"Sociologists have frequently observed that governments use punishment primarily as a tool of social control, and thus the extent or severity of punishment is often unrelated to actual crime patterns."
"The colorblind public consensus that prevails in America today - i.e., the widespread belief that race no longer matters - has blinded us to the realities of race in our society and facilitated the emergence of a new caste system."
"Following the collapse of each system of control, there has been a period of confusion - transition - in which those who are most committed to racial hierarchy search for new means to achieve their goals within the rules of the game as currently defined."
"Competing images of the poor as 'deserving' and 'undeserving' became central components of the debate. Ultimately, the racialized nature of this imagery became a crucial resource for conservatives, who succeeded in using law and order rhetoric in their effort to mobilize the resentment of white working-class voters, many of whom felt threatened by the sudden progress of African Americans."
"Condemning 'welfare queens' and criminal 'predators,' he rode into office with the strong support of disaffected whites - poor and working-class whites who felt betrayed by the Democratic Party's embrace of the civil rights agenda."
"... the president signed the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 into law. Among other harsh penalties, the legislation included mandatory minimum sentences for the distribution of cocaine, including far more severe punishment for distribution for crack - associated with blacks - than powder cocaine, associated with whites."
"The War on Drugs, cloaked in race-neutral language, offered whites opposed to racial reform a unique opportunity to express their hostility toward blacks and black progress, without being exposed to the charge of racism."
"Ninety percent of those admitted to prison for drug offenses in many states were black or Latino, yet the mass incarceration of communities of color was explained in race-neutral terms, an adaptation to the needs and demands of the current political climate. The New Jim Crow was born."
"Relatively little organized opposition to the drug war currently exists, and any dramatic effort to scale back the war may be publicly condemned as 'soft' on crime. The war has become institutionalized. It is no longer a special program or politicized project; it is simply the way things are done."
"Racial discrimination, the Court seemed to suggest, was something that simply must be tolerated in the criminal justice system, provided no one admits to racial bias."
"... the impact of the biased treatment is magnified with each additional step into the criminal justice system. African American youth account for 16 percent of all youth, 28 percent of all juvenile arrests, 35 percent of the youth waived to adult criminal court, and 58 percent of youth admitted to state adult prison. A major reason for these disparities is unconscious and conscious racial biases infecting decision making."
"A hundreds years ago, our nation put those considered less than human in shackles; less than one hundred years ago, we relegated them to the other side of town; today we put them in cages. Once released, they find that a heavy and cruel hand has been laid upon them."
"They don't have to call you a nigger anymore. They just say you're a felon."
"The notion that ghetto families do not, in fact, want those things, and instead are perfectly content to live in crime-ridden communities, feeling no shame or regret about the fate of their young men is, quite simply, racist. It is impossible to imagine that we would believe such a thing about whites."
"If we had actually learned to show love, care, compassion, and concern across racial lines during the Civil Rights Movement - rather than go colorblind - mass incarceration would not exist today."
"The widespread and mistaken belief that racial animus is necessary for the creation and maintenance of racialized systems of social control is the most important reason that we, as a nation, have remained in deep denial."
"Under the usual-residence rule, the Census Bureau counts imprisoned individuals as residents of the jurisdiction in which they are incarcerated. Because most new prison construction occurs in predominately white, rural areas, white communities benefit from inflated population totals at the expense of the urban, overwhelmingly minority communities from which the prisoners come."
"... white ex-offenders may actually have an easier time gaining employment than African Americans without a criminal record. To be a black man is to be thought of as a criminal, and to be a black criminal is to be despicable - a social pariah."
"At its core, then, mass incarceration, like Jim Crow, is a 'race-making institution.' It serves to define the meaning and significance of race in America."
"Laws that said nothing about race operated to discriminate because those charged with enforcement were granted tremendous discretion, and they exercised that discretion in a highly discriminatory manner."
"This system of control depends far more on racial indifference (defined as a lack of compassion and caring about race and racial groups) than racial hostility - a feature it actually shares with its predecessors."
"It is fair to say that we have witnessed an evolution in the United States from a racial caste system based entirely on exploitation (slavery), to one based largely on subordination (Jim Crow), to one defined by marginalization (mass incarceration)."
"The colorblindness ideal is premised on the notion that we, as a society, can never be trusted to see race and treat each other fairly or with genuine compassion. A commitment to color consciousness, by contrast, places faith in our capacity as humans to show care and concern for others, even as we are fully cognizant of race and possible racial differences."
"We should hope not for a colorblind society but instead for a world in which we can see each other fully, learn from each other, and do what we can to respond to each other with love. That was King's dream - a society that is capable of seeing each of us, as we are, with love. That is a goal worth fighting for."
"Black success stories tend to credence to the notion that anyone, no matter how poor or how black you may be, can make it to the top, if only you try hard enough. These stories 'prove' that race is no longer relevant. Whereas black success stories undermine the logic of Jim Crow, they actually reinforce the system of mass incarceration. Mass incarceration depends for its legitimacy on the widespread belief that all those who appear trapped at the bottom actually chose their fate."
"People of color, because of the history of racial subjugation and exclusion, often experience success and failure vicariously through the few who achieve positions of power, fame, and fortune."
"Perhaps the time has come to give up the racial bribes and begin an honest conversation about race in America. The topic of the conversation should be how us can include all of us."
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