Are You Unsafe or Uncomfortable: Speaking Truth to Power for Palestine and Beyond
"Your silence will not protect you." - Audre Lorde
Dear Terra community,
It is INCOMPREHENSIBLE what is happening in Gaza right now. It is incomprehensible to hear Yara Eid, a Palestinian journalist, describe the fact that she hasn't heard from her mother, family, and friends in over 24 hours since the internet has been cut.
I've been watching all of Yara Eid's Instagram reels, interviews, and story shares to truly understand the scale of violence, destruction, and horror that's happening in Gaza. She has talked about how she has not only lost her best friend who was a journalist, her boss and mentor who was a journalist, but also 30 members of her immediate family: uncles, aunts, and cousins.
She reports that up to 3,000 children have been killed.
900 are still missing under the rubble.
The Gaza-based Ministry of Health reports that a total of 7,028 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli airstrikes since October 7, 2023.
My fingers feel weak typing that number. I want to throw up.
Like Eid says, this is NOT a war between the Settler Colony of Israel and Hamas. This is a genocide against anyone in Gaza.
Eid says, "Framing this as the Israel-Hamas war is not only misleading, it's actually aiding and enabling the genocide of many Palestinians living in Gaza."
The most sickening part is the response of the journalists interviewing her who remain unmoved and detached. These journalists who keep insisting on calling it a "conflict" or "war between Israel and Hamas."
Language is powerful and important. Podcast host, educator, and content creator, Subhi gives a detailed, concise, and crucial breakdown of Palestine Terminology 101. Make sure you listen and adjust your language accordingly when discussing the genocide and ongoing colonization of Palestine.
Hospitals, churches, and schools have been completely blown up. There is no safe space in Gaza. People like Eid's mother and grandmother, who is frail and disabled, were told to evacuate from the North to the South, barely making it out alive because soon after her entire neighborhood was bombed.
People have been told to evacuate with literally no safe place to go. There is no water, electricity, no emergency services, and as of yesterday, no internet.
It's unbelievable that anyone can deny that this is a genocide and ethnic cleansing. Like Eid says in her interview, the Settler Colony of Israel has one of the most advanced militaries in the world and yet, they have killed thousands of people as "collateral damage." If they were really trying to strictly kill Hamas how is it possible that all of these grandparents, parents, uncles, aunts, cousins, sisters, brothers, neighbors, friends, etc. have been massacred?
It's possible because the Settler Colony of Israel has been waiting for any justification to completely wipe Palestine off the map. This is evident by the way they helped create Hamas in the first place.
UK Fact Check Politics reported that "more than two million Palestinians are living in a total blackout after lsrael cuts off telecommunication services to commit its atrocities in the dark. Israeli War plane are currently bombarding the captive Gazan population. This is genocide."
Decolonize This Place shared this video and caption on Instagram, "A complete blackout amidst the heaviest nonstop bombing to date is a dire signal that Israel intends to commit unparalleled war crimes against the Palestinians people in Gaza."
I recommend following and listening to Eid's words, videos, and interviews with the media, most of which are disheartening and stomach-turning to say the least because the interviewers ask the most inhumane and detached questions about this actual, literal genocide and ethnic cleansing that is happening right before our eyes in real time.
White supremacist cisheteropatriarchy is at play when violence like the genocide we’re witnessing against Palestinians is something people are afraid of speaking out against.
White supremacist cisheteropatriarchy is at play when people *are* speaking out against the genocide and they are losing their jobs, friends, opportunities, and/or worse.
It’s important to return to the words of those who came before us like Audre Lorde who said,
“My silences had not protected me. Your silence will not protect you. But for every real word spoken, for every attempt I had ever made to speak those truths for which I am still seeking, I had made contact with other women while we examined the words to fit a world in which we all believed, bridging our differences.”
We cannot all truly be free unless we break the silence that white supremacist cisheteropatriarchy convinces us we must maintain.
For those of us who are white, it is especially important to challenge the “ambient dominion” of these oppressive systems that tell us we’re unsafe when really we’re just uncomfortable with speaking the truth. There are layers of conditioning and trauma that keep our tongues tied, and to undo this means being dedicated to our embodied healing from the construct of whiteness that keeps us restricted, silent, and removed from our humanity and that of others'.
We ultimately need to get better at facing conflict, tension, discomfort, and discord because “no justice, no peace.”
Detaching from the commitment to the construct of whiteness is a concept I learned from Kenya Budd, an equity and inclusion consultant in Portland, Oregon. Part of this detachment means being able to discern when you’re unsafe or just uncomfortable. More times than not, it’s the latter.
In the podcast Seeing White, Chenjarai Kumenyika asks John Biewan, "How attached are you to the idea of being white?"
Because whiteness is a construct. The dictionary definition of "construct" is "an idea or theory containing various conceptual elements, typically one considered to be subjective and not based on empirical evidence." It provides the example that "history is largely an ideological construct."
A common metaphor anti-racist educators use to help white people wrap our heads around whiteness is imagining we’re fish swimming in water. How do you know you're wet? How can you understand wetness if being wet is all you've ever experienced and known? Similarly, how can we understand/see whiteness when we've been swimming in it since birth? This is our paradoxical work as white people.
This requires challenging the functions, habits, and customs of whiteness that we take for granted as "just the way things are." A key facet of whiteness is looking the other way and “saving face” in an effort to avoid discomfort. Too often our commitment to the construct of whiteness makes it so that our desire to remain comfortable overshadows the need to speak up against atrocities like the genocide against Palestinians happening right now. Detaching from this commitment to the status quo of whiteness, rewiring our brains from our conditioning, and recalibrating our nervous systems to be better able to handle conflict are all key components to being in diligent solidarity with Palestinians and all oppressed people.
Building our capacity for conflict and discomfort is an inside job that can, must, and will result in tangibly dismantling these oppressive systems.
It’s time to rewire our nervous systems from a lifetime of being told the lie that it’s safe to keep quiet, keep the so-called “peace,” and keep your head down.
Like Ijeoma Oluo said, “Don’t give up on the people of Gaza.”
WHAT WE CAN DO FOR GAZA
Here are some things we can do for the Palestinian people in Gaza:
Contact your elected officials and join Rep. Cori Bush's resolution calling for immediate ceasefire, as well as demanding that Israel allow humanitarian aid to Gaza.
Find a protest near you and rally against this genocide and Israel's war crimes in your area
Speak up about the truth and the horrifying reality that's happening in Gaza right now, share posts on social media, donate towards humanitarian aid for the people in Gaza by visiting bit.ly/gaza-donate
