OPINION: By Rev. Torli H. Krua-857-249-9983—torli@uhriinc.org
Good afternoon. My name is Torli Krua. I was born in a remote village in Liberia. I moved to Boston because of the Liberian Civil War that was plotted and financed from Boston led by Charles Taylor and Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. I thank Mayor Walsh for hoisting the Liberian Flag-the Lone Star for this occasion.
Liberia has an area of 43,000 square miles, 4.5 million population. The currency is the US Dollar. Ten Presidents of Liberia were African Americans born and educated in the United States. between 1820 and 1965 thousands of African Americans were forced to seek asylum in Liberia because of threats to their lives posed by the American racist system. In 2020, racism is alive and well in America thanks to the US Congress that gave birth to officially sanctioned racism.
To end officially sanctioned racism, we need more than protests, we must start a new American Revolution 2.0-terminate Congress and elect a new generation of congressional leaders who respect the humanity of all human beings.
Free Of Racism, America May Rise To True Greatness
“Righteousness exalts a nation.” As the world’s only superpower, the United States is a force for good in the world. More than any country on Earth, the United States pays a lion’s share of contributions for humanitarian activities including, the World Health Organization, refugee resettlement, peacekeeping operations, disease prevention and disaster relief.
As officially sanctioned racism upon which the United States was founded has set America ablaze, all Americans and the world needs to come to America’s aid because America’s fall is bound to cripple the whole world. Thank God for refugees, new Americans who have witnessed unspeakable horrors, hate, violence and the disintegration and burning of their native countries. With these lessons, refugees are poised to ignite a new American Revolution 2.0 to give birth to a new nation free of official racial bias.
There’s a famous quote attributed to Alexis de Tocqueville: “America is great because America is good. If America ever stops being good, it will stop being great.” Regardless of the accuracy of the quote or President Trump’s mentra, “Make America Great Again”, the great contributions of America to the world have also been stained and undermined by the great evil of America’s officially sanctioned racism ravaging lives of Native Americans and Black Americans at home and worldwide for centuries.
Without question, officially sanctioned racism, the foundation upon which the United States of America was founded and upon which it thrives is destroying America! In order to end systemic racism in America, the US Congress, the embodiment, initiator and sustainer of American Racism must be terminated-all 535 members must go in 40 days and a new Congress committed to racial equality elected. It’s time for a ballot revolution to boot out Congress.
Termination of Congress is necessary not only because Congress initiated officially sanctioned racism and codified racism into law poisoning the operations of law enforcement forever, Congress in 2020 is totally impotent and incapable of mitigating ongoing harm of the deadly racism virus it unleashed. Gridlock and polarization between Democrats and Republicans have split the country evenly. Congress will never undo the harm of racism it initiated in a thousand years, thus forcing America at the crossroads to grapple with two options: America must urgently uproot and destroy officially sanctioned racism by dismantling the entire of 535 members of the Old Congress-American Revolution 2.0 or racism and racial division is about to destroy America! Democrats and Republicans are equally complicit because neither is calling for regeneration of the United States of America!
American officially sanctioned racism is a living system that is bearing the evil fruits of gruesome murders, police brutality and corruption. America needs a new seed of peaceful co-existence in order to get a different fruit of respect for all humanity. Matthew 12:33 “Make the tree good and its fruits good or make the tree corrupt and its fruits corrupt. A tree is known by its fruits.”
Protests alone are inadequate. Congress must go!-All 535 members must go in 40 days to make room for the rebirth of a new nation that welcomes all Native Americans, African Americans and Liberians banished by racist members of Congress.
How did Congress give birth to official racism? On March 26, 1790, the racist US Congress passed the original United States Naturalization Law, restricting citizenship only to “…white persons of good character…”. Later, officially sanctioned racism resulted in the creation of Liberia, an American Colony founded on March 3, 1819 by an Act of the US Congress in partnership with the American Colonization Society (ACS), a racist group of white supremacists and American Slaveholders who were also high ranking US Government officials who abused their powers to protect their private property-(African Slaves); US Presidents James Monroe, US President Andrew Jackson, Speaker of Congress, Henry Clay, Associate Justice Bushrod Washington.
The 2nd annual report of the American Colonization Society clarified why African Americans were unlawfully colonized using American Taxpayers money: “... the colonization of the free people of color, will render the slave who remains in America more obedient, more faithful, more honest, and, consequently, more useful to his master, is it proper to regard this happy consequence to both, as the sole object which the Society hope to attain…”US Attorney general William Wirt’s Opinion of the Attorney General #229 considered this unlawful.
