Sorry World, Black Americans aren’t your Saviors
This was originally in May 2021. In light of the latest war between Hamas and Israel, I am re-running this article because of the attention directed to Black Americans over a war we have no control over.
The most recent Middle East killing show/war/genocide/conflict/resistance/sovereign exercise of defense — whatever you choose to call it, is another mismatched event that result in most deaths and damages being absorbed by the Palestinian people.
A world class military with equipment and money mostly provided by the self-titled greatest military ever assembled, is being used by a criminal leader to inflict significant damage to a people who say they want the same rights, home, defense, and protection that their adversaries have.
And a people whose proximity to Israel is used by other world class military and spy networks — think Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Russia and others, to destabilize, disrupt, and try to force out, a people who believe they are in their historical homeland.
Palestinians are used by other Islamic states to advance their own agendas regardless of the effect on every day Palestinians.
Israel is used by American evangelical extremists to advance their goals of Armageddon which is needed to get their savior back on earth and bring about heaven on earth.
Pro Tip: Evangelicals don’t care about Israeli people who they believe will go to hell unless they confess Christ and accept him as their lord and savior. But the cult of evangelism has the GQP in their back pocket so the GQP will do anything to advance their cause.
America’s version of Christianity have put all its cards with Israel, seeing the nation as necessary to God’s plan, and mostly turned its back on Islam, unless an Islamic nation is strategic anywhere else on the globe.
But what do Israel and Palestine have to do with American Black folk?
Perusing the news, social media, and protests scenes, could lead one to believe that Black Americans alone can solve the Israel Palestine event.
Palestinians online have blasted President Obama, called out MVP Harris, and directed anger and even vitriol toward Black American icons, singers, musicians, athletes, and everyday Black folk because “We” can’t make the US government stop funding Israel or condemn Israel.
For the few Black folk who have spoken up and tried to either offer support or neutrality, Palestinian responses have been brutal.
For the Black Americans who have spoken out against Israel for bombing neighborhoods and schools, they have been blasted by American Jewish citizens for pushing Palestinian narratives that conveniently leave out that, according to Israel, those neighborhoods hide Hamas terrorists.
Further, Jewish Americans remind Black Americans of the century’s long bond between our two communities in America. A bond that helped fund every Civil Rights movement in the country and, indeed, more than money, Jewish people have been on the front lines with our families from day one as we have sought life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Black people can identify with Palestinians because we recognize the fight against overseers who control every aspect of life, work, resource allocation, safety, fairness, brutal law enforcement, and the randomness of discomfort and death arbitrarily meted out by an overwhelming system built to stop you and block you from.. everything.
We get it. We do.
And we get it, American Jewish friends. We do.
And you know what?
We remain abused, subjugated, held down, beaten, killed, locked out, paid less, bombed out, and with tanks and military harming us, too. And we pay for it with our taxes.
We have never NOT fought every day to live in peace. We have seen over three-hundred people shot and killed by police just this year. We watched in horror a few months ago as white supremacists took over the Capitol of the “most protected city in the world” as the vaunted Secret Service, FBI, Military, Homeland Security, CIA, and Federal Law Enforcement apparatus all stood by and allowed it to happen, with some even participating to bring about a white theocracy.
Do you know what that means? Do you know how close we came to losing the advances, however meager, some privileged idiots say we’ve made? How we were minutes away from open fire on Black people by millions of white people who own three-hundred million guns?
I don’t recall any oppressed group from around the world demanding safety for Black folk or even calling out the US white supremacy-loving government. The world watched and some hoped for America’s downfall uncaring what that downfall would mean for Black folk.
Where were all the people all over the world who consume our music, idolize our athletes, copy our fashion, use our culture, and mimic our movements?
As far as I can tell, there were crickets and we were, as we have always been, on our own and left alone to fight the world’s greatest government and military without any help from anyone.
We don’t own the media here that slants the coverage of what is happening, much like they slant coverage of us and lie for cops, prosecutors, and judges every single day.
We can’t stop the government from supplying weapons or money to Israel… or Saudi Arabia, or Jordan, or Lebanon, or Turkey, or anyone else. And we also can’t stop Russia from supplying weapons and money to Syria and Iran, or Iran from providing money to Hamas and others.
Black folk didn’t partition the Middle East after World War Two. We served in that white supremacy war and helped liberate our Jewish friends and then we came home to the same racism and white supremacy that took another twenty years to begin breaking down- and we’re still trying to liberate ourselves.
Protestors in Hong Kong called on the US to help as well and Black folk could not help them, and some spoke out because of it. We can’t help Myanmar, Taiwan, Brazil, Columbia, Yemen, or any of the other thirty-five wars currently happening around the world.
Black people aren’t the solution because white people won’t let us be the solution. They won’t let anyone be the solution because to white supremacy, might is always right. And that, is that.
Hell, we can’t even be ourselves online because white supremacist algorithms monitor our speech more than any other group, suspend us more, and harass us more.
I wish the people of Palestine peace, a homeland with borders, self determination, standing with the world bodies, and diplomats all over the world. They, like us, deserve it.
I wish the people of Israel peace, a homeland with borders, self-determination, standing with the world bodies, and diplomats all over the world. They, like us, deserve it.
Unfortunately, we are each of us at the mercy of nations and governments run by people who believe that they and they alone are the only people who should rule the world and everyone on it. Until that changes, we will all be at their mercy.
It does us no good to hate one another over things neither of us controls.
The systems in place around the works, whether in the US, Russia, China, Germany, France, India, Pakistan, and the other nuclear powers, force us all to fight one another for resources, money, food, safety. None of the citizens of any of the aforementioned countries should be hated because of what their governments do. They, like you and I, want change and peace and the end to violence. But they, like Black Americans who have protested the American government one way or another for literally hundreds of years, are virtually powerless in the short term.
Our changes have come in tiny increments over hundreds of years and even those small changes are contested every single day in every American city. We have never relaxed because white supremacy never sleeps.
Peace will not settle in the land two nations call their homeland, who believe a divine right to occupy the land, and who believes their own God is on their side.
The powers that control the narrative and control the weapons and control the media won’t allow it. And those powers are not Black American powers.
We are not your enemy, Israel and Palestinians. We are victims of white supremacy just like you are.
