The future of race in America: Michelle Alexander at TEDxColumbus
Summary
TLDRThe speaker passionately addresses the issue of mass incarceration in the United States, likening it to a new form of racial caste system. They argue that despite crime rates fluctuating, incarceration rates have soared, disproportionately affecting poor people and people of color. The war on drugs and punitive policies have led to a system that perpetuates racial and social control, stripping individuals of basic human rights upon release. The speaker calls for a human rights movement to challenge this cycle and awaken society to the realities of racial injustice.
Takeaways
- 🌟 The speaker emphasizes the importance of recognizing the humanity in criminals and reforming the criminal justice system, which they view as a modern form of racial caste.
- 🔒 The U.S. has a system of mass incarceration that disproportionately affects the poor and people of color, treating them worse than animals and stripping them of civil rights upon release.
- 🚫 Post-incarceration, individuals face legalized discrimination in various aspects of life, including voting, serving on juries, employment, housing, education, and public benefits.
- 🎯 The speaker initially rejected the idea that the criminal justice system functions like a caste system but later realized the system perpetuates racial and social control rather than crime prevention.
- 👮♂️ The 'war on drugs' and 'get tough' policies have significantly contributed to the increase in incarceration rates, with drug convictions accounting for a large portion of the prison population growth.
- 📉 Despite fluctuations in crime rates, the U.S. incarceration rates have consistently increased, indicating a disconnect between crime and imprisonment.
- 🏛 The Supreme Court has weakened Fourth Amendment protections and closed courthouse doors to racial bias claims, effectively immunizing the system from judicial scrutiny.
- 🚫 Once labeled as a felon, individuals face lifelong discrimination and barriers to reintegration, including employment, housing, and public benefits.
- 💰 The system of mass incarceration is deeply entrenched in the social, political, and economic structure, making it resistant to minor reforms and requiring a major social movement for change.
- 🔄 High recidivism rates indicate that the system is failing to rehabilitate and instead perpetuates a cycle of imprisonment and release.
- 🌈 The speaker calls for a human rights movement to end mass incarceration, focusing on education, employment, and ending legal discrimination against those with criminal records.
Q & A
What is the main theme of the speaker's address?
-The main theme of the speaker's address is the issue of mass incarceration in the United States, its racial disparities, and the comparison of the criminal justice system to a caste system akin to Jim Crow laws.
Why does the speaker believe the current criminal justice system is similar to a caste system?
-The speaker believes the current criminal justice system is similar to a caste system because it disproportionately affects poor people and people of color, often treating them as fundamentally unworthy of care, compassion, and concern, and relegating them to a permanent second-class status.
What historical laws and practices does the speaker compare the current criminal justice system to?
-The speaker compares the current criminal justice system to slavery and Jim Crow laws, highlighting that these systems also functioned as forms of racial and social control.
What is the 'war on drugs' and how does it contribute to mass incarceration?
-The 'war on drugs' is a term used to describe the aggressive policies and law enforcement efforts aimed at combating drug use and distribution. It contributes to mass incarceration by leading to a significant increase in drug convictions, which account for a large portion of the prison population growth.
How has the 'war on drugs' been racially biased, according to the speaker?
-According to the speaker, the 'war on drugs' has been racially biased by being waged almost exclusively on black and brown communities, despite evidence that drug use and sales occur with equal frequency in white communities.
What are some of the consequences faced by individuals released from prison, as mentioned in the script?
-Individuals released from prison face consequences such as being stripped of basic civil and human rights, including the right to vote, serve on juries, and be free from legal discrimination in employment, housing, education, and access to public benefits.
What does the speaker suggest is the reason for the dramatic increase in incarceration rates, despite fluctuating crime rates?
-The speaker suggests that the dramatic increase in incarceration rates is due to policies and practices associated with the 'war on drugs' and the 'get tough' movement, rather than actual crime rates.
What is the role of the US Supreme Court in facilitating the 'war on drugs', as described by the speaker?
