Palestinian Talk

Today, I not only speak at one of my many Ukrainian events but I attended a Zoom talk with a female politician and artist in Gaza. What was really unexpected is that the speaker addressed me in Spanish. This is a very educated person is what I’m saying. A very strong, highly educated woman.

The speaker lost me a little bit the moment she informed us that there’s “a white supremacy in the US” and went off on a tangent about the suffering black women in the US. The talk was filled with neoliberal vocabulary to the point where it was like listening to Ronald Reagan in a hijab. But then it switched into the BLMing and a discussion about patriarchy and privilege, and sounded confusing.

Obviously, this is not the fault of the speaker who is trying to talk to Americans in the language she believes they will understand. We all have to do what we have to do to make the world notice what’s happening to us.

Then people started asking questions and everything became a lot more genuine. The speaker told us she doesn’t want to live because the way life is in Gaza isn’t worth living. The way she spoke about it I know she meant it. I cried. Now I’ll look like I’m coming straight from Mariupol during my upcoming talk.