Until it's backwards.

Nov 01, 2023

For the past several weeks, we have watched atrocity after atrocity unfold against the Palestinian people. These atrocities are situated in the context of 75 years of brutal and violent occupation of Palestine by Israel.

Western media coverage of the genocide we have been bearing witness to act as if this violence is the result of actions taken by Hamas on October 7. However, this is dishonest. This genocide is a part of the longer project of settler colonialism. Settler colonialism is not complete until the colonizer has fully settled and that requires the ethnic cleansing of the occupied people (because to be fully settled means that the occupied people must be entirely erased). Because of this, the genocidal action of Israel was an inevitability that would have occurred with or without October 7.

Over the past few weeks, we have seen Western media and leaders of Western regimes working hand-in-hand to dehumanize the Palestinian people through lies, propaganda, and decontextualization. Dehumanization is a strategy as old as time used by oppressors and colonizers to enact violence upon people. It happened during Manifest Destiny when British colonizers slaughtered Indigenous people who they saw not as people but as barbaric, uncivilized animals who stood between them and the land they were “promised by God” and it is happening now.

Yet, hundreds of thousands of people across the globe have taken to the streets to demand an end to the occupation of Palestine. From New York to Ireland to Sydney and everywhere in between, people are demonstrating that the dehumanization campaign will not be a success, that the colonizing empire of Israel will fall (as all colonizing empires will), and that Palestine will be free (as all oppressed people will be).

This is what keeps me steadfast in my hope when it would be so easy to despair. This and the fact that Palestinian people have been unwavering in their belief of liberation so how dare I, a non-Palestinian, falter? We non-Palestinians do not get to despair, to lean it to hopelessness and apathy. We must remain firm and unshakeable in our belief that Palestine will be liberated and carry that hope when it may be hard for Palestinians to do so.

Mariame Kaba is infamous for her saying: “let this radicalize you rather than lead you to despair” and that feels more apt than ever now. I hope this has radicalized you, that you understand that imperialist regimes will not stop at Gaza because they won’t. Gaza is Sudan and Congo and the United States and every other place that occupation and oppression have made a home of.

Now is the time to reject the idea that the systems we have are meant to exist in perpetuity, invest in community, and start dreaming of what is possible for this world when empires have fallen and oppressed people are free.

I am including various resources below. These will include books, questions to reflect on, and more. Take your time going through all of these things. Solidarity and movement work are marathons, not sprints.

Take Action:

Book Recommendations:

Note: Some of these I have not read yet! Many of these recommendations come from Leen, a Palestinian organizer. Please follow her on TikTok and Twitter.

Questions for Reflection:

What does solidarity mean to you? How do you show up in solidarity for folks in your local space? If you are not showing up for those closest to you, why? What barriers exist to doing so? Of these barriers, which are in your locus of control that you could address? How will you implement solidarity into your daily life?
What does community mean to you? Where do your ideas of community come from? How can you challenge the capitalist and individualistic society in which you have been socialized in to truly understand what it means to be in community people?
Have the past few weeks disillusioned you? If so, what are you feeling? How can you move beyond disillusionment to create a better, more just world?

Some of my Thoughts to the Questions Above:

Solidarity to me is an intentional and genuine care for the safety, well-being, and joy of others. It also means showing up in any way needed to oppose and fight against anything preventing folks from being well, experiencing joy, and feeling safe.

In my life, I am involved in various spaces that allow me to show up for and be in community with folks. I participate in a local mutual aid organization and have found various orgs to volunteer with. I am also an abolitionist and have taken steps in my life to be in solidarity with incarcerated folks and to disrupt the things I have been socialized to believe about the prison-industrial complex. I write letters to a person who is incarcerated, send holiday letters each year to incarcerated folks, and have just began budgeting ways to send funds for bail and other needs.

I grew up understanding what community meant in ways entirely different than many Americans because I am from a small, rural town and group in a Black Southern family who exemplified “it takes a village.” I was raised by my entire family and that has shaped how I view community. I feel responsible for those I am in community with and take actions (whether organizing or participating in mutual aid) that align with that responsibility.

Lastly, I became disillusioned when I was in high school. I have used abolition as a way to not become cynical but rather to become hopeful about what is possible for this world.

Brain Dump

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