What might a global Black Lives Matter movement
look like?
We may find out sooner than we think.
Today on The Laura Flanders Show, we talk
with Black Lives Matter cofounder Opal Tometi
and look at Chicago's successful campaign
for reparations for police torture.
All that and a few words from me on patriarchal
pretexts for racist killing, welcome to our
program.
We talk a lot on this program about the links
between extreme poverty and wealth and extreme
policing of bodies and also borders.
Our next guest is deeply involved in drawing
those connections as well.
She's Opal Tometi, a black feminist writer,
communications strategist, and cultural organizer.
She's co-founder of the Black Lives Matter
network along with Alicia Garza and Patrisse
Cullors, who we've had on this program.
Opal is also executive director of the country's
leading black organization for immigrant rights:
The Black Alliance for Just Immigration.
Opal, welcome to the program.
Thank you so much for having me.
It’s about time.
You complete the triad!
You are the head of the leading black immigration
justice organization.
Somewhere I read there weren't that many of
them.
There aren't.
Sadly, there aren't, in a nation that has
millions and millions of immigrants, and ten
percent of those being black immigrants from
Africa and the Caribbean.
We're the only one that's a national organization
that's working with those communities and
doing a lot of work with our network of about
thirty other organizations.
Take us back a couple of years.
Were you conscious of the fact, in 2013 when
you saw that Black Lives Matter post from
Alicia, I think it was, that here was an opportunity
to connect your issue, the issue of immigrants
rights and justice, to the black justice movement
in this country?
Was it a conscious thing?
It was absolutely conscious.
Yes, and when I reached out to Alicia to say,
“I really think we really need online platform
to connect our groups and to connect our communities,”
I had in mind that it was really important
that we establish a really broad notion of
who is black America, these days.
A really broad notion to ensure that communities
like the ones that I represent, so my parents
are Nigerian immigrants, the communities that
I work with are Afro-Latinos and Caribbean
and so on, I wanted to ensure that this platform
was big enough that they could also have their
voice and their concerns heard.
It was really important to us to ensure that
it wasn't just a movement about police killing
black people but it was also about structural
racism and justice for all black people.
What progress do you think we've made particularly
in telling that structural story?
Going beyond justice for this one or incarceration
for that one, make sure this cop is arrested.
There's a structural story as you said, is
it getting told?
I believe it is.
I think it's been really difficult for our
nation to grapple with what it means to be
living in what folks are trying to name as
a post-racial, colorblind society and really
come to terms with the fact that we're not;
that black people have specific grievances
and concerns and are being devalued across
the board and what does that look like, what's
happening there.
Where do you see the progress?
So some of the progress that I'm seeing is
the types of narratives that we're hearing
these days.
I think that different groups from the labor
sector to immigrant rights to the LGBTQ rights
community are beginning to take up issues
around racial justice in ways that I haven't
heard before.
I'm having people approach me day in and day
out saying you know, we want to actually address
the inequalities in our education system,
for example, in ways that folks weren't quite
talking about race explicitly like they are
now.
I think the conversation has changed.
Has the immigrant rights movement changed?
The immigrant rights movement is changing.
Diplomatically put.
It's changing.
I think folks are really blown away by what
they’re hearing and seeing in the news.
The immigrant community has really been suffering
a great deal of backlash and hate for many
years, from Arizona.
In many ways Arizona was ground zero for anti-immigrant
laws and the testing of these different types
of Draconian laws like S.B. 1070.
I think people were fighting those types of
push-backs and roll backs and with that didn't
really take notice of what was happening in
the broader black community.
I think as they're seeing the killings, as
they're hearing more stories of inequity and
seeing the structural conditions of black
communities, they are becoming more and more
aware and they're taking note also that there
are black immigrants in the movement who also
have specific issues that need to be addressed.
You said you're from Arizona but Nigeria also
got mentioned.
Do you want to tell us your story a little
bit?
Opal Tometi: Yes, thank you.
My parents are immigrants from Nigeria, they
migrated to Arizona looking for a better future
for their children basically, for going to
school.
Being born and raised and coming of age in
Arizona, I knew really acutely the impact
of racism on my own family but also on my
community.
How so?
I remember many times my dad being pulled
over by the cops.
Being racially profiled for what we call Driving
While Black, but the implications for an immigrant
are quite different depending on your immigration
status and depending on a number of different
things.
So that was real concern for my family.
Time and time again we would have aunts and
uncles and different people in our community
who were being profiled and whom some of which
were detained and some of which were deported.
.
Do you feel the international aspect of your
life is being brought into this Black Lives
Matter movement?
