29 Quotes About Mass-incarceration

The issue, perhaps, boils down to one of how perceptions or misperceptions of racial difference impact various individuals’, or groups of individuals’, experience of freedom in America. Some would argue that it goes beyond hampering their 'pursuit of happiness' to outright obliterating it.

Despite claims that these radical policy changes were driven by fiscal conservatism...the reality is that government was not reducing the amount of money devoted to the management of the urban poor. It was radically altering what the funds would be used for....Funding that had once been once used for public housing was being redirected to prison construction.

We need to try to see individuals in order to do any kind of justice. The idea of a binary world of monsters and saints whose unchanging goodness or badness is evident from one or a few actions, from their poverty, or from their race, is false" - Larry Krasner

Our broken criminal justice system has rejected individual justice and discretion it requires, and instead insists on robotic and inflexible mandatory sentencing, sentencing guidelines, death sentences, life without possibility of parole, the actual or de facto elimination of sentence modifications, pardons, commutations, expungement, and record sealing.” - Lary Krasner

Black culture and history as something worthy of study, and to replace the “n-word” with “Brother” and “Sister.” You see, the “n-word” was not some reclamation of Black community; it was part of a process of dehumanization required by chattel slavery. We weren’t human beings; we were n*****. I have not used the word since walking into M. Navies’ class. I was 13 years old.” - Melina Abdullah

White-supremacist-patriarchal-heteronormative-capitalism socializes us to aspire to “good Negro” status. It convince little Black girls from East Oakland to graduate from Howard—summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, to pledge the oldest Black sorority, to earn PhDs, to be in the “right” rooms…” - Melina Abdullah

We must not reach for a status that is only bestowed by a white supremacist system that really despises us. We must resist. To claim not only our alignment with n****s, but our identity as N****s ourselves is the greatest act of defiance; it is our sacred duty as descendants of enslaved people, freedom fighters, street corner hustlers, and our own grandparents. Ultimately N**** theory— and praxis— is what will get us free.” - Melina Abdullah

Meanwhile the biggest industry in Los Angeles County was bleeding tens of thousands of entry-level semiskilled jobs. Blue-collar workers everywhere felt the tremors of the so-called Eisenhower Recession of 1958, but in Southern California the primary reason for layoffs was the advent of the Space Age. (Set the Night on Fire)

Our unity shocked them and we should continue to shock the white man by working together.” (Set the Night on Fire)