"When we look back over the course of our nation’s history, what we see again and again almost like clockwork are these predictable efforts by the wealthy elite to use race as a wedge. To pit poor whites against poor people of color for the benefit of the ruling elite. Many people don’t realize that even slavery as an institution—the emergence of an all-Black system of slavery—was to a large extent the result of plantation owners deliberately trying to pit poor whites against poor Blacks. And ensure that poor whites would not join in any kind of resistance, movement, struggle, or revolt with poor Blacks…"
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Civil rights activistsNon-fiction authors from the United StatesWomen authors from the United StatesAfrican AmericansWomen activists from the United States
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
On the elite’s influence on the poor in in “The struggle for racial justice has a long way to go” in the International Socialist Review (May 2012)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Michelle_Alexander
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Michelle Alexander
7 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Michelle Alexander →
Related Quotes
"I think it is precisely the existence of a relative few wealthy, successful African Americans like Barack Obama, Opra…"
"For children, the era of mass incarceration has meant a tremendous amount of family separation, broken homes, poverty…"
"Certainly youth of color, particularly those in ghetto communities, find themselves born into the cage. They are born…"
"The political strategy of divide, demonize and conquer has worked for centuries in the United States — since the days…"
"What has changed since the collapse of Jim Crow has less to do with the basic structure of our society than with the …"
"The shift that's occurred this time around "wasn't by happenstance," Brittany Packnett Cunningham, an activist and a …"
"Scientific education is catholic; it embraces the whole field of human learning. No student can master all knowledge …"
"Honest investigation is but the application of common sense to the solution of the unknown. Science does not wait on …"
"Years of drought and famine come and years of flood and famine come, and the climate is not changed with dance, libat…"
"The verb is relatively of much greater importance in an Indian tongue than in a civilized language."