Michelle Alexander Quotes

Ultimately, policing in and of itself is problematic.

We need to work for a day when police shootings are rare and not the stuff of our daily news.

It's an issue that we need to have a national discussion about, the militarization of local police forces, and then when they are used to quell peaceful demonstration. Then we have a problem, and especially around this entire case of the murder of Michael Brown at the hands of a Ferguson police officer.

I get it, cops deal with a lot, but at the same time, we crave justice, and we do want to believe things are going to be all right.

I've portrayed cops as heroes for far too long, I think.

We just were saying no more police brutality. And we had enough of police harassment in the Village and other places.

Despite claims that there are good and bad cops, we know that the system is failing everyone - including the police.

I think people have always had ambiguous relationships toward the police because of the position in society they occupy. But that anxiety and that animosity isn't as strong in other places as it is in the U.S., partially because the police are armed here.

I have no hatred for cops. I have hatred for racists and brutal people, but not necessarily the cops. The cops are just doing what they're told to do.

We have to have a national conversation about how police forces should interact with the African-American community, who happens to be paying their salary, who want to be served and protected, who these officers are take an oath to do so.

Calling for police reform is not calling for police retribution.

We need the cops, especially in the black community.

Laquan McDonald is a wake-up call to all of us. It's a reminder there's a lot broken.

There's a larger conversation we need to have about the role of police officers, their relationship to the people as enemy or executioner, when they're not supposed to be either.

Unfortunately, in places like Ferguson, in New York City and in some communities across this nation, there is a disconnect between police agencies and the citizens they serve, predominately in communities of color.

To indiscriminately cast all law enforcement as enemies of our communities is to engage in an attempt to divide our nation by turning Americans against each other.

Growing up where I'm from, some people are afraid of cops. They don't really like cops. And what a lot of people don't realize is, they're really not the bad guys. They're really on our side, they're really trying to help us out. And sometimes, we don't understand that.

Mike Brown wasn't about race relations, nor Trayvon Martin or even Hurricane Katrina for that matter. It's about trust.

I'll be honest with you: I think that it's really difficult, this framing around 'good cops' and 'bad cops.' Policing, as a system, is incredibly corrupt, period.

The worst teacher in America could never do as much damage as the worst police officer in America. But the right wing has never even been slightly curious about evaluating the job performance of police officers.

I know there are those in the community who, rather than have us invest more in policing, even for community policing, instead want us to disinvest in the police department. We need a police department. We are going to have a police department.

Everybody has a stake in the story of policing.

I'm dedicated to healing the wounds between police and minority communities so both sides feel safe again.

I feel for the cops; I feel for us as a society as a whole, period.

I want to live in a city where the police don't shoot you.