Quotes by Opal Tometi - Page 2

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 /
Amplification
Deserve
Haitian
Immigration
Networks
Refugees
Voices
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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.
Opal Tometi /
Population
Criminal
Determining
Immigrant
Rarely
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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.
Opal Tometi /
Folks
Human Rights
Immigrants
International
International Community
Partners
Rights
All People
Believe I Believe Justice
Seriously
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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.
Opal Tometi /
Policemen
Dreamed
Held
Struggled
Positions
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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 /
Interacting
Conversations
Police Black Me
Spoken
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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.
Opal Tometi /
Fewer
Investment
Preserves
Workers
Displace
Imagining
Possibilities
Social Workers
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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.
Opal Tometi /
Legacy
Liberation
Fortunately
Harry
Immigrant
Malcolm
Movements
Shirley
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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 /
Philosophers
Strategies
Thinkers
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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.
Opal Tometi /
Outcomes
Phenomenon
Racism
Context
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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.
Opal Tometi /
Academic
Activism
Classroom
Setting
Time Work Learning
Actual
Work Time Learning
Informed
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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 /
Detention
Immigration
Our Community
Turns
Visiting
Favor
Instilled
Systems
Uncle
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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 /
Engaging
Evolve
Human Rights
Implications
Racism
United Nations
Variety
Activists
Bodies
Rights Movement
Structural
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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 /
Blackness
Different Ways
Discrimination
Devalued
Impacts
Leaves
Undermined
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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.
Opal Tometi /
Cases
Following
Subway
Tickets
Arrest
Bench
Due
Interactions
Park
Policing
Sleeping
Spitting
Unpaid
Windows
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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 /
Immigrants
Work I Am Me
African
African Americans
Alliance
Work Me I Am
Drove
Executive
Immigrant
Nigerian
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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.
Opal Tometi /
Courage
Women
Alone
Black
Brother
Deserve
Folks
Various
Acts
Those
Even
Immigrant
Queer
Reminds
Youngest
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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.
Opal Tometi /
Activity
Amount
Fascination
Intellectual
Organizer
Degree
Holds
However
Material
Purely
Tendency
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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.
Opal Tometi /
Deportation
Detention
Difficult Decisions
Family Members
Immigration
Members
Decisions
Challenge
Financially
Held
Led
Personal Experience
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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.
Opal Tometi /
Abolition
Civil Rights
Crow
Jim Crow
Oppressed
Fundamentally
Jim
Legislative
Watershed
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The U.S. has long characterized Haitian immigrants as criminals. This tradition began in 1963 when the first boat of Haitians seeking political asylum was summarily rejected by U.S. immigration officials, while at the same time the U.S. admitted thousands of Cubans as refugees and political asylees.
Opal Tometi /
Boat
Cuban
Haitian
Immigrants
Officials
Rejected
Seeking
Tradition
Admitted
Time Political Long
Asylum
Characterized
Refugees
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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.
Opal Tometi /
Amazing
Amazing Things
Arizona
Campus
College
Connected
Groups
Involved
Issues
Social
Social Justice
University
Bachelor
Cared
Student
Working
Number
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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.
Opal Tometi /
Callous
Despicable
Disaster
Driven
Haitian
Immigration
Natural Disaster
Office
Policy
Racism
Ruthless
Termination
Treatment
Trump
Decisions
Ban
Clearly
Muslim
Policy Decisions
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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 /
Climate Change
Decent
Leaving
Nations
Six
Unnatural
Worst
Africa
Ancestral
Continent
Disasters
Homes
Impacted
Reeling
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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.
Opal Tometi /
Legal
Caribbean
Cutting
Deserve
Immigrants
Tools
Willing
Africa
Backs
Chipping
Democrats
Intact
Leading
Policies
Remain
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