you mr john carlos explain to me we have been labeled as troublemakers explained that he also said that we're in good company and i understand that he mentioned that martin luther king was labeled as a troublemaker gandhi was labeled as a troublemaker nelson mandela and many more so i myself and i'm sure the black student union over here we don't mind being labeled troublemakers as we start activism here in our community and make sure that the use of voice in our voices are heard throughout the community as the troublemakers we are we also make sure that the community understand that black lives do matter and that we will not rest until our voice is heard in a change as we do this we don't do it just so a change is made it so our generation can see it will do it so the generations underestimate highness can see it in so that change can continue we know that the fight has not stopped since martin luther king the civil rights fight has continued on and on and on and it will continue until a change is made non christian a change for america said i thank you thank you but a total change so that people can come to america and see that something has been done  as we made those goals activism events and we spoke of throughout the streets we had a march we had two marches one of those marches consisted of the march on october twenty second where we went down to the east precinct downtown and we let our police department here know that what happened in ferguson with mike brown we will not settle for here in seattle coming to to you know and excerpt from our statement to the police department is our secretary our rejection of the police force here and nationwide because we know protect and serve does not apply to us just as all men are created equal do not apply to our ancestors nor we their descendants though some may argue not all cods when you put on that uniform you are no longer an individual but another force of holding a system of oppression the same system whose origins of american policing are in runaway slave patrol the entire establishment is rooted in white supremacy and feeds on anti blackness today we are here to say that we will no longer compromise with those without a conscience we will no longer beg and plead for you to recognize our humanity we will no longer demand reform of the broken system because it is functioning exactly as it's supposed to  the people can read aleutian eyes this corrupt institution all together we will take justice into our own hands we the people will police the police welcome everyone my name is lee ellis setit i'm a member of the international socialist organization and i have the honor of chairing this panel tonight i wanted to just say a few words about why we decided to organize this  event this panel is fired first and foremost by the recent electric rise of the black labs matter movement which has exploded on the streets in cities across the country from ferguson to new york to here in seattle and beyond in response to systematic police terror against black communities and which has forced long overdue national attention on the institutionalized racism in demick in our society on every level symbols can be very powerful things to a movement to us today the image of michael brown with his hands in the air before being murdered by the police has been echoed visually at demonstrations across the country likewise the image of tommie smith and john carlos on the olympic podium raising the black power salute became emblematic of a whole era of resistance but we also know that as powerful and galvanizing as these images are they only offer a snapshot of the whole story in order to build the new civil rights movement today we need to dig deeper we need to rediscover a hidden history that has been deliberately whitewashed or swept under the rug so we can uncover the many urgently practical lessons it holds for us today and i have to say i just finished reading the john carlos story i hope everybody walks out of here tonight and reads it immediately it's incredible and i think it really places that fateful day on the podium in the context of both a mass lack liberation movement that shook the very foundations of this country and also the incredible life of a man of conviction compassion and fearless determination so our speakers tonight are aretha sue is a community activist in black lives matter movement and an organizer and women of color for  man gerald served twenty three years behind bars for a crime he didn't commit while in prison gerald organize against racism in the criminal justice system including leading the black prisoners  after sustaining community organizing gerald was granted clemency and continues as a social justice fighter and is a member of the social equality educators and the international socialist organization he's an advisor for the garfield high school black student union associate editor of rethinking schools editor and contributing author of more than a score the new uprising against high stakes testing and recipient of the two thousand and thirteen secondary teacher of the year award from the national academy of education arts and sciences dave zirin is the host of edge of sports radio and author of many many books including a people's history of sports he is co author of the john carlos story was named one of the readers fifty visionaries who are changing our world and is the first sports writer for the nation magazine global icon in the fight against racism he is co author of the john carlos story the sports moment that changed the world  i'm also an organizer with women of color for systemic change i've been involved in social justice from a very young age mostly on the issue of human trafficking particularly south asian women and children they answer top of basu who is the director of the women's center i have been a part of the black class matter movement now for five months when the non indictment came out i witnessed the outrage and hurt of the black community i didn't think twice about joining to not act is an injustice itself and i knew that if i chose to ignore the issue if i chose to stand idly while law enforcement continued to abuse their power my silence would speak for me i would be choosing the side of the oppressor right as i attended the protests