>>> dhenwood at panix.com 06/21/00 12:40PM >>>
[I asked Njoki Njoroge Njehu, the director of the U.S. 50 Years Is
Enough campaign, to comment on the ColorLines piece, and the
subsequent commentary here. Here's her response. By the way, Njoki is
neither white nor American - she's Kenyan.]
Unless we end up some other place beyond where those "white people" who were involved feel guilty for being white (!)
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CB: On the contrary, these white people are heroines of the year 2000.
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- its happening in all sorts of places - this is a harmful, unproductive, and destructive endeavor! One of the most enlightened response to this came from Courtland Milloy (sp?), an African-American (I think) columnist for the Washington Post, who stated something along the line that it was refreshing to see young, white middle-class kids fighting for something that was not self-beneficial. There are many wonderful things to be said about the April Mobilization, including it wasn't just the 25 of us who were there in April 1999. It was us and over 25,000 other activists! This is no small point, the best we'd ever done on IMF/WB issues was a couple thousand.
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CB: Hurrah for April 16 Mobilization. And hurray for the white activists there. This is NOT at all an example of racism among those whites who protested. The racists here are the people supporting the IMF/WB . These protest activists are marching in the interests of people of all colors.
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And lastly, for me the question is to my sisters and brothers of color. Where were you on April 16th?!
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CB: I was in Detroit.
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There is much to be said about this, but this I think is a productive response... We must continue to struggle on this and other issues. To paraphrase an old saying by Mandela, Its no Easy walk to Global Justice. I just hope and wish our colleagues would be constructive!
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All power to all the people of the earth
CB