A Love Letter to Black Resistance
There is so much learning happening at the center of every movement.
In 2020, and even before in 2018, when the Black Lives Matter movement peaked in popularity, the call to learn was so loud even someone like me who was deep into white academia and liberalism had no other option but to answer. Many answered in disapproval around me, but I answered by just listening to my body. My body said to run when my undergraduate close friend tried to give me a philosophical lesson on how all lives matter in response to my call out cry against her racist takes. My body told me to reject white-centric narratives. Today I recognize the internalized white supremacy among all my undergraduate friends and my past-self.
The truth is that I could have stuck around much longer than I did. I could have fought for anti-racist discourse in the belly of the beast that is U.S. academia, but the movement told me I deserved better. Although the movement did not completely center my body, I saw the joy my Black friends experienced in BLM protests. I wanted that too, but not at the cost of their joy. My white friends and professors sold me a dichotomy that push them to put their mental health above all else, even if it was at the cost of Black lives. But I refused to believe in such dichotomy. Instead I learned from Black activists that my fight for mental health wellness depended on their wellbeing. I could have easily stuck around for the radical journey my friend could have started, but I saw what else was possible. I thank Black activists and Black History overall for showing me what is possible for me too.
The uprisings after the murder of George Floyd truly laid out the possibilities. From CHOP in Seattle, to Stop Cop City in Atlanta. These uprisings ground themselves in the affirmation of Black lives and in the collective trauma of seeing a Black man being murdered by a state funded pig, but it went beyond those singularities. These uprisings literally rose the standards to finally recognizing colorism within Abya Yala, to calling colonization an ongoing genocide, to recalling fatphobia as a white supremacist project, to calling out the endless failures of white feminism, to demanding for the end of state borders.
Today, during Black History Month, I thank all the Black revolutionaries for waking me up. In 2020, I listened to my body and finally fled Texas. I was not able to ever join a BLM protest then because I lacked the support systems to survive an arrest. However, after a year of finally confronting my fear of speaking up under an imperialist regime, I was able to join my people on the streets for Kuffiyeh Day in 2021 and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I could have joined the many Chicano-led protests against ICE that centered my experiences, but I was still painfully crawling from my cage. I am so glad to say my first protest was Palestinian-led, not only because I learned about Indigenous resistance in the Middle East, but because it sang songs for my own people too. They sang for the end of settler occupation and borders from the Americas to Palestine. They centered a revolution that connected my liberation to theirs. I never felt safer in the U.S. than among Palestinians that day.
I thank the Black resistance here in the Americas for whispering in my ear that liberation is coming four years ago. Without them I would not have been prepared today to speak up for the liberation of all who are oppressed by modern white colonialism. Without Black resistance I would not be able to identify my internalized racism to destroy it every time I walk on the streets with Palestine. Without Black education I would have had an impossible pill to swallow when I realized what terrorism really looked like. That those who invented the word barbarism to deem my ancestors natural slaves were the barbaric ones the same way those who invented the word terrorism have been the terrorists all along. We still have Black revolutionaries on the FBI list for resisting their own deaths. We still have slave trading managed by the rich. We still have genocide.
At the same time, without Black resistance, I would have never seen joy as part of the struggle. Without Black joy, I would have sunk in to my despair. Without Black love, I would have never learned to hold my rage in my heart. Without Black rage, I would have never helped my community in the first place. Today, we rise thanks to the ongoing and historic Black resistance.