during the first few weeks following the non indictment i would leave feeling very empty like i hadn't really made a change aside from the protests that took part in on black friday i felt a lack of representation of people of color within the movement i noticed that why allies were speaking the narrative of the black community instead of giving space for there to be spoken from those directly  the black community needed to lead the movement while allies like myself supported them so in harmony approached me about organizing the protests for the december sixth i was more than ready i wanted to help provide a platform for the black community to speak th truth especially the youth during the weeks leading up to our protest i went to several other protests one in particular was quite disturbing jasmine i went to a protest taking place at westlake that was organized by the october twenty second coalition while we were in the crowd i heard the organizers mostly older white people trying to spread the message of all lives matter lives matter i remember looking at jasmine and thinking whoa whoa and so i asked to use their megaphone i asked all the people of color to come to the middle of the circle and i said these are the people that need to be leading and these are the people that need to be on the mike immediately immediately one of the organizers steps to me and says this effects everyone this is a ball all lives and quickly jobs are and i said this is not about all lives this is about black lives and you as an ally need to step back so the people  d can speak for themselves matter as an ally it is imperative that we center blackness that is what this movement is about it is not about everyone's oppressions i am an indian woman and the oppression is against my community are very different from what my black sisters and brothers are experiencing allies me to claim our privilege and understand our roles we must use our privilege to further the movement i know i have the privilege to choose whether or not to be a part of this movement i have the privilege of continuing my daily life without this issue directly affecting me you don't see cops targeting south asians the way they do the black and african american community you just don't in addition to the criminal justice system increasing its persecution the system has continually and blame me devalued dehumanize and dismiss the black and african american community so how does a non black person of color be a good ally because being a person of color is quite different from being a why ally people of color have experienced systemic oppression but what we must remember is this is not the oppression olympics are not here to prove who has been oppressed the most by this screwed up system we are not free until all of us are free just because there are issues between different people of color communities does not negate the fact that our liberty liberations are tied for example the four amigos bernie white bear bob santos roberta my us and they were all of different races but they came together during the black power movement because they understood that the issue need to be fought from all sides we as people of color need to be united front and support our black and african american sisters and brothers in order to sustain the movement as people of color allies it is our duty to not only challenge the anti blackness within our communities but to work against it and eradicate it speaking in the south asian community and blackness is rampant it is so deeply embedded in my is even in our religion i will share with you the story of lord krishna who is a hindu god there is a king named lord krishna he was a benevolent leader that people believed to be a reincarnation of one of the three main gods the destroyer the creator or the preserver however he had very dark skin as do most indigenous indians but the disrespect and discrimination is so extreme that people wouldn't worship a dark skinned god because they believed it was impossible for him to have a good soul so in order to make what krishna an acceptable god he was depicted to have blue skin it was more acceptable for his worshippers to worship someone with blue skin than dark skin meanwhile india is one of the largest consumers of skin whiners and skin bleaching in the world this is anti blackness in my community and as an ally it is my job to call it out as people of color we are not immune to bias and it is important to acknowledge the fight and fight our biases we must continuously check ourselves as allies in order to be effective in this movement and so i ask you my fellow people of color allies what are you doing to challenge the anti blackness in your communities black eyes matter can everybody can everybody hear me i could probably take away this mike you can probably still hear me a little bit i just want to thank everyone who contributed to putting this panel together and think q to the ice over asking me to be a and you know i could talk a lot so but for our time here tonight i thought what would be helpful is first i'm going to tell you guys a little bit about myself because people ask me lots of questions about myself and then the three things with the movement that i really want to hit on tonight was  the biggest thing that i see about how people think and talk about this is relation of what folks in america the biggest issue i see and how we act and then i'm going to hit on some really practical key to practical think key things i think we need to get out in this city seattle specifically so i am i am a professional nanny of infant twins i'm an avid church lady i graduated from seattle pacific university in two thousand and thirteen and when i graduated all my friends and my and my professors had a i think one thing that's important for people to know about me and how i come about this work is i have spent a lot of time in extremely white spaces trying to earn whiteness and a lot of ways thinking that if i just got the right grades if i got the right degrees if i did the right work like some day i could achieve that i learned the hard way that you you can earn your blackness ok but in that i was usually very the token black person in the spaces that i was in and over the past several years as i think people go through