-The US Supreme Court has facilitated the 'war on drugs' by weakening Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches and seizures, allowing for more intrusive police actions, and by closing courthouse doors to cases challenging racial profiling and discrimination in the criminal justice system.
What does the speaker propose as a solution to end mass incarceration?
-The speaker proposes that a major social movement is needed to end mass incarceration, one that builds a human rights movement focused on education, jobs, and ending legal discrimination against people released from prison.
What is the significance of the speaker's initial rejection of the idea that the criminal justice system functions like a caste system?
-The significance of the speaker's initial rejection is to illustrate her personal journey and transformation in understanding the systemic issues within the criminal justice system, highlighting the importance of questioning preconceived notions and being open to new perspectives.
How does the speaker describe the impact of mass incarceration on communities of color?
-The speaker describes the impact of mass incarceration on communities of color as devastating, with millions of children growing up believing they will go to jail, and young people being shuttled from underfunded schools to high-tech prisons, perpetuating a cycle of poverty and social exclusion.
Outlines
🌏 Opening Remarks on Criminal Justice and Racial Inequality
The speaker begins by expressing gratitude for being in a community of open-minded individuals ready to challenge societal norms. They share their personal journey from rejecting to accepting the notion that the criminal justice system in the United States functions similarly to a caste system, perpetuating racial inequality. The speaker acknowledges the mass incarceration of predominantly poor people and people of color, who are treated inhumanely and stripped of civil rights upon release. They also discuss their initial skepticism towards such comparisons and the realization that the criminal justice system is not just biased but is a different beast altogether, with racial bias deeply ingrained in its structure.
📈 The Reality of Mass Incarceration and its Disproportionate Impact
The speaker delves into the stark reality of mass incarceration in the United States, highlighting the racial and social disparities it perpetuates. They discuss how children growing up in certain communities are almost destined for jail, moving from underfunded schools to high-tech prisons. The speaker emphasizes the racial targeting in the system, with minor, nonviolent offenses leading to lifelong second-class status. They also refute the myth that mass incarceration is driven by crime rates, pointing out that the prison population has quintupled over 30 years, far exceeding any reasonable correlation with crime rates.
🚫 The War on Drugs: A Catalyst for Mass Incarceration
The speaker identifies the war on drugs and the get-tough movement as the primary drivers of mass incarceration, with drug convictions accounting for a significant increase in the prison population. They point out the racial bias in the war on drugs, despite evidence showing no significant difference in drug use or sales between races. The speaker criticizes the focus on quantity over quality in law enforcement, with agencies rewarded for high arrest numbers, leading to a targeting of low-hanging fruit and a monetary incentive for the continuation of the war on drugs.
🏛️ The Supreme Court's Role in Facilitating Mass Incarceration
The speaker discusses the role of the U.S. Supreme Court in enabling mass incarceration by weakening Fourth Amendment protections and closing courthouse doors to those challenging racial profiling. They describe how the court has made it nearly impossible to claim racial discrimination in the criminal justice system without proof of conscious intent, effectively shielding the system from judicial scrutiny. The speaker also outlines the lifelong consequences of being swept into the system, including the loss of basic civil and human rights.
🔄 The Cycle of Incarceration and the Need for a Social Movement
The speaker highlights the cyclical nature of incarceration, with most released individuals returning to prison within a few years due to the immense challenges they face upon reentry into society. They argue that a major social movement is necessary to address mass incarceration, given its deep roots in the social, political, and economic structures of the United States. The speaker calls for a human rights movement focused on education, employment, and ending legal discrimination against those with criminal records, emphasizing the need for a societal awakening to the realities of race in America.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Mass Incarceration
💡Criminal Justice System
💡Racial Caste
💡Drug War
💡Disenfranchisement
💡Civil Rights Movement
💡Racial Profiling
💡Human Rights Movement
💡Legal Discrimination
💡Social Control
💡Great Awakening
Highlights
The speaker discusses the transformation of their perspective on the criminal justice system, from rejecting to embracing the idea that it functions as a caste system.
