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" 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

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

" We must create a committee to address the long-standing discrimination against black people in America. "

" 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?' "

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

" 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. "

" Black immigrants and refugees have just as much at stake in the fight to make Black Lives Matter as African Americans do. "

" Civility is the recognition that all people have dignity that's inherent to their person, no matter their religion, race, gender, sexuality, or ability. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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 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. "

" 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 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. "

" 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. "

" Black Lives Matter has been viral, and people are taking it, appropriating it, and using it however they see fit. "

" We actually know that all lives do matter. And we believe it is so much so that we had to create Black Lives Matter. "

" Fortunately, the leadership of black immigrant communities has always been present in all black liberation movements from leaders like Marcus Garvey to Shirley Chisholm to Malcolm X and Harry Belafonte. We know this is our legacy. "

" 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

" From my youngest brother to immigrant women to black queer folks, those are the people who keep me going. When I think about their various acts of courage, it reminds me that I am not alone and that we can do even more, and we deserve more, so we have to keep going. "

" 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

" 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. "

" Implicit bias - our subconscious associations of race - permeates everything that we do. And we must pursue systemic accountability to fix it. "

" Get involved in your neighborhood. That's how I got really, really committed to the immigrant rights movement. "

" 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. "

" 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'm really looking for an agenda that looks at safety for our communities beyond policing. "

" We know that there are people in our nation, black people, who are systematically being disenfranchised in a number of spheres in our lives. "

" 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. "