It doesn't matter if that felony happened three weeks ago or thirty-five years ago - for the rest of your life, you've got to check that box, knowing full well the odds are sky-high your application is going straight to the trash.
If you take into account prisoners, a large majority of African American men in some urban areas, like Chicago, have been labeled felons for life. These men are part of a growing undercaste - not class, caste - a group of people who are permanently relegated, by law, to an inferior second-class status.
In 2004, there were more black men disenfranchised than in 1870 - the year the 15th Amendment was ratified, prohibiting laws that deny the right to vote exclusively on the basis of race.
People have a false understanding of what our legal system is like - how it works/operates - from shows like 'Law and Order,' which suggest that lawyers appear on demand and do a tremendous amount of investigation and background research.
Prosecutors frequently overcharge, load up charges on individual defendants, knowing that three strikes laws and harsh mandatory minimum sentences will force people to plea bargain and essentially convict themselves because they're terrified of doing a life sentence for a relatively minor crime.
The success of the few does not excuse the caste-like system that exists for many. In fact, black exceptionalism - the high-profile, highly visible examples of the black success - actually serves to justify and rationalize mass incarceration.
We cannot 'fix' the police without a revolution of values and radical change to the basic structure of our society.
Our entire political system is financed by wealthy private interests buying politicians and making sure the rules are written in their favor.
I don't think I understood the full extent of the trauma experienced by people who churn through America's prisons until I began taking the time to listen to their stories.
Susan Burton's life story - filled with trauma, struggle, and true heroism - is precisely the kind of story that has the potential to change the way we view our world.
The love affair between black folks and the Clintons has been going on for a long time. It began back in 1992, when Bill Clinton was running for president. He threw on some shades and played the saxophone on 'The Arsenio Hall Show.' It seems silly in retrospect, but many of us fell for that.
Globalization and deindustrialization affected workers of all colors but hit African Americans particularly hard.
Bill Clinton presided over the largest increase in federal and state prison inmates of any president in American history.
Bill Clinton championed discriminatory laws against formerly incarcerated people that have kept millions of Americans locked in a cycle of poverty and desperation.
In my view, the most important lesson we can learn from Dr. King is not what he said at the March on Washington but what he said and did after the march. In the years following the march, he did not play politics to see what crumbs a fundamentally corrupt system might toss to the beggars for justice.
I am still committed to building a movement to end mass incarceration, but I will not do it with blinders on. If all we do is end mass incarceration, this movement will not have gone nearly far enough.
People return home from prison and face legal discrimination in virtually all areas of social and economic and political life. They are legally discriminated against employment, barred from public housing, and denied other public benefits.