700,000 were self-published. twice as many books are produced by independent authors who put them online and have something to say. now, you might claim that there's a lot of garbage among that 700,000 books, but i think there's a lot of good stuff as well. so i really feel that if you look at the publishing industry, i don't know if you would agree, we arens withing a transformation -- we are witnessing a transformation in its structure. so some of the middle intermediaries are moving out, and somehow the public is moving in in strange ways. it used to be said that books were written for the general reader. now they're written by the general reader. ..

eager to join in dialogue about where we as a nation find ourselves in this drive towards freedom and it seems particularly fitting that we would have this conversation today, the day after the nation paused its daily business to pay tribute to reverend martin luther king, jr.'s life and legacy. and it seems fitting that we would have this conversation the

day after the nation's first black president was sworn in for his second term. i know much of the nation has already moved on, and president obama's rhetoric about the promise of america, life, liberty, justice, equality for all has already been forgotten by many, and i know that many people in america will not think of dr. king again until his holiday rolls around again next year. but i would like to us to pause to night and think more deeply about the meaning of dr. king's life and his legacy and what it has to teach the nation's

present. it seems important to do that given that this year marks the 50th anniversary of the march on washington. 50 years have passed. 50 years have passed since kaine's voice soared over the washington monument declaring his dream. i have a dream, it is a deeply rooted in the american dream. yesterday while i was watching president obama's inaugural address i met echoes of the speech i have a dream and when i turned off my television set, i spent a few minutes reflecting are all of us truly welcome to share in this dream?

most americans i sure can be cite portions of dr. king's i have a dream speech by heart. it's an extraordinary and very familiar speech i've grown accustomed to hearing clips of his speech played over and over on the radio every january. they are the favorite quotes, the favorite lines coming and now that i have school-age children i see how he's explained to them in classrooms. when i was an elementary school there was no martin luther king day, no discussion of his heroism in classrooms but when my children came home from school just the other day, they told me all they have learned in school about king's courage he was the one who stood up to the bullies and believed the children of all colors and walks of life ought to begin to hold hands and be judged on the content of their character and

not the color of their skin. he was willing to die so all of us could now live his dream. i hear them pare back to me with the herd in school that this man who believe in kindness and forgiveness and justice and passion for all and i say yes all of that is true but i feel uneasy. something has been lost in the translation and that sense of disorientation was crystallized when all i read the insightful book martin luther king, the inconvenient hero. dr. harding was one of his closest friends and advisers marching with him countless times from his family in atlanta he writes with sorrow, quote, it appears as if the price for the

first national holiday honoring a black man as the development of a massive case of national amnesia concerning who that man really was. i would suggest that we have chosen m. nisha rather than continue his painful uncharted and often disruptive in perfect union, and of quote. it appears as if we are determined to hold the powerful period of his life that culminated in the magnificent march on washington in 1963 refusing to allow him to break out beyond the stunning eloquence of his i have a dream speech. dr. harding rights we would like to forget that there wasn't the weaver of sunni dreams of freedom who was shot down on the balcony in memphis tennessee. he was by 1968 a different and

even more courageous man, a man ahead of his time and i can see clearly now that on days like yesterday we've rarely honor the man who died. no, we honor that sunni version of him and the man who gave a soaring speech about black and white schoolchildren, a man who dreamed and integration of dreams. but who was he five-year is leader in 1968? who was that man killed on the motel balcony marching with sanitation workers demanding economic justice, not mere civil rights. the man who would come to believe after the civil rights bills had already been passed after the civil rights victories had already been one that our biggest battles, the most important battles still lie

ahead and that nothing short of a radical restructuring of our society held any hope for making the treen and the promise of america a reality for all of its citizens. he explained to a reporter in 1967 if, quote, for years i labored on the idea of reforming the existing institutions of the ssi and the a little change here and little changed there. now i feel quite differently. i think you've got to have a reconstruction of the society, the revolution of the values. frustrated by white resistance to address in any meaningful way the families, failing schools, structural joblessness and crippling poverty, he told his staff of the southern christian leadership conference the dispossessed of the nation, the poor white and negro live in an unjust society they must organize a revolution against that in justice, not the lives

of their fellow citizens but the structure through which the society is refusing to lift the load of poverty. so what he think of us today, of the world we have created in his absence? what he believes the nonviolent revolution had already been one, had even begun? the revolution of the values he prayed for what he if he could see us today believe that we share his dream that we are traveling the road he was marching? 50 years later half we caught up with him yet? are we finally on the path of that he was traveling in 1963, 1968? back in 1969 while blood still stand the motel balcony where he

was murdered, a poll of muscles for ten reflecting his death and was written back when he had only just begun the process of being transformed in the collective consciousness from the troubles of a black figure to a national hero if. it was written when the memory of his assassination was still fresh. tears still spilling among those that loved him. in 1969 the poet pended this poem reflecting on his death. he wrote now that he is safely dead, let us praise him, build monuments to his glory, and honor to his name. dead men make such convenient hero is. they cannot rise to challenge what we would fashion from their lives, and besides, it is ea

that he is safely dead, martin luther king, jr. is safely dead is it true? is he safely dead today? is his dream safely dead? i know that many people in this room would say no, no, his dream who come his spirit is so much alive among all of us it is thriving right here in this room and what better evidence could there be of this than we as a nation pause to pay tribute to

his dream? just yesterday in national federal holiday. think about that cut and national federal holiday for martin luther king, jr., the man that was once deemed a threat to national security by the fbi, a radical troublemaker. is it not obvious that we as a nation have finally caught up with him? we may not be living his dream but don't we at least share his dream? what better evidence could there be that we just we elected the nation's first black president, something that was unimaginable in 1963 or 1968. what better evidence could there be than that multiracial, multi-ethnic gathering on the mall in washington, d.c. that we witnessed just yesterday and was broadcast around the world? clearly we must be living the dream or sharing the dream, right? it has been said by numerous

philosophers and theologians that any society, any civilization must be judged by how it treats its most vulnerable members and its prisoners. king would no doubt agree with that assessment and considering how we fare in that regard, i find myself thinking of people like susan burton, people who have cycled in and l of the nation's prison system in that year of mass incarceration, in this post kaine compost civil rights era, the time the population has more than quintupled, and millions of people, overwhelmingly poor people of color have been permanently locked up or locked out and stripped of the very civil and human rights dr. king and so many others risked their lives for and some even die before. i think of susan whose son was killed by the police.