cycles of racial awakening and understanding their place in this world when trayvon martin was killed in the subsequent trial that happened after that i thought i realized i was experiencing that alone in the midst of white communities who were like whatever he you know and that really broke me down and challenge my world view and then when mike brown was killed i won't forget it because i was in my apartment sitting in the corner of my apartment crying for hours but myself as all my roommates walked past me and i spent much of the time between his death and the non indictment of darren wilson morning and crying and fearing trying to figure this shit out by myself excuse my language trying to figure this stuff out by myself i didn't know where to go or how to get plugged in but i knew that people are going to be at westlake on the night of an indictment we all knew what it was going to be and so i got off to work and i went down there and i was like you know what i don't know what the solution is to this but all i know is that if i'm going to cry i'm not going to car lo you and so the night that dan wilson was not indicted was the first time i've ever been to a protester demonstration that might seem kind of funny for those yahoo been in the streets with me but  that was the first time only to say and i was thrown into a radical community of people who speak truth and who like sacrifice for each other and who love each other i mean it's just been so amazing to be in these communities where i really you know being christian i really feel like the least the least of these are held but that all that to say is i'm very new to this game and anybody who wants to be thrown in can be thrown in even if you're a nanny even if you're a church lady one of the biggest issues that i think as frustrated me and how people talk and think about the movement is nobody is talking about our situation in the terms that we need to be talking about it ok people aren't getting arrested they're getting kidnapped right this is not police brutality it's genocide right we need to we need to i really do believe that we need to be talking about the state of black folks in america in the terms that they're in and not care about offending anybody quite frankly we can i'll be real in this quite frankly we can't wait for white people to decide that we can be free we can't wait i guarantee you if white folks were somehow going to come around and give us our freedom i'm sure they would have given it by now i don't think that black people are still persecuted in the press because we have not asked nicely enough right so i think we really needed to talk about this in the terms that we're supposed to talk about it and quite frankly i'll be honest a lot of people come to me and talk about the work that i'm doing and they presume that my goal is to make the white powers that be like me or think i'm a nice person that is not my goal to be clear i don't think it matters whether the powers that be think i'm a nice person or whether they're afraid of me both can achieve the same goal the end goal is black liberation and unfortunately fear might get us there faster than morality so i think it's really important that all of us talk about these issues in the grave seriousness that we find ourselves  the second thing that i think is really important about how people act on this agitation work is key to what we're doing here there are a lot of people that are doing great like building work education work and guess what you know what happens to them i talk to them all the time they hit roadblock after roadblock after roadblock and of systems trying to hold them back and stop them and keep them down that's why the agitation work is really important agitation is accountability going on making somebody feel uncomfortable going out and having some ways paycheck going on stopping an intersection that's really important because it paves the way for the good work that people already want to do i think a lot of times people try to separate it and say oh well we're building over here and you guys are just stopping this or whatever and it's like first of all we're all one struggle second of all if folks are uncomfortable and most of all it folks pocketbooks their wallets are hit and this capitalistic system that we're in we will see no change and so i really really really think that everybody has to be engaged in agitation work and that doesn't mean just being in the street and stopping intersections that means whatever circles you're in if you're not making it uncomfortable for somebody to live in this ra this capitalistic society that were in that treats people if you're not doing the work they all have power in our different spaces too big to be resisting it is not enough to just passively let stuff go by we need to constantly be speaking truth to power calling things out and you know what honestly i really don't care how much people inconvenience while people are dying so we all need to be stepping out there and doing that work even if you can't get out in the streets even if you can't take certain risks or whatever you can still be doing work in your own context and the last thing i'm going to say is two things i think are really important for the movement here in seattle moving forward one of those is our absolutely horrific and corrupt and abusive seattle police department they came out to the streets because of my ground and i stayed because of the seattle police department and how i was treated they are there untrained they are unruly and they are unaccountable and we cannot let it continue they have they have already had a lot of division within their ranks there are already having well pressure put on them by the d o j we as a community need to continue to pressure them we need to continue to hold them accountable we need to continue to go on to city council meetings and say actually what you just said right there is a law was so that i think that's one of the key things that we need in the seattle movement moving forward and then the second thing as i wrap up really quickly that's really important there can be no youth jail built in the city for everybody that's in this room if you're planning on getting involved expect those two things to be coming down the pipeline and everyone