11/03/2023
Let me be very clear, for those who have somehow missed that my Instagram story these days is relatively sparse as far as funny memes about plants are concerned.
Children and adults are being slaughtered in Palestine without distinction, and every laughably paltry convention and law guiding the behavior of war is being ignored with impunity.
The spirit of conquest that our society and government encouraged us to find repugnant in the Russian invasion of Ukraine is present on full display In every dollar, bullet, aircraft, and platitude that we provide to the Israeli colonial project. The leadership of our established American institutions are investing heavily in the narrative of somehow-rightful support of a government partnership that we inherited from the British empire, and that we continue to perpetrate in southwestern Asia.
My sole debate in posting this stems from my concern regarding entering a voice, my voice, into a space that should be filled to the brim with uplifted Palestinian voices, as they have constantly been for the 75-odd years of Israel's attempted existence... I worry that this is performative, and useless as a gesture.
But over the past few, few weeks, the light that glowed In the laughter, poetry, songs, and voices of children, lovers, parents, and elders in Gaza have been extinguished in fire and rubble.
An information blackout has done its best to shut off the Internet access of a full people so that Israeli militant hands can bathe in blood in the dark.
And the remaining voices of my friends are exhausted, a fatigue so human, so fully deserved.
And I feel like I can do so little. But I'm doing this. I'm wearing Kuffiya, and a pin a Palestinian loved one has made. I see flickers of weary relief on the faces of SWANA strangers, and have had conversations with old folks and family restaurant owners regarding their grief, and a return to high Islamophobia in the American social fabric. Had I money, more time, more energy, a voice that could scream loud enough to stop more Palestinian friends from dying... I'd use it.
There's nothing that I can say that seems proportionate. But I defy this moment, and refuse it silence. 🇵🇸