The United States has a system of mass incarceration that is unprecedented in world history, disproportionately affecting the poor and people of color.
Upon release, individuals are stripped of basic civil and human rights, perpetuating a cycle of discrimination similar to Jim Crow era practices.
The speaker's initial skepticism about the comparison between mass incarceration and Jim Crow is shared by many, yet later proven to be misguided.
The realization that the criminal justice system is not just biased but operates as a system of racial and social control, rather than crime prevention.
Millions of children in the U.S. grow up believing they will go to jail, highlighting the normalization of incarceration in certain communities.
The war on drugs and get-tough policies have led to a significant increase in incarceration rates, unrelated to actual crime rates.
Drug convictions alone account for a substantial part of the increase in prison populations, despite similar drug usage rates across racial groups.
Law enforcement is incentivized by federal funding to focus on quantity of arrests rather than addressing drug kingpins or violent offenders.
The U.S. Supreme Court has facilitated the drug war and mass incarceration by weakening Fourth Amendment protections and closing courthouse doors to racial bias challenges.
Once individuals are branded as felons, they face a lifetime of discrimination and barriers to basic human rights such as employment, housing, and public benefits.
The speaker calls for a major social movement to end mass incarceration, akin to the civil rights movement, emphasizing the need for a human rights movement.
A 'Great Awakening' is necessary to challenge the colorblind slumber and recognize the humanity and dignity of all people, including those labeled as criminals.
The speaker emphasizes the need to end not just mass incarceration, but the cycle of creating caste-like systems in America.
The transcript calls for a commitment to building a human rights movement that advocates for education, jobs, and an end to legal discrimination against formerly incarcerated individuals.
The speaker concludes by urging the audience to continue the work of civil rights pioneers and embrace a broader human rights movement to address mass incarceration.
Transcripts
it is just wonderful
to be here surrounded by so many people
with open minds and open hearts people
who are willing to imagine that there is
more to this world than meets our own
eyes and I want to share with you how my
own eyes have been opened and how I have
learned to care more about a group of
people were supposed to despise people
were supposed to hate people are
supposed to fear people we are taught
are unworthy fundamentally unworthy of
our care compassion and concern I'm here
to talk about criminals and I'm here to
talk about our criminal justice system a
system of mass incarceration a penal
system unprecedented in world history
millions of people are locked up in the
United States today overwhelmingly poor
people and people of color locked in
literal cages often treated worse than
animals and then upon their release
they're stripped of the basic civil and
human rights supposedly won in the civil
rights movement like the right to vote
the right to serve on juries and the
right to be free of legal discrimination
in employment housing access to
education and basic public benefits so
many of the old forms of discrimination
that we supposedly left behind during
the Jim Crow era are suddenly legal
again once you've been branded a felon
that's why I now believe we have not
truly ended racial caste in America
we've merely redesigned it now I want to
just admit at the outset that there was
a time when I rejected this kind of talk
out of hand there was a time when I
rejected comparisons between mass
incarceration and slavery or mass
incarceration in Jim Crow and believed
that people who made those kinds of
claims and those kinds of comparisons
were actually doing more harm than good
to efforts to reform our criminal
justice system or achieve greater racial
equality in the United States in fact
the first time I encountered the idea
that our criminal justice system might
be functioning like a caste system I was
living in Oakland California and I was
rushing to catch the bus and as I was
hurrying down the street there was this
bright orange poster stapled to a
telephone pole that caught my eye and on
it it said in large bold print the drug
war is the new Jim Crow and I paused for
a minute and scanned the text of the
flyer and I saw that some radical
community group was holding a meeting
several blocks away and they were
organizing to protest the new three
strikes law in California the expansion
of this prison system the drug war
racial profiling police brutality the
list went on and on and I stood there
looking at the flier thinking to myself
yeah our criminal justice system may be
biased in a lot of ways but does it help
to make such absurd comparisons to Jim
Crow people just think you're crazy
and then I cross the street hopped on
