Pan African Women's Action Summit

The Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI) and our sister organization, Priority Action Network (PAN) will be co-hosting a workshop at the Pan African Women's Action Summit on August 11th, 2011 in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

The Pan-African Women’s Action Summit (PAWAS) was created in 2005 to convene diverse black diaspora women to promote collaboration, networking, skill building, as well as personal health and wellness to strengthen the Pan-African Philanthropy Movement's capacity to impact the social and other issues that affect our communities.

Our workshop is entitled Beyond Us and Them: Sharing Our Stories, Healing Our Communities. Here's the workshop description:

It is a fact that the “black community” in this country is changing and is a lot more diverse than we assume. While the majority of the Black population is still African Americans – there are significant and increasing populations of Black immigrants that are adding challenging existing assumptions of the homogeneity in the “black.”

When then Senator Obama first announced his candidacy for the highest Presidency, much of the discussion among Black communities was the challenge in defining his identity. Clearly he is black and yet he is not of slave-ancestry; he was not “black enough” for some and too black for others. His identity as a man whose father is African, married to an African American made visible the profound need for race dialogue among diverse black communities. It also made visible both the commonalities and differences in the black community.

Statistics show that an estimated 5% of the Black population is made up of immigrants from Africa and another 12% of immigrants from the Caribbean. Yet, racial discourse is framed always within the black/white dichotomy and very little exists to have transnational conversations which bring race, culture, identity and history into our communities.

We at Priority Africa Network and the Black Alliance for Just Immigration have held several community dialogues that brought together diverse groups from Africa, the Americas and the Caribbean in the San Francisco/Bay Area. Lessons learned from these over the past five years have given insight into ways to bring much needed exchanges on the critical need to know one another’s history, to go beyond the assumptions of damaging stereotypes held on all sides.

This workshop will present one model on how to hold open and healing exchanges about the divisions that exist in the African diaspora community. As the number of Black immigrants increases in the coming decade, and there is increased visibility of the diversity of Black communities, the opportunity to learn and use these transformative ideas is critical. It will also highlight the role and power of diverse black women, and their allies, in building community across ethnic and racial lines.

USHRN on Boycott in Georgia over HB 87 - an Arizona SB 1070 Copycat

US Human Rights Network's Ajamu Baraka discusses Georgia's HB 87 -- a draconian copycat of Arizona's SB 1070. Ajamu Baraka shares with Kali Akuno about the ensuing boycott if this bill becomes law in the state of Georgia and also explains why African-Americans should actively fight HB 87.

The Black Alliance for Just Immigration will promote and support a boycott of Georgia if HB 87 becomes law.

Re-post rom USHRN BLOG - Human rights group boycotts Georgia over immigration measure

By Jeremy Redmon

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
1:13 p.m. Tuesday, May 3, 2011

A human rights organization has canceled plans to hold its biannual conference in Atlanta this year amid calls to boycott Georgia because of a tough immigration enforcement bill that the state Legislature approved last month.

The U.S. Human Rights Network, a nonprofit organization based in Atlanta, had not booked a location yet for its three-day event but was expecting more than 600 people from across the country to attend the meeting in December, said a spokeswoman for the organization.

The meeting will be relocated to another state because of Georgia’s House Bill 87, the spokeswoman said. A new location has not yet been selected. The network, meanwhile, did not have an estimate for the economic impact its conference would have had for the Atlanta area.

Critics of HB 87 are hoping the network’s decision will be the first of many boycotts to be announced as they seek to pressure Gov. Nathan Deal to veto the bill. A spokeswoman for Deal recently confirmed the Republican governor plans to sign HB 87 before the end of next week.

“HB 87 is another sad apartheid initiative spreading throughout the country to create fear and exploit people in compromised positions,” said Ajamu Baraka, the U.S. Human Rights Network’s executive director. “Reactionary forces in this country are attempting to turn the clock backward to the 18th century by creating these laws.”

Supporters of the legislation say illegal immigrants are burdening Georgia's schools, hospitals and jails. And they point to a recent Pew Hispanic Center estimate that says Georgia is home to more illegal immigrants than Arizona, with 425,000 living here.

Like a law Arizona enacted last year, Georgia’s measure would empower police to investigate the immigration status of certain suspects. And it would punish those who transport or harbor illegal immigrants or use fake identification to get jobs here.

The Human Rights Network, which says on its website that its purpose is to build a human rights movement in the United States, plans to continue its boycott of Georgia until HB 87 is scrapped. Among the network's founding members are the American Civil Liberties Union, Amnesty International USA and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

Last week, the Atlanta Convention & Visitors Bureau went on record opposing HB 87 over concerns that it could hurt the region's $10 billion tourism industry. The bureau's executive committee unanimously passed a resolution saying the measure is "unwelcoming" and could "tarnish Atlanta's reputation as one of America's most welcoming cities."

