"Every time we gather, every time we insist on the non-novelty of our particular subjectivities, every time we refuse to be silenced by the dictates of some prescribed norms, we are chipping away at the exclusions and exclusivities in our world and exposing them for what they are - forms of power and control that aid and abet racist and heterosexist ways of thinking, imagining others, and containing others."
- Dwight A. McBride, Introduction to “why I hate abercrombie and fitch”
"…the problems plaguing poor communities of color, including problems associaed with crime and rising incarceration rates, [are] a function of poverty and lack of access to quality education - the continuing legacy of slavery and Jim Crow."
"The deeply flawed nature of colorblindness, as a governing principle, is evidenced by the fact that the public consensus supporting mass incarceration is officially colorblind. It purports to see black and brown men not as black and brown, but simply as men - raceless men - who have failed miserably to play by the rules the rest of us follow quite naturally. The fact that so many black and brown men are rounded up for drug crimes that go largely ignored when committed by whites is unseen. Our blindness also prevents us from seeing the racial and structural divisions that persist in society: Ye segregated, unequal schools, the segregated, jobless ghettos, and the segregated public discourse - a public conversation that excludes the current pariah caste. Our commitment to colorblindness extends beyond individuals to institutions and social arrangements. We have become blind, not so much to race, but to the existence of racial caste in America."
- Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow
