Opal Tometi Quotes
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Get involved in your neighborhood. That's how I got really, really committed to the immigrant rights movement.
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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.
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We know that there are people in our nation, black people, who are systematically being disenfranchised in a number of spheres in our lives.
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We actually know that all lives do matter. And we believe it is so much so that we had to create Black Lives Matter.
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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.
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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.
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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?'
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I believe that our communities can benefit if they know about and participate in the U.N.'s various human rights forums.
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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.
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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.
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I challenge us all to have the courage of our convictions to fight for a fair, justice and inclusive society.
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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.
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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.
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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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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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As an immigrant justice advocate, I, of course, want legal status for everyone trying to make it in this country.
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I have three godkids that are just so gorgeous; I love them dearly, and they keep me going.
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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.
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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.
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Police cannot be allowed to continue aggressive, violent, and often unconstitutional policing with impunity.