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" 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. "

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" 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. "

Opal Tometi

Understand

Rights

Racism

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

" 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

" I challenge us all to have the courage of our convictions to fight for a fair, justice and inclusive society. "

" I have two younger brothers, and I know my parents have spoken to them about driving and interacting with police. They didn't have those conversations with me, but they did have conversations about being exceptional black people. "

Opal Tometi

People

Parents

" 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. "

" My parents being from Nigeria deeply informs all my social justice and human rights work. "

" I believe that our communities can benefit if they know about and participate in the U.N.'s various human rights forums. "

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

" 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. "

" We deserve to live in a world where there's no impunity, but beyond this question of impunity, there are all these structures that are actually doing a disservice to our people. "

" 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 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. "

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

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

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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?' "

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

" 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

" 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. "