We talked to Patrisse about going to England
and Palestine, Ireland as well.
She said that she wanted there to be closer
international ties.
that this needs to be a global movement.
Is it moving in that direction?
I know that you were in a meeting of immigrant
rights groups in Europe not so long ago.
It's actually happening now and I think what's
really great is the way we have technology
these days and we're using social media and
different tools.
We're able to connect more quickly with our
comrades in different parts of the world and
so we're hearing more quickly stories of what's
happening in East Africa and Europe and so
on, in ways that we might not have heard as
quickly and been able to show up in solidarity.
How does that change things for you or your
organization?
Or does it?
It absolutely does.
In particular for the immigrant rights community.
We have a transnational commitment, quite
honestly.
Our families are abroad and then we're also
working and living here.
There's this kind of natural inclination to
keep in touch with our family, keep in touch
in terms of what's going on in terms of the
politics and changing dynamics on the ground.
For me that's meant being in touch with more
immigrant rights activists in places like
Europe and in places like Africa.
As you mentioned, I was in Berlin meeting
with a number of different immigrant rights
organizations from across Europe.
Are there particular policy positions or policies
that you think give you an opportunity to
talk about these questions?
To fight?
Thinking of trade policy, the Trans Pacific
Partnership, things like that
Opal Tometi: Yes.
I think that there are some opportunities
for us to connect the dots.
There's stuff that happens with our foreign
policy but there are also transnational corporations
which I think we can follow.
I'm thinking, as you mentioned the Trans Pacific
Partnership, this international trade agreement
that's in the works right now that many of
our communities don't know much about and
will actually be acutely impacted by it.
It is imperative that we actually name that
this thing is taking place.
We look at the history of transnational corporations
and these foreign trade policies like NAFTA,
so the North American Free Trade Agreement,
and how it devastated our communities.
Not only in the United States but abroad.
In places like Mexico, displacing 6 million
farm workers, forcing them to migrate to northern
parts of Mexico and even across the border
to the United States.
Really changing the demographics but also
really undermining their own livelihood, their
dignity, and their ability to stay home and
be with their families.
Laura Flanders: We're talking about a very
big picture and I want to ask you a little
bit about your strategies as an organizer
when it comes to getting people to absorb
a big picture.
I think the way that we do it is by being
open to who it is that we really are.
I'm thinking about the Haitian immigrant community
that I work with right here in Brooklyn, New
York, in Crown Heights.
How they're at the margins of the margins
of even the immigrant community here.
The lowest wages.
Highest unemployment.
Most discrimination in the work place.
But they're also witnessing some family members
in the Dominican Republic being deported and
being dehumanized at their core.
The Dominican Republic recently just withdrew
[citizenship] for Haitians, people of Haitian
descent.
Right.
They're denationalizing Dominicans of Haitian
descent.
We know that people here who are Haitian and
their allies care about that.
We know we can't sit idly by while that’s
taking place.
You're part of something called the Safety
Beyond Policing movement?
What is that?
Tell us about that.
Safety Beyond Policing is a campaign that
myself, members of the Black Alliance for
Just Immigration, Black Lives Matter, Million
Hoodies, Black Youth Project and a number
of organizations across New York City have
launched.
This is a campaign that really re-examines
our notions of safety on our terms.
So safety meaning our ability to reside in
dignified communities, our ability to have
a good job, our ability to get mental health
services and support when we need it.
As opposed to what we're seeing in New York
City, which is the hyper-policing of low-income
communities.
Often times those low-income communities are
black or brown, and so we're saying let's
stop criminalizing poverty, let's stop policing
poverty.
Why don't we do things to address those challenges
that our communities are having.
Are you having any luck inserting those metrics
into a movement or into a moment where people
are saying, 'we’ll reform policing, we'll
add body cameras.'
What we're saying is that we have to actually
challenge the very notion of criminalization
of our communities.
So with that, we can actually see that happen
at the very local level.
For example, in New York City we had a budget
and the City Council’s examining the budget,
negotiating the budget and for 170 million
dollar they could have 1300 more police in
New York City.
Or a whole lot of other things.
Or a whole lot of other things.
So our challenge, as a people to advocate
for other things, other resources for our
communities as opposed to police.
We already have the largest law enforcement
in the nation and the 7th largest military
is the NYPD, the way that they're militarized,
weaponized, that is happening here in New
York City.
What we can do at the local level is challenge
the very notion that we need more police and
say we actually need a lot of other things
- educators, social workers, public health
professionals.
But we lost that fight even with a progressive
caucus majority inside the City Council and
a mayor who says he's for police reform.
Right.
