1. Prof. Alexander cites statistics showing that more African American adults are under correctional control today than were enslaved in 1850. What is your reaction to this? How much power, if any, does this shocking statistic lose if you consider percentages of the population instead?

2.At times, Prof. Alexander seems reluctant to say that individual people can be racist and policies can be based on racism. Does this bother you and/or is it the right approach for her audience? Do you think our ability to admit to racism grown since she wrote this book in 2010?

3. What is your reaction to the suggestion that being irrelevant may be worse than being exploited since, when you're exploited, presumably you're still needed?

4. In responding to the critique that white people are victims of the drug war too, Prof. Alexander describes white people convicted of drug crimes as "collateral damage." Yet statistics from 2018 and 2019 indicate that the number (not the rate in terms of the national population) of white drug-crime inmates is higher by several thousand than black drug-crime inmates, if we look at state and federal prisons combined (see E. Ann Carson, Prisoners in 2019,https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/p19.pdf Links to an external site.). Do you think viewing these imprisoned people as "collateral damage" is fair, given the racial bias running throughout the criminal justice system and the War on Drugs? Or is it too cavalier?