Just like many of you, we at SEACA spent our weekend watching in horror as police throughout the country attacked Black Lives Matter protestors as well as journalists covering the marches.
SEACA likely wouldn’t exist if not for the organizing and movement building of black community partners. In fact, SEACA exists because of the legacy of the Black Power movement.
Black activists helped to dismantle the racist quota system that limited immigration from Asian countries to only 100 people per year, and black organizing and advocacy contributed to the US government policy to accept Southeast Asian refugees in the aftermath of the wars in Southeast Asia.
So we are here to acknowledge the debt that we owe to our black siblings. We owe them so much more than just a denouncement of racism and police violence.
We owe them, and all of us, a better system. We owe them more than just a demand that George Floyd’s family receives justice. We will work with them to fight for a system where what happened to George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Eric Garner, Sandra Bland, Freddie Grey, and so many others becomes unimaginable. We will work to dismantle a system where black people are no longer more likely to die in police custody than white people. A system where black people are more likely to be homeless than white people. A system where black people are more likely to die of COVID 19 than white people.
Black lives matter and we owe them better.