So that thing that happened - they undermined
us, right?
People are now beginning to question our entire
system.
How can democracy play out when we didn't
actually have a say in where those monies
went?
And that is on Bill De Blasio and the city
council to account for that.
I want to close by asking you about something
that I read from Ta-Nehisi Coates recently,
where he talked about the American dream.
He said the American dream is inseparable
from slavery because slavery is the dream.
Oh wow.
… As somebody who tracks global migrations,
and I'm sure the story takes you back to slavery
often, what do you think about that?
And how do you see us unraveling this mess
that we're in?
That's a really profound question and a profound
statement.
I think the sad reality is that we do hear
echoes of enslavement, of forced migration,
of capture, of exploitation in the ways our
current migration happens.
Right now there are billions of people who
are forced to migrate, according to the United
Nations.
This is a global occurrence and it's happening
in more exponential numbers because of the
ways in which economic globalization is destabilizing
nations and disenfranchising local communities,
making the poorest of the poor even more poor.
Extreme poverty is forcing people to migrate
across the globe.
They might be migrating to different parts
of Africa, they might be migrating to Europe,
they might be going to the US and that's happening
because they're being exploited.
Sadly on top of that, we're seeing the criminalization
of their movement.
I think this really reminds me of enslavement
of black people.
It's not exactly the same, I would never conflate
it and say that it's the exact same but there
are elements that are there.
So for me and the work that we do with the
Black Lives Matter movement and the Black
Alliance for Just Immigration, we're here
to really challenge the root causes of economic
injustice.
The displacement of people across the globe,
the gentrification that's happening even within
the US in places like Brooklyn, New York where
I live; the gentrification here; we're looking
at the ways in which corporations at the local
level and real estate has a hand in the criminalization
of our people, and the policing of our people,
and trying to move us out from our neighborhoods
in order to build more, to have new communities
in there, more shops and so on.
To end on a slightly different note, tell
us what’s the most fun thing about working
with Alicia Garza and Patrisse Cullors in
Black Lives Matter.
Oh my gosh.
The most fun thing about working with them
is that we're a true sisterhood.
We are learning more and more about one another,
and we're challenged by each other, in terms
of learning about who it is that we are.
From being queer black women to me having
the roots of immigrant parents, and being
able to share more intimately our upbringings.
We come from really different places and it's
just been really amazing to have this sisterhood
that's gone from a very unique, local, kind
of occurrence and it's now having implications
and flourishing across the world.
Thank you so much, it’s great having you
on the show.
Appreciate it.
You can see my interview with Patrisse Cullors
and my interview with also Alicia Garza at
our website and you'll be able to find out
more about our guest Opal Tometi there too.
Thanks
[music]
This year the people of Chicago won a historic
victory, reparations for police torture.
To learn more, we spoke with two people that
helped lead the campaign, torture survivor
Darrell Cannon and civil rights lawyer Joey
Mogul
[music]
"Well my hellish nightmare started November
2, 1983, when a group of all-white detectives
invaded my apartment, during the day of November
2, these particular detectives did despicable
things to me that no human being should have
to undergo.
My hellish nightmare continued for another
24 years.
Since then, it's been my mission to right
the wrongs that they have done with other
guys who are still in prison.
And because of that I continue to speak out
about the atrocities that happened to me and
to others as well, in hopes that they too
will someday get a fair and impartial hearing.
[off camera] Please state your name for the
record and share with the members of the committee
any time that you might have on this matter.
My name is Darrell Cannon and I'm a survivor
of having been tortured.
The Burge torture case is otherwise known
as the Chicago Police torture cases involve
the torture of over 100 African American men
and women in Chicago's Southside.
The torture was led by former police commander
Jon Burge and other white detectives under
his command.
his reign of terror lasted for two decades
from 1972 to 1991.
The torture included electrically shocking
people, with an electric shock box and cattle
prods, on their genitals, ears and lips.
It included using garbage bags or typewriter
covers and putting them over people's heads,
and then kick or punching them in the chest
or stomach, forcing them to breathe out, and
then suck that bag back in, realizing that
they could have no air and that they were
going to suffocate.
Several individuals talk about being beaten
with telephone books, or blackjacks or other
rubber devices that inflict severe physical
pain, but like most torture tactics leave
no physical marks.
And all of this torture was committed in order
to extract confessions.
And then those confessions were then used
in people's criminal cases to wrongfully convict
them and in the case of 11, send them to Illinois'
notorious death row.
The torture was also very explicitly racially
motivated.
Almost all of the detectives who engaged in
it were white, all of the victims were black,
a few were Lation, and the detectives throughout
the interrogations called people racial epithets,
racists slurs and engaged in racist terrorism.
