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The Growing Ties Between #BlackLivesMatter and Palestine
After Black teen Trayvon Martin’s 2012 death at the hands of George Zimmerman in Florida, a newly formed group called the Dream Defenders sprung into action. They marched for miles. They occupied the state capitol in Tallahassee. They pushed for legislative measures that would address racial inequality.
Today, the Dream Defenders remain focused on racism in America, and have helped lead the burgeoning #BlackLivesMatter demonstrations that have swept the nation after the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, two unarmed Black men killed by the police in Ferguson, Missouri and New York City.
But the Dream Defenders have also broadened their focus in recent months by joining U.S. Palestinian rights groups in calling for an end to Israeli human rights abuses. On December 20th, they deepened their commitment to Palestinian rights by unanimously endorsing the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) call. The endorsement came during the Dream Defenders’ conference in Florida.
And at the start of 2015, members of Dream Defenders, along with other groups focused on racial injustice like the Black Youth Project, went on a delegation to Palestine organized by the Institute for Middle East Understanding. The trip was meant to expose Black activists to the Israeli occupation. After returning, the participants have drawn parallels between the Black and Latino experience in the U.S. and the Palestinian experience.
The BDS endorsement by the Black and Brown-led Dream Defenders and the trip to Palestine is a sign of the growing ties between the racial justice movement and Palestinian rights activists. The groups are building on a rich history of collaboration between Black, Latino and Palestinian activists.
The growing ties between the #BlackLivesMatter movement and Palestine also comes at a time when pro-Israel groups, anxious about a changing America, are courting communities of color to bolster America’s pro-Israel stance.
“It was really great to participate in a space where people immediately understood why Palestine is such an important issue and started making connections to their own histories of experiencing racism or colonialism in the Caribbean or Latin America or Africa,” said Kristian Davis Bailey, who was part of the Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) contingent at the Dream Defenders conference.
The BDS endorsement by the Dream Defenders was the result of several months of conversation between SJP and the Florida group. SJP members reached out to the Dream Defenders after reading that the Florida organization was getting involved in Palestine solidarity work. Both groups attended each other’s conferences, laying the groundwork for what has become a multiracial alliance in the struggle for racial justice and Palestinian rights. Members of the Dream Defenders, who have worked with SJPs on campus, could step up their work on BDS campaigns in the future. And members of both organizations point to companies like G4S, which operates prisons in the U.S. and in Palestine, as one example of why they see their movements as common struggles.
The January trip to Palestine fortified the links between Black, Brown and Palestinian activists, said Ahmad Abuznaid, a Palestinian-American who is a co-founder of the Dream Defenders.
“This trip, for me, and for the Dream Defenders, for Black Lives Matter, and all the folks who were involved, was a declaration that, you know what, the relationships are being revisited and we’re going to fortify them and take them to the next level,” Abuznaid told me over the phone while he attended a protest in Florida against the North Miami Beach Police Department’s use of photos of Black convicts for a sniper training program. “So Black youth, Palestinian youth, LGBTQ youth, we’re united, we’re united and we’re building, and that’s going to make a lot of people very nervous.”
Tara Thompson, a St. Louis-based activist who has participated in Ferguson protests since August, when Michael Brown was killed, was one of the delegates. Asked if she saw any parallels between Black Americans and Palestinians, she ticked off a number of examples, like being harassed at Ben-Gurion Airport and at airports in the U.S.
“It might not look the same,” she said in an interview. “But there are certain neighborhoods [in the U.S.] that you definitely don’t want to drive in because you’re harassed, targeted. You know, ‘driver’s license and registration’ is the same as having to show whatever you have to show at a checkpoint.”
– See more at: http://mondoweiss.net/2015/01/between-blacklivesmatter-palestine