The dramatically different manner in which we, as a nation, responded to the crisis presented by drunk driving and the crisis caused by the emergence of crack cocaine speaks volumes about who we value, and who we view as disposable.

Defenders of the status quo will often try to mislead the public by saying, "Just look at our state prisons: nearly half of the inmates are violent offenders. This system is about protecting the public from violent crime." This type of statement is highly misleading.

Once you're labeled a felon, the old forms of discrimination - employment discrimination, housing discrimination, denial of the right to vote, denial of educational opportunity, denial of food stamps and other public benefits, and exclusion from jury service - are suddenly legal. As a criminal, you have scarcely more rights, and largely 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 redesigned it.

The so-called resistance is very broad and we don't agree on everything, but there's a moment of opportunity when people are paying attention. It's time for us to really get serious about political education and about our own moral education in this moment, and to seize this opportunity to organize and be in deep dialogue with a whole lot of people who never even thought about being politically engaged or active before. There's real hope there and real opportunity.

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 redesigned it.

We must muster the courage, we must find the will, we must do what is necessary to build a truly transformative movement that will end the history and cycle of caste in America.

The vastly different sentences afforded drunk drivers and drug offenders tells us who is viewed as disposable - someone to be purged from the body politic - and who is not. Drunk drivers are predominately white and male.