I hear you. All of your tweets. All of your slogans.
All of your on-line trolling that treats human lives like technique—disposable, rhetorical, and forgotten. All of your fantasy revolutions with no aftermath plan, no mourning, no math.
I hear you. And I’m saying it plain:
Sit down.
You don’t get to put on the language of liberation whilst you cheerlead for slaughter. You don’t get to name-drop actions you’ve by no means constructed, grief you’ve by no means held, or technique you’ve by no means risked a rattling factor for.
As a result of actual organizing—actual liberation—seems nothing like this.
When did you change into the world’s funeral clowns?
You’re out right here treating battle like a spoken phrase night time gone off the rails. Quoting Audre Lorde to justify warfare crimes. Invoking King whereas denying Jewish and Palestinian struggling. Utilizing “decolonization” like a bludgeon with no imaginative and prescient for all times after demise.
Let’s be clear: the legacies of radical thought will not be yours to cosplay.
We’ve buried mentors and buddies who gave all the things to this work. They held coalitions collectively throughout race, faith, class, and creed. They didn’t sacrifice for hashtags. They didn’t sacrifice so you can embrace nihilism.
This isn’t talking reality to energy. That is efficiency artwork on your echo chamber.
And it’s killing individuals.
Not each oppressed particular person turns into free by killing their neighbor.
A few of you might be misplaced in a lie:
“They harmed us. Now something we do is righteous.”
That’s not justice. That’s trauma reenactment. You may’t resurrect your useless by creating extra orphans. You may’t grieve your individuals by means of rape and kidnapping. You don’t free Palestine by turning the phrases allyship and solidarity right into a warzone.
And in case your imaginative and prescient of liberation or security requires the disappearance of a complete individuals, then what you need is supremacy, not freedom.
We’ve seen this false story earlier than. Stalinism instructed it about Soviet Russia. Fascism instructed it about Europe. Apartheid instructed it about South Africa. The Khmer Rouge instructed it about Cambodia. White nationalists inform it about America.
You’re not breaking the cycle. You’re reenlisting in it.
Worry and retaliation isn’t a method.
I haven’t forgotten Oct. 7. I haven’t un-heard the screams or unread the testimonies.
And in contrast to too lots of our leftist friends, I cannot erase Jewish trauma simply because it complicates the narrative.
However trauma can not change into everlasting coverage. It doesn’t justify erasing one other individuals. It doesn’t excuse a authorities that treats security like domination. It doesn’t make the hunger of youngsters or the bombing of hospitals any much less horrific.
In case your Zionism calls for that Jews who say, “Not like this” be silenced. Be made to really feel lower than—then it’s not Zionism.
It’s concern masquerading as heritage. And concern won’t ever maintain you free.
Sufficient tender language—We want laborious braveness.
Let me be unequivocal:
I consider in Palestinian freedom. I consider in Jewish security. I consider the occupation should finish.
I consider no authorities ought to resolve your humanity based mostly in your bloodline or the language your mom sings in. I consider in coexistence that isn’t cute however difficult.
Messy. Painful. Actual. Value it.
And I’m lengthy accomplished pretending that mass killings, hostage taking, displacement, or vengeance will take us there.
I cannot moralize homicide. I cannot intellectualize annihilation. I cannot settle for an “both/or” world the place just one individuals get to breathe.
Not after Supernova. Not after Gaza. Not after Plainfield. Not after Brooklyn. Not after D.C. Not after Boulder.
I’m not asking you to agree with us. I’m demanding that you simply reckon with the truth that ideology can change into idolatry—and idolatry kills.
This isn’t the time for lukewarm moderates. However it’s not the time for arsonists who’ve by no means constructed shelter both.
We want builders.
We want disruptors who additionally reconstruct.
We want warriors of restore.
We should not overlook the useless—However we should select to honor them.
This isn’t the revolution you thought it was. It’s not slick. It’s not aesthetic. It’s not a viral video or a intelligent publish.
It’s the mom in Tel Aviv who nonetheless units the Shabbat desk, one seat quick. It’s the daddy in Rafah who writes his daughter’s identify in mud the place her mattress was. It’s the queer medic ferrying insulin throughout checkpoints. It’s the protester who carries no flag however carries a stretcher. It’s the imam and the rabbi sitting beneath a tarp, ingesting bitter tea however not strolling away.
That is the revolution:
Not the one you fantasized about out of your timeline. The one being lived by individuals who didn’t select this violence—however refuse to be consumed by it.
I’m not right here to win a debate. I’m right here to bury all of the useless with dignity—and guarantee there are not any extra to bury.
So, for those who got here searching for a manifesto, right here it’s:
We is not going to escape the fireplace simply to fan its flames elsewhere.
We is not going to carry the grasp’s instruments and name them liberation.
We is not going to construct new programs that mirror the violence we declare to oppose.
I’m not asking permission. I’m calling for braveness. I’m invoking grief as resistance. I’m a part of constructing one thing that doesn’t but have a reputation—however you’ll realize it whenever you see it.
It is going to appear to be life.
Eric Ok. Ward is a longtime civil rights chief, co-producer of the documentary White With Worry, and the one American to obtain the Civil Braveness Prize.
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