Just Sociology Tings: African American and Palestinian solidarity

I don’t think it’s a very charged statement to say that we are actively witnessing a genocide in a way we never have before. 

Ever since Oct. 7, 2023, both my TikTok and Instagram feeds have been filled with content related to Palestine. Over the course of a year we have seen an entire city flattened to rubble; hospitals, houses, schools, churches, and mosques falling victim to unrelenting bombardment. 

People have been forced to witness their entire families being martyred, and as of now, an estimated 43,000 Palestinian souls have been lost as a result of the Israeli siege on Gaza — not taking into account the estimated 10,000 still missing, potentially buried under the rubble of fallen infrastructure. 

I cannot begin to imagine the fear and anguish that the people of Gaza experience every day, and no amount of writing could truly capture the essence of how dire the situation is. But one thing that I think should be of note is how resilient Palestinians are. When faced with death and destruction, they still find ways of resisting the powers that try to strip them of everything that they hold dear. 

Toward the beginning of the “war,” many journalists either chose to stay in Gaza or simply weren’t able to evacuate before the siege began, with Bisan Owda, Plestia Alaqad and Motaz Azaiza being just a few names out of hundreds. They took it upon themselves to document the atrocities happening within the strip despite having limited access to internet, electricity and without having the same guarantee of safety that many other journalists are afforded. 

Despite all of the hospitals in Gaza operating over max capacity, health care providers and EMS have been working around the clock every day to save those who are injured, ill or suffering from malnourishment and starvation. 

The people of Gaza and even the West Bank continue to persist even in the face of adversity — it’s hard not to admire their strength. 

To give a brief synopsis of the history: The formation of Israel as a nation-state originated toward the tail end of World War I as a means of finding a place for European Jewish people to live. In 1948, Palestinians were involuntarily displaced from their homes during an event called the Nakba and were subsequently forced to live in an apartheid state ever since. 

While gradually learning more about Palestinian history, I found myself seeing so many parallels between their struggles, and those of African Americans. 

In order to properly convey this idea, I think it’s important to recontextualize Israel’s existence as a settler-colonial state. Regardless of the intention behind their mass migration to the Middle East, there is no excuse for the subsequent ethnic cleansing and oppression that has come as a result of their occupation of Palestine. 

I think one of the biggest parallels between Black and Palestinian struggles is the use of systems of oppression to keep us suppressed and the ways that the state utilizes them. 

Institutional racism in Palestine mirrors that of the United States in so many ways. Much like how African Americans have historically had limited access to voting rights, Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip do not have the right to vote in Israeli elections — with it being a right reserved for those of Israeli citizenship. 

Palestinians have to occupy separate institutions, towns and even use different public infrastructure than Israelis, mirroring the effects of the U.S. Supreme Court's infamous Plessy V. Ferguson ruling that allowed for racial segregation within the American South — better known as Jim Crow laws. 

The similarities also carry on into the legal proceedings of both nations. Both Black and Palestinian men deal with mass incarceration at alarmingly high rates, and the lack of legitimate due process is another parallel that plagues both Palestine and America. 

One case that will forever shake me to my core is that of Kalief Browder. Arrested at age 16 after being accused of stealing a backpack, Kalief was held in the Rikers Island jail complex for three years, with nearly two years of that being spent in solitary confinement. All of this without a trial. Despite the charges being dropped and Browder being released, the damage that his jail time took on his mental health was far too detrimental, and in June 2015, Browder took his life at the age of 22. 

Kalief Browder’s case is just one of many that exemplify the criminal justice system's aversion to administering actual justice, and the case is no different for Palestinians. 

‍Hadi Dahbour is just one of hundreds of young Palestinian boys who have been held in Israeli prisons and detention centers. Formally charged with  throwing stones at occupation forces and writing anti-occupation graffiti, Dahbour was put on trial along with nearly two dozen of his peers. 

While the amount of time he spent waiting for his trial in the detention center was minimal compared to others, during that time it was suspected that Dahbour had been tortured by Israeli soldiers. He sustained bruises and burn marks that his mother — a doctor — attributed to torture. However, he and his mother had to drop the charges against the Israeli soldiers to agree to a 19-month sentencing deal for Dahbour.

The ways that African American and Palestinian struggles mirror each other are insurmountable, and Palestinian’s have been recognizing this for years. 

For example, the 2014 murder of Micheal Brown at the hands of Darren Wilson, sparked outrage all over the United States. The following protests and demonstrations taking place in Ferguson were met with resistance and violence from law enforcement. 

During this time, Palestinians that resonated with the images coming out of the U.S. began taking to social media to voice their solidarity and support of the protestor’s resistance against police. 

Palestinians who have had first hand experience dealing with the same police aggression that happened in Ferguson began tweeting tips on how to deal with the police tactics that Israeli occupation forces use against them. 

This hits even harder when you realize that numerous police departments across the country have trained with Israeli soldiers on tactics of how to deal with civil unrest, only further solidifying the connection between Black American and Palestinian experiences. 

I firmly believe that nearly all forms of oppression are interconnected. The same powers that oppress my people here in the States have close ties with the powers that are killing Palestinians by the thousands. 

I don’t think I’m alone when I say that witnessing this genocide and Palestinian resistance has changed me in a ways that I’m still struggling to grapple. And I have taken so much inspiration from Black activists, content creators and public figureheads that I follow on social media who have voiced their support of Palestine and continue to support organizations and crowdfunding projects directly supporting those who live in the Gaza Strip. 

The reason I wrote this article is because — on top of wanting to spread awareness for a cause that I truly believe in — I want to inspire people the same way that the Palestinian people have inspired me. 

While I do not support the Black Lives Matter organization, their alliance with Palestinian resistance movements is only reflective of the shared experience and struggles that Black Americans have with them. Palestinians showed us solidarity in 2014. They showed us solidarity in 2020. Now, it’s time for us to show that we stand with them.