FREE PALESTINE: COLLECTIVE WORK IS POWER
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This newsletter post is a long long hug & an incantation~~ I write to you in the ways my grief is moving through my broken heart, with rage, with rage we do all we can to call for a ceasefire, I write this incantation while listening to 47SOUL (a Palestinian band that I recently learned of and can’t stop listening to). I write in deep dedication to the 4,000 + Palestinians who have been killed over the past 2 weeks, to the thousands of folks displaced and with no where to go and to the 75 + years of living within an occupied state, in diaspora and displacement, with resistance and an unwillingness to ever give up….. sumud (steadfastness) and resistance: resistance that is driven by a love for one’s people, a love for one’s homeland, and a love for life and freedom (Palestinian Youth Movement, cited below).
I grew up learning about the long lineage of Anti-Zionist Jews (which include my parent, grand parents, great-grandparents, chosen and blood family) who have fought (and continue to fight) for justice for all oppressed people, Queer rights, Black liberation, fair housing, unions, Land Back, always always Palestinian liberation, always against White Supremacy and the list goes one. The webbing and weaving of many intersectional identities, always swim in my heart, work and worlds. Reminding us of the roots and webs and branches that have existed, asking us to build upon them, weed them, love on them, tend to their new needs and collectively hold space for what might grow next. And with this upbringing came always talking about and through past, present and future, news-grief-collective liberation struggles. I think about the many entry points we all have into a struggle such as this one, whether that be identity, communities, neighborhoods, geography, socioeconomics, education, job place, familial… all bridges into conversation and action. All with tax dollars funding the Israeli Government. All webbed into this moment. Our collective bodies have power. And in honor of Shatzi Weisberger, Yetta Stromberg, Clare Branfman, Leslie Feinberg, June Jordan, Audre Lorde, Winnie Mandela and so so so so many more, our intersections give us wings… always in the resistance path.
The thread that connects us, that keeps us strong and webbed in this global fight is the fact that our collective action-work-calling-marching-demanding-listening-rest-dancing-conversing is power, is collective action.
COLLECTIVE WORK IS POWER
COLLECTIVE WORK IS THE ONLY WAY
COLLECTIVE WORK IS ONLY PRACTICED TOGETHER
COLLECTIVE WORK IS OUR HOLDING OUR HOLDING WE HOLD THIS WORK TOGETHER
COLLECTIVE WORK IS THE LEANING AND HARMONIZING OF CHANTING TOGETHER IN THE STREETS
COLLECTIVE WORK IS CARE PACKAGES AND RESTING WHILE OTHERS DO WORK AND TAKING TURNS
COLLECTIVE WORK IS OVER 500+ JEWS GETTING ARRESTED LAST WEEK IN WASHINGTON DC, IS THE THOUSANDS OF FOLKS WHO HAVE BEEN MARCHING IN SO MANY STREETS ALL OVER THIS GLOBE
IS CHECKING IN ON EACHOTHER
THE TIME IS NOW! paints Tyree Guyton on garbage cans and broken TVs and signs posted throughout the Heidelberg Project in Detroit, MI
COLLECTIVE WORK IS WE MUST ACT
WE MUST ACT IN OUR SEA OF ROLES ( I think of the ‘Social Change Ecosystem Map’ as a potential guide to locating what your role might be)
SILENCE AIN'T AN OPTION NO MORE!
COLLECTIVE WORK IS STANDING IN SOLIDARITY WITH ALL OPPRESSED PEOPLE
IS SAYING FROM THE RIVER TO THE SEA
COLLECTIVE WORK IS SAYING THIS IS A GENOCIDE NOT A WAR! We are living through a genocide and we are also living through an incredibly important global fight for the liberation and freedom of Palestinian people and their sacred homeland.
The director of the Adalah Justice Project, Sandra Tamari, said in a speech she gave in DC this past week, which I watching on Instagram“GAZA MUST LIVE. PALESTINE MUST LIVE” and so inspired by her words and brilliant work, I made the piece above for you Sandra <3
And in the words of The Palestinian Youth Movement, so beautifully said:
“The foremost demand to anyone inside the West, inside the imperial core, is to oppose the genocidal drumbeat waged by Zionist and Western leaders alike. The Palestinian people of Gaza have asked for the bombing campaign to stop, the blockade to end once and for all, and for humanitarian aid to enter. But also and more broadly, what we are asking those who wish to be in solidarity within the West is threefold. First, struggle through organizations and your workplaces and your communities and in the streets to demand an end to both the current genocidal campaign and for an end to the entire system of settler colonialism that has strangled Palestine for the last century. Second, go on the offensive: demand sanctions against Zionism; no more weapons, no more money, no more cultural or institutional cover. We want the total anti-normalization of a Zionism that has once again shown its face to the world. Finally, understand Palestinian resistance as fundamentally just and as a means of survival for our people; it will not stop in the weeks and months to come, and you must be prepared not to waver again.” (read the full article here)
ALL
ALL
ALL
EVERYONE HAS A ROLE IN THIS INTIFADA (uprising, rebellion) REVOLUTION
A big part of my work and practice is to center and work towards the demands shared by the people of Gaza and so I invite you to join me in working towards one or two or three or as many as you are able to do today and the coming week(s):
-To the streets: join a March in your city or start one for y’all small town livin’ folks
-Commit to having hard conversations/educate yourself, your parents, your community. Together we will inform each other on this genocide. You don’t have to be an expert to support Palestinian resistance! Here are some talking points to support those conversation.
-Always center Palestinian voices, lived experiences, demands!
-Hold your workplace, gallery that represents you, artist residency, school, peers, family, neighborhood, non-profit, museums accountable! Join a Boycott Divestment Sanctions campaigns.
-Call your Congress people and senators NOW to demand for a CEASEFIRE! Today & tomorrow & the next day & next! Make a ritual of calling them everyday! Join the daily Jewish Voice for Peace Power Hour Monday-Friday at 12pm pst, 1pm mt, 2pm cst, 3pm est, where we all take time to call together.
-Post on social media! Although I am not always in favor of Instagram, I do feel like this is a moment in which that space has become a big bulletin board and is being used in some incredible ways! Stay active on there (if you have an IG)! Some Instagram accounts I suggest following: Adalah Justice Project, Palestinian Youth Movement, eye on Palestine, US Campaign for Palestinian Rights.
-Keep learning! Watch: Black Feminist Writers and Palestine (the full recording on youtube), Palestinian Feminist Collective’s Emergency Teach-In (recording), Democracy Now!
WE CALLING FOR A CEASEFIRE
WE SHOUTING FREE PALESTINE
WE PUTTING OUR BODIES ON THE LINE
LIBERATION NOW LIBERATION NOW
WE COLLECTIVE POWER
WE TIRED WE EXHAUSTED WE AIN’T GIVING UP
WE GRIEVING ANGERY MAD
WE SAY IT IS OUR DUTY TO FIGHT FOR OUR PEOPLE, IT IS OUR DUTY TO WIN……WE HAVE NOTHING TO LOSE BUT OUR CHAINS (Assata Shakur)
All the paintings turned into posters, in this newsletter, are free and available to use in the streets and yours windows and lives. I am honored to be in a large ecosystem of artists who are making beautiful work for this movement. Download these pieces and other posters by artists all over the world. Feel free to credit me or not.
Special thanks to Micah Bazant and Emily Sara for support with these new works.
In the words of Grace Lee Boggs, Art can help us to envision the new cultural images we need to grow our souls. FREE PALESTINE!