in this room is responsible for those two issues getting handled in our city and what this says to me is that maybe i'm getting old a bit but but seriously just before you get to my story i just truly just want to relish in this moment to watch this to witness this youth movement and the power of the knowledge that you guys for me is like telling all folk to shut up and let them talk because it's really your time here in an indirect way because i had the unfortunate reality to experience the system both inside and outside i was eighteen year old kid seventeen when i came to seattle for the first time from georgia just to come and meet my mother and it within one year i was tried convicted and accused and still is to die in prison for the rest of my life for a crime i didn't commit which is no different than the thousands of stories does going on around the country right now media which and through this journey that i missed guess god intended me to actually go through this to have this experience this while i feel compelled to come home that i'm dedicated to this now because it's more than about me it's about the many other lives that's been impacted just like mom that wasn't blessed enough that i've been to be able to come home to actually talk about and not in a way to just talk about it put no longer to allow society to determine that the people that speaks doesn't qualify to speak because of a felony record other things they've had their life thank you and we allow this city this state this county or even this nation disqualified people from be speaking the truth the power simply because of something they did any past the most of actual people that actually run in the country be quite obligation to make sure that we don't disqualify someone who made an error in life even if that doesn't mean but to say that everything you do after that doesn't qualify you as a human being that was but for me my message is i want everybody to understand that was always intended that way so it's no longer a surprise to me and people seem to be baffled behind mike brown behind eric garner behind to me or rice behind oscar grant i'm no longer surprise i'm just continually disappointed because this has been gone on even before i was even born with the emmett till's and the slave owners the slave the slaves that has had to go through this i'm so excited by the fact  thanking sometimes in my experiences when i travel around the country and hear this conversation and different audience of the live different audience and this is sometimes they intentionally try to confuse you because they say black lives matter to be inclusive they want to talk about all lives matter that's the same w that we know want to call us black people who want to call us african americans to water it down to be acceptable for those days like them when in fact i don't want to water it down because it's weakening in order for you to swallow that is the reality is to change the conversation because they don't want to talk about the exact conversation that's before you right now you know it is we are going somebody and they feel like they're losing the fight to try to change the subject that's a reality and so often that we get caught up in that that we lose sight of why we actually hear and those that want to talk about when issue about mike brown as you see the department of justice is about to announce that the officer would not be held accountable because he violated a civil rights what body cameras new york prove that wro but that's the power of all of you speaking in one voice one message one to go and not get distracted by all the different things whether it be blue states or red states and everything else is talking about that it's not about putting some million dollars in order for some cop to have a camera on his uniform when are you going to charge you when they break the law just like you and i made it clear and obviously president that i'm no longer want to sit down have this debate more because i'm tired my grandmother had these debates my grandfather my great grandfather many of us as well that question for me is when give me the solution hundred sixty five we actually won the right to vote but we didn't get the right to vote tonight hundred sixty five so what was gone only that one hundred years to stall it out the inevitable and then the law passed because they feel like we supposed to be appreciated that some law passed and the first test before to say well in order to get the right to vote you've got to tell me how many jelly beans in jar how many bubbles in this bar soap and i'm not going to debate with you that it's ridiculous to talk about this the question in let me know is the fact that you don't have no but that's my position and that's the area that we talk about because this is the time i don't want to sit down and negotiate on the probability of getting something a two thousand and sixteen i'm sent out we need change we need it right now we're not the way for you know for what you  four hundred years and we get blinded by the side of the fight because i live on one side of the water one side of the track and you don't all of a sudden you have the right to disagree you just don't have the right to dismiss white folks you can't dismiss it and act like it doesn't exist change and i know that some you feel like i'm not impacted by these issues because this doesn't happen in my neighborhood but the reality is you never got involved until it did and the question we tell you right now as a warning it will it will if you don't stop for right now to help in this fight to let those people that know this race is even if you're not and recognize institutional racism structures of racism actually exist in our system to you correct that wow first thing i want to do is is thank john carlos for coming here tonight for bringing us all to get for bringing our community together so we can solve these problems and and i'm in a special debt to john carlos you know we all are and especially black people are in this country but as a teacher here at garfield high school i owe a special that to john carlos that i want to thank him for because two years ago our faculty voted unanimously to refuse to give the measures of academic progress test the map oh my bulldogs right