IMARA advocacy

IMARA advocacy There's a lot of noise. A lot of voices. Yelling against us and yelling for us. But none that comes from us or speak our stories. So join us, like us, embrace us.

A world in which the human rights of all young people are respected and young people of colour are empowered to take their place as leaders in their communities. The strength and resilience to do this is IMARA. A youth run advocacy organisation with the sole focus of making the voice of young people of colour heard. We realise our community is divided and fractured on so many levels. Often, it is

easier to find a point of difference then to acknowledge how similar we really are. We are united by the struggles we face. We need to mobilise and realise that we have the power to change what marginalises us. Spread it through the grape-vine; we're conscious.

"What we're seeing is police that all too often view African youth as being potential criminals, rather than being victi...
28/08/2014

"What we're seeing is police that all too often view African youth as being potential criminals, rather than being victims or vulnerable and needing care and respect and I guess what we're seeing here is that Michael Atakelt was one of these criminalised young men, was viewed through that lens rather than as someone who deserved the kind of respect and thoroughness of investigating that any other person might be investigated so look I do think that race has played a part in what we have seen occurring in the investigation of Michael Atakelt's death." - Tamar Hopkins


http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2014/08/28/coroner-cant-rule-out-foul-play-drowned-refugees-death

The body of 22-year-old Michael Atakelt was pulled from the Maribyrnong River in July, 2011, 11 days after he disappeared. The man's immediate family and other members of Melbourne's Ethiopian community feared he'd been murdered and accused police of mishandling the investigation. The community was…

28/08/2014

The Coroner declared an open finding on the death of Michael Atakelt. Michael's mother Askalu Tella had this to say:

"I feel sad, I haven't got any answers. I waited for three years, I'm tired, but I didn't get any answers,"

The state coroner has found it is not possible to determine the circumstances around the death of a young Ethiopian-Australian man whose body was found in the Maribyrnong River.

27/06/2014

"Storytelling is a political act. It’s making sense of the world and ourselves, and like every other kind of sense-making, it’s as political as it is personal and vice-versa. There is no distinction to be made between the political and the personal. Writing of any kind is political. It’s claimsmaking regarding reality and how to interpret it. Because whenever we’re faced with these things, we’re faced with fundamental truths regarding how creation makes and unmakes the world, regarding whose voices are amplified and whose are lost, between who gets to speak and who is literally silenced." — Sunny Moraine: The politics have always been there. You just refuse to see them.

http://sunnymoraine.com/2014/04/28/the-politics-have-always-been-there-you-just-refuse-to-see-them/

Okay. I was honestly going to stay out of the whole Hugo Thing, in part because almost everyone else I know in the community has articulated exactly my feelings about it better than I could because...

"I have, for over twenty years, been straddling three competing paradigms that compel me to act as both a facilitator an...
25/06/2014

"I have, for over twenty years, been straddling three competing paradigms that compel me to act as both a facilitator and mediator between these paradigms that are more often than not divided by politics than anything else. It is not a sense of helplessness that prompts me to write this letter, but rather frustration of having to do all the listening in our relationship...

Occasionally I find myself questioning how sincere you are. I know it’s unfair to both of us but you also question my loyalty and wonder whether I’m Australian enough? Whether or not, I, as a Black Muslim woman who wears the hijab am oppressed or if my father made me do it – a question I get asked on any given day. In defence of my father, he didn’t make me do it but he did tell me that our very existence is political and therefore I shouldn’t be surprised when I get confronted with these questions, but I guess there’s no accounting for prejudice." – Dear Australia: Yasmin Hassen

It’s been a little over nineteen years since I came to Australia. Nineteen years that you’ve been able to communicate with me through magazines, television programs, comedy skits, government policies, election promises and, sadly, what passes for news, without once listening to my responses. I’ve ha…

"When another unarmed black teenager is gunned down, there is something that hurts about having to put fingers to keyboa...
09/06/2014

"When another unarmed black teenager is gunned down, there is something that hurts about having to put fingers to keyboard in an attempt to illuminate why another black life taken is a catastrophe, even if that murdered person had a criminal record or a history of smoking ma*****na, even if that murdered person wasn’t a millionaire or college student. There is something that hurts when thinking about the possibility of being ‘accidentally’ shot on some darkened corner, leaving a writer who never met you the task of asking the world to acknowledge your value posthumously, as it didn’t during your life.”

