Join BAJI and Stand with Haiti

The Black Alliance for Just Immigration and groups all across the U.S. are calling upon the Department of Homeland Security to create a Haitian Family Reunification Parole Program – like the still-ongoing Cuban Family Reunification Parole Program it created in 2007 and immediately grant visas to the 105,000 Haitians already approved

Before the January 20120 earthquake, Haitian democracy was and is still being subverted by the actions of the United States, France and other Western nations. As a result, Haiti is the poorest country in the Americas. The earthquake was a devastating blow to the country. Like Katrina in New Orleans, the disaster in Haiti uncovered the underlying racism and economic exploitation that the people of Haiti have been suffering for centuries.

And like New Orleans, where black people were being demonized, criminalized and marginalized by the police, U.S. government, U.N. authorities, rightwing pundits and the U.S. media. There is much talk in the media about the endemic corruption in Haiti. Yet, there is no discussion about U.S. complicity in condoning and supporting dictators, US backing of the 2004 overthrow and kidnapping of Jean Bertrand Aristide, the democratically elected president of Haiti. Nothing is said about the long history of U.S. corporations exploiting Haitian workers in the foreign-owned sweatshops and factories. Despite billions of dollars in donations, 80% of the Haitian people are still living in poverty. Millions of unemployed and impoverished Haitians resided in and around the capital city of Port-au-Prince in substandard, earthquake-prone housing

Prior to the earthquake, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) had approved the immigrant visa petitions of 105,000 Haitians. They must wait years longer in Haiti due to the visa backlog. This needs to happen immediately. And it can happen!

On May 15, 2012 the Petitions for Haitian Family Reunification will be given to the Oakland City Council. Desley Brooks will put forward for Council approval a Resolution in favor of processing Haitians immediately. We are calling on Oakland, Berkeley, San Francisco, Alameda and Contra Costa County residents to sign this petition in support of the resolution.

Oakland: http://www.change.org/petitions/oakland-city-council-pass-a-resolution-in-support-of-a-haitian-family-reunification-program

Berkeley: http://www.change.org/petitions/berkeley-city-council-pass-a-resolution-in-support-of-a-haitian-family-reunification-program

San Francisco: http://www.change.org/petitions/san-francisco-board-of-supervisors-pass-a-resolution-in-support-of-a-haitian-family-reunification-program

Alameda County: http://www.change.org/petitions/alameda-county-board-of-supervisors-pass-a-resolution-in-support-of-a-haitian-family-reunification-program

Contra Costa County: http://www.change.org/petitions/contra-costa-county-board-of-supervisors-pass-a-resolution-in-support-of-a-haitian-family-reunification-program

Richmond City Council: http://www.change.org/petitions/richmond-california-city-council-pass-a-resolution-in-support-of-a-haitian-family-reunification-program

BAJI Book Club

Last Thursday the BAJI Book Club met for the second time at "The Fat Lady" in Jack London square. Over drinks, books and kindles we discussed Part Two of "The Warmth of Other Suns". Exodus. Topics of discussion included being a "Nerd of Color", "Mississippi Masala", What is means to be an ally, Travyon Martin, privilege and parallel struggles.

The beauty of the book, and its portrayal of African American migration, is its ability to draw upon shared experiences of people of color across the world. The Book Club, so far, has been a mixed bag, nationally, racially and ethnically speaking. But this novel has been able to touch everyone, personally.

Conversation started on Trayvon Martin, Florida and it's unqiuely harsh history/legacy of oppression of African Americans. "Lake County and the rest of Florida were far from the lights of Miami and the palm-tree version of paradise that tourists came for. This was the Florida that had eneterd the Union as a slave state, where a Florida slaveholder could report without apology, in 1839, that he worked his slaves "in a hurrying time till 11 or 12 o'clock at night, and have them up by four in the morning." Florida went farther that some other slave state in the creativety of its repression: Slaves could not gather together to pray. They couldn't leave their plantations, even for a walk, without permission from their owner. If they were accused of wrongdoing, "their hands were burned with a heated iron, their ears nailed to posts," or their backs stripped raw with seventy-five lashed from a buckshin whip"pg 58.

This story brought back to memory, Harry Moore, a Florida organizer murdered in Florida. To learn more listen to Sweet Honey and the Rock: The Ballad of Harry T Moore,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wEPZ0rTsHs

This book also made us question, what it means to be an "ally" and how to address "privilege". And films like Soul Man, White Man's Burden, Guess Who, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, Mississippi Masala, as well as the book Black Like Me, popped into the discussion. Check these out!

What ultimately comes out of our book discussions and is BAJI's mission, is the shared struggle of African Americans and immigrants of color. This no more evident than when Isabel Wilkerson discusses the impact of African Americans leaving the South has on the plantation economy. "...planters awoke to empty fields". As one newspaper put it, "If you thought you might be lynched by mistake, would you remain in South Carolina?" This is no different than what is happening right now in the South! http://blog.al.com/spotnews/2011/10/alabama_lawmakers_getting_pres.html

The parallels are so easy to draw, once the information is shared!