Rudy Giuliani Quotes

I probably saved more black lives as mayor of New York City than any mayor in the history of this city. And I did it by having to use police officers in black areas where there was an astounding amount of crime. If that crime was in white areas, police officers would be in white areas.

We have one Black man as President; we have one million Black men in prison.

Police violence is the tip of the iceberg when it relates to the conditions overall of black people across the globe.

Speaking as a black person, welfare is the worst thing that's ever happened to us.

We need to recognize that the situation in Ferguson speaks to broader challenges that we still face as a nation. The fact is, in too many parts of this country, a deep distrust exists between law enforcement and communities of color. Some of this is the result of the legacy of racial discrimination in this country.

Black-on-black crime is a massive human rights issue that's going on in America.

America is yours [Whites] today because of crime and violence.

If you had the Klu Klux Klan killing 200 Black kids in a community, we would have a problem and pay attention to it. If Black kids killed 200 white kids, we would pay attention to that. But when 200 Black kids kill 200 Black kids, we pay that less attention.

Why aren’t Black people this outraged over Black-on-Black killings?.

I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color. To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder

I remember my dad always complaining about getting pulled over. I remember the differences in school systems. I remember seeing police officers, not knowing their names, and knowing that they were there not to protect us, not to serve us, but to watch us.

When I was making 'Strong Island,' it was very clear to me that my brother's death was a point on a line that stretched back into the 1940s and beyond in my family - and in the nation.

In communities of color, such as Ferguson, it often feels like the police are protecting the white community from us instead of protecting our communities from the criminal element.

For millions of Americans who happen to be black or brown, that core bond of trust with the government that governs closest to you, is too often broken.

African-Americans have always viewed the protection of black lives as a civil rights issue, whether the threat comes from police officers or street criminals. Far from ignoring the issue of crime by blacks against other blacks, African-American officials and their constituents have been consumed by it.

Black people cannot look to government to solve their problems.

As African-Americans, that's what's being played fast and loose with, our citizenship. When you have the Trayvon Martins and the Michael Browns being shot and killed, it's because, on a certain level, there is a kind of mutability in the understanding of citizenship around the black body.

I'm sure that you could go back and make a graph showing that all the killings of black males increased in times of economic difficulty. As a matter of fact, a black man was lynched last year.

The danger to a black child in America is not a white police officer. The danger is another black.

It's almost like a lot of black people in America, a lot of young black men, are born with this cloud over their heads. It's their penitentiary cloud, this philosophy we all have, that it's harder for us.

We have defeated Jim Crow, but now we have to deal with his son, James Crow Jr., esquire.

The realities are that, you know, as a black man, you know, Barack can get shot going to the gas station, you know.

I grew up here, and it's always been a very diverse community. So for people to come out and say that there's some long-standing anger or there's a history of racial tension is absolutely ridiculous. There's not a black-white divide in Ferguson.

Black America surely faces an existential crisis, but not the one imagined in the condescending news media - of somehow getting non-black America to be more just and generous. The truth is, we've already been through that, and there is nothing left to do. We're out of 'affirmative actions' of all kinds.

Coming up in the Bay Area and being African American in a city that has a history of complex issues of violent crime, interaction with the police is always intense. That's something you have to learn. My mom taught me at a young age that if ever a cop stops you, you put your hands up and freeze - don't move.