To not only inflict severe intimidation and
pain to the individuals who were being interrogated
but intimidate their families as well as African
American communities.
Now I must admit, when I first hear the word
reparations, in association with the Jon Burge
case, I was apprehensive.
You know, I wondered, "Could this ever come
about?
Especially here in Chicago?"
The reparations ordinance asked for financial
compensation for the Burge torture survivors
because for so many of them, while they had
complained about the torture decades ago,
they were unable to sue because they were
facing criminal charges at the time.
And now their statute of limitations has expired.
So they had no legal recourse whatsoever to
get financial compensation or any other redress.
So one thing we were demanding was financial
compensation.
We were also demanding that there be a psychological
counseling center built outside of Chicago.
Because we all recognize that torture inflicts
heinous psychological scars that never go
away.
Now I cry, not because I hurt.
I cry cause I'm mad.
I'm still mad today.
Because of what happened to me.
And I'll stay mad.
Can't no one tell me to forgive, forget or
anything else.
You do not expect the people who have a badge
to treat you in that manner.
Part of the reparations package was also seeking
free enrollment in Chicago city colleges,
recognizing that the torture didn't just affect
the torture survivors and their family members
but their grandchildren as well.
And that this torture and the harm it inflicts
has a legacy that continues to this day.
Further, we sought that the reparations package
provide teaching about the Burge torture cases
in Chicago public schools because we wanted
to create this public narrative that really
describe these torture cases as well as the
struggle for justice and we thought that was
important to memorialize and teach about to
our youth.
And finally we asked for a permanent public
memorial, the creation of that in Chicago,
again to document and make this history permanent
and to create a public narrative that accurately
described what occurred here.
[man standing] we have some victims of torture
here today and their families and if they
would rise when call their names, Darrell
Cannon, Anthony Holmes, Prince McDuddy, Mira
Diggins, Mark Clemens, Ronnie Kitchen and
Carolyn Johnson, mother of Marcus Diggins,
thank you for your leadership, thank you for
continuing to fight even though you're out,
you're fighting for those who are still in,
you're fighting for those who are suffering,
thank you so much.
Thank you Mr. Chairman.
The reparations ordinance in Chicago is the
first time we've ever had reparations for
law enforcement violence, given by a city,
throughout the nation.
And I believe it is the first time that we've
ever had redress provided that was in fact
called, by statute, reparations.
And I think that's a huge victory, in and
of itself.
That was Joey Mogul and Darrell Cannon, interviewed
at the Allied Media Conference in Detroit.
You can get more information at our website.
"You rape our women and you're taking over
our country," said Dylann Roof as he opened
fire on African Americans in Charleston Historic
AME Baptist Church, killing six black women
and three men.
I'm not Dylann Roof's woman.
White, female, queer, his racist patriarchal
violence does not protect me or make me safe.
Nor am I the first to refute his claim that
he commits murder in white women's defense.
Over a century ago, Ida B. Wells Barnett debunked
lies like his, reported the facts and led
a campaign to make lynching stop.
Some white women were spurred to act, Jessie
Daniel Ames founded the Ames founded the Association
of Southern Women for the Prevention of Lynching
which gathered tens of thousands of signatures
on a pledge that read in part:
"[P]ublic opinion has accepted too easily
the claim of lynchers and mobsters that they
are acting solely in defense of womanhood…
We dare no longer to permit this claim to
pass unchallenged..."
That was 1930.
Vigilantes have used the pretext of protecting
women for my entire life.
Women of all colors, as well as men have perished
as a result.
For all that time, presidents have used the
same fake pretext wars of empire abroad.
"One thing is certain, there won't be anymore
mass graves and torture rooms and rape rooms"
said George W. Bush after the invasion of
Iraq as he oversaw his own global torture
regime takeoff.
The killing of men and women of color doesn't
protect me or make me safe, not abroad nor
in US streets.
George Zimmerman, Daniel Pantelo, Dante Servin,
you don't protect me.
Nor do the institutions of control with your
pathological locks and jails.
Nor does our money media with its deadly lies
about who and what pose a threat to life,
the global business interests those media
serve?
With their sick profits and stiff stomachs
for other people's suffering and loss are
bringing us all to the brink.
Racist patriarchal killer, I know that you
seek to keep me and my sisters in our place.
Silent, separate and apart from others with
whom we might otherwise make common cause.
I refuse.
Women of all colors are refuting you.
A statement is right now being finalized.
If you want to sign on, write 
to me laura@GRITtv.org.
Thanks.