— The Racism Beat: What it’s like to write about hate over and over and over

https://medium.com/matter/the-racism-beat-6ff47f76cbb6

What it’s like to write about hate over and over and over

"MTV confirms the general view of millennials: Compared with previous generations, they’re more tolerant and diverse and...
19/05/2014

"MTV confirms the general view of millennials: Compared with previous generations, they’re more tolerant and diverse and profess a deeper commitment to equality and fairness. At the same time, however, they’re committed to an ideal of colorblindness that leaves them uncomfortable with race, opposed to measures to reduce racial inequality, and a bit confused about what racism is. [...]

Millennials have grown up in a world where we talk about race without racism—or don’t talk about it at all—and where “skin color” is the explanation for racial inequality, as if ghettos are ghettos because they are black, and not because they were created. As such, their views on racism—where you fight bias by denying it matters to outcomes—are muddled and confused."

Such a great read!

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2014/05/millennials_racism_and_mtv_poll_young_people_are_confused_about_bias_prejudice.html =167436397

When you hear MTV, you don’t think “research.” But, for the last few years, the music television channel has been building a public affairs campaign to address bias called “Look Different.” Aimed at millennials, it seeks to help them deal with prejudice and discrimination in their lives. And as part…

We just could not share this with you guys, brilliantly said Areej!"i'm not very good at facebook and usually cringe at ...
13/05/2014

We just could not share this with you guys, brilliantly said Areej!

"i'm not very good at facebook and usually cringe at posts like this but i'm about to be a hypocrite.
it's terrifying to see how different a coalition government truly is and how lame i feel about spending the last year or two saying both major parties are exactly the same. as a person working in community radio, as a person who listens almost exclusively to community radio and also as a young black woman completely erased and actively silenced in mass media i could not imagine many things worse than an end to community radio. community radio and 3CR specifically continues to give me a platform that allows me a sense of legitimacy in expressing my experiences and the experiences of people who look like me. for me, not existing on TV and radio meant that i was not important enough to fully exist and that s**t really really screws with you. 3CR (and the community radio sector as a whole) exists to reject that to the max so if you want to sign the petition or send a letter to the finance minister jump on this link and put your name down xx" - Areej Nur

Take a minute right now to email the Treasurer Joe Hockey and tell him that our community radio stations are too important to be put on the scrap heap.

"Among the reforms is human rights training to help members understand and undercut their own unconscious biases and ste...
30/04/2014

"Among the reforms is human rights training to help members understand and undercut their own unconscious biases and stereotypes. Officers will also receive clearer guidance on when they can legitimately stop people, with definitions of what is meant by the grounds of ''reasonable suspicion'' and ''high crime locations''.

The force will revise its data collection so it can analyse disparities among the ethnicities of people being stopped. And, in a major reversal, it has agreed to hold a trial in which citizens will be given receipts explaining why they've been stopped."


Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/victoria-polices-priority-communities-division-real-change-or-just-more-talk-20140429-37fq2.html

Victoria Police has embarked on a campaign to stamp out racial bias. But as a new division is launched to drive this reform, critics ask whether this can change the culture of the force. Michael Green reports.

Such an important read by Gabriel Teodros about Mumia Abu-Jamal."But because of my environment, and the books I’m readin...
24/03/2014

Such an important read by Gabriel Teodros about Mumia Abu-Jamal.

"But because of my environment, and the books I’m reading…. realizing there is a system in place that wants kids like me to want to die… I wanted to prove to myself that I could do anything, even give up something I love, for the sake of protecting life."

http://thefeministwire.com/2014/01/mumia/

By Gabriel Teodros A distant father figure who I've never once met. A living hero who's words written from a prison cell had a deeper effect and helped raise me more than most teachers I've ever had. Mumia let me know with every offering that I wasn't alone, and he did it from a place of isolation t...

Such great news and brilliant editorial by The Age!"Daniel Haile-Michael, who was assaulted by a police officer in Flemi...
02/01/2014

Such great news and brilliant editorial by The Age!

"Daniel Haile-Michael, who was assaulted by a police officer in Flemington in 2008, wrote on these pages last month of what he called ''a long walk to justice''. It remains a disappointment that the officer who assaulted him was not disciplined."

Victoria Police has responded in a positive and decisive manner to end the ugly practice of racial profiling in its ranks.

"Kasiem Walters, a high school senior in Flatbush, Brooklyn, speaks about the countless stop-and-frisk experiences he an...
16/10/2013

"Kasiem Walters, a high school senior in Flatbush, Brooklyn, speaks about the countless stop-and-frisk experiences he and his friends have had over the years. From waiting outside a friend's house on the walk to school, to giving high-fives and being mistaken for selling drugs, Kasiem dreams of a time when he and his community can look around and feel like citizens of New York, not criminals.


Great video!

Kasiem Walters, a high school senior in Flatbush, Brooklyn, speaks about the countless stop-and-frisk experiences he and his friends have had over the years....

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