STATEMENT BY Simon Woolley Operation Black Vote United Nations Forum on Minority Issues 12 November 2009 Greetings Brothers and Sisters from around the world. We found ourselves in a special place here in Geneva that has great history in the struggle for Human Rights. Equally we have a special space over the next few days in which we highlight our individual challenges, share ideas, and above all consolidate our global solidarity. But who are we and why are we here? We are minority voice. Sometime we are minority people. Not always of course. In Brazil Black people are the majority and yet like many of us across the globe we are the minority power. But although this conference is entitled minority issues and political participation, we must not ignore the blinding obvious: That is in the last 700 years global power has been constructed on racial as W E De Bois put it the colour-line. Whether its on the Indian sub continent, the Middle east, Australia, New Zealand, Europe, Africa, The America’s north and South, and the Far East division is based on the cololur-line. It’s important to understand this historical context because although we no longer have global slavery, colonialism, or ‘Jim Crow’ racism, we are left with an unwritten racial contract which sadly maintains the status quo. Governments across the globe talk about race equality, but never truly deliver it. They talk about diversity but never truly embrace it. Both the majority and minorities are often complicit in maintaining the present situation. The majority are compliant because the status quo confers great privilege. A privilege so ingrained in every facet of our society-not least politic-that it is no longer seen as privilege. We, minorities, unwittingly play our role because we readily accept their perception that we are inferior. How does that manifest? Well, if, three years ago we would have been told that Barack Obama would become vice president of America, our physiological condition of inferiority would have not only accepted that scenario but embraced it. Obama’s victory has taught us to truly believe in our own self worth.