the bus headed to my new job as director
of the racial justice project for the
ACLU well
when I join the ACLU I assume that our
criminal justice system had problems of
racial bias much in the same way that
all institutions in our society are
infected to some degree or another with
problems associated with conscious or
unconscious bias and stereotyping and so
I assume that it was my job to join
together with other advocates to try to
root out racial bias wherever and
whenever it might rear its ugly head in
the criminal justice system but by the
time I left the ACLU I had come to
realize that I was just dead wrong about
our criminal justice system it's not
just another institution in our society
infected with some degree of bias but a
different beast entirely the activist
that posted that sign on the telephone
pole weren't crazy nor were the
smattering of lawyers and activists
around the country that we're beginning
to connect the dots between mass
incarceration and earlier forms of
racial and social control quite
belatedly I came to see that our
criminal justice system now does
function much more like a system of
racial and social control than a system
of crime prevention and control millions
of children in the United States today
grow up believing that they too one day
will go to jail in our most segregated
ghettoize communities in the United
States
young people are shuttled from decrepit
underfunded schools to these brand-new
hi-tech prisons they're targeted at
young ages often before they're old
enough to vote stopped
Fritz searched interrogated about who
they are where they're going if they
headed home with nothing but skittles in
their hand
stop frizz search and when they're
arrested they're typically arrested for
a relatively minor nonviolent often
drug-related offense the very sorts of
crimes that occur with roughly equal
frequency in middle-class white
communities or on college campuses but
go largely ignored they're arrested
swept in branded criminals and felons
and then ushered into a permanent second
class status a status from which they
will never escape and this is happening
to people by the millions in this
country today there are more African
American adults under correctional
control in prison or jail on probation
or parole than were enslaved in 1850 a
decade before the civil war began as of
2004 more black men were denied the
right to vote than in 1870 the year the
Fifteenth Amendment was ratified
prohibiting laws that explicitly deny
the right to vote on the basis of race
now of course during the Jim Crow era
poll taxes and literacy tests operated
to keep black folks from the polls well
today felon disenfranchisement laws in
many states now accomplish what poll
taxes and literacy tests ultimately
could not now this isn't a phenomenon
that just affects some small segment of
the African American community to the
contrary in many large urban areas today
more than half of working-age African
American men now have criminal records
and are thus subject to legalized
discrimination for the rest of their
lives these men are part of a growing
under caste not class caste a group of
people defined largely by race relegated
to a permanent second-class status by
law
now I find that these days when I tell
people that I now believe that our
system of mass incarceration is like a
new Jim Crow a new caste like system
people typically react with shock
disbelief they say how can you say that
how can you say that our criminal
justice system isn't a system of racial
control as a system of crime control and
if black folks would stop running around
committing so many crimes they wouldn't
have to worry about being locked up and
then stripped of their basic civil and
human rights but therein lies the
greatest myth about mass incarceration
namely that it's been driven simply by
crime in crime rates it's not true it's
just not true during a 30-year period of
time our nation's prison population
quintupled not doubled or tripled
quintupled we went from having a prison
population in the 1970s about 300,000
people today we have an incarcerated
population of over 2 million we have the
highest rate of incarceration in the
world dwarfing the rates of even highly
repressive regimes like Russia or China
or Iran but during this 30-year period
of time when our prison population
exploded crime rates fluctuated they
went up went down went back up again
went down again went up and then down
down down and today as bad as crime
rates are in some parts of the country
crime rates nationally are at historical
lows but incarceration rates have
consistently soared most criminologist
and sociologists today will acknowledge
that crime rates and incarceration rates
in the United States have moved
independently of one another
incarceration rates especially black
incarceration rates have soared
regardless of whether crime is going up
or going down in any given community or
the nation as a whole
so what explains the sudden and
presidented explosion incarceration if
not simply crime in crime rates well it
turns out that the activists who posted
