September 2022 - “End Racism. Build Peace."
"End Racism. Build Peace” was the theme chosen by the United Nations this year to mark the International Day of Peace occurring every September 21st. It paired two great scourges - racism and war – that are often interwoven, though we don’t always notice it.
If we consider Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, not many people appreciated how this horrible conflict intersects with racism. As an outpouring of sympathy for Ukrainian refugees flooded our media, few were aware that non-white refugees from the region were treated differently. Filippo Grandi, head of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees pointed out that many “Black and Brown people,” like foreign students or workers in Ukraine, “have not received the same treatment as Ukrainian refugees.” Racism can even seep into a war between two primarily white populations. [For more info, go here.]
Also, Malaka Gharib of NPR pointed out that when war victimizes people of color, they get less global sympathy than when victims are white. For example, during the genocidal conflict between Rwandan and Burundi communities in the early 1970’s, few real steps were taken by western nations to stop the killing. More recently, the killing of thousands and displacement of two million in the Tigray area of Ethiopia has gotten little attention in the United States.
In urging us all to end racism and build peace, the United Nations emphasizes that these are not two themes – one to end racism; one to build peace. This is a single unified theme because you cannot have racism and real peace in the same place at the same time. You only have a shallow, hollow representation of peace.
For example, in segregated Jim Crow cities of the south prior to civil rights protests, authorities who “kept the peace” were maintaining a shallow, hollow peace enjoyed by those of certain skin tones. Martin Luther King Jr. said it well: “True peace is not merely the absence of tension: it is the presence of justice.” When Spanish speaking people south of our national borders are denied their civil rights and incarcerated, this does not “keep the peace.” It only furthers injustice.
Over the past few years, when protestors around the U. S. chanted “No Justice. No Peace,” they were saying that you can’t have one without the other. Dr. King, after receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in 1965, called for an end to the Vietnam war, adding that “[t]here can be no peace in the world unless there's justice, and there can be no justice without peace. I think in a sense these problems are inextricably bound together.” Indeed they often are.
Further Action:
1) Share the history of Black Americans who saw the close connection between racism and war, including Dr. King, Shirley Chisholm, Thurgood Marshall, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Muhammad Ali, who was arrested for resisting the military draft, a process he described as simply “white people sending black people to fight yellow people to protect the country they stole from the red people.” See more here.
2) When considering contributing financially to aid victims of war, choose organizations involved in conflicts less known in the U. S., such as the United Nations Refugee Agency or Caritas which funnels charitable gifts around the world, but particularly to Africa and Asia. Or I am Somebody’s Child Soldier which focuses primarily on Africa.