As protests of Mike Brown’s murder continue we call on mainstream immigrant rights organizations to stand in solidarity with the family of Mike Brown and with black people everywhere; to center the conversation on Black liberation, to proclaim that Black lives matter. Now is not the time to stay silent. For too long, the Black struggle has been co-opted to legitimize the immigrant rights movement with little to no reciprocity. Movement leaders have consistently ignored and erased the plight of black migrants. Movement leaders have time and time again failed to offer any kind of support when black communities are under siege. Movement leaders continue to embrace anti-Black rhetoric in order to position themselves as worthy of American citizenship. What is citizenship in a country that dehumanizes its Black citizens? What is “the right to be with our families” in light of the murders of Eric Garner, Renisha McBride, Rekia Boyd, John Crawford, Kimani Gray and many others? Did they not have a right to be with their families? This goes beyond stopping deportations. We must challenge racist notions of criminality that are being used to justify the militarization of local police in an effort to antagonize and destroy Black life. The same legal apparatus that unjustly detains and deports millions of immigrants and militarizes the U.S. – Mexico border is the same apparatus that profiles, harasses, arrests, incarcerates and murders with impunity Black people in America. We say enough! No more to the hyper-surveillance of Black communities! No more to state sanctioned violence! No more to anti-Black racism! Enough! To the family of Mike Brown, we grieve with you. To the community in Ferguson, Missouri, we stand with you. His life mattered. Mike Brown mattered. #BlackLivesMatter
Posted on: Sat, 16 Aug 2014 03:52:27 +0000