When The Oppressed Support The Oppressed

“When the oppressed support the oppressed.”

In recent weeks, prominent black leaders have been labeled quite unjustly with a tag of anti-Semitism. The best known is perhaps the iconic radical figure Dr. Angela Yvonne Davis and the brilliant young scholar and author Dr. Mark Lamont-Hill. As a direct result of these charges, Davis had an award from a Birmingham, AL civil rights group rescinded, and Hill was fired from his post at CNN.

At bottom, both were attacked for daring to speak out publicly on behalf of Palestinians and the stark denial of their human rights under Israeli occupation, which raises the obvious question: who has the right to tell one oppressed people when or whether they may support another oppressed people?

Few can question the oppression laid upon blacks for centuries in America which has repercussions into the present that are far too numerous to recount here. Few can honestly question the social deprivation suffered by the Palestinians since the foundation of Israel in 1940, from land confiscations, mass incarceration, and military occupation over Arab villages and communities and more. Why and how does it become anti-Semitism when communities have the oppressed support each other?

When the Obama administration came into power, the U.S. diplomats called on Israel to freeze settlements. Posters sprang up on Tel Aviv walls depicting Obama wearing an Arab headdress called a kafia and emblazoned with the words “Jew hater” and “anti-Semite.” This, for Barack Hussein Obama, who swore to AIPAC before election to do everything and anything to protect and defend Israel.

Neither Angela Davis nor Marc Lamont-Hill are anti-Semitic. They are anti-racist, anti-oppression, and anti-imperialist and no one, no one, has the right to tell any oppressed people who they may or may not support.

From in prison nation. This is

recorded by Noel prison radio.