Conditional citizens are policed and punished more harshly than others by the state...In her book The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander showed persuasively that mass incarceration in America functions as a system of ‘racial hierarchy and control.’ This racially based punitive system is so pervasive and so internalized that policing begins in childhood…
-- Laila Lalami ("Allegiance")

Importance: In this passage, Lalami emphasizes a salient way in which oppressed groups in America are victimized. Namely, they are unjustly suppressed by the law enforcement and judicial systems. Lalami also provides a notable text for further reading. Conditional Citizens is, in many ways, an overview and a primer, to help guide the reader's further education and research.

…a white writer was an individual, responsible only for his or her own creative work, whereas I was a specimen, culled from a group of people these readers found mysterious and perhaps dangerous.
-- Laila Lalami ("Faith")

Importance: In this chapter, Lalami recounts being...