In Solidarity: STOP THE GENOCIDE IN DARFUR

Original post from Blackwomenvote.blogspot.com

Americans: how can we call ourselves a civilized nation, and knowingly allow human beings to be slaughtered by the thousands?

Black Americans: We intimately know the effects of destroying an African people through ethnic hatred and greed. How can we claim to still be angry about this, yet do nothing to stop it from happening again?

World Citizens of Every Nation: Where is your conscience? How can you claim to believe in God, yet do none of His work?

STOP THE GENOCIDE IN DARFUR

Most of us academically know the facts:

More than 400, 000 innocent people have been butchered to death, for no other reason than they were Black non Arabs.

Rape and mutilation, extreme violence against women and girls, have become a widespread war tactic.

SLAVERY: Reports have surfaced of Black Africans being forced into slavery .

The Janjaweed have burned down entire villages, forcing millions to become homeless.

More than one million people have been forced to flee their homes, and today subsist as refugees.

Many people are dying from starvation, exposure, drought, and treatable diseases.

We read these things, but can we really FEEL them? Let the children of Darfur tell you the story:




How can we allow children to see their homes burned down, and their mothers raped and sold into slavery?

Does the world not have a heart?

Shouldn't this situation spark some kind of collective memory of the Black children of the Great Kidnapping in America?

(Why aren't we flooded with Black American coverage of this story?)




What kind of people are we to turn our backs, and conduct 'business as usual' while these helpless children to see their fathers gunned down, tortured and burned alive for reasons that nobody can explain?
















Years from now, when your children and grandchildren read about this genocide in their history books, and ask you what you did about it -- what will you say?









How many more orphans have to be made, how much more innocent blood has to be spilled, before America and the world obeys their moral obligation to end this unspeakable suffering?

---

What you can do:

1. Adopt an orphan from the Sudan. Rescue a child from this nightmare.

2. Give as much money that you can, MONTHLY, to Amnesty International, or any reputable relief fund. Sacrifice something in order to do it - donate your morning Starbucks coffee money, cancel a magazine subscription, wash your car by hand -- just find the money to donate to relief efforts.

3. Call your Congressperson EVERY DAY about this. Demand immediate action. Put them on speed dial on your cell phone.

4. Educate yourself on the China connection to the genocide, as well as the involvement of other nations, including America.

5. Refuse to allow the Olympics to be played in your home. Explain to your husbands and to your children that there are more important things at stake than the enjoyment of sports.

6. Recruit your friends, family, coworkers in an awareness campaign.

There are many, many other things that you can do.

1. Write to the ambassadors of the US, the UK, Russia and France to the UN.
Urge them to help China insist that Khartoum stop its obstruction.

2. Email or call the Olympic Corporate Sponsors.
Send a letter to companies sponsoring the 2008 Olympics, hosted by China. (Dream for Darfur’s email system will let you do this with the touch of a button.)

3. Pledge to turn off the commercials of Olympic Sponsors during the Games.
Olympic corporate sponsors have been silent about China’s financing of the Darfur genocide, even as the sponsors are spending billions to enhance China’s image as Olympic host. If sponsors continue to ignore China’s complicity in the Darfur genocide, we will ignore their million-dollar ad campaigns.

4. Write to the UN Special Adviser on Sport for Development and Peace.
Mr. Adolf Ogi represents the UN Secretary-General in contacts with international sports bodies. Tell him you are concerned that the world will gather for the Olympics while the people of Darfur are being slaughtered.

5. Petition the International Olympic Committee.
Urge the IOC to work with the international community to ensure that China uses its leverage with the government of Sudan to help stop the genocide in Darfur, and avoids tarnishing the 2008 Games in Beijing.

More ideas: (thank you iman)

- Demand that your pension/mutual fund to divest from Sudan. And if you don't have a pension fund ask that your state divest their pension funds from sudan. Some states, like California, have already done so. Also if you have a fund that's not invested in Darfur, but invested is PetroChina, urge them to divest, because petro china is one of the largest funders of the conflict through the Sudanese governemnts oil revenue. I don't know all the companies invested in Petro China, but I know JP Morgan Chase is one for sure.

- Make sure people stop reffering to this as the "war in sudan" instead of the genocide in sudan. I believe the US is the only country to declare that this is genocide. As we all know, words matter.

- If your not doing anything today, and you live in the DC area, join the protest on the mall.

Whatever you do, do not just shake your head and continue 'business as usual'. We, by virtue of being human beings, have the obligation to stop this kind of horror. The more enriched the perpetrators become from this genocide, the more we, ourselves, become at risk.

PLEASE, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, DO SOMETHING.