SOLIDARITY WITH PALESTINE – A RADICAL BLACK FEMINIST MANDATE: A READING LIST
This reading list offers a brief primer on the radical Black feminist political mandate, which is solidarity with Palestine.
https://www.blackwomenradicals.com/blog-feed/black-feminist-perspectives-on-palestine-a-reading-list
WE, WHO BELIEVE IN FREEDOM, WE AS BLACK FEMINISTS WHO BELIEVE IN FREEDOM –– FREEDOM FROM WHITE SUPREMACY, PATRIARCHY, CAPITALISM, TRANSPHOBIA, QUEERPHOBIA, ABLEISM, AND OTHER OPPRESSIONS –– UNABASHEDLY BELIEVE IN AND STAND IN SOLIDARITY FOR A FREE PALESTINE.
As students of Black feminist politics and movements, we know and understand that our liberation as Black women, femme, and gender expansive people in the United States, in the belly of the imperial beast, is tethered to the liberation, freedom, and emancipation of all marginalized peoples around the world. We know that we come from long radical and revolutionary traditions of Black women and gender expansive organizers, educators, and activists who have and continue to be committed to the liberation struggles of oppressed and “Third World” peoples.
MORE SPECIFICALLY, AND ESPECIALLY AT THIS CURRENT JUNCTURE IN GAZA AND THE WEST BANK, WE KNOW AS BLACK FEMINISTS THAT OUR POLITICAL COMMITMENTS, MANDATES, AND SOLIDARITY ARE BOUND UP AND INTERTWINED WITH THE LIBERATION AND SELF-DETERMINATION OF THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE.
According to reports, more than 2,383 Palestinians are dead and 10,814 are injured. The organization, Defense for Children International–Palestine has reported that at least 724 Palestinian children have been killed by the Israeli military since October 7th. This past Friday, October 12th, the Israeli army issued an evacuation order – by way of dropping leaflets – of more than 1.1 million Palestinians in northern Gaza, giving them only 24 hours to leave their homes and move to southern Gaza toward a “safe route.” However, when many Palestinians migrated to southern Gaza, the army bombed the south part of the Gaza strip – the only road in and out of Gaza – killing and injuring hundreds. Israel has cut off Gaza from electricity, fuel, food, water, and humanitarian aid.
According to Human Rights Watch, on October 10 and 11, 2023, the Israeli army used white phosphorus – which is a “chemical substance that burns at temperatures hot enough to melt metal” – in military operations in Lebanon and Gaza. The chemical agent is also known to cause fatal birth defects. The organization notes that the use of white phosphorus by the Israeli army violates international humanitarian law.
Moreover, not only has the Israeli military deployed airstrikes on hospitals, journalists, medics, and more, it has dropped more than 6,000 bombs on Gaza, as innocent people flee with nowhere to go.
The violence and humanitarian crisis we are seeing right before our eyes comes at the heels of an attack by Hamas, officially known as the Islamic Resistance Movement, on October 7th, where members from the group killed more than 1,400 Israelis and kidnapped hundreds of others. We do not condone the killing of innocent lives –– whether Palestinian or Israeli. However, while many media outlets have disseminated misinformation and portrayed a one-sided narrative about the attack, they do not discuss the political, historical, and present-day siege of Gaza by the Israeli military and the systematic violence, expulsion, poverty, displacement, Zionist settler colonialism, sexual and racialized terror, surveillance, Apartheid, and more that Palestinians have endured for decades since the Nakba.
Many media outlets are promoting the Zionist propaganda that Israeli lives are worth more than Palestinian ones by justifying the Israeli State’s past and present collective punishment of Palestinians. For years, the Israeli State has ignored the protests, pleas, and outcries of Jewish, Palestinian, and Allied individuals and organizations alike, who repudiate the institutional subordination of Palestinians.
WHAT WE ARE SEEING BEFORE OUR EYES IS GENOCIDE. WE CHARGE GENOCIDE.
Throughout the years, Black feminists such as Angela Y. Davis, bell hooks, Audre Lorde, June Jordan, Toni Morrison, Barbara Ransby, Margo Okazawa-Rey, Beverly Guy-Sheftall, and countless others have made it crystal clear about their solidarity and commitments to Palestine. Many of us cite their work, but what we have seen and observed presently by many Black feminists who claim to have an abolitionist politic and praxis is silence.
WE ARE CALLING YOU OUT.
You cite radical and revolutionary Black feminists who have made unwavering theoretical and political commitments to Palestine, but you refuse to be in solidarity yourselves. Just like many of us said about so many White and Non-Black People of Color who were silent during the uprisings against intersectional anti-Black state violence in the U.S., your silence on Palestine is complicity.
WE WILL NOT BE SILENT. WE WILL NOT BE COMPLICIT.
This reading list offers a brief primer on the radical Black feminist political mandate, which is solidarity with Palestine.