For two hundred years, Congress has lied to the world that America is not the colonial master of Liberia, erroneously claiming that “freed American slaves”, not Congress founded Liberia. Congressional transgressions didn’t end with colonization and banishment of African American Citizens in Liberia and the torturing, massacres of indigenous Africans in Liberia. 80% of the first batch of American emigrants of color removed and colonized in Africa died of malaria. White men were imported to govern the banished African Americans Colonized in Liberia for two decades because Blacks were considered inferior and incapable of self-government.
After successfully banishing free African Americans, a member of the ACS, President Andrew Jackson championed another disastrous removal and banishment of Americans. President Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act passed by Congress in 1830. Some 100,000 Native Americans were forced to march westward under U.S. military coercion in the 1830s; up to 25 percent of the Indians, many in manacles, perished en route. “By persuasion and force, they have been made to retire from river to river and from mountain to mountain, until some of the tribes have become extinct and others have left but remnants to preserve for a while their once terrible names. Surrounded by the whites with their arts of civilization, which by destroying the resources of the savage doom him to weakness and decay.” Wrote President Andrew Jackson.
Since its inception, the US Congress has been complicit in ongoing damages caused by its breach of care for African Americans and indigenous Africans in the American Colony of Liberia, including atrocities, tortures, massacres, rapes, and endemic corruption in Liberia, conveniently out of sight of American Media. First the ACS sent white men to rule Liberia. Later America used Black Liberian politicians to rule, control and ravage the lives of poor descendants of Americans whose ancestors built America and indigenous Africans trapped in the colony of Liberia.
These foreign-aid infected Black politicians are bribed to give America wherever it desires. America’s partnership with corrupt Liberian rulers is best illustrated in constitutional terms, everything is done to “the will and pleasure of the president.” A comparison of the salaries of the richest nation on Earth, the United States of America and the fourth poorest nation in the world and foreign aid dependent-American Colony of Liberia best explains the rest of the story of why ending racism in the US Congress would also end corruption in many foreign-aid dependent countries worldwide, including Liberia.
Annual Salaries Of American Executive, Legislative, and Judicial Officials:
| US President
Vice President |
US$400,000
US$230,700 |
| Speaker of (Congress) the House
Senate Pro Tempore |
US$223,500
US$193,400 |
| House Majority & Minority Leaders | US$193,400 |
| House/Senate Members & Delegates | US$174,000 |
Compare The Annual Budget of Liberia’s Executive, Legislative, and Judicial Officers
Liberian President – US$3,943,030
Vice President – US$2,431,003
Senate Pro Temp – US$1,369,423
Speaker – US$1,000,370
Deputy Speaker – US$930,132
Chief Justice – US$616,374
Total – US$10,290,332
White supremacism that started in Europe was reborn at the US Congress and grew into a global pandemic of racism ravaging lives around the globe. If white supremacists who started the American Revolution also created a racist system to harm, torture kill and destroy lives for 244 years and counting, who said We The People living here now are obliged to live under the corrupt racist system created to denigrate and dehumanize human beings based on the color of their skins? Surely, we too can and must create a better system that honors all humanity? The racist founding fathers died a long time ago. So what justifications do we have to continue subjecting ourselves and our future under their deadly regime? Isn’t it time for a new American Revolution 2.0 to roll back racism?
Refugee-led State of Emergency Declared
In 2020, America is already on the brink of another bloody civil war over racism that is destined to completely ruin the United States of America and the world. That is why refugees like myself, who have experienced firsthand how countries plunge into civil wars, must speak the truth and help lead America from the brink of self-destruction to embark on a new revolutionary journey out of chaos into community. Unless we the refugees speak the truth to power and lead in creating a new United States of America free of systemic racism, we and our children shall all sink together into the abyss with nowhere to escape. Refugee leaders can’t be silent because Americans don’t even know or appreciate the depth of destruction and suffering that war, especially civil war brings. As refugee leaders, we are the only ones who can bring leadership in ending the racist pandemic that continues killing countless people of color, even while millions of human beings are marching in protest worldwide against American racism.
The 535 Members of Old Congress are not going to voluntarily resign to allow a new peaceful American Revolution 2.0 because in the words of Fredrick Doiuglass, “Power concedes nothing without a demand.” It’s not up to the members of Congress whether they go or remain. They are our employees-mere public servants paid a salary to perform. We must reject and resist the perpetuation of the racist Congress beyond 40 days by running for Congress ourselves: James 4: 7 Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
Revolution Or Self-Destruction
Meanwhile, every year, one million strong new immigrants ignorant of the atrocities and racism upon which this nation was founded are added to the population to keep the wheels of the racist industry turning. Still, the tortures, dehumanizations, gruesome murders and banishment of Americans of color continue unabated in secrecy, in Liberia and Indian Reservations, where the descendants of those whose ancestors’ blood, sweat and tears built America are banished and forgotten. When a solitary camera captures the tip of the iceberg, a transient outrage erupts and quickly dies down.
