Fritz Pointer
Director of Global Outreach, Democratic World FederalistsTaking Black Lives Matter to the UN
The Responsibility to Protect (R2P) has been used by the US to justify brutal invasions of countries like Iraq and Libya. But perhaps the UN could use R2P in a positive way, to help recognize the need to protect black people being killed globally and imprisoned by the United States government authorities.
AN OPEN LETTER:
Black Lives Matter (BLM) is, arguably, the most recognizable, well-known, black organization in the United States, today. We Democratic World Federalists strongly and sincerely want to encourage our organization to add one plank of mutual concern and advocacy to your platform. That is, put simply, to take up the mantel laid down by Mary McLeod Bethune, W.E.B. DuBois and Walter White in 1946 when they submitted a book-length petition to the UN on behalf of African Americans: “An Appeal to the World: A Statement on the Denial of Human Rights to Minorities in the Case of Citizens of African Descent in the United States of America and an Appeal to the United Nations for Redress.” both the National Negro Congress and the NAACP petitions were buried in United Nations committees.
Then, in 1951 Paul Robeson and William Patterson in 1951, submitted a petition to the United Nations on behalf of Black Americans in the interest of peace and democracy, charging the Government of the United States of America with violation of the Charter of the United Nations and the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
More than sixty years ago, the Civil Rights Congress engaged in a campaign to hold the United States accountable for genocide against African Americans. We Charge Genocide: The Historic Petition to the United Nations for Relief from a Crime of The United States against the Negro People (1951) is as relevant today as it was in its own time.
For example, Robeson’s and Patterson’s petition states:
Now there is not a great American city from New York to Cleveland or Detroit, from Washington, the nation’s capital, to Chicago, from Memphis to Atlanta or Birmingham, from New Orleans to Los Angeles, that is not disgraced by
Once the classic method of lynching was the rope. Now it is the policeman’s bullet…We submit that the evidence suggests that the killing of Black people has become police policy in the United States, and that police policy is the most practical expression of government policy.
Then in 1965, three weeks before he was to speak at the UN, Malcolm X was assassinated. He too saw the need to appeal to the United Nations, Malcolm X:
"the American black man needs to recognize that he has a strong, airtight case to take the United States before the United Nations on a formal accusation of 'denial of human rights' - and that if Angola and South Africa are precedent cases, then there would be no easy way that the U.S. could escape being censured, right on its own home ground (Autobiography, 382). He also said, relevant to our current "outreach" that: "Every day, the black African heads of state should be receiving direct accounts of the latest developments in the American black man's struggle (e.g. mass incarceration and an unarmed black man murdered by police every 28 hours) - instead of the U.S. State Department's releases to Africans which always imply that the American black man's struggle is being solved" (378).
The
Every word voiced by Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson against the monstrous Nazi beasts, with which he opened the Nuremberg trials, applies with equal weight, we believe, to those who are guilty of the crimes set forth in this 1951 petition. The litany of what it terms “Causes Celebres” strikes an eerily familiar chord, as it wants the General Assembly to know of “the martyred Martinsville Seven, who died in Virginia’s electric chair for a rape they never committed, in a state that has never executed a white man for that offense;” and, of the Trenton Six, of Paul Washington, the Daniels cousins, Jerry Newsom, Wesley Robert Wells, of Rosalee Ingram, of John Derrick, of Lieutenant Gilbert…the Freeport slaughter, the Monroe killings” etc. And, that was 1951. The petition documented 153 murders and 344 other violent assaults, and numerous other human rights abuses against black Americans from 1945 to 1951. The UN took no action on the petition.
Now, our 2018 “Causes Celebres”: Amadou Diallo, Oscar Grant, Sean Bell, Michael Brown, Trevon Martin, Ranisha McBride, Tamir Rice, Sandra Bland, Eric Garner, Walter Scott, Laquan McDonald, etc. Killing Black people is still police policy in the United States.
The Genocide Convention defined “genocide” as “acts committed to destroy, in whole or in part, a national,
As in 1946, 1951 and 1965, we Democratic World Federalists urge BLM to petition the United Nations to act and to call the government of the United States to account. This time under the definition of The Responsibility to Protect (R2P): a political commitment unanimously adopted by all members of the United Nations General Assembly at the 2005 World Summit and articulated in paragraphs 138-139 of the 2005 World Summit Outcome Document, in summary: (138) Each individual State has the responsibility to protect its populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. (139) The international community, through the United Nations, also has the responsibility to use appropriate diplomatic, humanitarian and other peaceful means, in accordance with Chapters VI and VIII of the Charter, to help protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.
The mass incarceration of Black people in the United States, as documented by Michelle Alexander (The New Jim Crow) “has emerged as a stunningly comprehensive and well-disguised system of racialized social control that functions in a manner strikingly similar to Jim Crow” (4). The United States imprisons a larger percentage of its black population than South Africa did at the height of apartheid. In Washington, D.C., our nations
And, what should the United Nations and the world make of the report that an unarmed black person is killed by police every 28
Thus, the Government of the United State, its Supreme Court, its Congress, its Executive branch, Senators, Governors, Judges as well as the various state, county and municipal governments, consciously promulgate and effectuate policies and practices which result in crimes against Black Americans and a Failure to Protect. Finally, let’s be clear: White supremacy at home makes for the massacre of people of color abroad. The police murderer and the atomic bomber are related.
