Aging People in Prison Human Rights Campaign

Aging People in Prison Human Rights Campaign

Aging People in Prison Human Rights Campaign

UN 2017 2nd Regional Meeting Decade for People of African Descent

Statement on DEVELOPMENT

Tomiko Shine

Cultural Anthropologist

Founding Director

Aging People in Prison Human Rights Campaign

In order for the DECADE to really count towards the development of people of African descent it must be more than just a celebratory gesture or a token like; holidays, street signs, postage stamps, murals, or dollar bills that have been given to peoples of African descent which have not changed their overall condition.

My research has shown across the Americas children of African descent with high illiteracy in many forms and across the world not ready to become global citizens. There is an over incarceration and generational incarceration of people of African descent resulting in human resources unused and broken families. There has been this historical legacy of separating the black family of African descent from the ships that carried the enslave across the waters to a world of enslavement, the auction block, Jim Crow laws, and ultimately prisons. These all continue to interrupt the family and its life cycle development. The family is the first institution of society; if that is interrupted it results in people are who are unable to function as fully human in society.

This DECADE needs to become a physical manifestation in the lives of peoples of African descent; thus being implemented and institutionalize through grassroots groups on the ground and who are in the communities. It is through monies and resources with the help of these grassroots organizations they can begin to lift peoples of African descent out of their seemingly permanent condition of oppression and servitude. Dambisa Moyo in her book “Dead Aid” speaks to this and the need for resources and not handouts to change the conditions of Africans.

The sons and daughters of Mother Africa cry out; Mother Africa cries out for the return of her children. The children of Mother Africa have built empires and national international and generational wealth for the world only to receive nothing in return but trauma and suffering. To begin to reverse this, a consortium of sorts with the grassroots organizations can be established giving them resources. I conclude going forward that the next century be dedicated to the repairing, healing, and rebuilding of those people of African descent.

I say this in the name of the ancestors; Madiba, Shaka Zulu, Malcolm X, Patrice Lumumba, Ella Baker, Queen Nzinga, and Maria Elena Moyano Delgado.