At Night All Blood is Black
I turn on the news and see Iraq. I see Afghanistan. Lybia. Kuwait. Syria. Yemen.
Now, I turn on the news and see Palestine.
And every time I turn on the news it is to watch more of my brothers and sisters being killed; to see the bodies of mothers and fathers, of their children, lining the streets. The only burials they are afforded is when they are buried beneath the next wave of deaths.
On the news, we hear bombs dropping, silent screams drowned out by the sounds of explosions, entire cities reduced to rubble before our very eyes. On the news, they say terrorists, human animals, children of darkness.
This is the language of oppression, the language that was used to justify the genocide of Native Americans, the enslavement of Black people, the extermination of Jewish people during the Holocaust.
They do not see that our faces are those of our ancestors’, or hear how our native tongues are the music of them too.
They say children of darkness, but all I see is their light.
My mother once told me that when I was two or three, I began breaking the heads off my dolls. When she asked me why I was doing it, I said it was because I needed to put them in the oven, like what was being done to the women and children in our village.
Even at that age, I was already aware of the atrocities being enacted by the Algerian Civil War, a war that was brought on by the century of French colonialism that came before it.
It has been impossible for me to bear witness to the Israeli occupation in Palestine and not draw parallels to my own people’s struggles during the French occupation in Algeria.
Stories of my great great grandparents, and their children, and their children’s children — their resistance, their refusal to abandon their country, their willingness to die in the name of freedom.
My great great grandmother was martyred in a French prison during the occupation, and my great grandmother took on her efforts soon after. My great grandmother whose hands I held in my own during my last visit home a few years ago, because no, it wasn’t so long ago, was it?
It wasn’t so long ago at all.
Kwame Ture once said, “You can have injustice and have peace.” That is why peace can never be synonymous with liberation.
In the past week, Westerners, primarily white Westerners, have been quick to condemn the actions of Hamas, but Western media coverage is missing context.
Hamas didn’t come to exist until 1987 as a resistance group against the already decades-long occupation of Israel within Palestine—a resistance group that was funded by the Israeli government.
Terrorism is defined as “the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims,” but it is almost exclusively applied to Muslims.
Now as bombs rain down on churches, mosques, schools, and hospitals, as entire Palestinian bloodlines are wiped out, the same voices that loudly outcried Hamas are silent when it’s Palestinian children, rather than Israeli ones, that are dying.
Despite the 75 years of ethnic cleansing that Palestinians have been enduring, white Westerners are going to urge them to remain peaceful. Because white Westerners, especially Americans, have historically existed within and inherited systems that will enact violence on their behalf.
They have never been driven to consider a personal act of violence as a means for their own self-preservation or survival.
There is a quote from Chimene Suleyman’s essay My Name is My Name that I’ve been thinking about a lot. She writes, “It is there in the white men and women who do not understand, to the point of frustration, why we still walk with the noose of our ancestors around our necks, as we cannot comprehend how they do not carry the indignity of their ancestors tying it there.”
If freedom is a human right, then why are Palestinians expected to audition for our empathy in the face of their own executions?
Black people account for 14% of the U.S. population but are murdered by police at twice the rate of white Americans. Right now, a Palestinian child is murdered every 15 minutes by Israeli forces. The same Israeli forces that train U.S. police.
Will you still pretend that every instance of oppression we continue to witness is isolated, that there is no thread connecting movements like Black Lives Matter to what is happening in Palestine?
How are you not tired of pretending?
How many more must die for you to finally bear witness to their suffering?
I normally end each newsletter with ten things that made me feel good that month, but I’m sharing ten things that you can do right now.
Whatever you do, do something.
10 Things:
Follow Palestinians who are in/from Gaza for live coverage of what’s happening.
Contact your representatives and demand an immediate ceasefire.
Post and amplify the experiences of Palestinians. Don’t stop posting.
Educate yourself — educate your friends and family. You can reach out to me directly for a list of resources.
Support Palestinian businesses in your area. Share them with your community.
If you’re a reader, find books by Palestinians. Buy rather than borrow if you have the means to. This is a great resource for a list of titles.
Boycott Disney, McDonald’s, and Starbucks until the end of the year. While there are many brands supporting and directly funding Israel’s genocide, these are the three that organizers are asking us to focus on.
Attend protests if you’re able to. This is a guide for attending protests safely.
Do not stop at Palestine. Continue to educate and challenge yourself.
Finally, look at their faces, listen to their voices, remember their stories. By any means necessary, remember their stories.
Thank you for this beautifully written, emotionally raw and powerful, deeply insightful and cited share. Im grateful for the 10 action items at the bottom. Sharing this with family - time for another 'call congress' party. Appreciate your vulnerability and wisdom. Holding you in my heart with love and tenderness, always.