The mass incarceration of poor people of color, particularly black men, has emerged as a new caste system, one specifically designed to address the social, economic, and political challenges of our time.

For African American children, in particular, the odds are extremely high that they will have a parent or loved one, a relative, who has either spent time behind bars or who has acquired a criminal record and thus is part of the under-caste - the group of people who can be legally discriminated against for the rest of their lives. For many African American children, their fathers, and increasingly their mothers, are behind bars. It is very difficult for them to visit. Many people are held hundreds or even thousands of miles away from home.

People charged with drug offenses, though, are typically poor people of color. They are routinely charged with felonies and sent to prison.

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness.

My fear is that we will mistake the brand, the "resistance," for greater unity than actually exists and wind up settling for any Democrat the next time around. We have an opportunity right now to build much greater consensus about the need for a meaningful alternative and building a truly transformational movement, town by town, city by city, that has the potential to help birth truly revolutionary change in this country. That potential exists. We got a glimpse of it when such enthusiasm erupted over a democratic socialist Bernie Sanders running for president.

For many, whether they go to prison or not is far less about the choices they make and far more about what kind of cage they're born into.

We must build a movement for education, not incarceration. A movement for jobs, not jails. A movement that will end all forms of discrimination against people released from prison - discrimination that denies them basic human rights to work, shelter and food.