The future of race in America: Michelle Alexander at TEDxColumbus

Summary

The 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

00:00

🌏 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.

05:02

📈 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.

10:03

🚫 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.

15:06

🏛️ 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.

20:06

🔄 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.

Keywords

💡Mass Incarceration

Mass incarceration refers to the phenomenon where a large portion of a nation's population is held in prisons or jails. It is a central theme in the video, illustrating the scale of imprisonment in the United States, particularly among the poor and people of color. The script mentions that the U.S. has an unprecedented penal system with millions locked up, often in inhumane conditions, and upon release, they face a loss of civil and human rights.

💡Criminal Justice System

The criminal justice system encompasses the institutions and processes involved in the administration of justice, including the police, courts, and corrections. In the video, the speaker criticizes the system for its role in perpetuating racial and social inequalities, highlighting how it treats certain groups as fundamentally unworthy of compassion and care.

💡Racial Caste

Racial caste is a concept that likens the current system of mass incarceration to historical systems of racial segregation, such as slavery and Jim Crow laws. The speaker argues that while these systems have ostensibly ended, a new form of racial caste has emerged, with the criminal justice system serving as a means of social control and discrimination.

💡Drug War

The drug war is a term used to describe the ongoing efforts to combat the production, distribution, and consumption of illegal drugs. The script points out that the drug war has disproportionately targeted communities of color and has been a significant contributor to mass incarceration, with drug convictions accounting for a large part of the prison population increase.

💡Disenfranchisement

Disenfranchisement refers to the revocation of voting rights, often as a result of a criminal conviction. The video discusses how laws that deny the right to vote to felons perpetuate a form of discrimination, effectively silencing the voices of millions and contributing to their second-class status.

💡Civil Rights Movement

The civil rights movement was a struggle for social justice and equal rights for African Americans and other marginalized groups in the 1950s and 1960s. The speaker contrasts the progress made during this era with the current reality, where many of the rights supposedly won are being undermined by the criminal justice system.

💡Racial Profiling

Racial profiling is the practice of targeting individuals for suspicion of crime based on their race or ethnicity. The script mentions this as a part of the broader issues within the criminal justice system, where certain communities are unfairly targeted and subjected to harsher treatment.

💡Human Rights Movement

The human rights movement advocates for the recognition and protection of the fundamental rights of all individuals. The speaker calls for a new movement in the spirit of the civil rights movement, focusing on the basic human rights that are being denied to those affected by mass incarceration.

💡Legal Discrimination

Legal discrimination refers to the unjust treatment of individuals based on factors such as race, gender, or criminal history, which is enshrined in law. The video discusses how laws that perpetuate discrimination against those with criminal records contribute to a cycle of poverty and re-incarceration.

💡Social Control

Social control is the management and regulation of individual and group behavior in society. The script argues that the criminal justice system functions more as a system of social control, particularly targeting marginalized communities, rather than focusing on crime prevention.

💡Great Awakening

The term 'Great Awakening' is used in the video to describe a necessary societal shift in consciousness and awareness regarding the realities of race and mass incarceration in America. It calls for a change in public perception to recognize the humanity of those labeled as criminals and to challenge the systems that perpetuate inequality.

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