Writing about identities is complicated. Identities are often drawn on bundles of visible, partially visible and entirely invisible characteristics. On the visible side of the spectrum you have characteristics like skin color. Then there are partially visible and optional characteristics such as wearing a headscarf, or having a name belonging to a certain ethnic/religious group. The invisible characteristics are traits like empathy or kindness. The ongoing Israel-Palestine ‘war’ serves as a poignant case study of the intricate dynamics of all these identities. We see how identities influence how scared we feel, how justified we feel about inflicting violence on people and what research or conversations we are open to.
I love the diversity I have seen at Pro Palestinian protests, and I’m especially happy to see other Indian-origin people there. Initially, my theory was that a person of color is more likely to relate to the occupation of the Palestinians, than to an unrestricted “right of self defense” of a colonialist project1. After all, the British Empire alone covered a territory that is now governed by 56 sovereign states, a quarter of the world. A lot of people of color are from families that have been occupied. My late grandfather told me of the occasions when British soldiers would turn up in their village in India. He was a child back then in British-occupied India. “We would throw stones at them” he recounted. I can’t help but think of his story whenever I hear about a Palestinian child languishing in an Israeli prison, arrested for the crime of throwing a stone towards a heavy armored tank.
People of color directly suffer under systemic racism, which is the bedrock of the current global economic system. Understandably, if you’re personally affected by a system or more at risk from it, you’re more likely to fight it. My social media algorithm highlights reels from inspiring black women like Joyann Reid and Briahna Joy Gray. Their fearless and articulate coverage of Palestine, The Congo, the DEI backlash and all the chaos in the world is an oasis in a mainstream media that is blind to black/brown suffering. There are many black and brown heroes fighting for our collective liberation, but the picture is not so simple…
“Black faces in high places won’t save us”
– Dr Ruha Benjamin , Sociologist and Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University
A Carnegie poll in late October showed that most Black Americans were neutral in their sentiments toward both Palestinians and Israelis. In fact, Black Americans felt slightly more connected to the Israeli plight than the Palestinian plight. Granted, the data could have changed since then, but the point remains: not all black and brown people make the connections between Palestine and the white supremacy that we all grind in here. And I’m not blaming them all either — many are struggling for survival and hardly have the luxury that I have of doing hundreds of hours of research, discussion and thoughtwork.
There are also those who have the time, but are too content personally profiting from the system. As Dr Ruha Benjamin pointed out in her amazing speech (only 2 mins 20 seconds – watch it!) there are many black and brown faces who integrate into the racist system rather than change it.
Liberal Zionists LOVE these guys, because they make it seem like the system can’t be racist, because some people of color are supporting it. This is a nuanced and perhaps counter-intuitive point: A cause does not become more or less racist if some people of color support it. An overwhelming majority supporting something makes a point, but there are always going to be SOME people of any group who don’t give two hoots about it or don’t identify with it at all.
The Oppressor would not be so strong if he did not have accomplices among the oppressed.
– Simone de Beauvoir, French Philosopher and Writer. Her book “The Second Sex” was an important contribution to modern Feminism
As has always been the case in the exploitation of any group, there are people who are in the group supporting its destruction, usually because they are rewarded for it. There are plenty of parents who love their own children and will support the murder of other people’s children by opposing more restrictive gun laws. There are women who vote to restrict abortion access to other women, knowing that this endangers and deprioritizes the health and autonomy of women. This personal historical example is particularly striking: In the Jallianwallah Bagh massacre in Punjab, India, in 1919, Indian soldiers fired into a peaceful crowd of Indian civilians under the order of a British General. Sources say they murdered up to 1500 people. These soldiers shot non-stop at a crowd of grandparents, parents, adults, children, stopping only when their ammunition ran out. My great-grandfather was lucky he made it out alive. I detest General Dyer who said that Indians were like flies to him, but I also hate those pathetic Indian soldiers who could have turned the gun the other way and killed their racist leader, but instead chose to massacre hundreds of innocent people.
What’s visible is easy to anchor on, but what’s invisible is more important
We give so much weight to visible identities because they are visible and it’s easy. It’s easier to see someone’s face than to take the time to understand someone’s values. And there’s a (significant) margin of error in understanding someone’s values. Some of my friends have surprised me during this conflict. I thought I knew their values, I thought we all believed that children are innocent and that material harm to a person like death or bodily injury matters more than feeling offended. I thought it was obvious that being unsafe is a more pressing issue than feeling unsafe. But that presupposes another assumption that the person feeling unsafe and the person being unsafe are equals. I thought they believed in equality. I was wrong about their values. It has made me cautious in making new friends.
What gets clearer with every passing day is this: The tribe is best constructed around shared values rather than shared appearance. These may correlate, sometimes strongly, mostly weakly, but never definitively. Macklemore put out the first major music piece in support of Palestine. A particularly interesting case in point: see this debate of Abby Martin vs Mosab Hasan Yousef. It’s quite a juxtaposition: a blonde woman fiercely on the side for a Ceasefire and Palestinian liberation versus an Arab/Palestinian man who declares “Palestine never existed” and champions Israel’s indiscriminate violence against Palestinians. For a bit more context on this absurd video, Mosab was the son of a Hamas member and became a spy for Israel.
People don’t need to be Muslim, Arab, or Brown to sympathize with Palestinians. Just like one doesn’t have to be a parent to care about children, or a woman to care about reproductive rights. There is an identity that some of us carry that in times of life-and-death supersedes all other identities: that of being a kind human. Most fundamentally, it’s an identity stemming from an ability to feel another body’s pain through our eyes and ears. There’s brown, black and white people who have this ability, and there’s brown, black and white people who don’t have it. And that is the greatest challenge of our times – assembling and organizing along these invisible abilities and traits, building our identities around them, and not being too distracted by the colors of our faces.
References & Notes
Laurie Penny who has Jewish ancestry wrote this thought-provoking piece in the New Statesman where she discusses how her Jewish identity came into play when reacting to Israel’s assault on Gaza back in 2014. “I should support it, according to many Zionist opinionators, because I am half Jewish. They tell me that those children had to die so that my future children can be safe. In the end, they say, it’s about blood.” She concludes it is about blood but in a different way:
“Because in the end, it is about blood. Not blood as metonym or metaphor, but the actual stuff, wet on the faces of screaming children in Gaza.”
— Laurie Penny, Feminist writer, in her article in the New Statesman back in 2014 as Israel was bombing Gaza
1 There are indeed many Jewish people who are indigenous to the land that is now Israel. So it’s not as clear-cut as an example as the British in India, which makes all the more complicated. And I certainly don’t believe that anyone who is non-Indigenous in any land should be killed. But that doesn’t mean that people have the ongoing right to build settlements and steal people’s homes. This debate of what should happen is nuanced. But what’s not nuanced is: bombing hospitals, schools, universities and cutting off aid and medical supplies to an entire population. That’s just plain wrong.
2 For more on Black people and the Palestinian cause: https://carnegieendowment.org/research/2023/12/black-americans-opinions-on-the-israeli-palestinian-conflict?lang=en; and https://apnews.com/article/black-palestinian-solidarity-support-blm-protest-966a5eb8f0fb5b34beced29c4dda7331
3 https://openthemagazine.com/cover-stories/jallianwala-bagh-100-years-on/
4. The British Empire: https://homework.study.com/explanation/how-many-countries-did-britain-rule-in-the-british-empire.html#:~:text=Answer%20and%20Explanation%3A,all%20at%20the%20same%20time.
Thank you for writing this.
And, once we have organized and assembled ourselves along the lines of our kindest human hearts, then who shall we not love anymore? Sigh.