Rockland County has for the first time held a Human Rights Breakfast designed to call attention to human rights issues and the increasing number of anti-Semitism incidents while devising ways to deal with the issues. About 100 community, nonprofit, religious and government leaders gathered at the Fire Training Center in Pomona for the event.
The county’s Human Rights Commissioner Spencer Chilmbwe said, “Every community member has a stake in the human rights business of Rockland County. It is a collective ownership.”
New York State Division of Human Rights Commissioner Maria L. Imperial explained that her department is charged with eliminating discrimination, remedying injustice, and promoting equal opportunity and access.
The breakfast took place on Dec. 9 in advance of International Human Rights Day, which commemorates Dec. 10, 1948, when the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in response to the atrocities of World War II.
“It was a means for world leaders to ensure that ugly chapter in human history would never again be repeated,” Rockland County Executive Ed Day told the breakfast meeting.
Rockland County Executive Ed Day speaking at Human Rights Breakfast.
“Despite sharing the same blood, breathing in the same air, holding the same dreams for our families, the disease of intolerance continues to breed,” Day said. “Decades after that declaration, some still face imprisonment over their sexual orientation or are victimized over the color of their skin or their religious beliefs. We have very recently seen tragedy because of the spread of intolerance and hatred. We’ve also seen very recently celebrities endorse anti-Semitism and spread their conspiracy theories. This type of behavior is disgusting; there be no mistake about that. And it must be denounced whenever and wherever it arises.”
Day said that it was important for the breakfast to demonstrate that there is so much more that joins people than divides them.
“We need to always focus upon that, which is why this forum, here and now, is crucial to make sure hate never has a home in this county, never gets comfortable being in this county, because discrimination will not and cannot be destroyed from the top down,” Day said. “The issues we face can only be solved from the ground up by a community united. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said the ultimate measure of a man or a woman is not where he or she stands in moments of convenience and comfort but where he or she stands in challenge and controversy. That brings us here today.”
Day had a message for all residents of Rockland.
“To the people of Rockland I say join us. Let’s stand tall together and never ever stop fighting on the good days and the bad for the inalienable rights that we are born with, that we all, in fact, are created equal,” Day said.
