Jay IDK Quotes

The man does not beat your head because you got a Cadillac or because you got a Ford; he beats you because you're black!

Trayvon Martin could have been me 35 years ago.

Racism is a moral catastrophe, most graphically seen in the prison industrial complex and targeted police surveillance in black and brown ghettos rendered invisible in public discourse.

The justice system isn't meant to work for people of color in this country.

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.

I've said numerous times the hardest job in America isn't being a professional athlete. It's not being a matador or having some job that puts your life at risk. The hardest job in America is being black, because it's the one thing you can't outrun.

I am certain that my white colleagues, when faced with an emergency situation, wouldn't think twice about calling the police. This, however, may not be the case for their black and Latino students.

White folks, no matter how well-meaning or open-minded, have no true idea what it's like to be black in America. That's not a slam against white people or an accusation of latent bigotry. But the fact is that we all live in an Anglo-dominated society.

Discrimination is a hellhound that gnaws at Negroes in every waking moment of their lives to remind them that the lie of their inferiority is accepted as truth in the society dominating them.

I'm not trying to say that it never hurt or that I never felt its sting, but I can honestly say that I never blamed anybody for racism. I have considered it more of a manifestation of humanity's problem rather than my personal problem.

Terrorism is not new to black people.

Every institution where a number of the coloured races are, or can be drawn together, shall be broken up… If we destroy, or prevent the building of the nest, we shall not be liable to the incursions of the brood.

If I may seem a bit moved about this, it is because of the hell I have been through because I am a Negro, and I think this committee ought to show a little more consideration for the democracy that Negroes are denied .... the menace that ought to be paid attention to is the menace where 14 or 15 million Negroes have no place to turn to feel that they are protected.

The Negro is not permitted to testify because he might tell of the enormities practiced upon him.

What whites cannot experience and may never understand is that no matter which side of the bed I chose to wake up on, I would still be a black man in the racially divisive America.

We are less than honest and commit a grave error if we insist that what happened to Rodney G. King was isolated and an exceptional case. The poor know better.

I can't stop thinking about the devaluation of black life, and I find it seeping into everything I write.

It saddens me that African Americans - when they express their pain, when they protest about police violence, when they question inequality, when they raise issues of bondage and discrimination - African Americans are seen as not patriotic.

Black and brown communities are significantly and disproportionately impacted by deficiencies in our criminal justice system.

The George Zimmerman/Trayvon Martin affair is one of the most important and clarifying moments in American history.

Black Lives Matter was born out of our unwavering love for black people and our undeniable rage over a system that has historically dehumanized black people.

You know what, man, that's part and parcel of being a black person in this country: everything's harder. It just is.

I see racism as institutional: the rules are different for me because I'm black. It's not necessarily someone's specific attitude against me; it's just the fact that I, as a black man, have a much harder time making an art-house movie and getting it released than a white person does about their very white point of view. That's racism.

God blessed us with all this money, so why not take the money and put it into my brother's case? Talk about social and racial injustice in our country, and mass incarceration in our country?