration, this movement will not have gone nearly far enough.

Michelle Alexander

Martin Luther King Jr. could have argued that separate water fountains were too expensive, a waste of money. He would have been right about that. But cost was beside the point.

Michelle Alexander

People return home from prison and face legal discrimination in virtually all areas of social and economic and political life. They are legally discriminated against employment, barred from public housing, and denied other public benefits.

Michelle Alexander

The U.S. Supreme Court has eviscerated Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches and seizures, giving the police license to sweep communities, to conduct 'stop and frisk' operations.

Michelle Alexander

I believe it is possible to bring an end to mass incarceration and birth a new moral consensus about how we ought to be responding to poor folks of color and a consensus in support of basic human rights for all. But it is going to take some work.

Michelle Alexander

The Supreme Court has made it nearly impossible to prove race discrimination in the criminal justice system.

Michelle Alexander

More than 90 percent of criminal cases are never tried before a jury. Most people charged with crimes forfeit their constitutional rights and plead guilty.

Michelle Alexander

The system of mass incarceration depends almost entirely on the cooperation of those it seeks to control.

Michelle Alexander

If everyone charged with crimes suddenly exercised his constitutional rights, there would not be enough judges, lawyers, or prison cells to deal with the ensuing tsunami of litigation.

Michelle Alexander

Some prison officials are determined to keep the people they lock in cages as ignorant as possible about the racial, social, and political forces that have made the United States the most punitive nation on earth. Perhaps they worry the truth might actually set the captives free.

Michelle Alexander

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' and then engage in all the practices we supposedly left behind.

Michelle Alexander

Thousands of people plead guilty to crimes every year in the United States because they know that the odds of a jury's believing their word over a police officer's are slim to none.

Michelle Alexander

In this era of mass incarceration, the police shouldn't be trusted any more than any other witness, perhaps less so.

Michelle Alexander

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

Exposing police lying is difficult largely because it is rare for the police to admit their own lies or to acknowledge the lies of other officers. This reluctance derives partly from the code of silence that governs police practice and from the ways in which the system of mass incarceration is structured to reward dishonesty.

Michelle Alexander

Once you've acquired a criminal record, you can be discriminated against legally in employment, housing, and access to education and public benefits. You're relegated to a permanent second-class status, forever a 'criminal.' Inflicting this amount of unnecessary pain and suffering is not cheap.

Michelle Alexander

Michelle Alexander Quotes

The love affair between black folks and the Clintons has been going on for a long time. It began back in 1992, when Bill Clinton was running for president. He threw on some shades and played the saxophone on 'The Arsenio Hall Show.' It seems silly in retrospect, but many of us fell for that.

Bill Clinton presided over the largest increase in federal and state prison inmates of any president in American history.

Bill Clinton championed discriminatory laws against formerly incarcerated people that have kept millions of Americans locked in a cycle of poverty and desperation.

I am still committed to building a movement to end mass incarceration, but I will not do it with blinders on. If all we do is end mass incarceration, this movement will not have gone nearly far enough.

Martin Luther King Jr. could have argued that separate water fountains were too expensive, a waste of money. He would have been right about that. But cost was beside the point.

People return home from prison and face legal discrimination in virtually all areas of social and economic and political life. They are legally discriminated against employment, barred from public housing, and denied other public benefits.

The U.S. Supreme Court has eviscerated Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches and seizures, giving the police license to sweep communities, to conduct 'stop and frisk' operations.

I believe it is possible to bring an end to mass incarceration and birth a new moral consensus about how we ought to be responding to poor folks of color and a consensus in support of basic human rights for all. But it is going to take some work.

The Supreme Court has made it nearly impossible to prove race discrimination in the criminal justice system.

More than 90 percent of criminal cases are never tried before a jury. Most people charged with crimes forfeit their constitutional rights and plead guilty.

The system of mass incarceration depends almost entirely on the cooperation of those it seeks to control.

If everyone charged with crimes suddenly exercised his constitutional rights, there would not be enough judges, lawyers, or prison cells to deal with the ensuing tsunami of litigation.

Some prison officials are determined to keep the people they lock in cages as ignorant as possible about the racial, social, and political forces that have made the United States the most punitive nation on earth. Perhaps they worry the truth might actually set the captives free.

Thousands of people plead guilty to crimes every year in the United States because they know that the odds of a jury's believing their word over a police officer's are slim to none.

In this era of mass incarceration, the police shouldn't be trusted any more than any other witness, perhaps less so.

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.

Once you've acquired a criminal record, you can be discriminated against legally in employment, housing, and access to education and public benefits. You're relegated to a permanent second-class status, forever a 'criminal.' Inflicting this amount of unnecessary pain and suffering is not cheap.