and so we said this test isn't measuring what matters right we said this test doesn't measure imagination and courage and creativity it doesn't matter measure your ability to get out in the streets and confront racism and it doesn't measure civic courage right and it's and we took a stand they threatened us with a ten day suspension without pay and not a single teacher i garfield back down and spread throughout seattle many other schools joined us but i'm in a debt to john carlos because he took the time out of his day to write us a statement of solidarity that was read on the steps of garfield high school in our international day of solidarity and so thank you john carlos for standing once again for  i want to tell you about one of the best days of my life it was two blocks couple blocks down the street there at twenty third in union and it was the day after the no indictment of darren wilson there was despair and i had to go join then double a c p rally there to try to seek solace and at that rally i managed to get some words out and speak about how i thought the new generation of activists are like nothing i've ever seen before that there's an anger burning in the in our black student union i garfield and that it's going to erupt one of these days and then i jumped in my car because i had to get back to garfield before lunch was over and turns out i had to pull over because a thousand students came streaming out of garfield  saying hands up don't shoot marching down the street it turns out i didn't have to wait that long to see that that smoldering anger and what motivated those young those students i don't think it was the killing of mike brown i don't think it was the murder of mike brown i think it was the lynching of mike brown that's what we have to call that's what we have to call it what is it when you leave someone in the street for four and a half hours that's not just about killing one boy that's not about killing one young man that's about making  example that's about saying no your place black people know your place because this is what will happen to you and witness it right and get back in your place and to see these students at garfield high school walk out and and so on monday i joined the martin luther king protests and i gave one of the final speech downtown at the courthouse and when that was over these two women helped to lead a march of many people a couple hundred people maybe that wanted to keep going that said this wasn't over yet we should keep marching and i join them it was my son's birthday party so i knew i needed to get back to that but i wanted to keep marching right up until i had to go so i joined them and we marched for i don't know four blocks six blocks and then the police came and set up a barricade in front of us with their with their bikes and said you you can't you can't cross this line and many people walked through the holes in the line and went forward because they were intimidated anymore and they were ready to keep going and i chose not to cross that barrier that day because i had to get to my son's birthday party so i actually decided i'm going to i'm going to go walk get on the sidewalk and at just as i'm stepping on the sidewalk my phone rang it was my mom she's coming to pick me up i had to tell her where i was i turn to take the phone call and an officer takes out the pepper spray and hits me right in the face it was a difficult birthday party to show up pouring milk in the so i could stop the burning for several hours what they weren't ready for though is that we found out there's video footage and you can believe that that fight isn't done and what why did i get pepper sprayed in the face do you think that this this officer was really frightened of me turning away on my cell phone on the sidewalk i don't think that was it i think this officer was afraid of three words black lives matter what what they realize is that black the phrase black lives matter isn't just a simple declaration that we're human beings it's actually an indictment of the whole political system whole economic system it's an indictment of capitalism a system that was born in slavery grew up on jim crow and has now developed into this institutional races system we see today and how does this system work the people that take your money by the by the billions and trillions and use it to go murder people in the middle east those people are honored right with medals right why our young black youth are shot down in the street with with impunity that's that's how the system works and when we talk about black lives matter what would it take to really to make that it would take a complete upturning of this system and undoing of the entire social order and the political order and capitalism being replaced by something humane by something that respects black lives right let's not be afraid to talk about socialism and looking toward something that is about cooperation and building  a much better alternative and this is what they're worried about the guardians of institutional racism know that as long as this fire phrase is being used it will be used to highlight their crimes and l just want to highlight a few of those as my time runs down because here in seattle we have just a study just released that last year seventy the average median income for w families was seventy thousand dollars while black medium income fell to twenty five thousand dollars a thirteen percent drop nationally the unemployment rate is over ten percent for african americans black people would be much more unemployed if you put into words if you took into account the prison population right if you take into account there are more black people and how do they get behind bars there's a school to prison pipeline that's funneling them right from here into the jail that they're getting ready to build for them and so  i just want to say that as bad as that school to prison pipeline is in our communities we're now we're realizing that in fact there's a school to grave pipeline being built in cities across this country when you hear about samir rice and michael brown and trayvon martin and jordan davis and the too many names that we don't have time to tell their stories tonight and so when we say black lives matter we don't just mean we don't want