Given these horrific facts about Congress, dismantling police departments or cutting police budgets in the wake of Floyd’s death amid ongoing atrocities and poverty in Liberia and Indian Reservations makes no sense.
Still, the Floyd debate needs to be had especially within white and immigrant communities with no lived experiences of slavery or the unprovoked atrocities such as the savagery unleashed against Native Americans and African Americans for centuries. Floyd and police brutality are only symptoms. The real problem is the cancer of officially sanctioned racism, the racist foundations upon which this nation was built and the white supremacism upon which the United States thrives. Additionally, American racism is also the fuel that powers the American Christian Missionary Enterprise. In addition to Congress, we also call on all racist missionary agencies to urgently diversify their board and management to reflect their constituency. Within 40 days, any western missionary agency not diverse to become representative of the people they serve will be labelled racist and subjected to appropriate legal actions.
Because America’s unjust economy built on slave labor and unfair missionary enterprise fueled by racism, all participants in American Culture, missions agencies and economy as beneficiaries of the racist system, (whether they were European Immigrants or descendants of Immigrants of color) we are all collectively guilty of racism and the atrocities against descendants of Native Americans and African Americans. The privileges we unfairly enjoy today in America diminishes not only what should have been enjoyed by Liberians and Native Americans, but we also help diminish the very existence of Native Americans and African Americans banished by Congress, who continue to be excluded and banished from their country, the United States which we enjoy while they suffer. Whether white, immigrants or missionaries, all Americans are actively stealing from Liberians and Native Americans. Similarly, while poor Africans live and die in poverty, the crown of the Queen of England is decorated with gems of gold and diamonds stolen from Africa and elsewhere. As we call on Congress to retire of face termination and American missionaries to end racism in employment, we also call on the Queen to confess her sins of theft, repent and make reasonable restitution for all the stolen gold and diamonds and for the blood of innocent people slain worldwide to uphold the British Empire.
Ladies and Gentlemen, it’s easy to point fingers but when we point fingers, some fingers come pointing back at us. As refugees and immigrants of Color and refugee leaders, we too are guilty. Finger pointing, focused on Floyd’s demise or police brutality alone as the PROBLEM and forgetting our roles as immigrants, refugees and missionaries in sustaining the racist system is also wrong.
Our collective guilt stems from our ongoing participation in the racist American Enterprises of culture, privilege, wealth, job, security, utilities-electricity, water….we are complicit by our consumption of goods and services and participation in America’s largess, while the people from whom America stole their land, labor, lives and resources perish in deprivation in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Indian Reservations, albeit in our ignorance. Yet, ignorance is no excuse, especially when we are actively consuming the fruits of racism while those from whom America stole are brutally killed.
America’s founding fathers (European Immigrants), the white supremacist who built this country and the economy we enjoy today are dead and gone forever but while we enjoy the largess of America, Native Americans and African Americans dehumanized by the founding fathers of OUR United States are still suffering conveniently out of OUR sight and out of OUR mind in impoverished Indian Reservations and the poverty-stricken American Colony of Liberia created by the Congress of OUR United States of America. We mind OUR businesses but everything we are enjoying is stolen property!
With that being said, we announce again a state of emergency today, calling for a Revolution at Congress-the complete dismantling of the old racist Congress in 40 days to bring an end to centuries of ongoing atrocities. We call for a termination or retirement of the entire 535 members of the Congress that introduce American Apartheid and officially sanctioned racism. We call on missionary agencies to diversify and reflect their constituency in 40 days. We call on immigrant and refugee protesters, as guilty participants, to register to vote and also file peppers to run for the new Congress of 535 new members with one goal, regeneration, and rebirth of a new nation. Repentance, lamentations, and reasonable restitution are great for new relationships and an absolute necessity for America. God have mercy!
To Our Native American and African American Brothers and sisters, we apologize and say forgive us and come and let us reason together on your terms. Together, let us unite to lay a new foundation upon the demise and ashes of the old broken & racist Congress that created the “Nation of Immigrants “ aka “Nation of European Immigrants.” Together, let’s build the new “Nation of Nations” or “Nation of Many Nations”. Incorporating for the first time ever, Native Americans who were never immigrants and will never become immigrants; our African Americans, Liberians and Native American brothers are also human beings made in the image of God.
Rev. Torli H. Krua
A pastor and human rights activist, Torli was instrumental in lobbying with US congressmen and policymakers to increase the quota of refugees from Africa being allowed into the US. He has also worked tirelessly in the New England region and beyond to champion the rights of refugees and immigrants. His organization, Universal Human Rights International, worked with thousands of immigrants from 38 different countries over the span of 20 years. He has been honored by the National Peace Corps Association and the Massachusetts Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild.