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" Black immigrants and refugees have just as much at stake in the fight to make Black Lives Matter as African Americans do. "
Opal Tometi
Fight
Immigrants
Black
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" My parents being from Nigeria deeply informs all my social justice and human rights work. "
Opal Tometi
Parents
Work
Human Rights
" We came in as organizers before creating the Black Lives Matter network and project, and we are still organizers, strategists, political thinkers, and philosophers, so we actually have a lot ideas and a lot of really thought out strategies. "
Opal Tometi
Thought
Matter
Ideas
" 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. "
Opal Tometi
Media
Black
Social Media
" The U.S. government has rarely, if ever, used the criminal history of a certain immigrant population in determining if the whole community should be allowed to remain in the country under a humanitarian program, like TPS. "
Opal Tometi
Community
Country
Government
" Antiblack racism is not only happening in the United States. It's actually happening all across the globe. "
Opal Tometi
United States
Only
Racism
" If things aren't working for us, it is our duty to rise up. "
Opal Tometi
Rise
Us
Up
" I often think of Audre Lorde and her saying that we don't live and we don't fight for one specific struggle. "
Opal Tometi
Fight
Live
Saying
" In my own personal experience, I've had different family members who have been held in immigration detention because they've had some sort of challenge financially, and they were making difficult decisions, and that led to their immigration detention and, eventually, deportation. "
Opal Tometi
Family
Challenge
Experience
" I think about issues like climate change, and how six of the 10 worst impacted nations by climate change are actually on the continent of Africa. People are reeling from all sorts of unnatural disasters, displacing them from their ancestral homes and leaving them without a chance at making a decent living. "
Opal Tometi
Change
Living
People
" Many of the concessions that leading Democrats seem willing to make - from cutting diversity visas to chipping away at family visas - would be made on the backs of black immigrants, people from Africa and the Caribbean who deserve these policies to remain intact as some of the few legal tools they have to immigrate to this country. "
Opal Tometi
Legal
People
Family
" 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. "
Opal Tometi
Slave
Capture
History
" 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. "
Opal Tometi
Opportunities
Hands
Friends
" I'm really looking for an agenda that looks at safety for our communities beyond policing. "
Opal Tometi
Beyond
Safety
Looking
" The valuation of profit over people impedes human rights across much of the world. "
Opal Tometi
World
Rights
People
" We must create a committee to address the long-standing discrimination against black people in America. "
Opal Tometi
People
Against
America
" I think it's really important that we understand the ways in which blackness plays out, right, and discrimination against black people impacts different communities in different ways but ultimately leaves them undermined and really devalued in our society. "
Opal Tometi
People
Black
Society
" 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. "
Opal Tometi
Education
Law
Poverty
" Black Lives Matter is really an affirmation for our people. It's a love note for our people, but it's also a demand. We know that the system was not designed for justice for us. "
Opal Tometi
Know
Black
People
" 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. "
Opal Tometi
Weekend
Value
Care
" I have three godkids that are just so gorgeous; I love them dearly, and they keep me going. "
Opal Tometi
Love
Me
Keep
" I have always felt like I want to change the course of history. "
Opal Tometi
History
Like
Want
" 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. "
Opal Tometi
Time
Stand
Us
" I believe that our communities can benefit if they know about and participate in the U.N.'s various human rights forums. "
Opal Tometi
Know
I Believe
Human Rights
" The black immigrant experience in the U.S. must be understood not in contrast to the African American experience but as an integral part of it. "
Opal Tometi
American
Immigrant
Experience
" Despite claims that there are good and bad cops, we know that the system is failing everyone - including the police. "
Opal Tometi
Know
Good And Bad
Good
" 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. "
Opal Tometi
Feet
Violence
Bench
" For the U.S., a nation that boasts of being the land of the free, it does not live up to its ideal. "
Opal Tometi
Ideal
Free
Up
" 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. "
Opal Tometi
System
People
Out
" 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. "
Opal Tometi
Immigrant
Understand
Black
" 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. "
Opal Tometi
Black
Immigration
Need