our young black youth to get shot down in the streets with impunity and these cops to get laid off when we say black lives matter we mean we want well funded schools right with the curriculum that empowers our students to solve the problems in their community when we say black was matter we want to society where the political decisions about our lives where are our jobs our health care our schools are controlled by the people who make them up who work there and i'm proud to say that what we're building here when when the students garfield high school marched to the east precinct when they walked out when they're holding this event here we are building a school the justice pipeline right here before i introduce dr john carlos before i say one word i want to thank the organizers of this event and i also want everyone here to be very clear about where dr carlos and i stand on a pressing issue of our time and that's that we want the seahawks to win the super bowl and i don't just say that because richard sherman has all kinds of awsome and i don't just say that because i've got issues with patriots both capital and lower case p i am i say that because the patriots cheat and i bring that up because if you see sports as the sort of endeavor where all that matters is if you win and nothing else matters you actually perform a very very jacked up function in this society all that matters is if you win everything else doesn't mean a damn thing and that's why i'm so proud to introduce dr john carlos because he represents a very different kind of tradition that says the kind of world we live in matters a hell of a lot more than the medals dangling from your chest or the rings on your fingers no i have no doubt that before tonight everyone in this room saw this image before of john carlos and tommie smith standing on that medal stand raising their fists to the heavens but i would ask you to look at it again because they're not just raising fists on this medal stand they're also not wearing shoes on the medal stand as a symbol of poverty in the black south of the united states to recognize the amount of poverty that existed amongst black children in the united states they also are beads around their necks which was a symbol of lynchings and the violence perpetrated against black people in the united states and if you look at john carlos this picture you'll also notice that his jacket is on zipped and he was wearing a black t shirt over the usa because he was ashamed of what this country had done to black people in this country and the reason why they have this consciousness the reason why they brought the beads the reason why they wore black socks the reason why they brought black gloves is because they were not just part of a moment but they were part of a movement of black freedom struggle that they wanted everyone to know that they stood with not a moment but a movement and it's a remarkable thing to think about because they brought the beads to the race they brought their socks they brought their gloves but what did they have to do first i mean they would have felt pretty dumb if they'd come in like seventh and eighth and think about that no seriously you go to the race you're like we got the beads we got the gloves we lost what a disaster but they were that confident that they were going to end up on that medal stand and that's why i took the time it wasn't just a cheap pander to the seattle audience but to mention about how disgusting i think the new england patriots are that it's all win at all costs because if you look at the race and please go to you tube and look up the race the two hundred meter race what you're going to see is john carlos gets the lead and anybody who's ever been a sprinter knows your head has to be in one direction and one direction only and that's where forward and if you look at john carlos he's running this race he's in the lead he's constantly looking backwards it's like where's tommy where's tommy where's tommy playing with hundreds of seconds he was doing an olympic race and engineering it to make sure that both of them were on the medal stand so they could make this happen that says to me i mean there's no other way to say it that's a lesson that echoes through the ages the idea that you know it's not about winning it's about standing for something much bigger than one's individual accomplishment it's about standing with the people not apart from the people to rise with the ranks not from the ranks and i'll tell you what makes this so amazing and what's been so remarkable about the black lives matter movement is that you hear john carlos his name again on sports radio as people are trying to understand why it is that athletes like le bron james der rose richard sherman are standing with the black lives matter movement and raising that question again gee should sports and politics really mix and i let me tell you there's no bigger okey doke than people saying that sports and politics shouldn't mix because what they're really saying is that sports and a certain kind of politics could mix because when it comes to when it comes to when it comes to selling war when it comes to militarism when it comes to having generals throw up the coin before the super bowl when it comes to parading out cheerleaders those politics are just fine but when it comes to actually standing for resistance politics that's when everybody gets skittish and says oh my politics  ut we should also remember that the sports part of the black lives matter music did not start with le bron james and it did not start with derrick rose it started extremely appropriately with a black woman at a division three school named ariana smith who made the decision before any st louis rams raised their hand she made the decision that because her team was traveling literally a thirty minute drive for michael brown was killed that she could not just play play as if it was just every day business so what she decided to do during the pledge of allegiance was dropped to her knees lie down on the court and she refused to move for four and a half minutes to symbolize the four and a half hours that michael brown olympics and they were saying why do it why do you do it why do you do it and john said it was just like the opportunity to be treated like human being