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The DC Statehood Green Party has joined several other organizations in sponsoring a Town Hall Meeting featuring Dr. Doudou Diène, Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related intolerance.
The event will take place Thursday, June 5, 8 pm at the Thurgood Marshall Academy Public Charter High School, 2427 Martin Luther King Avenue, SE in Washington, DC.
Dr. Diène’s is the final stop of his three-week visit in the United States. The information and personal testimony gathered from the meeting, together with the Special Rapporteur’s recommendations, will be
published in a report to the UN Human Rights Council. This interactive and public process is a step towards collectively overcoming the legacy of racial discrimination in America.
Petition for DC Statehood and Human Rights
The DC Statehood Green Party and the Green Party of the United States, of which the local party is an affiliate, have consistently spoken out in defense of human rights, freedoms, and democracy in the US and
abroad. Statehood Greens have called the District’s current status a violation of DC residents’ human rights, citing the authority of the White House and Congress to impose unwanted laws and policies and veto locally passed legislation, and the lack of voting representation in Congress. The Green Party is the only national party that endorses DC statehood in its national platform.
The party has called the refusal of Democrats and Republicans in Congress and the White House to grant statehood to DC — not to be confused with ‘voting rights’ — and end its current ‘colonial status’ a matter
of racial inequality and a persistence of injustice, given the District’s majority African American population, and claims that the movement of DC democracy is part of the unfinished work of the Civil Rights Movement.
During the Town Meeting, DC Statehood Green Party members will present the Petition for DC Statehood and Human Rights (http://www.dcstatehoodgreen.org/statehoodnow), with nearly 2,000 signatures gathered online, to the Special Rapporteur.
David Schwartzman, Tax and Budget and Legislative Agenda Coordinator of the Statehood Green Party, will read selected passages from the Petition (which is co-sponsored with Stand up! for Democracy in DC Coalition, http://www.freedc.org). Former US ‘Shadow’ Representative candidate Joyce Robinson Paul will also testify on the party’s behalf.
Light refreshments will be provided by the Praxis Project. Contact Allison Garren at agarren@nlchp.org for more information about the Town Hall Meeting.
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