During the current repression of student activists, we are witnessing the contradictions of the student movement disastrously manifesting itself. The liberal, reformist, and racist organizing present in the so-called student intifada, the encampments and everything that followed has resulted in a movement that is ill-equipped to counter the state tactically and politically.
The primary contradiction hindering the student movement is their dedication to divestment. This is a goal that one can only question and laugh at when you understand that the U.S. and ALL OF ITS INSTITUTIONS are not complicit in the Palestinian genocide but responsible for it – as well as responsible for the current genocides and domestic colonialism happening to black and brown people here in amerikkka. Complicity implies that the U.S.’s role in israel’s crimes is only due to its financial aid, but responsibility recognizes that the U.S. powers and inspires israel tactically and ideologically, and that the collapse of israel depends wholeheartedly on whether or not the U.S. still stands.
Universities like columbia, tns, ccny, and more sit on Lenapehoking land, a result of the U.S.’s genocide of Indigenous peoples and the displacement of their land and homes. These universities, built on the bones of Indigenous people, also serve the purpose of aiding gentrification operations that displace, unhouse, and kill native new yorkers, the poor, and black and brown people.
Divestment then becomes not just an impossible goal, but a reformist and racist one – to pretend that the U.S. and these institutions can atone for their crimes and change is liberal, only organizing and fighting against your university’s role in the Palestinian genocide dismisses the suffering and harm caused to countless other people by the same institution.
The liberal and racist contradictions have manifested in many ways. Of the many issues with the student encampments, one was the treatment of outsiders. Although some organizers fought against the media’s fixation on “outside agitators,” unhoused people (commonly black native new yorkers) seeking shelter and food were treated like agitators and invaders. The racism and classism was horrific, with ccny organizers meeting to discuss, “Homeless people that are stealing and invading the camp!”
This behavior was seen throughout the city during the time of the encampments, indicating the willingness that many pro-Palestine students have to not only preserve their campuses and institutions but to preserve the U.S.. This is also seen in the current organizing against student kidnappings and deportations, which has been disgustingly liberal due to actions by the classist pig collaborators known as PYM, and the student movement’s failure to connect their repression to the same assaults and abductions felt by Mexican immigrants and other asylum skeekers who the state has also been fabricating stories of alien invasions and dangerous ideas. How serious can you claim to be when you get a permit from the nypd, the same force working side by side with the agents that kidnapped Mahmoud Khalil? What example does that set, and what does it mean when you chant, “NYPD KKK IOF THEY’RE ALL THE SAME”?
The state’s escalations against us are not based on reason but on destroying dissent. Khalil was kidnapped for ideas, which should tell us that even the most liberal of us will be taken. Those who want to keep the sanctity of the state, of these institutions, and even those kkkolumbia organizers who say “the nypd is not an oppresive force,”will be brutalized, kidnapped, and killed. There is no point in negotiating, collaborating, or appealing to institutions such as kkkolumbia when they will not bat an eye at your persecution like they don’t bat an eye at the oppression and displacement of black people in Harlem. Do not give validity to these institutions by begging for them to divest. Do not ask for their permission.
A revolutionary change in conciousness must happen. We must recognize that the U.S. is the ultimate entity, and go beyond performative “death to amerikkka” slogans and manifest this sentiment materially in our organizing. We must end “solidarity organizing” and become truly anti-imperialist, as the most militant and impactful thing we can do to stop the genocide in Palestine is to start our own war against amerikkka here. Start the war here in solidarity with New Afrikans, with indigenous people, with all prisoners, with all oppressed people fighting amerikkka domestically and internationally.
You must kill the cop inside of your head, and the cops inside the heads of all of your comrades. Reflect on the bigotry present inside in the movement and inside each other – the classism, the racism, the sexism, the transphobia, the constant othering that we do – and then destroy it. Weed out the collaborators, the reformists, and the negotiators.
Stop asking for disclosure and divestment
Fight to destroy the state and ALL its institutions
Free Palestine