Segregation laws were proposed as part of a deliberate effort to drive a wedge between poor whites and African Americans. These discriminatory barriers were designed to encourage lower-class whites to retain a sense of superiority over blacks, making it far less likely that they would sustain interracial political alliances aimed at toppling the white elite.

the planter class extended special privileges to poor whites in an effort to drive a wedge between them and black slaves

At the peak of the Civil Rights Movement, activists and others began to turn their attention to economic problems...The shift in focus served to align the goals of the Civil Rights Movement with key political goals of poor and working-class whites, who were also demanding economic reforms

President Reagan officially announced his administration's War on Drugs. At the time...less than 2 percent of the American public viewed drugs as the most important issue facing the nation. This fact was no deterrent to Reagan, for the drug war from the outset had little to do with public concern about drugs and much to do with public concern about race.

Reagan's promise to enhance the federal government's role in fighting crime was complicated by the fact that fighting street crime has traditionally been the responsibility of state and local law enforcement. After a period of initial confusion and controversy...the Justice Department announced its intention to cut in half the number of specialists assigned to identify and prosecute white collar criminals and to shift its attention to street crime, especially drug-law enforcement.

We can have no significant understanding of any culture unless we also know the silences that were intentionally created and guaranteed along with it.– Gerald Sider.

No issue has proved more vexing to this nation than the issue of race, and yet no question is more pressing than how to overcome the politics of white supremacy-a form of politics that not only led to an actual civil war but that threatens our ability ever to create a truly fair, just, and inclusive democracy. We find ourselves in this dangerous place not because something radically different has occurred in our nation's politics, but because so much has remained the same.

Vagrancy laws and other laws defining activities such as "mischief" and "insulting gestures" as crimes were enforced vigorously against blacks. The aggressive enforcement of these criminal offenses opened up an enormous market for convict leasing.

Colorblindness, though widely touted as the solution, is actually the problem.