Audre Lorde on Palestine 🇵🇸💔

🎶 If you’re not crying when you think about Palestine, you don’t really know a thing about Palestine 🎶

Jun 10, 2024

Hey you,

First, I love each and every one of you and I’m so grateful we get to give a damn together. Rest up, be alert, and stay hopeful. We’ve got loads of work to do.

Friends, I wasn’t planning on writing anything today but I’m deeply sad and troubled. Like many of you, I heard gut wrenching news from Gaza over the weekend. 276 precious Palestinians were slaughtered by the IOF and 600+ precious Palestinians were injured by the IOF in the Al-Nuseirat refugee camp. Please don’t miss the part where this happened in a goddamn refugee camp. Why did this horrific massacre happen? So Israel could rescue FOUR hostages. I became sick when I found out that they used a humanitarian truck as a trojan horse to carry out this massacre. If possible, I became angrier and began weeping when I found out that American troops helped the Israeli Occupation Forces carry out this massacre even though Biden has said over and over again that “no U.S. boots will be on the ground.”

Our tax dollars paid for yet another massacre. I paid for it. You paid for it.

In the past 247 days, the Israel Occupation Forces have rescued 7 hostages. While rescuing those 7 hostages, they’ve slaughtered 37,658 precious Palestinians and have injured 89,662 precious Palestinians.

WHAT THE FUCK?!

I woke up this morning thinking about something Audre Lorde said during the commencement address she gave at Oberlin College in 1989:

“We are citizens of the most powerful country on Earth — we are also citizens of a country that stands upon the wrong side of every liberation struggle on Earth. Feel what that means. Our federal taxes contribute $3 billion yearly in military and economic aid to Israel. Over $200 million of that money is spent fighting the uprising of Palestinian people who are trying to end the military occupation of their homeland. Israeli soldiers fire tear gas canisters made in America into Palestinian homes and hospitals, killing babies, the sick, and the elderly.”

She spoke those words in 1989. Not 2024.

Or 2023.
Or 2022.
Or 2021.
Or 2020.
Or 2019.
Or 2018.
Or 2017.
Or 2016.
Or 2015.
Or 2014.
Or 2013.
Or 2012.
Or 2011.
Oe 2010.
Or 2009.
Or 2008.
Or 2007.
Or 2006.
Or 2005.
Or 2004.
Or 2003.
Or 2002.
Or 2001.
Or 2000.
Or 1999.
Or 1998.
Or 1997.
Or 1996.
Or 1995.
Or 1994.
Or 1993.
Or 1992.
Or 1991.
Or 1990.

We must fervently reject any and all arguments that begin with “This started on October 7” or “There was a ceasefire on October 6.” Bullshit.

I’ve gotta get back to work but I want to leave you with this song by Billy Rowan aka The Undercover Hippy:

🎶 If you’re not crying when you think about Palestine
You don’t really know a thing about Palestine
When you’re trapped between the bullets and the borderline
Where you gonna run to when the bombs start falling? 🎶

Phew. May this song serve as a reminder that we are all Palestinian right now. And we must tirelessly fight for the freedom of Palestinian siblings. And our Sudanese siblings. And our Congolese siblings. And our Haitian siblings. I could go on and on.

We don’t get to stop fighting until everyone is free. Everyone. Including these precious Palestinian children.