Black Americans
Updated 2024-08-24
Black Palestine Solidarity The brutal response of the state to protesters was familiar to Palestinians. Palestinian American activist Bassem Masri, who was very involved in the Ferguson protests, wrote in his piece In Ferguson, I am reminded of Palestine: “On those terrible nights in Ferguson when the police were attacking peaceful civilians with tear gas, Palestinians under Israeli occupation offered advice on how to deal with the effects of the gas. Facing violence from an occupying force, whether in Palestine or Ferguson, forges a mindset that demands resistance and standing up for one’s community. When the police used military tanks and checkpoints to imprison the residents of Ferguson, I was reminded of life in the West Bank where I saw the Israeli military use the same tactics of repression.”
In 2015 over 1,100 Black activists, artists, scholars, students and organizations signed a solidarity statement with Palestine: Israel’s widespread use of detention and imprisonment against Palestinians evokes the mass incarceration of Black people in the US, including the political imprisonment of our own revolutionaries. Soldiers, police, and courts justify lethal force against us and our children who pose no imminent threat. And while the US and Israel would continue to oppress us without collaborating with each other, we have witnessed police and soldiers from the two countries train side-by-side. US and Israeli officials and media criminalize our existence, portray violence against us as “isolated incidents,” and call our resistance “illegitimate” or “terrorism.” These narratives ignore decades and centuries of anti-Palestinian and anti-Black violence that have always been at the core of Israel and the US.” https://uscpr.org/activist-resource/grassroots-advocacy-toolkit/black-palestine-solidarity/
2024-06-24 ‘Faith in Dialogue’ Won’t Stop Zionist Violence I spoke at academic institutions, civic organizations, and to religious groups. However there were always two groups which kept me away from their members:
Most synagogues — It was easy enough to explain this. Most organized Jewish institutions are partisan. They were and mostly still are, dedicated to the dream of a Jewish state functioning as a safe haven in an anti-Semitic world.
The other group, Black churches, was at first harder to comprehend. During the struggle for racial justice in the U.S., culminating with the civil rights legislation of 1964-1965, there was an alliance between American Jewish and Black organizations.
That alliance was not as smooth and solid as it is popularly believed, but it was real in the sense that you had two groups who saw something to be gained by supporting each other. Black American success in the mid 1960s actually loosened the alliance because it created the space for a Black reassessment of Zionism.
However, that reassessment did not reach those Black Americans who were religiously motivated to identify with a biblically imagined picture of Jewish history. Or, as the authors we are about to analyze put it, “our shared history of slavery and oppression and our common biblical commitment to the prophetic traditions of justice and equality.” https://consortiumnews.com/2024/06/24/faith-in-dialogue-wont-stop-zionist-violence/
2023-11-08 Why Black Americans Are in Solidarity With Palestinians FEATURING KHURY PETERSEN-SMITH – There was a mass mobilization on Saturday November 4th in Washington D.C. and cities around the U.S. and world to demand an immediate ceasefire in Israel’s war on Gaza that has killed an estimated 10,000 people and counting. As opponents of the war grow in number, more than 5,000 Black activists, artists, scholars, students and over 150 organizations have signed a statement of Black Solidarity with Gaza. They include such luminaries as Angela Davis, Indya Moore, Marc Lamont Hill, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Robin D.G. Kelley and more. https://risingupwithsonali.com/why-black-americans-are-in-solidarity-with-palestinians/
2014-10-28 In Ferguson, I am reminded of Palestine Bassem Masri was a Palestinian activist who was very engaged in protests in St. Louis after Mike Brown was murdered. He live streamed many events around the Ferguson uprising and himself was arrested and interrogated during the protests. AFSC is sad to hear that he died this week, one of five Ferguson activists that have died since 2014. We send condolences to his family and loved ones. We honor his memory by sharing this piece he wrote for us in the summer of 2014.
As the son of immigrant small business owners from Palestine, I was taught to believe in the American dream of freedom, liberty and the white picket fence. This past summer has shattered this belief. The dream doesn’t apply to certain people in our society. When Mike Brown was murdered in Ferguson my people in Gaza were being slaughtered by Israel in Operation Protective Edge. The timing of the two events woke up a lot of people. When Mike was killed, much of the media started demonizing him and the protestors, often the same sources that blamed Palestinians for their own deaths in Gaza. People naturally saw the connections. https://afsc.org/news/ferguson-i-am-reminded-palestine
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