African Americans, the Palestinian People, the Jewish People

Many years ago, Jamie Raskin, U.S. Congressman from Maryland, asked me to read a poem at his campaign launch when he entered politics. Raskin didn’t know me, but he knew I was a poet. We have been friends ever since. Raskin, a Jewish-American, son of the public activist and think tank legend Marcus Raskin, is still my representative in Maryland but now as U.S. Congressional representative.

In July 2021, the poet Paul Catafago, a Palestinian-American poet and writer who lives in New Orleans, asked me to read poetry at a benefit for the Palestinian people and Gaza. I did not know Paul, but we were Facebook friends. I came down and read poetry, and Paul and I have been friends ever since. Paul is the one person who has succinctly expressed the plight of the Palestinian people to me personally.

The current violence and inhumanity in Israel-Palestine is not personal to me, but I know many people who feel it personally. Paul still has family in Gaza. Jewish friends of mine are posting photographs of Israeli citizens taken hostage. It is real.

The Jewish People and African Americans

But, overall, African Americans understand this struggle. Like the Palestinian people, we know what it is like to be landless. We know what it is like to be stripped of our humanity. Our history informs us. We also know what it is like to be oppressed like the Jewish people have been historically worldwide.

The Jewish people in America and African Americans have had strong political connections across history. The biblical narrative of the Jewish people escaping bondage in Egypt still resonates with African Americans in their faith practices. Some Jewish Americans played a key role in the historical struggle of African Americans for basic rights in America. A Jewish educator, Joel Spingarn, was instrumental in establishing the NAACP and was the organization’s chairman from 1913–1919. Julius Rosenwald founded 5300 schools for Black children all across the American South. There are more examples of this coalition.

The Palestinian People and African Americans

Yet, African Americans probably identify more with the Palestinian struggle of late. African American history in the United States is a long history of economic exploitation, oppression, and racial violence. African Americans know what it feels like to have no land, but our history includes ghettoization and environmental injustice as official government policy. Our history is also one of second-class citizenship and noncitizenship due to government policies relating to mass incarceration. Thousands of African American men and women find themselves without basic civic rights such as voting, serving on juries, living with their families in government-subsidized housing, and other restrictions due to these policies.

Have African Americans lived in Gaza? No. However, Black people in America have lived and been isolated by state policy in urban ghettos, decrepit, decaying housing projects, and neighborhoods and cities that are dangerous for human life. African Americans recognize the struggle of the Palestinians. In the early 20th century, African Americans left their American homeland (the South) due to violence, oppression, and economic plunder. They migrated to the North for better opportunities and to avoid racist violence. The struggle continues. We get it.

Israel and America

Many years ago, after being called an “Anti-Semite” because I asked questions about the nature of the conflict, I decided to learn the history. I read books by Israeli historians and Arab writers. I read articles, watched documentaries, and history teaching films. I have come to understand the facts. I feel much more educated now. It is not Anti-Semitic to ask questions or to question Israeli policy towards the Palestinians.

This past summer, I read one of the more extraordinary books about the conflict of recent note. Fida Jiryis’ Stranger in My Own Land is about Palestinian-Israelis who are part of Israel and somehow remained on the land even after the Nakba of 1948 ejected them from the land. This book convinced me even more that there will not be peace in that region unless Israel’s treatment of the Palestinian people changes. Even Palestinians, who became residents of Israel and citizens, are second-class citizens. I do not know what will happen, but what we are witnessing is not good right now.

Aluta Continua

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This post was previously published on Momentum.

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