From poets, teachers, nurses, community leaders to business leaders, activists and members of the community converged at Alexandra Park in Moss Side with placards citing “Black Lives Matter”, “Sarah Reed #SayHerName”, “All Lives Can’t Matter Until Black Lives Matter” and “No Justice No Peace”. Second, and even more egregious than the “Gaza to Ferguson” false equivalency, how can BLM accuse Israel of “genocide” or “apartheid?”
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In the summer of 2014, the Black Lives Matter movement was born after a young man named Michael Brown robbed a convenience store and got into a physical altercation with Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson.
We talk about the platform, the backlash to its position on Israel and get listener feedback. Black relationships to Palestine and Israel have never been monolithic, but there are deep historical ties between Black and Palestinian struggle that go back to the Black Power Era.
He claimed that the charge of genocide was in keeping with Israel’s actions and compared it with similar charges leveled at the U.S.by black activists. “It is so ridiculous and myopic … this one group is concerned about black lives more than any other group”, Kelly declared.
The co-author of the Black Lives Matter platform passage accusing Israel of “genocide” defended the term, saying Israel’s actions fit in its wider definition.
“From voter registration drives to Freedom Rides, SNCC paved the way for radical Black organizing and fortified Black communities by demanding and fighting for Black power”, Black Lives Matter said in a statement remarking on the letter of support from SNCC.
“We learned so much from the BLM movement when they came to Palestine and I know they learned from us too”, she said. “The demand we’re making is we’re against the U.S. continuing funding and military aid to the government of Israel”.
“We roundly condemn Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed’s refusal to honor this demand, an act that legitimizes both USA and Israeli racist police violence”, the Jews of Color Coalition wrote. The groups noted how hard, if not impossible, it is for them to work with members of Black Lives Matter on common causes when the Israel language signals they are not welcome.
Critics of today’s movement try to glorify the civil rights movement to levy a critique of the black-led millennial racial justice movement – including civil rights activist Rev. Dr. Barbara Reynolds, who derided today’s activists for their approach. We will work with our partners in the USA and around the world to ensure stronger ties of solidarity between our movements and to mobilize the Palestine solidarity community in support of actions and policy recommendations of the Movement for Black Lives. It called on its allies to join the BDS campaign. We call on the US Jewish groups that have engaged in this anti-Black violence to retract their racist and harmful statements.
-We call on the mainstream US-based Zionist movement to stop simultaneously promoting tactics that harm Jews of Color while erasing Jew of Color struggle.
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“We are deeply disappointed by the response from a number of Jewish organizations to the platform, particularly the ‘Invest-Divest’ section that endorses the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement and makes a clear call for Black/Palestinian solidarity”.
