A Quote from the Limits of Analogy, The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander

“...An example of a difference that is less significant than it may initially appear is the ‘fact’ that Jim Crow was explicitly race-based, whereas mass incarceration is not. This statement initially appears self-evident, but it is partially mistaken. Although it is common to think of Jim Crow as an explicitly race-based system, in fact a number of the key policies were officially colorblind. As previously noted, poll taxes, literacy tests, and felon disenfranchisement laws were all formally race-neutral practices that were employed in order to avoid the prohibition on race discrimination in voting contained in the Fifteenth Amendment. These laws operated to create an all-white electorate because they excluded African Americans from the franchise but were not generally applied to whites. Poll works had the discretion to charge a poll tax or administer a literacy test, or not, and they exercised their discretion in a racially discriminatory manner. Laws that said nothing about race operated to discriminate because those charged with enforcement were granted tremendous discretion, and they exercised that discretion in a highly discriminatory manner. The same is true in the drug war. Laws prohibiting the use and sale of drugs are facially race neutral, but they are enforced in a highly discriminatory fashion….A facially race-neutral system of laws has operated to create a racial caste system.”

A quote highlighted from Desiree's reading journal discussing Chapter 5, The New Jim Crow, section titled 'The Limits of Analogy' by Michelle Alexander.

The picture below is from the Business of Mass Incarceration, Popular Resistence post which you can read by clicking here.