Recognizing the Armenian Diaspora

After 100 years of lobbying the US government has finally recognized the Armenian genocide, carried out by the Turkish government in the transition out of the Ottoman empire.

On this episode of Black Diplomats host Terrell Starr talks to Sophia Armen, a scholar and activist who lost eight members of her family in the genocide. She is the third generation of activists in her family who have fought to keep the memory of those bloody days alive.

Armen talks about some of the details of the systematic removal of Armenians from Turkey, and reminds us that Hitler looked to the program as a model for his final solution.

Terrell talks about his experience learning about how race functions in the Caucasus, and together they recognize the global nature of empire that underpins it all, and how different groups of oppressed people can work together to achieve reparations and healing.

Thank you for listening!

Sophia Armen

Sophia Armen is organizer, writer, and scholar from Los Angeles, California. She is the Co-Director of the Armenian-American Action Network, an organization dedicated to fighting anti-Armenian racism and for the communities’ civil rights, and the descendant of Armenian Genocide survivors from Van, Kharpert, Istanbul and Hadjin.