a police cruiser barreling down her street in los angeles ran over her 5-year-old boy. she received no apology, no real acknowledgment of her loss, and she fell into a deep, deep depression wracked with grief, and she alternately became addicted to crack cocaine. now if susan had been a wealthy, if she had even then solidly middle class with a good job and a good health care plan, she undoubtedly would have qualified for many hours of therapy and counseling. she likely would have qualified for very good legal prescription drugs that would help her cope with her severe depression and grief. but no, things were different for susan. impoverished, living in l.a., she became addicted to crack

cocaine and this began her odyssey of cycling in and out of prison for 15 years. 15 years. every time prosecutors said just take the deal. we will give you three years rather than eight. this time we will give you five years rather than 12. this time we will cut you a break. just take the deal. we will give you two years rather than six. one plea deal after another, never offered treatment, only shown a prison cell? every time she was released, pushed out onto the streets unable to find work, no housing, often sleeping on the streets cycling in and out of the

present system for 15 years until by no small miracle she was granted access to a drug treatment facility, she got clean and was given a job and she decided she was going to dedicate the rest of her life to ensuring that no other woman would have to go through what she went through and she began by going down to skid row in los angeles and meeting women, prisoners as they would get off of the prison bus in skid row, get off the bus carrying nothing but a cardboard box, carrying their belongings, little or no money it was turned out on the streets and she would say to these women who were strangers to her, just come home with me. you can sleep on my couch or wife or. you don't have to turn to the streets today i will take care of you. i will give you food and a safe place. just come home with me. she now runs five safe homes for women and los angeles.

women released from prison. her organization is called a new way of life and she prides help finding jobs, housing, helps reunite women with their families and beyond that, she is organizing formerly incarcerated people to demand the restoration of their basic civil and human rights. clearly susan has caught up. but what about the rest of us? what i have to say on this will not be popular. it isn't the cheerful message that is expected on the day after the unaudited for the second time the nation's first black president but i believe it to be the truth and implicates me and it implicates everyone in this room and the truth is we have a lot of human rights

nightmare to occur. in the years since dr. king's death a new system of racial and social control has emerged from the ashes of slavery and jim crow. a system of mass incarceration that no doubt has dr. king turning in his grave today. it is tantamount to a new system one that shuttles people from the crowd at schools to brand new high-tech prisons to read it is a system that blocks poor people, overwhelmingly poor people of color into a permanent second-class status nearly as effectively as earlier systems of racial and social control once did. it is in my view of the moral equivalent of jim crow. i'm always eager to read the there was a time that i rejected this talk out of hand.

there was a time when i rejected comparison between mass and preservation and slavery and jim crow believe in those claims and comparisons more exaggerations', distortions or hyperbole. in fact there was a time people who made those claims and comparisons were actually doing more harm and good and efforts to reform the criminal justice system and achieve a greater racial equality in the united states. but what a difference a decade makes. for after years of working as a civil rights lawyer and advocate representing victims of racial profiling and police brutality and investigating patterns in cities of color and attending to assist people who've been released from prison to re-enter into a society that has never shown much use for them might have a series of experiences

that began what i call my awakening. i began to weaken to a reality that is just so obvious to me now that what seems odd in retrospect is on could have been blamed to it for so long. as i write in the introduction to the book the new jim crow what has changed since the collapse has yet to do with the basic structure of the society than the language the we used to justify. in the era of color blindness is no longer socially permissible to use race as explicitly as a justification for discrimination, exclusion and social content, so we don't. rather than rely on race, we use our criminal justice system to label people of color criminals and engage in practices that we supposedly left behind. today it is legal to discriminate against criminals in all of the ways in which was

once legal to discriminate against african-americans. once you are labeled a felon, the old ones are discrimination. employment discrimination, housing discrimination, denial of the right to vote, exclusion from jury service suddenly it's legal. as a criminal you have scarcely more rights and arguably less respect than a black man living in alabama at the height of jim crow. we have not ended racial caste in america. we have merely redesign that. for those who might think that is overstating the case, consider this. there are more african-american adults under correctional control today in the prisoner jails on probation will control than were enslaved in 1850 a decade before the civil war began. more men were disenfranchised them in 1870 the year of the

15th amendment was ratified explicitly denying the right to vote on the basis of race. the 15th amendment prohibited all of loss x will simply denied the right to vote on the basis of the race that during the jim crow era the poll taxes and literacy tests circumvented the 15th amendment and operated to deny african-americans a chance to vote. well today in many states the disenfranchisement poll taxes and literacy tests ultimately could not. this doesn't affect just a small segment of the community to read to the contrary in many large urban areas today more than half of the working age african-american men now have criminal records in the subject to legalize discrimination for

the rest of their lives. in fact in some cities like chicago, baltimore, philadelphia, d.c., the list could go on in some cities the statistics are far worse. in fact was reported in chicago that if you take into account prisoners, if you count prisoners as people coming in to keep in mind prisoners are excluded from poverty statistics and unemployment data that is masking the severity of racial inequality in the united states but to actually count the prisoners as people in the chicago area, 80% of the working age african-american men, all records are the subject to legalized discrimination for the rest of their lives. these men are part of the underpass, a group of people defined largely by race,

relegated to a permanent second-class status by law. i find today when i tell people that i believe that mass incarceration is like the new jim-crow people react with a complete disbelief. they say how can you say that? our criminal justice system isn't of racial control, it isn't crime control and black folks would stop running around committing so many crimes we wouldn't have to worry about being locked up and stretched into their civil and human rights. well, therein lies the greatest myths about the mass incarceration. it's been driven by crime and crime rates. it's just not true. our present population quintupled in the space of 30 years. we've gone from a prison

population of about 300,000 to incarcerate a population of 2 million. we have the highest rate of incarceration in the world working the race of even highly repressive regimes like russia or china or iran. but again this can't be explained by crime or crime rates. nope. during the same period of time that our incarceration rate increased exponentially, the crime rates fluctuated, went up, down come back up again, down again, and today as bad as the crime rates are in many parts of the country they are at historical lows. but incarceration rates have consistently soared. most criminologists and sociologists today would acknowledge crime rates and incarceration rates in the united states have moved independently of one another.

