Donna Brazile Quotes

When you're a black man in a hoodie, all of a sudden you're a criminal. That's something we shouldn't have to deal with, but we do. It's a double standard. We can't cover our head when it's cold and raining because God forbid someone sees us and puts our life in danger.

'Driving while black' was taught to me at a young age.

I don't want my kids going through what I went through - police stopping you, searching you and all that malarkey.

The police pull up in back of my car and run my plates - they don't see you as you are; they see you through a racialized negative gaze. I think the best thing is not to internalize it too much, or it'll make you crazy because you know it's going to happen again.

The media's image of us is as animals, and we were never that to me. I knew love from black folks.

I've had many incidents in my life of racism. I've been thrown on the ground. I've been frisked. I've been arrested so many times I couldn't tell you. I have no need to talk about it.

Me and discrimination, me and racial profiling... we go way back. We've got history.

We listened to Donald Trump speak at the debate about 'Stop and Frisk.' I don't think it's a good way to go through life. I don't think that's going to solve any of our problems. It's actually going to make racial tension a whole lot worse, and it's going to make us feel like we're singled out.

Being a woman of color, I can truthfully state that I don't feel safe around those who are sworn to honor and uphold the law.

The ingrained image of black men being searched by the police feeds into the collective illusion that black men everywhere need to be policed more than others.

I've been harassed by police my whole life and seen people who looked like me treated like animals at the hands of law enforcement.

There is a reason that many African Americans have a healthy mistrust for law enforcement. We don't always feel protected or served by that particular institution.

Touring a segregated America - forever being stopped and harassed by white cops hurt you most 'cos you don't realise the damage. You hold it in. You feel empty, like someone reached in and pulled out your guts. You feel hurt and dirty, less than a person.

And I ask why am I black, they say I was born in sin, and shamed inequity. One of the main songs we used to sing in church makes me sick, 'love wash me and I shall be whiter than snow.

Most middle-class whites have no idea what it feels like to be subjected to police who are routinely suspicious, rude, belligerent, and brutal.

It's a struggle for every young Black man. You know how it is, only God can judge us.

I went to Zimbabwe. I know how white people feel in America now; relaxed! Cause when I heard the police car I knew they weren't coming after me!

One principle I've been fighting for that doesn't endear me to a lot of people is that black people can be just as complicated and screwed up as white people. Our motives can be just as base and violent. Suffering does not necessarily ennoble you.

From the moment we were first dumped in Jamestown and had our teeth checked before getting sold off and later considered three-fifths of a human being, an abundance of 'likability' hasn't been something blacks have had to stockpile. Instead, it's been a centuries-long battle for respectability.

Any time I claimed to be white, that would be unacceptable. It just doesn't make sense in people's minds. If I'm white, how can I walk through a department store and still have people scared that I'm going to rob them? Which, that can still happen.

I'm a black man in the United States of America, so I always feel like there's a target on me.

There's so many, 'no, black people aren't like that' barriers in mainstream media.

As a black man, you run from the cops. It's different now, but back when I was coming up, you run.

Equality of rights means that some people cannot simply impose obligations on others, for the moral agency and rights of those others would then be violated.

Black boys became criminalized. I was in constant dread for their lives, because they were targets everywhere. They still are.