Today I boldly make a request to the United Nations to create a separate Sustainable Development Goal-Racial Equality.

Secretary General Antonio Guterres, I make this petition today on my 52nd birthday as an African child, born girl number 3 in a succesion of girls, in violent colonial Rhodesia and who has endured both gender and racial injustice and now advocates for social justice.

I am that five-year-old child who witnessed her parents being brutalized by the British soldiers and taken to prison with my baby sister. Their crime- they were Africans and the British were the "finest race". So white people occupied the top rung of the race ladder, then Asians, then coloureds, then my people teetering at the bottom rung. Five decades and two years later, nothing has changed. All Africans and Afrodescendants are disproportionately impacted by racism and this impedes peace and progress of all peoples and makes the dream of 2030 impossible for the globe.

During the past two years, we have experienced the Covid-19 pandemic and now war. The world has consistently proved that the history of slavery, colonization and oppression has not taught us to treat Africans as worthy human beings. Instead, Anti-black racism is alive, even at times when humanity should be standing together.

Indigenous peoples  the world over, have endured racism and continue to be disproportionately impacted as well.

Anti-Asian racism has also been on the increase with the coming of coronavirus. The war has exposed how non-white lives are not deemed as valuable.

We cannot as a people, continue to  be bound by the chains that bound our ancestors. We cannot as humanity, keep mantaining long-standing systems that were designed to exclude and dehumanize and expect such such systems to miraculously transform to be inclusive. We cannot as humanity keep analysing intersectionally without following through with systemic changes in policies and laws that will uproot racism- the longest pandemic and most pervasive inequality the globe has yet to tackle.

We should all be antiracist and at the barest minimum, in my view, create Global Awareness and introduce Global Curricula to Eradicate Poverty of the Mindset and eliminate all forms of discrimination. All the other poverties  captured in the 17 SDGs can  be easily tackled when humanity learns that each life is equally important  and choose love over fear. Racism dehumanizes all of us.

As Tata Mandela once said, "the very fact that racism degrades both the perpetrator and the victim commands that if we are true  to our commitment to protect human dignity, we fight on until victory is achieved."

We can collaborate as the human race to make the world a better place. We can adopt a maternal lens to development and value each child born of woman. As an ideal mother does, we can chose love,   unconditional love for all human beings. 

I care about global development as a mother who is a life giver, a mother who carries the future in her body, a mother who provides human resources to the world, together with fellow mothers who have given birth and would like their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren to live a life of equality , love and freedom and become all they can be.

I work for social justice because of my stories. I overcame pain and trauma and I have converted them to gifts of inspiration. I long for peace and development of ALL peoples in this world.  I use my voice. I write, sing, speak, teach and preach social justice.

For me social justice is an act of  love, love of self, love of others, love of our ancestors, love of God, the Creator, Divine Source, love for all of humanity to thrive, leaving noone behind, a question of "I am because you are!"

Love not fear is what we need for development and peace to prevail. We all have a role to play from the home to the globe. As a Mother, I know I have the power to raise a loving child. All mothers have that power. We can teach our children that they are born equal, they are beautiful and worthy, no matter who they are, where they come from, who their parents are, how they look, what they have or do not have. We can teach unconditional love.

With the creation of a distinct global goal focusing on Racial Equality, with targets which could be used to measure progress, just as SDG 5, and get financial support we will achieve the peace we want for this world.

In Searching for Racial Equality, a proposal for the Racial Equality SDG  has been put forward, crafted using the SDG 5 framework. It is open for anyone commited to eradicating racial injustice to make an input and refine it. It recognizes the disproportionate racial injustice that Africans and Afrodescendants have endured and recognizes all racialized people.

I share it here:

Searchinghttps://bit.ly/UNSustainableDevelopmentGoal

Ndinotenda.Ngiyabonga, Kea le boga, Asante. Qujannamiik, Gracias, Obrigado, Merci. Thank You.