incarceration rates especially black incarceration rates have soared regardless whether the crime is going up or down in any given community or the nation as a whole. so what explains the sudden explosion in incarcerations? it is unprecedented in a world history, it isn't crime and crime rates. the answer is the war on drugs and the get-tough move might the way that punitive mystic washed over the united states, just drug convictions accounted for two-thirds of the increase in the federal prison system and more than half of the increase in the state prison system that 1985 and 2000, the period of the greatest expansion in the prison system. to get a sense of how large a contribution on the war of drugs has made to the incarceration consider this, there are more

people in prisons and jails today just for drug offenses that are incarcerated for all reasons in 1980. most americans violate the drug law in some form in their lifetime. most do. but the enemy in the war has been racially defined. not by accident. this drug war has been waged almost exclusively in the poor communities of color even though studies have consistently shown now for decades that contrary to popular belief, people of color do not use or sell illegal drugs at higher rates. that defies the basic racial stereotype of to a drug dealer is to be a picture in your mind a drug dealer and a huji you see? there's actually been studies conducted asking by that

particular question. in the mid 1990's, a national survey was conducted asking people to close their eyes and imagine a drug a criminal to report what they saw. over 90% of the responders pictured someone african-american to get only 5% pictured any other racial or ethnic group. when we think of drug criminals in the united states, typically think of people who are black and brown. but studies have consistently shown people of all races use and sell drugs at remarkably similar rates and in fact we're a significant difference in the data can be found, some suggest that white youth are more likely to engage in illegal drug dealing than the black youth but that isn't what you'd guess by

taking a peek inside of the nation's prisons and jails that are overflowing with black and brown drug offenders. in some states, 80 to 90% of all drug offenders sent to prison have been of one race, african-american. i know many people who see this say that is a shame. that's a shame, but you know, we need to get tough on them, those folks in the hood because that's where the violent offenders can be found. that's where the drug kingpins can be found. people don't realize though that the drug war has never been aimed primarily at rooting out the violent offenders of the drug kingpins. no, federal funding has flowed in this world to those in the state and local law enforcement agencies that boost the sheer number of drug address. it's been a numbers game. law enforcement agencies have been reworded in cash, but the numbers of people swept into the

system for jalalabad offenses which helps to explain why so many police officers go out looking for the low hanging fruit, stopping, frisking, searching, talking to as many people as possible in an effort to get their numbers up and to make matters worse, federal drug forfeiture laws allow the state and local law enforcement agencies to keep for their own use up to 80% of the cash, cards, home seized from suspected jogging dealers triet -- drug dealers. law enforcement can take your cash and seize your car. thus granting to the law enforcement a direct monetary interest, not in ending the

>> and at least if not more prevalent in middle class white communities and on college campuses as it is in the hood. but by waging this war almost exclusively in the hood, we've managed to create this vast new racial under caste in an astonishingly short period of time. now, where has the u.s. supreme court been on all of this?

where has the u.s. supreme court been? well, far from protecting the interests of discreet and insular minorities, far from doing that, the u.s. supreme court has been busy defending this war at every turn. the u.s. supreme court or over the last couple decades has eviscerated amendment protections against unreasonable searches and seizures granting to the police the authority to stop, frisk, search just about anyone anywhere without any probable cause or reasonable suspicion, not a shred of evidence of criminal activity as long as they get consent. now, what's consent? consent is when a police officer walks up to a young man, officer walks up to the young man with one hand on his gun and says, son, put your arms up in the air so i can search you, see if you've got anything on you.

kid says, uh-huh. that young man just waived his fourth amendment rights against unreasonable searches and seizures. law enforcement doesn't have to have a shred of evidence to support that frisk now that the young man has consented, of course, believing that he really had no ability to refuse consent and walk away. now, you might say, well, these are just isolated instances, but the reality is these isolated incidents add up to enormous racial disparities. a new york police department reported that in just one year alone, just one year alone, it stopped and frisked more than 600,000 people. one year alone. overwhelmingly black and brown men. but the u.s. supreme court has ruled that we cannot challenge these racial disparities in a court of law. in a series of cases beginning with mcchess key v. kemp and

armstrong v. the united states, the u.s. supreme court has ruled explicitly that it doesn't matter how overwhelming the statistical evidence might be, how severe the racial disparities are. unless you can offer proof of conscious bias tantamount to an admission by a police officer or a law enforcement official, you can't even state a claim for racial bias in the criminal justice system today. so many of the racial profiling cases that i was litigating ten years ago can't even be filed today. the u.s. supreme court has closed the courthouse doors to claims of racial bias at every stage of the criminal justice process from stops and searches to plea bar gaining and sentencing. in so many ways the u.s. supreme court has effectively immunized this incarceration for judicial scrutiny, for racial bias much

in the way the u.s. supreme court once rallied to the defense of slavery and rallied again to the defense of jim crow in earlier eras. but, of course, just being swept into the system with little hope of being able to challenge the bias or tactics that got you there is just the beginning for so many. because once you've been swept in and branded a criminal or felon, you're then ushered into a parallel social universe in which the very rights supposedly won in the civil rights movement no longer apply to you. you may be denied the right to vote for a period of years or the rest of of your life depending on the state you live in. you're deemed ineligible for jury service for the rest of your life if you've been branded a felon. for the rest of your life, discrimination in employment will not only be legal, but absolutely routine.