Atlanta's convention and tourism boosters are hoping Georgia won't suffer like Arizona, which lost dozens of conventions after that state enacted similar legislation last year. A spokeswoman for the Atlanta Convention & Visitors Bureau said Tuesday that no Atlanta conventions have been canceled because of HB 87.

A spokesman for Deal issued a statement last week in response to the bureau’s resolution.

“Illegal immigration costs Georgia taxpayers hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars, each year at the city, county and state levels,” said Brian Robinson, Deal’s spokesman. “Georgia will treat everyone in our state with respect, and we want to encourage immigrants who settle in Georgia to go through the proper legal channels. Frankly, Georgia is leading the way by requiring that employers follow existing federal law. Look for other states -- who face the same challenges and costs -- to follow Georgia's lead."
Find this article at:

http://www.ajc.com/news/georgia-politics-elections/human-rights-group-boycotts-933522.html

BAJI turns 5 years old!

The Black Alliance for Just Immigration invites you to our 5th Anniversary Dinner and Awards Ceremony. Come celebrate 5 years of work in the community and help us recognize those who have helped to ignite a movement.

Founder Awards - Rev. Phillip Lawson and Rev. Kelvin Sauls
Ally Award - Priority Africa Network
Community Activist Award - Catherine Tactaquin, National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights
Community Activist Award - Pierre LaBosierre, Co-founder, Haiti Action Committee
Young Leaders Award - R.I.S.E. Immigration Research Team, Berkeley High School

Saturday, June 4, 2011
5:30 pm: Reception & Silent Auction
7:00 pm: Dinner and Program

Islamic Cultural Center of Northern California
1433 Madison Street, Oakland 94612

Tickets are $60. Please purchase at: http://bit.ly/BAJI5year
Facebook Event Page.

The Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI) is an organization founded in Oakland, California in 2006 to engage African Americans and other communities in a dialogue that leads to actions that challenge U.S. immigration policy and the underlying issues of race, racism and economic inequity that frame it.

BAJI is an education and advocacy group comprised of African Americans and black immigrants from Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean. BAJI’s goals are: 1) to develop a core group of African Americans who are prepared to actively support immigrant rights; and 2) to facilitate the building of relationships and alliances between African American and immigrant communities around a range of social issues to further the mutual cause of economic and social justice for all.

BAJI works to expose the ways in which racism and economic globalization have negatively impacted African American and immigrant communities alike, giving them common cause to fight together for economic and social justice for all peoples. BAJI’s strategy is to provide education and information to African American communities about the commonality of interests between African Americans and immigrants of color and to give technical assistance and training to leaders and organizers in communities of color.

In the past 5 years we've done various things including:

+ Led numerous “Conversations on Immigration” in local African American churches;

+ held public forums on Black Diaspora issues such as ‘Imprisonment of African Immigrants in Europe’;

+ Worked with various Inter-Faith initiatives around immigration and immigrant rights issues;

+ Active in Local May Day Immigrant Rights Demonstrations since 2006;

+Worked in local immigrant rights coalitions with Latino & Asian organizations;

+A major organization in the Oakland City I.D. card campaign ;

+ Collaborated with local groups working against car impoundments; for multi-language translation of Public documents; and most recently against the DHS-“Secure Communities” program;

+ Sponsored “Africa Diaspora Dialogues” between Africans and African Americans along with the Priority Africa Network; attempting to build unity along political and cultural lines;

+Collaborated with the Oakland Museum of California as part of the planning and publicity for the Museum’s “Africans in Mexico” Exhibition;

+Sponsored Tele-Conferences with prominent academics and activists on topical Black Diaspora issues;

On a the national and international level we've done the following:

+ Led campaigns to secure Temporary Protective Status for both Haitians and Liberians in the U.S.;

+ Active participant in both the U.S and World Social Forum processes 2007 -2011;

+ Founding members of the Pan African Network in Defense of Migrant Rights - participated in founding meetings in Bamako, Mali, Mexico City, Mexico and Dakar, Senegal;

+ Set up the Black Immigration Network (B.I.N.) as an advocacy network for Black Immigrants in the U.S.;

+ Led a delegation of Black Pastors to Phoenix, Arizona for the May 29^th Rally in 2010;

+ Participated in various national and state conferences on Immigration and related topics;

+ Along with the Coalicion de Derechos Humanos and the National Network for Immigrant & Refugee Rights, BAJI led the first all-Black delegation for a Tour of the Mexico/Arizona border in 2007;

+ Published 2 editions of the BAJI Reader;

+ Published the Report - Crossing Boundaries, Connecting Communities: Alliance Building for Immigrant Rights and Racial Justice. detailed case studies of 16 organizations from across the country that are forging effective cross racial alliances between immigrant and native-born communities in order to build power and win just policies and practices in their communities.