New Black-Palestinian Solidarity video features Lauryn Hill, Rasmea Odeh, Danny Glover

Black-Palestinian Solidarity released a powerful video today unifying resistance against state-sanctioned violence both communities are confronting. “When I See Them I See Us” features more than 60 leading Black and Palestinian artists and activists, including Lauryn Hill, Rasmea Odeh, Danny Glover, Cornel West, Angela Davis, Alice Walker, DAM, Aja Monet, Sapphire, Rafeef Ziadah, LisaGay Hamilton, the Baha Men, Rashid Khalidi, Dream Defenders Co-Founder Ahmad Abuznaid, Yousef Erakat (fouseyTUBE) and many more.

Black-Palestinian solidarity is neither a guarantee nor a requirement – it is a choice. We choose to build with one another in a shoulder to shoulder struggle against state-sanctioned violence. A violence that is manifest in the speed of bullets and batons and tear gas that pierce our bodies. One that is latent in the edifice of law and concrete that work together to, physically and figuratively, cage us. We choose to join one another in resistance not because our struggles are the same but because we each struggle against the formidable forces of structural racism and the carceral and lethal technologies deployed to maintain them. This video intends to interrupt that process – to assert our humanity – and to stand together in an affirmation of life and a commitment to resistance. From Ferguson to Gaza, from Baltimore to Jerusalem, from Charleston to Bethlehem, we will be free.

Participants hold up signs such as “Your Walls Will Never Cage Our Freedom” and “Racism is systemic Its outbursts are not isolated incidents”, while a rhythmic narration pulsates with the voices of martyrs as their familiar images flash before us. Mohammed Abu Khdeir–“They burned me alive in Jerusalem. Rekia Boyd– “They gunned me down in Chicago.” Danny Glover holds a sign with the words of Eric Garner: “They choked me on video. I said I couldn’t breathe.”

Black-Palestinian Solidarity press release cites renowned scholar and American icon Angela Davis stating that the refusal of Palestinians to surrender after decades of struggle against the oppression of Israeli colonialism is “a great encouragement to black people in the U.S. to accelerate our ongoing struggles against racist state violence”:

“Mutual expressions of solidarity have helped to generate a vigorous political kinship linking black organizers, scholars, cultural workers and political prisoners in the U.S. with Palestinian activists, academics, political prisoners, and artists…. Palestinians have spoken out passionately against racist police violence in Ferguson and Baltimore as black people have vehemently stood up in defense of Rasmeah Odeh. That the Palestinian people have refused to surrender after almost seven decades of continuous struggle against Israeli settler colonialism is a great encouragement to black people in the U.S. to accelerate our ongoing struggles against racist state violence. These powerful images represent a journey from struggle against tyranny to a collective hope for a just future.”

The idea for the video came to Palestinian scholar and organizer Noura Erakat in the summer of 2014 while bombs were dropping on Gaza at the same time that the Ferguson uprising was sparked by the murder of 18-year-old Michael Brown.

Noura Erakat, human rights attorney who produced the video told Al Jazeera “Here were two groups of people dealing with completely different historical trajectories, but both which resulted in a process of dehumanization that criminalized them and that subject their bodies as expendable. Not only were their lives more vulnerable and disposable, but that even in their death, they were blamed for their own death.”

Full Press release available here.

Script by Mari Morales-Williams, Remi Kanazi and Kristian Davis Bailey (Available in Arabic here):

When I see them, I see us

Every 28 hours a black life is stolen
by police or vigilantes in the U.S.

Every two hours, Israel killed a Palestinian child
in its attack on Gaza last summer

Eric Garner. 43 years old
Father of six. Grandfather. Friend

Hashem Abu Maria. 45 years old
Father of four. Human rights worker

Ghalia al-Ghanam. 7 years old
Killed when an Israeli missile struck her home

Aiyana Jones. 7 years old
Killed in her sleep by Detroit police

When I see them, I see us

Harassed, beaten
tortured, dehumanized
stopped and frisked
searched at checkpoints
administrative detention
youth incarceration

When I see them, I see us

From Rikers Island to Ofer Prison
from Rafah to Chicago
lives are being stolen
remember them

We are not statistics
we are not collateral damage
we have names and faces
Sakia, Kimani, Renisha
Nadim, Jawaher, Mohammad

They burned me alive in Jerusalem
they gunned me down in Chicago
they shot our water tanks in Hebron
they cut off our water in Detroit
they demolished our homes in the Naqab
they swallowed our homes in New Orleans

When I see them, I see us

They see our wombs as dangerous
label us demographic threats
They sterilize us without our knowledge
mark our children as criminal

When I see them, I see us

We say no to all forms of oppression
in US cities or on Palestine’s streets
We respect the uniqueness of our struggles
and our varied histories

When I see them, I see us

Resilient, steadfast, determined
I see who we are meant to be
Alive, free, liberated
mapping out our destiny

I see hope, strength, love
a place where our children can dream
I see a road, a partner, a family
a world where we can rise and be seen