Podcast Ep 19: "It's easy to say Black Lives Matter"

On Episode 19, we discuss Black-Palestinian solidarity in the context of the current US uprisings against police violence and what it means to internationalize liberation struggles.

Protests are sweeping the world in the wake of the Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd.

And Israel views the Black Lives Matter movement as a major strategic threat.

“It’s about colonialism,” scholar, writer and former Green Party vice presidential candidate Ajamu Baraka tells us.

Black people are rising up against US colonialism, he says. “So that connection between our struggles and specifically the struggles against the settler-colonial state of Israel is quite clear.”

Ajamu is also an editor with Black Agenda Report and is the national organizer for The Black Alliance for Peace.

Kristian Davis Bailey, co-founder of Black for Palestine, argues that we should shift solidarity in the direction of “material joint struggle, or learning about each other’s histories and what worked and didn’t work and trying to address the colonial question.”

“We could literally have the whole world afire,” Kristian says.

Plus Nora and Asa discuss this global moment with revolutionary potential, and some of our recent articles.

Articles we discussed

“How Palestine advocates can support Black struggle” (Kristian Davis Bailey)
“Solidarity means insisting on Palestinian right of return” (Kristian Davis Bailey)
“No compromise, no retreat: Defeat the war against the African/Black people in the US and abroad” (Ajamu Baraka)
“Israel’s next UK ambassador is a settler extremist” (Asa Winstanley)

Image: Palestinians in Bethlehem hold a vigil for George Floyd and Iyad Hallaq, 2 June. (Abedalrahman Hassan/APA Images)

Music break: “Go Down Standing” (Excentrik & Rhythmatik)

Theme music and production assistance by Sharif Zakout

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