Olympic Athletes and Bloggers on Darfur

Last month, Yobachi, of Blackperspective.net and the Afrosphere Action Coalition held a conference call with Team Darfur co-founder and Olympic gold medalist Joey Cheek, who is working hard to raise awareness about the genocide in Darfur. I was supposed to be one of the participants, but due to work and technical difficulties, I didn’t get a word in until the very end, and I’m not sure I said or asked anything of import. Anyway, here’s the official press release and podcast of the event.

On July 9th, the Afrosphere Action Coalition hosted a conference call with Team Darfur co-founder and Olympic gold medalist Joey Cheek about activist advocacy for ending genocide in Darfur Sudan; particularly as it relates to the Olympics and China’s role in Sudan. Team Darfur boast “360+” former and current international competitive athlete.

The podcast page for the conference call is located at www.utterz.com/u/utt/u-NTExODkxNQ#utt-NTExODkxNQ

Yet also, bloggers and website editors can post this podcast directly to ones own site, as can be seen here: www.blackperspective.net/index.php/afrosphere-action-coalition/aac-on- darfur-and-humanitarian-issues/ by posting the following embedded code just as with a youtube video or other embedded media:

Many bloggers participated in the call with 2006 Olympic speed skating gold medlist Joey Cheek; who donated his “$25,000 gold medal award from the U.S. Olympic Committee to refugees from Darfur.” – npr.org

Team Darfur world class distance runner Jon Rankin called in as well, though we were not able to get him into the conversation.

In Team Darfur we see athletes standing up for doing right in the world based on their values, passions, and convictions. Such an effort by those in the spot light should be lauded in view of the behaviors we often hear about our athletes.

Joey Cheek discussed with bloggers Team Darfur’s call for an Olympic Truce and how it is, base on the Olympic’s own charter, that such an issue does indeed belong in the discussion with the Olympics

From Olympic Truce letter: “In our common aspiration to realize the ideals of the Olympic Games, we, the undersigned, urge the international community to convince the Government of Sudan to observe an Olympic Truce for Darfur before, during, and after the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. Through this letter, we issue an urgent call to the conscience of the international community. The violence in Sudan has gone on for too long. We hope you will use the opportunity of the Olympic Truce to work to end it.” This is discussed starting about the 10:42 mark of the podcast.

Relevant websites: Afrosphere Action Coalition google site: sites.google.com/site/afrosphereactioncoalition/Home – Team Darfur: teamdarfur.org/

Afrosphere Action Coalition,

Coordinators:
Daz Wilson purplezoe.blogspot.com/ * Yobachi Boswell www.BlackPerespective.net * Francis L. Holland francislholland.blogspot.com/

Blogging Against Genocide

Today is the Amnesty Internationals Day of Action for Darfur, which coincides with United Nations Day.

Here’s the deal:

Earlier this year, with your help, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) agreed to send 26,000 AU/UN peacekeepers into Sudan to help bring peace to a war torn region. A well-trained, fully-resourced peacekeeping force will bring much-needed stability and security to a land of over 2 million displaced people. However, at this point, support is only a promise, not a guarantee.

It falls to us to ensure that the UNSC fully implements their plan of action in order to bring peace to Darfur. Without swift action, civilians will continue to be pawns in violent war games. The killing, rape and abduction will not stop until order is restored and accountability enforced.

Remember to sign the Global Petition for Darfur by October 24th and your signatures will help send the message to the White House that the violence in Darfur will not be tolerated.

Thank you to the over 466,000 people who have already signed the petition, including the members of the 400,000 Faces for Darfur Facebook group.

These videos speak for themselves.

Now, if for some reason you have no clue what I’m talking about¹ you should check these links:

The Save Darfur Coalition

Amnesty International: Crisis in Darfur

Darfur: An Unforgetable Hell on Earth

Coalition for Darur

Sudan Watch

Darfur: A Genocide We can Stop

Here are ways that you can take action:

Sign the Global Petition to End the Violence in Dafur

Write to the White House and put pressure on them to step up and help stop this atrocity.

Contact your Congressperson and let them know how you feel about their neglect.

We must remember the great words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.:

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

and

The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people

To sit back and ignore this crisis because “it’s not happening here” does a grave injustice to the cause of anti-oppression work. If we allow the U.S. government and ourselves to sit back and ignore this crisis, we might as well sit back and ignore the crises that happen here as well. As long as oppression and hate and genocide are allowed anywhere in the world, it will be allowed and justified at home.

But on the other hand, I feel that I also must remind that it is often easier to stand against oppression that isn’t happening in your own back yard. It’s a two-way street, with a cul-de-sac up the road and one of those three-way intersections a half a mile away where you have to take a left exit to go where you want. It ain’t always easy. Stand up against world-wide oppression, but don’t think that gives you a pass to ignore what is going on in your own neighborhood. You will be tired. You might also find yourself confused at times. But you won’t be nearly as tired and confused as those slaves were after an 18-hour day in the fields.

So, stand up against the genocide in Darfur right now not because it makes you feel good or like you’ve done your good deed for today, but because you hate the worldwide subjugation of women, the continued denigration of people of color in the U.S. and across the world, the notion that “gay=stupid,” the idea that to be disabled is to be inferior, the idea that transsexuals are abominations, the idea that Jews are only in it for the money, the idea that “your” religion is better than “their” religion and so you have the right to kill “them” off, that the U.S. equals “god’s plan for the world.”

I could go on and on, but I hope you get my point:

It won’t work like that.

1. and I must say if you have no idea what I’m talking about, you should be very ashamed of yourself [↩]