374 Quotes by Michelle Alexander


  • Author Michelle Alexander
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    Because poor people lack access to private space (often sharing small apartments with numerous family members or relatives), their criminal activity is more likely to be conducted outdoors.

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  • Author Michelle Alexander
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    What a growing number of sociologists have found ought to be common sense: by locking millions of people out of the mainstream legal economy, by making it difficult or impossible for people to find housing or feed themselves, and by destroying familial bonds by warehousing millions for minor crimes, we make crime more—not less—likely in the most vulnerable communities.

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  • Author Michelle Alexander
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    The liberal philosophy of race relations emphasized the stigma of segregation and the hypocrisy of a government that celebrates freedom and equality yet denies both on account of race. This philosophy, born in the North, never gained much traction among Southern whites or blacks.

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  • Author Michelle Alexander
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    Men are so constituted that they derive their conviction of their own possibilities largely from the estimate formed of them by others. If nothing is expected of a people, that people will find it difficult to contradict that expectation.

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  • Author Michelle Alexander
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    No other country in the world disenfranchised people who are released from prison in a manner even remotely resembling the United States. In fact the United Nations Human Rights Commission has charged that U.S. disenfranchisment policies are discriminatory and violate international law.

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  • Author Michelle Alexander
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    What is key to America's understanding of class is the persistent belief - despite all evidence to the contrary - that anyone, with the proper discipline and drive, can move from a lower class to a higher class. We recognize the mobility may be difficult, but the key to our collective self-image is the assumption that mobility is always possible, so failure to move up reflects on one's character.

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