My dearest community,
These past few months have been rough. It seems as though everything I thought to be true of humanity has been challenged. I, and every Palestinian I have spoken to, am living in this very other realm of shock and isolation.
What is happening to the people of Gaza and the West Bank has not only deeply emotionally affected Palestinians everywhere, but has also affected our actual physical safety all over the world. We have watched Palestinian youth being shot and stabbed here in the United States. We have seen Palestinian business owners
being targeted. At this point, each of us has a story of experiencing racism. When our friends ask us the most benign question of “How are you?” we stare blankly, wondering what words we are supposed to use. Simply put, we are not okay. We may never be okay again.
I spoke with a cousin of mine who is a dentist in Amman, Jordan. We are from 1948, which means our family was driven out of our hometown of Al Lydd, Palestine during the first Nakba. I was worried about him and all of my family living in various Arab countries. I asked him, “Are you okay? Are you feeling safe with the war happening so close by?”
What he told me kind of rocked my world. He let me know that of course they are sad and angry, they are feeling all of the feelings that we Palestinians in the States are feeling, but they are more worried about me. Worried about me? I’m on the other side of the world! It didn’t compute. But then he went on to tell me that they have each other, they live in a world where they can openly mourn, openly express enraged feelings about the genocide, but they know that I live here. They know that being Palestinian in America is not an easy thing. They know that I have to hide my pain, my sorrow, my grief, my anger, here, in the land of the free. They know that
America is a country built on racism. He told me that they wished I were there. They would feel better if I were there. They would worry less about me if I were… closer to the war? I have sat with this. Turning it over in my head.
I have come to realize that somewhere deep inside of me I have been holding on to a belief, probably more like a hope, that this country (or at least the progressive circles I move in) stands for justice. Somehow I believed that the same people who have performatively championed the rights of the LGBTQ++ community, and who were aghast at the Mexican children being put into cages, and who planted Black Lives Matters signs in their front yards; these people who have recited land acknowledgments, and who have read all the books on white fragility and who learned to shame other white folks for their colonized mindsets, these people who abhorred Trump and all he stood for, would call out Biden and unwaveringly call for a ceasefire.
Boy. Was. I. Wrong.
What I have learned of my community is that performative action is fickle. That unless these words have been popularized by celebrities and big box companies, that unless the risk to speak up is calculated in that it will make a person appear risky without any real risk being taken, then silence is the action. “Your silence is violence.” This phrase has taken on a whole different level of meaning for me.
In moments when I allow myself quiet reflections not haunted by the images of mourning mothers holding the bodies of their beautiful children now dusty and broken, limp and lifeless in their arms, I wonder if people understand what it is like to have been born with a political identity. I wonder if people understand the difference between choosing a cause and being the cause.
My sense is that most people do not know that we can never go home, take off the indicators of solidarity, put our keffiyehs away, carefully store our protest signs in the closet, and take rest. Unless you have watched your people continuously be killed by police and military who are never being held accountable, unless you have had to debate the right for your people to exist in humanitarian conditions, you may never really understand what it is like to never have rest.
When your DNA is deemed terrorist there is never a moment of solace. When knowing that children with your name, familiar dinners, and the songs of your childhood, have all been systematically and intentionally destroyed, there can never be rest. Palestine is in us. We are honored to be of those people with great faith and
strength, and it is a heavy burden that we must always carry.
I feel so much guilt in my sadness. I feel so much guilt in my pain. How does racism that I experience here compare to carrying their children’s body parts in bags? How does my exhaustion here compare to amputating their child’s legs without anesthesia? I often wonder if I even have a right to cry.
Someday I want to write a beautiful poem about the freedom of my people. I am saving the words in my heart, dropping them like pennies of hope. I wonder what it will feel like to only write about the beauty of my homeland, of my people. It might feel strange, unfamiliar, to no longer beg for their lives to be seen.
I am wet with grief. Their grief. My grief. It is a part of our identity. Grief and strength. Grief and faith. Grief and food. Grief and music. Grief and dance. Grief and survival.
It is not complicated. Nothing about this is complicated. Killing innocent people is never complicated. Also, racism is not complicated. Othering is not complicated. But what can you say when people refuse to acknowledge humanity? What can you say when people turn a blind eye to images of dead and dying children? I
wonder, “How can I make you see what I see?” Do you know your privilege? I know mine. A bed. Food. Water.
My greatest privilege is my voice. Words. Free Palestine!
Hanan Huneidi is a queer Palestinian community activist and educator.