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 [ LOS ANGELES ](https://www.citywatchla.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&id=312)

#  AmeriKKKa: “And Then They Came for Me and There was No One Left to Speak Out for Me”

**GUEST COMMENTARY--**Imagine being torn away from your mother’s arms. Torn away from the shelter of your family, Not knowing what’s going to happen to them or you.

Written by Diedra Greenaway.

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July 29 2019

Imagine the suffrage of being African during the times of slavery. Intitled groups of the privileged doing whatever they want for selfish cause. Well, open your eyes. HISTORY IS REPEATING ITSELF. Families are being abused, treated in an inhumane way in AMERICA, more like **Amerikkka**, the LAND OF THE FREE? HOME OF THE BRAVE?

How can we sit and watch this happen at our border? These children have no voices, their families have no voices, so we have to be their voice. Our government is wrong for treating them in such an inhumane way. It’s a disgrace and an embarrassment to this country.

I’m a scholar and what I find disturbing is that I have yet to see a mass sit-in or protest across the country at college campuses, universities and churches. Are we so self-absorbed that we are ignoring the modern-day concentration camps sponsored by the government of the United States? We send our soldiers to fight wars in other countries under the flag of “Justice for All” but at home, this does not exist. Instead of Justice, it’s “Just Us”.

Our VOICES are POWER, our VOTE is POWER, our BUYING POWER is FIRE. We need to take a stand against the tyranny of our government and we can do this WITHOUT VIOLENCE. WE CAN SHUT IT DOWN. WE CAN AFFECT THE MACHINE. WE CAN STAGE WALK OUTS, PROTEST PEACEFULLY IN SILENCE, WE CAN HIT THEM WHERE IT HURTS BY NOT PURCHACING FOR A WEEK, WE CAN MARCH.

We need to be their voices

*“First they came for the communists and I didn’t speak because I was not a communist. Then they came for the socialists and I did not speak because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionist and I did not speak because I was not a trade unionist and then they came for the Jews and I did not speak because I was not Jewish and then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me” --Friedrich Gustav Emil Martin Niemoller*

There is a Mocking Jay in all of us. Catching Fire!!!

*(Diedra M. Greenaway, MS/MBA, is a long-time community activist who lives and works in Los Angeles.)*

*-cw*

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