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" 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. "

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" 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

" 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. "

" President Trump is mentally incapable of imagining the humanity of anyone who looks different from him or hails from a different nation. "

" 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. "

" If black lives mattered, I believe that policing and immigration enforcement would not be the devastating force that it is in our communities. "

" 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. "

Opal Tometi

Phoenix

Work

" We deserve a multiracial democracy that works for all of us. "

Opal Tometi

Works

Democracy

" 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. "

" Trump's racism has clearly driven his policy decisions during his first year in office - from his Muslim ban and his despicable treatment of DREAMers to his ruthless ramp-up of immigration raids and the callous termination of protections for Haitians and Salvadorans who fled natural disaster and violence. "

" 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. "

" Police cannot be allowed to continue aggressive, violent, and often unconstitutional policing with impunity. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

Opal Tometi

Daughter

Black

" 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. "

" African-Americans and black immigrants share a resilience and a determination for a better life. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" I have always felt like I want to change the course of history. "

Opal Tometi

History

Want

" 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. "

" 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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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 often think of Audre Lorde and her saying that we don't live and we don't fight for one specific struggle. "

" 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?' "

" As an immigrant justice advocate, I, of course, want legal status for everyone trying to make it in this country. "

" Antiblack racism is not only happening in the United States. It's actually happening all across the globe. "

" 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 can't continue to sit on our hands and sit idly by as people are being brutalized, disenfranchised, and left out of the system. "