Top 100 Quotes & Sayings by Jamaal Bowman

I'm going to be the kind of congressperson where I'm going to be at rallies with the people, fighting for justice and being present and showing them that they have a fighter and a champion in Congress with them and for them.

I am endorsing Joe Biden. He has to be our president. Donald Trump is a racist and a fascist, and we have to do everything in our power to make sure Joe Biden wins.

I see myself as a person who is pushing back and fighting against oppression in all its forms, centering racial and economic injustice very explicitly.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has endorsed and enabled a doctrine of obstructionism that's prevented Americans from seeing the help and progress they desperately need.

I remember being a young black kid in high school, I didn't think the establishment or the political system was for me. I didn't think the system was for me, and I know a lot of kids feel that way.

I deeply love the students that I serve. I tried to do anything in my power to give them additional resources and support so they could do well in school and beyond.

You know what Donald Trump is more afraid of than anything else? A Black man with power.

When I look at American history, I see how it has been driven by resistance and protest against a system that has been oppressive to not just Black people but to women, to members of the LGBTQ community.

My problem is white comfort with Black death. I am personally tired of white comfort with black death.

We need to end qualified immunity at the federal level, where police can violate a person's civil rights with impunity, which we've seen happening time and time again.

Defund the police does not mean abolish the police. It means a dramatic reduction in the number of police in our poor communities and particularly our poor Black and Brown communities.

I would never try to fill John Lewis's shoes. I can only be myself - my authentic self.

All my kids do is make fun of me.

Losing your home is one of the most destabilizing, inhumane things a person can experience.

We need to rebuild our nation with a new foundation. A foundation rooted in love, and care, and equality. Where justice is truly real for all of us, regardless of race, class, gender, orientation, or religion. I fully believe we can.

Congressman Engel had a reputation quite frankly for being absent from the community, being disengaged and not being a leader or fighter on the issues that matter most, and that's not just rhetoric.

I'm a Black man who was raised by a single mother in a housing project. That story doesn't usually end in Congress.

We need to stop sending federal military equipment to local police departments.

As we continue our fight to advance civil rights and racial justice, we need to not only recognize but celebrate how Hip Hop and Black Americans have given so much to our culture and our country.

I've been locked up for not having insurance, only to be released. I mean, this sort of thing is just par for the course when you're Black or brown in America.

My background is: I'm a Black man in America, victim of police brutality, victim of institutional racism, working-class from working-class roots.

What we badly need in this country is a National Truth and Reconciliation Commission, like what we've seen in other nations that have tried to turn the page on injustice.

Ending the school-to-prison pipeline is not a small task and requires detangling the myth of white superiority from our entire education system.

The school-to-prison pipeline - the disproportionality that exists in handing out school discipline in schools to Black and Brown students for simple infractions - pushes kids out of classrooms and into our ever-growing system of mass incarceration.

I was suspended and discarded. I was told to go to hell by administrators. I was placed in classes far beneath my intelligence. I even had a teacher tell me my life was ruined.

We can heal our planet, use cleaner and more efficient sources of energy while creating green jobs.

I was 11 years old when I was initially brutalized by the police, just for horse-playing with my friends and not responding to the police in the way they wanted me to.

I'm a sponge, man. I'm a learner.

I'm trying my best not to raise my children with fear of the police.

Nothing will ever bring back George Floyd, or any of the thousands of others we have lost to racist police violence.

I support defunding the police - particularly the militarization of our police force and reallocating those resources toward public health. And not just health care but mental health support, affordable housing, education, alternatives to incarceration, non-emergency responses to those who might be in mental distress.

I talk about the politics of love over the politics of fear... Fear is rooted in institutional racism. It's this fear of what's different, fear of the unknown, and looking at something that's different as deficient. It doesn't have to be that way. It doesn't have to be a zero sum game.

If you look throughout American history, it has been protests and mass movements and the people rising up that has moved to this country forward.

Many elected Republicans know that ensuring that people of color can vote freely would spell bad news for them and their agenda, which privileges corporations and the wealthy.

We can have a political system that works for the people and allows for the economy to thrive. It doesn't have to be either.

Hip Hop is the rebirth of civilization. For people who were disconnected from their continent, from their language, from their culture, and from their ancestry, Hip Hop represented a step toward rediscovering what it means to be a Black American, or to be a Latino American.

I believe our current system of capitalism is slavery by another name.

Congress has the authority to authorize spending and investment to historically neglected and marginalized communities.

We need a federal jobs guarantee that puts everyone to work toward a green, clean renewable energy economy.

My second year of teaching I was chosen to be a crisis intervention teacher. Our school was a kindergarten through fourth grade school with 1,500 kids, largely recent immigrants from Africa and South America. And it was in one of the poorest zip codes in the country. The classes were too big, the school was underfunded.

I ran for office because I believe personally that the cycle of poverty is systemic, is rooted in racial injustice, and is rooted in gender bias. It is violence. It is trauma. It is a crime. But, most importantly, it is our policy choice.

We have to break the cycle of structural racism, and build a truly just society for all of us.

A true infrastructure investment must include transforming our economy to handle the climate crisis, supporting care workers, reforming SSI, making child care universal, rebuilding our crumbling public schools, and much more.

In using the English language to create an entirely new art form, the pioneers of Hip Hop created a vessel that grew to impact nearly every facet of American culture.

Democracy, as a governing system, is built on the foundational concept that when you cast your ballot, that ballot ensures your voice, will, and perspective will be accounted for in the direction of your city, state, or country.

We must hire more social workers and counselors in our schools than police officers.

Our democracy is falling apart - we can't just let that happen.

So, I started teaching in 1999 in the South Bronx.

We have all ethnicities, religions, economic statuses, orientations, genders, so much diversity. We need to make sure that that diversity is seen, is heard, is respected, has a seat at the table, and is pulling a lever of power - either from a community perspective or from the perspective of elected officials.

I've been arrested for 'stealing' my own car, only to be released.

You know, I grew up Black in America, I grew up close to Spanish Harlem where we ain't have much money, but we was like all friends and cool and playing and going to school together.

Whoever becomes Education Secretary has to have a love and passion for public schools. Not charter schools, not vouchers, but public schools.

Climate change is ravaging our cities - we can't just let that happen.

The impact of poverty on our kids and their learning. That's something I've understood pretty intimately throughout my career as an educator.

Alex, AOC, Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez, she was a mentor from afar, even before I got to Congress.

The Green New Deal for Public Schools represents the level of school infrastructure investment that is urgent and necessary to heal the harm from decades of disinvestment, redlining and cycles of poverty and trauma, particularly for Black and brown children.

Once an educator, always an educator!

It's important for Muslims and non-Muslims to stand together against hate in all of its forms, particularly against Islamophobia because quite often Islamophobia is almost like the forgotten '-ism' and the forgotten phobia that is always present.

Being a candidate who doesn't take corporate PAC money forced me to be accountable to the people I serve and to meet them where they are.

We need a Green New Deal for Public Housing, as my colleague and friend Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez has proposed. We need a Green New Deal for Cities, as my friend Cori Bush has proposed. And we need a Green New Deal for Public Schools.