that sign on the telephone pole were
right the war on drugs and the get tough
movement the wave of punitive Nastasha
over the United States on the heels of
the civil rights movement drug
convictions alone just drug convictions
account counted for about two-thirds of
the increase in the federal prison
population and more than half of the
increase in the state prison population
between 1985 and 2000 the period of our
prison systems most dramatic expansion
drug convictions have increased more
than a thousand percent since the drug
war began I mean to get a sense of how
large a contribution the drug war has
made to mass incarceration think of it
this way there are more people in
prisons and jails today just for drug
offenses then we're incarcerated for all
reasons in 1980 now most Americans
violate drug laws in their lifetime
most do you don't have to raise your
hand
most do but the enemy in this war has
been racially defined even though
studies have now consistently shown for
decades that contrary to popular belief
people of color are no more likely to
use or sell illegal drugs than whites
this drug war has been waged almost
exclusively on black and brown
communities in fact where significant
differences and the data can be found it
frequently suggests that white youth are
more likely to engage in illegal drug
use drug abuse and drug dealing than
black youth but that's not what you
would guess by taking a peek inside our
nation's prisons and jails which are
overflowing with black and brown drug
offenders he
and Rights Watch reported at the peak of
the drug war that in some states eighty
to ninety percent of all drug offenders
sent to prison one race African American
now I find that many people when they
see this data they say oh you know
that's a shame that's a shame but you
know we need a war on them them in the
hood because that's where the violent
offenders can be found that's where the
drug kingpins can be found but when many
people don't realize is this drug war
has never been focused primarily on
rooting out the violent offenders or the
drug kingpins federal funding in this
war has flowed to those state and local
law enforcement agencies that boost the
sheer numbers of drug arrests it's been
a numbers game law enforcement agencies
have been rewarded in cash by the
millions for the sheer numbers of people
swept in for drug offenses virtually
guaranteeing that law enforcement goes
out looking for the so-called
low-hanging fruit stopping frisking
searching as many people as possible to
get their numbers up and federal drug
forfeiture laws allow state and local
law enforcement agencies to keep for
their own use up to eighty percent of
the cash cars homes seized from
suspected drug offenders you don't have
to be convicted just suspected of a drug
offense and law enforcement can seize
the cash out of your pocket out of your
home take your car sell it keep the
proceeds thus giving law enforcement a
direct monetary interest not in ending
drug abuse or drug addiction or drug
related harm but in the longevity of
this war itself and the US Supreme Court
far from resisting the rise of mass
incarceration and the targeting of poor
communities of color far from resisting
it it has facilitated the drug war at
every turn the US Supreme Court has
eviscerated
Fourth Amendment protections against
unreasonable searches and seizures
giving the police license to stop frist
search just about anyone anywhere
without a shred of evidence of any
criminal activity as long as they get
consent which is really just compliance
and for those who want to challenge the
bias that is unfold display in the drug
war the US Supreme Court has closed the
courthouse doors the cases that I was
bringing challenging patters and
practices of profiling by the police
can't even be filed in a court of law
today in a series of cases beginning
with McCleskey vs. Kemp and Armstrong
versus the United States the US Supreme
Court has ruled explicitly that it does
not matter how overwhelming your
statistical evidence is it does not
matter how severe the racial disparities
are unless you have proof of conscious
intentional bias tantamount to an
admission by a law enforcement official
of bias
you can't even state a claim for race
discrimination in the criminal justice
system today in this way the US Supreme
Court is effectively immunized the
system of mass incarceration from
judicial scrutiny for racial bias much
in the same way that it once rallied to
the defense of slavery and Jim Crow in
their days but of course being swept
into the system at a young age with
little hope of challenging the tactics
or the bias that got you there is just
the beginning of the Odyssey for so many
because once you're swept in you're
ushered into a parallel social universe
in which the basic civil and human
rights that apply to others no longer
apply to you for the rest of your life
you've got to check that box on
employment applications asking the
dreaded question have you ever been
convicted of a felony doesn't matter how
long ago that felony may have occurred