you'll be forced to check that box on employment applications asking the dreaded question, have you ever been convicted of a felony? and it doesn't matter if it happened a few weeks ago, a few months ago or 45 years ago. for the rest of your life you've got to check that box knowing full well your application's going straight to the trash. many people say, oh, come on, stop making excuses for people. yeah, you know, when you get out of prison, it's tough, it's hard. if you try hard, if you put yourself out there some, you could get a job at mcdonald's or burger king or something. getting a job at mcdonald's is no easy feat if you have a felony record. housing discrimination, perfectly legal and absolutely routine. release from prison, public housing projects as well as private landlords free to discriminate against you, close their doors. discrimination in public

benefit, legal and routine. in fact, under federal law you are deemed ineligible even for food stamps for the rest of your life if you've been convicted of a drug felony. now, fortunately, many states have now opted out of the federal ban on food stamps for drug offenders, but it's still the case that hundreds, thousands of people can't even get food stamps to feed themselves because they were once caught with drugs. now, what are people released from prison expected to do? you're tossed out, out on the curb. can't get a job. can't get housing. even food, food stamps might be off limits to you. what do you expect them to do? well, apparently what we expect people to do is to pay hundreds or thousands of dollars in fees, fines, court costs, accumulated back child support which continues to accrue while you're in prison, and in a growing

number of states you're then expected to pay back the cost of your imprisonment. and paying back all these fees, fines, court costs, accumulated back child support may well be a condition of your probation or parole. and then, get this, if you're one of the lucky few, the very few who actually manages to get a job right out of prison, up to 100% of your wages can be garnished. 100%. to pay back all those fees, fines, court costs, accumulated back child support. what are people released from prison expected to do? i mean, we take a step back from this system as a whole. take a step back and see the impoverished, underfunded schools. see the children who are hounded by the police, stopped and frisked on their way to and from

school when they're old enough to drive, their cars are pulled over, searched. when they're swept in for committing some usually relatively minor crime, one's first arrest is usually a relatively minor crime or drug 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. once you're swept in, then you're ushered into this parallel social universe or unable to work, find shelter or even food. when you step back and take a look at this, what does this system seem designed to do? seems, in my view, ce signed to -- designed to send folks right back to prison which is what, in fact, happens the vast majority of the time. about 70% of people released from prison return within a few years, and a majority of those who return in some states do so

in a matter of months because the challenges associated with mere survival on the outside are so immense. now, why did we choose this path? how did we get ourselves here? all these years after dr. king has passed away? well, it is clear to me that in the years since dr. king's death our nation was faced with a choice. we could continue down the path that dr. king was traveling, the path of compassion, forgiveness, inclusion and hope. we could choose the path of the poor people's movement he was of plotting. we could join him in the revolution of values he prayed

for. or we could take a different road, a road more familiar when it comes to matters of race. the road of exclusion, division, punitiveness and despair. one day i believe historians will look back on this era of mass incarceration, and they will say it was there, right there at the prison gates that we abandoned dr. king's dream and took a dramatic u-turn, a u-turn that would leave millions of people permanently locked up and locked out. we have now spent $1 trillion waging the drug war since it began, a trillion dollars. funds that could have been used for education, job creation, drug treatment. we're constantly being told there's not enough money to pay teachers. there's not enough money for

small class sizes. there's not enough money for jobs programs for youth. there's not enough money, there's not enough money for poor people. well, apparently we had a trillion dollars to blow, and we decided to spend it rather than on education or job creation, we decided to spend it building a prison system unlike anything the world has ever known. so what do we do? what do we do now? well, my own view is that nothing short of a major social movement has any hope of ending mass incarceration and inspiring a recommitment to dr. king's dream. now, if you think that that sounds extreme, that surely something less would do now, consider this: if we were to

return to the rates of incarceration we had in the 1970s or the early 1980s before the war on drugs and the get tough movement truly 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 be defined -- would need to find a new line of work. most new prison construction has occurred in predominantly white rural communities, communities that have been sold on prisons as an answer to their economic woes, that now believe that prisons are a source for desperately-needed jobs in their communities. and very often prisons are advertised as providing far more benefits to these communities than they actually deliver. but nonetheless, so many of these communities now believe that their economies depend on prisons. those pruzs across america -- those prisons across america would have to close down.

private prison companies now listed on the new york stock exchange and doing quite well even in a time of economic recession, those companies would be forced into bankruptcy. this system of mass incarceration is now so deeply rooted in our social, political and economic structure that it is 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 will say, oh, you know, there's no hope of ending mass incarceration in america. no, no, there's no hope. pick another issue. just as many people were resigned to jim crow in the south and would say, yeah, yeah, that's a shame, it's a shame, but that's just the way that it is. i find that so many people today view the millions cycling in and out of our prisons and jails today as just an unfortunate but

inalterable fact of more than life. well -- of american life. well, i'm quite certain that dr. king would not have been so resigned. so i believe that if we are truly, truly to honor dr. king, if we are to ever catch up with king, we have got to be willing to continue his work. we have got on the willing to go back and pick up where he left off and do the hard work of movement building on behalf of poor people of all colors. in 1968 dr. king told advocates the time had come to transition 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; the right to work, the right to shelter, the right to quality education. without basic human rights, he

said, civil rights are an empty promise. so in honor of dr. king and all those who labor to end the old jim crow, i hope we will commit ourselves to building a human rights movement to end mass incarceration. a movement for education, not incarceration. a movement for jobs, not jails. a movement to end all these forms of legal discrimination against people, discrimination that denies them basic human rights to work, to she woulder and to food. -- to shelter and to food. now, what must we do to begin this movement? first, i believe we've got to begin by telling the truth, the whole truth. we've got to be willing to admit out loud that we as a nation have managed to recreate a caste-like system in this country. we've got to be willing to tell this truth in our schools, in our churches and our places of worship, behind bars and in reentry centers.

we've got to be willing to tell this truth so that a great awakening to the reality of what has occurred can come to pass. because the reality is that this new caste-like system, it doesn't come with signs. there are no whites only signs anymore. there are no signs today alerting us to the existence of the system of mass incarceration. and prisons today, they are out of sight and out of mind. often hundreds of miles away from communities and families that might otherwise be connected to them. and the people who cycle in and out of seize prisons -- out of these prisons typically live in segregated, impoverished commitments. communities that middle class folks, upper middle class folks rarely come across. so you can live your whole life in america today having no idea

that this system of mass incarceration and the harm it wreaks even exists. so we have got to be willing to tell the truth about what has occurred, pull back the curtain and make visible what is hidden in plain sight. so that an awakening can begin and people can begin to take the kind of creative, constructive action that this moment in our history surely requires. but, of course, it's a lot of talk and consciousness raising that isn't going to be enough. we've got to be willing to get to work. and in my view, that means we have got to be willing to build an underground railroad for people released from prison. an underground railroad for people who want to make a genuine break for real freedom. people who want to escape this system and find work, find shelter, be able to support their families. find a true freedom.

