"Let The World See What They Did "
You are in a “never forget” moment.
Do. Not. Forget.
There are lots of people working overtime to make sure you do. To convince you that what they said never happened. That tweets you read never existed. That what we saw, or felt, or heard wasn’t real. That there was never a post about the ‘children of light’ and the ‘children of darkness.’ That there is room for debate or ‘dueling narratives’ on the rights of two million people to live. That what is happening is simply just a normalized byproduct of conflict, an acceptable level of harm, or a suitable reaction deployed on a suitable scale, with standard process and handling.
It is not.
There was a moment earlier this week where it seemed the media’s propaganda busywork might be failing, that there might be a strategy shift or at least some sort of effort to re-buy our favor or win us back. An overhaul to convince us to turn our sympathy and solidarity into validated hatred.
Instead, the media made a decision to just persist. With or without our acceptance of narrative. Perhaps their greater plan is to not waste time trying to change us, but to persist until we change ourselves. To persist until we convince ourselves that we may not have observed or understood things accurately. That we were wrong.
As crucial as social media is during these moments, as unprecedented a view it continues to provide us, we still aren’t ready to fully move on from the safety net of traditional media — the article format, the red flash of ‘breaking news,’ the weighted tone of a news anchor, the looping ticker. The things our brains innately view as credible. As actual. As real. As verifiable.
“If TMZ says it, then…”
“Well, it’s in The New York Times, so…”
“Rachel Maddow said…”
“But Kylie Jenner shared…”
They know that. Which is why their retractions and corrections, even their apologies (if they even apologize) for spreading misinformation aren’t delivered with the same full-chested confidence as their lies, instead hidden within unrelated segments no one is watching and at the bottom of articles no one is reading.
The goal for the first wave of last week’s nationalist propaganda was to create a wake for Islamophobia to coast in on. It introduced the threat of the return of a generic-yet-familiar “enemy,” and leveraged an imaginary impending ‘Day of Jihad’ to create panic and urgency. If you choose to spread propaganda, you are responsible for whoever’s eyes and ears that message will eventually cross. Best case scenario is that the message gets to me, and I say ‘fuck that’ and write a post about it. Worst case scenario is that it gets to the TV screen or radio of a man like Joseph Czuba.
In advance of the imaginary Day of Jihad that was … irresponsibly… isn’t even the right word for it … repeated and spread through media, Chicago terrorist Joseph Czuba stabbed six year old Wadea Al-Fayoume, a Muslim child, twenty-six times with a 12-inch hunting knife.
Hold your hands out and measure 12 inches in the air.
With Wadea’s own mother too injured to bury her son, a local Imam spoke for her, evoking the words of Mamie Till: “Let the world see what they did to my boy.”
Tiktok failed to load.Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser
🙏🏾 Protect Motaz (@motaz_azaiza1) and Plestia (@byplestia) at all costs. 🙏🏾
Watch their videos, save them down. I do not know how much longer they or their accounts will be with us.
“My beautiful hometown Gaza is becoming a ghost town.. where u walk and smell death… where u look and everything around you is bombed and destroyed.. where all u can hear are the sound of bombs, airstrikes, and kids crying and screaming from fear and pain…” - Plestia
The New York Times is more concerned that children are seeing war, not that they’re dying in it. The real threat, of course, is not war but people-powered media. After this month, expect to see new lobbying in favor of a TikTok ban. A well-timed post published Oct 18:
➡ Did you know you can use Snap’s geo-map feature for a live look at life in Gaza vs. Israel? Oh, you didn’t? Here’s more info on how.
Heba Zaqout and her children were murdered by an Israeli airstrike, funded by my tax dollars, on Friday October 13, 2023.
Zaqout was a Gaza-born acrylic artist. In 2003, she graduated from Gaza Training College with a diploma in graphic design and moved on to Al-Aqsa University in Gaza, where she specialized in fine art. She held her first solo exhibition, My Children In Quarantine, in 2021. She worked as a public school teacher and was previously employed by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees.
In an interview two weeks before her death, she spoke of art as expression, “I tried to express the negative feelings, emotions, and tensions that occur in Gaza:”
“I consider art a message that I deliver to the outside world through my expression of the Palestinian cause and Palestinian identity.”
She was one year older than me.
Yesterday (10/18), Washington, DC (@NaomiAKlein) — The largest Jewish protest in solidarity with Palestinians in U.S. history. If you’re bored enough on Twitter, you can find a video of M*rjorie T*ylor Gr**ne scowling at the crowd’s presence, presumably because her too tight, tired ass Chico’s blazer won’t quite let her reach back to scratch that ol’ insurrectionist itch high up on her flea-ridden withers.
Solidarity with those demanding ceasefire.
Tiktok failed to load.Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser
Harvard University students continue to stand ten toes down in their support of Palestine and against Israel’s war crimes, nearly a week after a letter they signed was released into the Israel + US media propaganda machine, leading to doxxing, death threats, and sinister corporate CEO’s preemptively vowing to blacklist them upon graduation.
I said this before and I’ll say it again, blacklisting is the tool of capitalism’s worst predators. [Listen to “The Ugliest Word in Hollywood” here]
One of those executives being Sweetgreen CEO Jonathan Neman.
I bet he couldn’t wait for Affirmative Action to be overturned. Anyway, because fuck that guy, here’s how to make a week’s worth of my ex-favorite order, the Sweetgreen Harvest Bowl, with basically one rotisserie chicken and an air fryer (recipe).
Ingredients:
1 sweet potato, chopped
3-4 cups kale, chopped
1.5-2 cups cooked wild rice (quinoa works too!)
1 cup cooked chicken (I usually just get a rotisserie chicken and shred that up!)
1 apple, chopped
4 oz goat cheese
1/2 cup slivered almonds
1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
3 tbsp mustard
1 tbsp honey
1/2 cup olive oil
salt and pepper
Instructions:
1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
2. Wash and cut the sweet potato in half lengthwise. Cut each half lengthwise one more time, and then cut into thin slices, as pictured.
3. Add the sweet potatoes to a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Spray with a little oil and season with salt and pepper. Roast for 40 minutes.
4. Cook your wild rice according to the package instructions. (I used a wild rice/brown rice mix!)
5. Wash the kale and remove the stems. Cut the leaves into thin bite sizes pieces. (Think chopped salad!)
6. Cut your cooked chicken and apple, and pull the goat cheese and slivered almonds out.
7. In a jar or measuring cup, combine balsamic vinegar, olive oil, honey, mustard, and salt and pepper. Whisk to combine.
8. When the sweet potatoes and wild rice are done cooking, it’s time to assemble! Start with about 1-2 cups of kale. Add 1/3 cup of wild rice, and as much chicken, apples, goat cheese, and almonds as you prefer.
9. Pour the dressing over the portion you are going to eat and stir to combine. Enjoy!
Also, for the cost of *one* Sweetgreen salad, you can also buy a whole set of cardboard bowls just to make sure the vibe isn’t interrupted (Shop).
🇵🇸 Ways to support the people of Gaza, West Bank, and Palestine: UNRWA - Zakat Foundation of America - Palestine Children’s Relief Fund - MAP Medical Aid for Palestinians
Updated 11/2 for typos.
Let the world see what they did to my boy. Those words will forever haunt me and remind me of what this country did to Emmett Till. Thank you for this🇵🇸🤎
I never skip a video or newsletter of yours, but with “Let the world see what they did” you’ve outdone yourself. Thank you.