months ago weeks ago or 35 years ago for
the rest of your life you've got to
check that box knowing full well your
applications going straight to the trash
housing discrimination perfectly legal
by
like landlords and private housing
landlords and officials public benefits
are off-limits to people who have been
convicted of felony like food stamps
under federal law you can't even get
food stamps if you've been convicted of
a felony what are people released from
prison supposed to do can't get a job
barred from public housing private
housing even food stamps may be
off-limits to you
well apparently what we expect them to
do is to pay hundreds or thousands of
dollars in fees fines court costs
accumulated back child support and
paying back all these fees fines and
court costs can be a condition of your
probation or parole and then get this if
you're one of the lucky few who actually
manages to get a job following release
from prison up to one hundred percent of
your wages can be garnished to pay back
all those fees fines court costs and
accumulated back child support what do
we expect folks released from prison to
do I say when we take a step back and
view the system as a whole how it
operates practically from cradle to
grave in some communities have to ask
yourself what does it seem designed to
do seems designed in my view to keep
sending folks right back to prison and
that is what in fact happens the vast
majority of times about 70% of people
released from prison
nationwide return within a few years and
the majority of those who return in some
states do so in a matter of months
because the challenges of mere survival
on the outside are so immense so what do
we do what do we do well my own view is
that nothing short of a major social
movement has any hope of ending mass
incarceration in the United States and
if you imagine that surely something
less could do somehow we could tinker
with this machine and get it right
consider the sheer scale
the system if we were to return to the
rates of incarceration we had in the
1970s before the war on drugs and the
get tough movement kicked off we would
have to release four out of five people
who are in prison today four out of five
more than a million people employed by
the criminal justice system would need
to find a new line of work private
prison companies now listed on the New
York Stock Exchange in doing quite well
even during times of economic recession
those companies would be forced into
bankruptcy
this system is now so deeply rooted in
our social political and economic
structure it's not going to just fade
away or downsize out of sight without a
major upheaval a fairly radical shift in
our public consciousness now I know that
there's many people today who say well
there's just no hope of ending mass
incarceration in America just as many
people were resigned to the old Jim Crow
in the South would say oh yeah it's a
shame but that's just the way that it is
I find that so many people of all colors
view the million cycling in and out of
our prisons and jails is just an
unfortunate but basically in alterable
fact of American life well I am
confident that Martin Luther King jr.
and Rosa Parks and Ella Baker and Ann
Braden and all those young people who
risked their lives getting on buses and
taking Freedom Rides to the south to end
the old Jim Crow they would not be so
easily deterred so I believe we have got
to pick up where they left off and do
the hard work of movement building on
behalf of poor people of all colors in
1968 dr. King told advocates that the
time had come to shift from a civil
rights movement to a human rights
movement meaningful equality he said
could not be achieved through civil
rights alone without basic human rights
right to work the right to equality
education right to housing without basic
human rights he said civil rights are an
empty promise so in honor of dr. King
and all those who labored to end earlier
systems of racial or social control I
hope we will commit ourselves to
building a human rights movement and
mass incarceration a movement for
education not incarceration a movement
for jobs not jails and a movement to end
all those forms of legal discrimination
against people released from prison
discrimination denying them basic human
rights to work to shelter into food but
before this movement can truly get
underway a Great Awakening is required
we've got to awaken from this colorblind
slumber we've been in to the realities
of race and America and we've got to be
willing to embrace those labeled
criminals not necessarily all their
behavior but them their humaneness for
it has been the refusal and failure to
recognize the dignity and humanity of
all people that has been the sturdy
foundation for every caste like system
that has ever existed in the United
States or anywhere else in the world
it's our task I firmly believe and not
just mass incarceration not just the war
on drugs but to end this history in
cycle of creating cast like systems in
America thank you so much for having me
here
thank you
you
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