Publications

From the United States to Germany, and Canada to Poland, the killing of George Floyd by a white Minnesota police officer has galvanized a transatlantic movement for human rights and social justice. Activists have managed to sustain their cumulative mobilization in honor of countless lives, most recently in outcries following the September grand jury acquittal of officers involved in the killing of Breonna Taylor, who had been sleeping when they broke down her door with a battering ram to execute a no-knock warrant.

Representatives of Brazil and the  United States, two countries that struggle with deeply rooted and  continually pervasive structural racism, announced in May the restart of the U.S.-Brazil Joint Action Plan to Eliminate Racial and Ethnic Discrimination and Promote Equality (JAPER). 

This agreement, consolidated as a  result of an important articulation with the Black movements from both  countries, is an important step forward in the struggle for multi-racial  democracy that both U.S. President Joe Biden and Brazil’s President  Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva have prioritized since assuming office.  

Last week, I hosted the first visit of Armenian civil society leaders  in Washington since the Velvet Revolution swept Nikol Pashinyan, a  prominent journalist targeted and punished by the past regime, into the  prime minister’s office.

Like many U.S. policymakers whom we met with, I was moved by their  determination and optimism following a historic change in the country  last month. Thousands took to the streets to protest the government’s  corruption and incompetence. Now, the reformers are in power and have a  chance to translate decades of advocacy into real policy change.