in america today. we have got to be willing to open our homes, open our schools, open our workplaces to people returning home from prison and provide safe spaces of support for the families who have of loved ones behind bars today. how do we create these safe places? well, one thing we can certainly do, we can begin to admit our own criminality out loud, our own criminality. because the truth is we've all made mistakes in our life. we all have. all of us are sinners, all of us have done wrong, all of us have broken the law at some point in our lives. if you're an adult, you've broken the law at some point in your life. now, i find that some people will say, oh, yeah, i'm a sinner, i've made mistakes, but

don't call me a criminal. don't call me a criminal. i say, okay, well, maybe you never drank underage. maybe you never experimented with drugs. well, if the worst thing you've done in your entire life of is speed 10 miles over the speed limit on the freeway, you've put yourself and others at more risk of harm than someone smoking marijuana in the privacy of their living room. but there are people in the united states serving life sentences for first-time drug offenses. life sentences. the u.s. supreme court upheld life sentences for first-time drug offenders against an eighth amendment challenge that such sentences were cruel and unusual in violation of the eighth amendment. and the u.s. supreme court said, no, no, it's not cruel and unusual punishment to sentence a young man to life imprisonment for a first-time drug offense even though virtually no other country in the world does such a thing.

we have got to end this idea that the criminals are them, not us. and instead say there but for the grace of god go i. all of us have made mistakes in our lives, taken wrong turns, but only some of us have been required to pay for those mistakes for the rest of our lives. in fact, president barack obama himself has admitted to more than a little bit of drug use in his lifetime. he's admitted to using marijuana and cocaine in his youth. and if he hadn't been raised by white grandparents in hawaii, if he hadn't done much of his illegal drug use on predominantly white college campuses and universities, if he had been raised in the hood, the odds are good that he would have been stopped, he would have been frisked, he would have been searched, he would have been caught and far from being president of the united states today, he might not each have

the right to vote -- he might not even have the right to vote depending on the state he lives in. so we've got to recognize that building this movement is about insuring the future of all of us, the life chances of all of our young people so that they can all dream big dreams and join in this project of the american dream. this is a movement we must build on behalf of all of us. it's not about us and them, the people we imagine are the criminals. but, of course, building this underground railroad and creating safe spaces isn't going to be enough either, just as in the days of slavery it wasn't enough to shuttle a few to freedom one by one on the underground railroad. it won't be enough for us to open our hearts and our minds to a few, one by one. we're going to have to be willing to work for abolition.

that means working for abolition of the system of mass incarceration as a whole. and that means ending the war on drugs once and for all. ending it. we must shift to a public health model for dealing with drug addiction and drug abuse and stop investing billions of dollars locking people up in prisons and jail cells rather than investing in education and drug treatment and job creation in the communities that need it most. and we have got to end all these forms of legal discrimination against people released from prison, discrimination that denies them basic human rights to work, to shelter, to food. and last but not least, we have got to shift from a purely punitive approach to dealing with violence and violent crime in our communities to a more rehabilitative and restorative one, one that takes seriously the interests of the victim, to

offender and the community as a whole. we have got a lot of work to do. and if it seems like too much, if it seems like it can't possibly be done, keep in mind that all of these rules, laws, policies and practices that constitute this system of mass incarceration, they all rest upon one core belief, and it is the same belief that sustained jim crow. it is the belief that some of us, some of us are not worthy of genuine care, compassion and concern. and when we effectively challenge that core belief, in this whole system -- this whole system begins to fall like dominoes. a multiracial, multiethnic, human rights movement must be born, one that is rooted in the awareness of the dignity and humanity of all people. and it's got to be multiracial and multiethnic, because although this war on drugs may

have been born with black folks in mind, it is a war that has destroyed the lives of people and communities of all colors. and we see the same get tough rhetoric and divisive racial politics that helped to give birth to the drug war now leading to another prison-building boom, this one aimed at suspected illegal immigrants. so we have got to be willing to connect the dots and build a multiracial, multiethnic, human rights movement on behalf of all of us. but before this movement can truly get underway, a great awakening is required. we have got to awaken from this colorblind slumber that we've been in to the realities of race in america. and we've got to be willing to embrace those labeled criminals. not necessarily all their behavior, but them, their

humanness. 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 system that has ever existed in the united states or anywhere else in the world. it's our task, i firmly believe, to end not just mass incarceration, not just the war on drugs, but to end this history and cycle of caste in america. then and only then can we say with pride that we are finally catching up with king. thank you so much for having me tonight. [applause] thank you. [applause]

>> well, okay. i'm going to take a moment here. sorry, folks. okay, we're going to take some questions now. if folks want to ask questions, we have a microphone over here, a microphone over there. you can just come up and line up and begin to ask questions. do you have any questions for professor alexander. [inaudible] >> is this on? okay. >> well, you made a believer out of me. [laughter] um, interestingly, i hear our incarceration rates are higher

than what north korea reports. but that can't -- >> we're the world leader. >> what? >> we're the world leader in imprisonment. >> um, my question is among nondrug-related incarcerations, is there still a racial bias? >> well, there are racial biases to be found at every stage of the criminal justice process, and while some of this bias clearly, um, you know, is related to conscious, intention alibi whereases that are unstated but nonetheless held, i believe that much of the bias is unconscious bias and stereotyping. you know, a police officer who sees a group of young black men walking down the street with their pants hanging down may think to himself, i'm going to do my job. i'm going to jump out, frisk 'em, see if they've got anything on them. with good intentions, i'm doing

