Carly’s Reviews > The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness > Status Update

"Those of us who hope to be their allies should not be surprised, if [...] when those who have been locked up and locked out finally have the chance to speak and truly be heard, what we hear is rage. The rage may frighten us; it may remind us of riots, uprisings, and buildings aflame. We may be tempted to control it, or douse it with buckets of doubt, dismay, and disbelief. But we should do no such thing."

In related news, this just happened: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/...

"The Supreme Court’s famous proclamation in 1857—“[the black man] has no rights which the white man is bound to respect”—remains true to a significant degree today, so long as the black man has been labeled a felon."

[Echoes of 3/5 Compromise]"Imprisoned individuals [count] 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. This has enormous consequences for the redistricting process."

"With respect to shaming those trapped in ghettos: are we willing to demonize a population, declare a war against them, and then stand back and heap shame and contempt upon them for failing to behave like model citizens while under attack?"

This is difficult to read, but it is just as hard to think about how (1) this is my country and it is inexcusable to realize how little of it I fully recognized; and (2) it is only because of my white privilege that I have the option of putting the book down and turning away from its substance.

"No other country in the world disenfranchises people who are released from prison in a manner even remotely resembling the United States. In fact, the United Nations Human Rights Committee has charged that U.S. disenfranchisement policies are discriminatory and violate international law."

"Housing discrimination against people branded felons (as well as *suspected* “criminals”) is perfectly legal...
[The act] not only authorized public housing agencies to exclude automatically (and evict) drug offenders and other felons; it also allowed agencies to bar applicants *believed* to be using illegal drugs or abusing alcohol—whether or not they had been convicted of a crime."

"Criminals, it turns out, are the one social group in America we have permission to hate.
...
Hundreds of 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."

"In Purkett v Elm, in 1995, the Supreme Court ruled that any race-neutral reason, no matter how silly, ridiculous, or superstitious, is enough to satisfy the prosecutor’s burden of showing that a pattern of striking a particular racial group is not, in fact, based on race...
[incl] 'I don’t like the way they looked, with the way the hair is cut, both of them. And the mustaches and the beards look suspicious to me.'