I challenge us all to have the courage of our convictions to fight for a fair, justice and inclusive society.
— Opal Tometi
The valuation of profit over people impedes human rights across much of the world.
We can't continue to sit on our hands and sit idly by as people are being brutalized, disenfranchised, and left out of the system.
I have always felt like I want to change the course of history.
If things aren't working for us, it is our duty to rise up.
I think the two-party system isn't working for us. And it hasn't worked for us for generations - let's be very, very honest about that.
The reality is that anti-black racism is a global phenomenon, and it looks different in each context, but if you look at the outcomes, if you listen and look at the experiences, you will see that it's clear, and it's happening across the globe.
I believe that our communities can benefit if they know about and participate in the U.N.'s various human rights forums.
Get involved in your neighborhood. That's how I got really, really committed to the immigrant rights movement.
Some of us have held the hands of friends or brothers as they struggled with military and police academy recruiters, and though many of them never dreamed of being policemen, a lack of opportunities led them to those positions.
Far from ending, systemic racism reinvents itself to conform to what is publically acceptable, leaving the quality of black life diminished and more permanently fixed with each passing decade.
As a community organizer who holds a degree in history, I understand the fascination with history. However, there is a tendency for many of us to get engrossed in the recounting of our history, which often amounts to purely intellectual activity without material action.
African-Americans and black immigrants share a resilience and a determination for a better life.
We know that there are people in our nation, black people, who are systematically being disenfranchised in a number of spheres in our lives.
We must create a committee to address the long-standing discrimination against black people in America.
Racism should be a core concern for all Americans in every area of our lives.
What we are oftentimes reminding people of is the fact that the history of police in the U.S. was that they were slave patrols. They were quite literally created in order to capture enslaved Africans.
For the U.S., a nation that boasts of being the land of the free, it does not live up to its ideal.
Being in the immigrant rights space, I've heard a lot of transactional talk with questions like, 'When will black people show up for immigrants?'
Civility is the recognition that all people have dignity that's inherent to their person, no matter their religion, race, gender, sexuality, or ability.
There was a time when my uncle was in an immigration detention center, and members of our community would take turns visiting him each weekend. That instilled in me the value of taking care of each other even if the systems aren't working in your favor.
Let's demonstrate, illustrate, the ways in which our communities are being undermined time and time again, and make sure that the broader public and those in power choose to stand with us.
I often think of Audre Lorde and her saying that we don't live and we don't fight for one specific struggle.
If people take the fight for justice seriously in their own country and with partners and immigrants in their community and folks in the international community, I believe that we will see human rights for all people affirmed.
Lean into your curiosity about any issue, and there will likely be people to share a little bit more of their knowledge and insight and give you ideas on how to make change.
There are always groups on campus that are doing amazing things. I know when I was in college, I was a student at the University of Arizona, working on my bachelor's in history, and I got involved with a number of different groups that were connected to different social justice issues that I cared about.
Due to broken windows policing, the following interactions can lead to tickets, arrests and summonses, warrants if tickets go unpaid and, in some cases, violence: jaywalking, sleeping on a park bench, spitting, putting your feet up on the subway, and more.
Anti-black racism operates at a society-wide level and colludes in a seamless web of policies, practices, and beliefs to oppress and disempower black communities.
As we look ahead to our very diverse future, BAJI plans to continue to be at the forefront, uniting black communities to attain racial, social, and economic justice for all.
To fully understand the black immigrant experience in the U.S., we must understand it not in contrast to the African-American experience, but central to it.
We actually know that all lives do matter. And we believe it is so much so that we had to create Black Lives Matter.
Police cannot be allowed to continue aggressive, violent, and often unconstitutional policing with impunity.
I have three godkids that are just so gorgeous; I love them dearly, and they keep me going.
My mom, my aunts, and all the Nigerian women in my life have been so fierce and strong. I have only grown up around powerful women, so I have a strong sense of self and our power.
Only when the oppressed are heard can we have an honest solutions based dialogue.
Without networks like the Black Immigration Network, organizations like Haitian Women for Haitian Refugees would not get the support and resources and amplification that their voices that they need and deserve.
I was in awe of previous black liberation struggle leaders - Sojourner Truth, Ida B. Wells. I wanted to be part of something bigger than myself. Black Lives Matter has been that.
My parents being from Nigeria deeply informs all my social justice and human rights work.
Our communities are reeling from poverty, from unemployment, from discrimination of all sorts and different interactions that they're having with the law enforcement, and education system, and so on.
I am the executive director of the Black Alliance for Just Immigration, which is the country's only national immigrant rights organization for black immigrants and African Americans. Being the daughter of Nigerian immigrants really drove me to do this type of work.
To me and to a number of other activists from the U.S., we believe that the human rights movement has to evolve and understand the global implications of structural racism. This means engaging the United Nations and a variety of other human rights bodies.
I just look back at my time in college and think about how much my community activism and my work in neighborhoods really informed my actual academic career and beyond... It can provide a way better learning than the traditional classroom setting.
We have to start imagining a new reality - this will mean fewer police and more social workers and teachers. This will mean creating more economic possibilities and investment that preserves and does not displace our communities.
Despite claims that there are good and bad cops, we know that the system is failing everyone - including the police.
Many thought that the abolition of slavery, the end of Jim Crow, and the legislative progress of the Civil Rights Era, among other watershed moments, would have fundamentally done away with the racist structures that have long oppressed black people. However, we know that has been far from the case.
My parents migrated to Phoenix, AZ, in the '80s, and I watched them work tirelessly to provide for me and my siblings as they encouraged us to pursue our dreams.
We created #BlackLivesMatter. We created a platform. We used our social media presence online in order to forward a conversation about what is taking place in black communities.
When we say 'Black Lives Matter,' we're not saying that any other life doesn't matter. That has never, ever been our message. Our message has always been from a place of love.
Implicit bias - our subconscious associations of race - permeates everything that we do. And we must pursue systemic accountability to fix it.
Knowing that there is a community of people on every corner of this planet that believes in justice, that is willing to sacrifice, and that is willing to take a stand is the most heartening thing.