my job, doing what i should do to keep this neighborhood safe. now, that same officer may see a group of young white kids walking down the street, and the thought would never cross his mind to jump out of his car and have those kids spread eagled on the pavement frisking them. that officer may not hold any evil intent to those young black men, but those unconscious biases about who looks like a criminal, who seems like they're up to no good play out over and over again hundreds of thousands of times in just one city, you know? as i mentioned, adding up to these e more now -- enormous racial disparities. the same thing with prosecutors. prosecutors display, you know, considerable bias in making charging decisions about who seems like they should be given a good deal, who's worthy of a second chance, who seems like they're, you know, somebody who's just a tough kid who can't be turned around, and the book

should be thrown a at 'em. so these unconscious biases play themselves out in all kinds of crimes and types of offenses. but, you know, when we talk about violent crime, i think it is important to acknowledge that, you know, rates of violent crime are much higher among black men than among white men. that's a fact. rates of violent crime are much, much higher. but as william julius wilson points out in his excellent book "when work disappears," racial disparities and violent crime disappear when you control for joblessness. in other words, if you compare white jobless men with black jobless men, the racial disparity in violent crime disappears. now, that doesn't mean joblessness is an excuse for violence. no, it most certainly is not. and most people who are jobless do not engage in violent crime. but the reality is that

joblessness, particularly chronic joblessness, creates the very conditions we know that will give rise, um, to violence and place people at risk of violence. but we've created a system that guarantees that certain populations defined by race and class will be perpetually jobless, will be locked out of the legal economy. and we supposedly do all of this in the name of safety. so we have a system of mass incarceration that exists supposedly to make us all safer, and yet it insures that the norm of the population will be locked out of employment, locked out of housing and trapped in a perpetual undercaste. and then we stand back and express surprise that rates of violence and other crimes are higher in those communities. and, in fact, i think we have to ask ourselves why on earth would we create the very conditions

that we know are likely to create violence? why are we so willing to invest in building prisons rather than in job creation and education? the very things that we know are the inagreed cents of -- ingredients of healthy, thriving, safe and caring communities? so i think that it's important for us to recognize the ways in which bias plays out, you know, in all these discretionary decisions that are made throughout the system. but et also plays out in the how we as a nation invest in our system and who we are willing to treat as disposable and who we view as having a future and deserving of the kind of resource that is will insure them, you know, a path of meaningful opportunity. >> thank you. that answers my question. >> thank you. [laughter] [applause] >> hi. >> good evening, professor alexander. i had a quick question. you say that we need a revolution. so my thing is during the era of

jim crow, you noticed that the financial hardship of creating separate but equal kind of helped to break down the system of jim crow. started writing laws that we couldn't, america couldn't find separate but equal laws, schools or, um, classroom settings. so with this era of mass incarceration, what are some of the economic kind of things we can use to break down the system? because from what you're saying, it's kind of like this is helped, this is added to because people are getting paid off of this. and money is getting put into it. so how can we hit them in their pockets kind of thing? >> yes. it's a good question. you know, i mean, i think it's important first, though, to emphasize that jim crow didn't collapse because it was too expensive to provide equal educational opportunities for

black folks as compared to whites. there was no effort to try to provide equal educational opportunities for black folks in a separate system as compared to whites. what led to the collapse of jim crow had a lot to do, um, with how the united states wassing with viewed, um, in the aftermath of, you know, world wd war ii when black, you know, servicemen were returning home from fighting for freedom abroad and returning home to suffer second-class status and being hung from trees in the south, and these events were being broadcast around the world, you know, tarnishing america's image as leader of the free world and standing up, um, you know, against tyranny. and jim crow collapsed because of a mass movement that arose that shook the foundations of the system itself. but i agree with you that we can weaken the foundations, um, of

any system of control by challenging its economic base. and that certainly was one of the strategies that led to, um, the collapse of apartheid in south africa, the divestment movement, um, you know, urging, you know, universities to divest from south africa, corporations to divest from south africa, you know, scared the daylights out of, you know, the south aftercap goth as they -- b -- south african government as they feared outrage over the apartheid system that existed there. and there are young people today or who are talking about pursuing divestment strategies in the era of mass incarceration, meaning divesting from private prisons. the united methodist church, actually, the national united methodist church just announced that they have decided to divest from private prisons. you say, well, what is a church

doing investing in private prisons in the first place? well, churches, you know, invest in pensions and mutual funds, right? and very often we don't even know what companies our mutual funds are invested in. well, private prisons have become very profitable, and so many investment portfolios now include private prisons as one of the profitable companies that any institution ought to invest in. so you can wonder, you know, is this institution that we're in invested in private prisons? i don't know. what churches are invested have funds in private prisons? so i think a divestment campaign, urging churches, corporations to divest from private prisons as well as any mutual fund or investment plan that has each one penny invested in private prisons can be very helpful in crippling the private

prison industry. but more importantly, i think it can be a tool for raising consciousness, raising awareness ant -- about the system of mass incarceration as a whole. i believe that fewer than one in ten of prisoners today are held in private prisons, so even if we got rid of private prisons, we would still have a system of mass incarceration today. but i think those kinds of divestment campaigns can help to raise consciousness and be an important part of movement building as well as boycotting companies that will not hire people with criminal records. um, you know, there have been a number of companies that have courageously said we are going to hire people with felony records, we're going to give people a fair shot at employment, and if we begin to celebrate and honor those companies while publicizing those companies that won't give people even a chance, um, at an interview, each a chance at get -- even a chance at getting in the door, you know, i think that can be something else that

helps to raise consciousness and contribute to movement building. but ultimately, i don't believe that this movement should be about dollars and cents. ultimately, this -- we have got to find a way to build a new moral consensus and build on the work that dr. king was doing, and, um, you know, force all of us to reckon with what we have done and inspire genuine care, compassion and concern, um, for the least advantaged in our society. so i think it can -- what you're describing can be a part of that, but we can't reduce the movement to dollars and cents. >> thank you so much. >> thanks. >> in your book you mentioned several judges who have given up their courts, who have resigned because of the harsh sentences they're expected to give for drug offenders. have any of those judges stepped forward as leaders? have any of those judges said my experience gives me, gives me a perspective, gives me a sounding