We Democratic World Federalists believe that the continuance of these American crimes against Black people of the United States will strengthen those reactionary American forces driving towards World War III. So, before the US completely destroys the UN, let us remember these words of Albert Einstein: “There is no salvation for civilization, or even the human race, other than the creation of a world government.”
Sources:
http://www.blackpast.org/we-charge-genocide-historic-petition-united-nations-relief-crime-united-states-government-against
Nikita Mitchell, Organizing Director, Black Lives Matter - Bay Area
Shanelle Matthews, Communications Director, Black Lives Matter - Bay Area
It’s the best time to make some plans for the longer term and it’s time to be happy.
I have learn this publish and if I may just
I wish to recommend you few attention-grabbing issues or suggestions.
Perhaps you can write subsequent articles relating to this article.
I wish to read even more things about it!
Fantastic site you have here but I was wondering if you knew of
any forums that cover the same topics discussed here?
I’d really like to be a part of group where I can get responses from other knowledgeable people that
share the same interest. If you have any recommendations,
please let me know. Appreciate it!
Everything is very open with a really clear explanation of the
challenges. It was definitely informative. Your website is extremely
helpful. Thank you for sharing!
I was recommended this website via my cousin. I am not certain whether this submit is written by way of him
as no one else understand such precise about my problem.
You are amazing! Thanks!
Oh my goodness! Incredible article dude! Thank you, However I am having difficulties with
your RSS. I don’t know the reason why I can’t join it. Is there anyone else getting the
same RSS problems? Anyone that knows the solution will you kindly respond?
Thanks!!
My brother recommended I might like this web
site. He was entirely right. This post actually made my day.
You can not imagine just how much time I had spent for this info!
Thanks!
I think the admin of this website is truly working hard in support of his web page, since here
every data is quality based data.
Hello! I’ve been reading your site for some time now and finally
got the courage to go ahead and give you a shout out from Humble Tx!
Just wanted to mention keep up the great job!
Fastidious answers in return of this question with
firm arguments and telling the whole thing on the topic of that.
Every weekend i used to pay a visit this web page, as i
want enjoyment, for the reason that this this web site conations genuinely pleasant funny stuff too.
I got this site from my friend who informed me concerning this website and now this time I am browsing this web site and reading very informative articles
at this time.
Hi, of course this paragraph is actually fastidious
and I have learned lot of things from it concerning
blogging. thanks.
My relatives always say that I am wasting my time here at
web, however I know I am getting knowledge everyday by reading
such nice posts.
Nice blog right here! Also your site a lot up fast! What host are you using?
Can I am getting your affiliate hyperlink for your host?
I want my website loaded up as fast as yours lol
Hi I am so excited I found your website, I really found you
by accident, while I was researching on Aol for something
else, Anyhow I am here now and would just like to say many thanks for a
incredible post and a all round exciting blog (I also love the theme/design), I don’t have
time to go through it all at the moment but I have bookmarked it and also added in your RSS feeds, so when I have time
I will be back to read more, Please do keep up the awesome job.
At this time I am ready to do my breakfast, later than having my breakfast coming
yet again to read further news.
Nah postingan kali ini sangat bermanfaat, saya sering berkunjung dan membaca postingan disini. Emang keren-keren kontennya. Salah satu blog yang recommended deh.
Very rapidly this website will be famous amid all blogging and site-building visitors, due to it’s good posts
It’s an remarkable piece of writing in favor of all the online users; they will take benefit from it I am sure.
You actually make it appear so easy with your presentation but
I find this matter to be actually something which I
believe I might never understand. It kind of feels too complex and very large for me.
I am looking ahead in your subsequent put up, I’ll try to
get the cling of it!
Its such as you read my mind! You seem to grasp so much approximately this, such as you wrote the
e-book in it or something. I feel that you simply could do with
a few % to pressure the message home a little bit, however instead of that, that is wonderful blog.
An excellent read. I’ll certainly be back.
You actually make it seem so easy with your presentation but I find this topic to be actually something that
I think I would never understand. It seems too complicated and extremely broad for me.
I am looking forward for your next post, I will try to get the hang of it!
I blog quite often and I seriously appreciate your information. The article has
really peaked my interest. I will take a note of your site and
keep checking for new details about once per week. I subscribed to your Feed too.
Keep on writing, great job!
I’m more than happy to discover this web site.
I want to to thank you for ones time for this particularly fantastic read!!
I definitely loved every little bit of it and I have you book-marked to check out new things in your site.
Needed to compose you one tiny observation just to thank you yet again for the splendid suggestions you’ve shared above. It is so remarkably generous with people like you to grant freely all that most of us might have marketed for an e-book to make some dough for their own end, even more so now that you could possibly have tried it if you ever desired. These suggestions in addition worked as the fantastic way to understand that the rest have similar dreams much like my personal own to know significantly more regarding this matter. I know there are several more pleasant opportunities in the future for folks who scan through your site.