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.
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote highlights the alarming rates of incarceration among black Americans in comparison to apartheid-era South Africa.
Michelle Alexander's quote draws a stark comparison between the United States' imprisonment rates of its black population and the policies of apartheid in South Africa. It emphasizes the systemic issues of racial injustice and the overrepresentation of black individuals in the prison system, particularly among young black men in economically disadvantaged neighborhoods. This statement serves to provoke thought about the social structures that perpetuate inequality and the consequences of failing to address these systemic injustices.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
During a speech about criminal justice reform, this quote can highlight the urgent need for change.
More from Michelle Alexander
All quotes →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.
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.
The cyclical rebirth of caste in America is a recurring racial nightmare.
Similar quotes
If the market is left to sort matters out, social injustice will be heightened and suffering in the community will grow with the neglect the market fosters.
Racists seem obsessed by the idea that illegal workers - the hardest-working, poorest people in America - are somehow getting away with something, sneaking goodies that should be for Americans. You can always avoid this problem by having no social services. This is the refreshing Texas model, and it works a treat.
The default of our society is the reproduction of racial inequality. I mean, that's what it does; that's what it's been doing for hundreds of years.
Being unhoused in America must no longer be viewed as an individual shortcoming, but rather as an unacceptable, life-threatening policy failure.
I am only a mouthpiece through which to tell the story of lynching and I have told it so often that I know it by heart. I do not have to embellish; it makes its own way.
If I wrote in Michael Harrington's time, roughly 50 years later when he published 'The Other America', I'd still be writing about poverty and also entrenched racial injustice.