board where i can lead people into some of this revolution? >> yes. well, there's a wonderful organization that i would recommend, um, people to check out which is called leap, law enforcement against prohibition. this organization is comprised entirely of, you know, judges, prosecutors, police officers, police chiefs who now believe that the drug war has caused vastly more harm than prohibition itself. um, and these are people who spent their lives, often their careers as drug warriors and have come to the conclusion that the harm caused by the drug or war is so vastly outweighed by any potential benefits that it has to be abandoned in its entirety. and so you can check out their web site. they have a lot of great resources, videos, um, you know, and the like that really feature some, you know, important voices within the law enforcement

community calling for a change in course. >> okay, thanks for pointing to us to some leadership. >> hi. growing up a poor man in my younger age, and i was just sitting here thinking about how blessed and fortunate i am not to be in the system. >> uh-huh. >> i be i also -- but i also have some acquaintances, people who i do know that is in the system sort of by mistakes. and you wonder, these are good people. >> uh-huh. >> so how do we determine now -- i know you spoke on you fill an application out, and you put in that, yes, i'm a criminal, yes, i've been to prison. how do we get to this p point where we can give them a second chance? that's why i can't understand, because my heart really hurts for -- there's one particular guy who i know is a great guy,

made a very serious mistake. really, he didn't make the mistake, he was just caught up with the person. the person made the mistake, but he also is paying the price. and so how do we turn this around to give this person a second chance? >> well, i think, you know, first i am a supporter of ban the box initiatives. ban the box campaigns are campaigns that have been successful in a number ofties and jurisdictions -- of cities and jurisdictions to remove the box on employment applications asking the question have you ever been convicted of a felony. i believe the city of philadelphia has now removed that question from all city employment applications. there are a number of jurisdictions around the country, cities, counties that have embraced the ban the box movement and have removed the box from employment applications. now, of course, employers may then still consider prior

criminal history once the person has had an interview. but what removing the box does is it gives people a chance, gives people a chance to at least get an interview, at least to get their foot in the door so that they can make their case that they deserve a chance and that whatever mistakes they may have made in the past, um, do not bear upon the current job they're being asked to perform or that they are well beyond the type of activity that landed them in jail in the first place. and so i think everybody should have that shot. and i also think that, you know, the reality is, you know, for people who are convicted of drug offenses, you know, they're in a position that i think is, it's unfair vis-a-vis those who drink alcohol regularly or who are alcoholics. you know, you have people who

have alcohol problems, who struggle with alcoholism. they don't check any boxes. there's no background checks that reveal their history unless they've been caught in a dui or something like that. and so my own view is that, you know, people who, you know, have some kind of drug-related conviction, these are the types of things that shouldn't be held against people because they happen to be caught. they're so vastly higher or that you might get hot if you're a poorer or person live anything a ghettoized community as opposed to someone who's on a college campus engage inside that type of activity, and everyone thinks, oh, they're just kids, and they'll grow out of it. i think we really have to be very careful about the extent to which we view, you know, criminal convictions as even relevant to the particular types of jobs that people are applying for today. and i support, um, a very strong kind of anti-discrimination position against people who have prior criminal records unless it

is directly relevant to the type of job they're applying for. >> thank you. >> hey, how you doing? >> hi. >> my name's maurice, and i want to thank you for coming. and one of my questions -- well, my question is, um, for a student or anybody else out here in the crowd who wanted to get more involved actively in the progression of this movement, what can we do other than, um, informing other people of what's actually going on and doing more research ourselves? what can i do to get active in in the movement? >> excellent question. um, one thing you can do is think about forming a students against mass incarceration organization on campus. these groups have been forming on numerous college campuses and universities around the country, um, and, you know, there's one at howard, there's one at columbia, there's -- they're growing. and, in fact, you can go on my web site which is newjimyou.com to get contact about linking up

with other student groups around the country who are wrestling with exactly the same question of how can young people begin to play a meaningful role? it takes some leadership to build the movement to end mass incarceration. and i also list a bunch of resources and organizations that you consider contacting, um, you know, that you could begin to work with if you choose and if they are doing work here locally. but i really do think that the priorities are, you know, consciousness raising, working towards, you know, supporting people as they are released from prison so finding out in your community what are the reentry centers, you know, what forms of support can be provided. and then also getting to work with organizations like the drug policy alliance and, you know, many other organizations that are operating nationally to repeal harsh truck laws that -- drug laws that exist here in this state like other states,

um, to get involved in ban the box initiatives, repeal, you know, bans on food stamps. all of the types of things i described, there are people undoubtedly who have already begun some of that work locally. and if they haven't, to really think seriously about forming your own organization. one of the things that worries me most about, you know, this point that we're in in building the movement is that there really is no grassroots organization that exists today on a national level that has as its primary mission ending the system of mass incarceration. and so some of the work that needs to be done may not have begun in your community. but who is going to do this work if not you? if not us? so we've got to begin somewhere, and so i encourage you to check out my web site for a list of

organizations and resources, think about forming your own student organization here and then also get together with like-minded souls and think seriously about what kinds of organizations need to be built, perhaps. you know, in your own community to do the work that lies ahead. so thank you for your question. >> thank you. >> yes. um, i would just like to thank you for your presentation. it was very insightful. the question i would like to ask is that, um, overall typically when many young persons are arrested for drugs, they tend to level a lot of charges against them. one up charge which is very difficult to beat is, um, conspiracy, conspiracy to -- >> yes. >> -- sell drugs. and a barber of mine in jamaica who was deported told me that conspiracy is one of the hardest charges to beat. what sort of solutions do you

propose to -- i don't know if to remove such a charge from the book, because conspiracy can be applied in such a broad way. >> thank you so much for raising that question, and, you know, um, many people don't realize, um, until you're charged as being part of a conspiracy, um, that something as simple as passing messages to someone, oh, so and so called. he wants you to meet him there. oh, you need a ride? okay, i'll give you a lift. and you may have some vague sense of what's going on or maybe you don't really know what's going on. the prosecution sure thinks you do, and it takes one overt act to support the conspiracy, and it could be giving someone a

ride. it could be passing messagings. um, you know, it could be, um, something extremely minor. and many women find themselves charged as co-conspirators because the prosecutors are really after their boyfriend or their husband or some man that they know who they think is involved in drug conspiracy, and so they will charge them as a co-conspirator in order to try to get them to snitch on their friend or loved one. and, unfortunately, many women who either don't actually have the knowledge to be able to snitch or because of their own conscience won't allow themselves to snitch on someone, you know, they care about find themselves doing far more time than the person who is charged as a principal in the crime. so these conspiracy laws are

