Yvette Clarke Quotes

The most divisive issue facing New Yorkers in 2013 is stop and frisk, a tactic used by law enforcement to stop, question, and frisk people suspected of a crime.

Racial profiling punishes innocent individuals for the past actions of those who look and sound like them. It misdirects crucial resources and undercuts the trust needed between law enforcement and the communities they serve. It has no place in our national discourse, and no place in our nation's police departments.

Our country has a painful history of mistrust between police departments and people of color. The overuse of stop-and-frisk has made those divisions much worse.

Excessive stop-and-frisk divides communities. That's why the New York City Police Department has moved away from it.

Stop-and-frisk is not something that you can stop. It is an absolutely basic tool of American policing. It would be like asking a doctor to give an examination to you without using his stethoscope.

Black men in ghetto communities (and many who live in middle class communities) are targeted by the police at early ages, often before they're old enough to vote. They're routinely stopped, frisked, and searched without reasonable suspicion or probable cause.

When a young non-white male is stopped and searched at the whim of a police officer, his idea of personal space, privacy and self esteem are shattered, to say nothing of his Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment protections. The damage goes deep quickly and stays. Stop & frisk, as well as a tactic, is also an incitement.

The real problem is testosterone. In New York City stops and frisks became ceremonies of dominance.

I think it's important to realize that law enforcement does do a very good job oftentimes of trying to ensure the safety and security of their people. But oftentimes, where they fail is communities of color and in lower socioeconomic status communities where they discriminate against these people.

Stop and frisk - whether done while walking down the street or while driving a car - is a civil rights violation.

If stop-and-frisk was a fair and balanced practice that targeted everybody equally across the board, then I could understand the extra precautions being taken, but since it's a practice that targets blacks and Hispanics and gives the police the right to lawfully profile us, I'm not with it.

I used to get stop-and-frisked every time I walked out of my house.

Trump started talking about bringing back stop-and-frisk, which was ruled unconstitutional. And as a black man, that was the last thing I wanted to hear. That you will basically pass laws to say that I can be profiled, and it is legal.

As N.Y.C. Public Advocate, I released a report that showed that stop-and-frisks of African Americans in 2012 were barely half as likely to yield a weapon as those of white New Yorkers - and a third less likely to yield contraband. Despite this evidence, the vast majority of those stopped are young black and Latino men.

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.

It's always extremities when you are a young black male dealing with law enforcement.

You don't have to be African American to really enjoy 'Frisky Business'. But as far as being black, a lot of people in New York have been stopped and frisked, so that hits home for them.

No one should live in fear of being stopped whenever he leaves his home to go about the activities of daily life

The police often harass me because they are very ignorant and don’t understand what they hear.

We are saying that when our nation targets law enforcement efforts at someone's appearance or what neighborhood they live in or what job they do, it is not living up to our nation's basic ideals.

Men and women wonder if merely walking or driving justifies being followed, stopped, or questioned. This practice and the presumption of guilt so often associated with people of color must come to an end.

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.

Where I went to high school at was a predominantly white town, and I definitely got pulled over a number of times for driving in the wrong car on the wrong side of town. As you get older, you start to realize that at any moment, there could be a trigger, and that could be you in that situation.

I grew up in a neighborhood that was heavily policed. I witnessed my brothers and my siblings continuously stopped and frisked by law enforcement. I remember my home being raided. And one of my questions as a child was, why? Why us? Black Lives Matter offers answers to the why.

If you are a black person growing up in America, chances are pretty good that you have experienced the police pulling you over in front of your mother's house because you 'had a headlight out.'