Witnessing Genocide as a Black Person Living in America
As a black person living in America, watching the ongoing genocide of Palestinian people breaks my heart. I see my own people in a sense. When I see a child get shot and killed by the IOF I see many Trayvon Martins, a Number of Tamir Rice's, a collection of Ma'Khia Bryant's and a series of Mike Browns. When I see the numbers of babies burned and mutilated I see the number of black babies that were used as alligator bait by white enslavers. When I see Palestinian mothers cry over their loved ones I see Mamie Till crying over the mutilated body of Emmett Till. When I see women being forced to give birth with no medical supplies I see the number of black mothers that die during childbirth a year. I SEE MY PEOPLE. If there's anything that this has taught me, it's that all of our struggles are connected. I cannot fight for the liberation of my people and ignore theirs. I cannot sit and watch a genocide and turn a blind eye.
The same media that called my people thugs for fighting back against Police brutality here in America are the same ones calling Arabs "terrorists" for defending themselves against the wicked monster that is settler colonialism. While White Trump supporters storm the US capitol are simply called protesters, I cannot, I will not take anything that white western media says seriously. US politicians both Democrat and Republican are more concerned about "keeping peace" while they bathe themselves in blood soaked currency. I simply refuse to reason with them. People say that there's a certain time and place for protests, as they complain about the signs and the people holding them. We don't apologize for the inconvenience as there is never a time or place for oppression in any form. For the last two months I have seen so much bloodshed, burned up bodies babies crying, grown adults crying. I seen a video of an Israeli tank rolling over a man. I had seen an instance of something so disturbing that I can't even tell you what it was. I had lost my natural black mind... Or maybe I found it. The masses have the right to go insane when they see atrocities such as these. We should never adhere to the standards of white Reason and etiquette when they get to go around dehumanizing people left and right. Where there is no justice, there is no peace.
In the last two months I have learned the value and importance of intersectionality and community while the media implies that humanity has been lost because of these demonstrations. I have restored my faith in humanity. People of all colors, all nationalities, religions and walks of life are coming together for one common goal: liberation. I have seen many cultural exchanges, I have seen a wide display of empathy and the destruction of many myths. That POC solidarity can never exist, that people of different religions can never see eye to eye, that there's nothing we can do to stop the problems of this cold world. It has set my heart free. It's setting the world free. People right now say that these protests are "hate marches" but I see nothing but the opposite.
In conclusion, when we fight for the Palestinian resistance, we see OUR people. Because at the end of the day no one is free until all of us are. We fight for a free Palestine, but the people of Palestine has set us all free.