very dangerous, and, um, unjust and ought to be changed. and conspiracy laws, just like drug laws themselves, can be changed. it requires a demand, it requires organization, it requires us to become educated about the nature of these laws and insist that legislators, um, do what it takes to insure that people, um, are not ensnared by them in the ways that you describe. >> thank you. >> folks, we only have time for, like, three more questions, so we'll take the first question starting here and then go back and fort. forth. >> hello. i'm demetrius richmond. thank you for coming. >> thank you. >> i think your message needs to continue to spread. i would be remiss if i did not talk about my cognitive business surrounding this topic. as i was sitting there, there was just so much going through my mind. i had a lot of internal

conflict. and so i guess i'm thinking about this possibly should be an internal black community discussion. there's still this notion of personal accountability -- >> uh-huh. >> that i'm thinking about. >> uh-huh. >> and i guess my question is does that play a role in this mass incarceration movement? because i have a lot of family members and friends who know better and continue to not do better. >> uh-huh. >> and make bad decisions and don't hold themselves accountable. and so part of me is still struggling with how do we balance the act of the external things versus the internal. so does personal accountability play a role in this? and how do we really deal with this movement? >> excellent question. and, you know, i think personal accountability plays a role in it for all of us. you know, we all have to take responsibility for the choices that we make in our lives.

but we also have to take choices -- take responsibility for the choices we make collectively. and, um, it seems to me that we have been willing to heap an enormous amount of shame and blame on the poorest, the most vulnerable in our society and accept no responsibility collectively for having set people up to fail and then keeping them trapped. so, yes, yes, of course even has got to take responsibility for their own actions. um, there is absolutely a role for personal accountability in the conversation. but i think we've got to expand the conversation beyond personal accountability and ask the question, okay, so you've made a mistake, now what?

and the reality is that people of all colors make mistakes. and, in fact, we make many of the same kinds of mistakes. but some people are punished more harshly and in an unrelenting fashion. and some people that make the same mistakes like president barack obama go to college, go off to law school and get to be president of the united states, right? so i think we've really got to be willing to look at the kinds of mistakes people make with an open heart, an open mind and make choices about how we respond to those mistakes in a way that honors their humanity, their dignity and is based in awareness that, yes, as a society we need to be safe. we need to honor people's basic human rights to be able to live in a community that is safe and secure. you know, a child growing up in a crime-ridden, violent

community who has to worry about, you know, bullets flying through the air near her school? her human rights are being violated because we have not provided her a safe of, secure environment in which she can live and grow. so we've got to hold each of us individually accountable, um, and do so in a way that honors each other's basic humanity can and basic human rights, assures that we create safe and thriving communities, caring communities. but we can't simply resort to shame and blame and get caught up in a wave of punitiveness that makes us less safe and ultimately denies the basic humanity, um, of those we claim to care about. >> thank you. >> thanks. >> thank you. my name is james -- [inaudible] and i'd like to just thank you for bringing this presentation to this area of the country. i think it needs it more than most of the area, especially here in this area. but i have a concern that i

really like your approach that you've taken to this. it's like a root cause analysis of what has caused the massive incarceration of so many african-americans and that you've used data and statistics to lay out. my question has to do with where is the african-american churches when it comes to getting involved? what has happened to them? we seem to run from data, we seem to run from root cause analysis. we seem to just have become so lackadaisical in this area. what would you recommend to the churches and to the church leaders as what we should be doing to address this issue? >> yes. thank you. i, i agree that people of faith and conscience have such an extraordinarily important role to play a at this moment in our nation's history at a time when so many people of faith, including myself, you know, we claim to care a lot about

compassion and forgiveness. um, we claim, we talk a good game. you know? [laughter] but then when it comes to being willing to stand up against these kinds of injustices, for too long too many people of faith and conscience have remained silent. i am encouraged though. in recent years faith leaders are waking up and standing up. the samuel dewitt proctor conference which is a network of several thousand progressive black churches has actually decided to make ending mass incarceration one of their primary, um, missions, you know, for the foreseeable future. and they actually created a faith--based study guide for my book to be used in congregations to raise awareness and to encourage people to explore the relationship between their faith

and their spiritual commitments and what we see in this era of mass incarceration. and to encourage people to find their prophetic voice in this time of crisis. and so there is movement afoot within faith communities. picot is a multiracial, multiethnic, you know, faith-based social justice organizing network that is now embracing ending mass incarceration as one of their main goals. so there is change in shifting attitudes to be seen within the faith community, but i couldn't agree with you more that much, much, much more work needs to be done and, um, ultimately, you know, being the world's leader in imprisonment, locking people up and subjecting them to second class the status, if that is not a moral issue, a spiritual crisis to which the church ought to speak and respond, i don't

know what is. um, and so i hope that people like you will encourage, you know, the faith leaders, you know, who you know and in your circles of influence to begin to speak up and speak out with some courage. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> this'll be the last question. >> okay. >> hello. my name is -- [inaudible] >> hi. >> my question was similar, and i understand how you said, like, bringing organization into colleges might help, but i feel like the most powerful thing right now is the media. and how do we get, like, you don't see too many black leaders teaming up together to help young black people find the truth, and i feel like we're struggling to find the truth because there's so many other things going on in the media. and i just wonder how you feel, how can we help that? >> that is an excellent point. truly if you are to watch

mainstream news or media today, you are not going to learn anything useful about the system of mass incarceration or really any of the other pressing social justice issues of our time. and so, you know, i think it is important for people to become very creative about educating, um, their communities. and i think the internet and social networking provides real opportunities to subvert the dominant messages, um, ha we receive from the mainstream -- that we receive from the mainstream media and to circulate videos and articles and materials online to as many people as possible. but there's also no substitute for coming together in person. you know, posting to facebook is great, but, um, coming together in person, um, to have study circles, to have film screenings, to have forums where these issues are discussed and debated are essential, i think, um, to raising kind of the level