Top 90 Opal Tometi Quotes

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.

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.

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

If things aren’t working for us, it is our duty to rise up.

I call on Democrats to use their leverage to fight for a clean DREAM Act and to reject Trump’s racist agenda – not only in word but in deed.

If things aren’t working for us, it is our duty to rise up.

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

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

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

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

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 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.

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

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

The valuation of profit over people impedes human rights across much of the world.

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.

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

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.

The U.S.’ refusal to acknowledge the plight of displaced Haitians and maintaining inhumane practices of neglect, disrespect, and violence amounts to a gross violation of human rights.

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.

Black people, we are fully deserving of the room and space to fully express our humanity. This is what Black Lives Matter is truly about.

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

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

Despite claims that there are good and bad cops, we know that the system is failing everyone – including the police.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Despite claims that there are good and bad cops, we know that the system is failing everyone – including the police.

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

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.

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.

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.

Black people, we are fully deserving of the room and space to fully express our humanity. This is what Black Lives Matter is truly about.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.