BDS added this section to their boycott page and I think people really need to read it:
please remember, pushing unorganized boycotts without carefully fact-checking every company in the list can be actively HARMFUL to the boycott movement.
The disabled community fucking NEEDS to rally for Palestine. Israel is creating millions more of us. They are permanently disabling people, robbing them of their ability, their agency, and giving no support. Disabled Palestinians are dying not just from violence but from neglect due to lack of resources, which is violence itself. We have to support these people, people who haven't even been able to come to terms with the fact that their limbs are missing, they're severely traumatized, they can't move without pain, they've been so focused on just surviving. There cannot be a single Palestinian left without physical and/or mental trauma. And there are absolutely no resources being given to them, they're being actively withheld.
Please give anything you can offer. Money, coping mechanisms, resources, information, emotional support, e-sims, you could probably even donate any disability aids you don't use anymore to refugees in your home country. I know a lot of us are unable to protest right now. Sharing information is also extremely important. There ARE things we can do. Protesting is only one aspect of activism. Sending emails, making phone calls, directly supporting Palestinians in one of the ways I said above.
Just like covid is a mass disabling event, a genocide is a mass disabling event. Please do not forget this and remember, you CAN make a difference.
(BTW this is not one of those "you should care about them because they're like us!" things, everyone should care about Palestinians because they're human beings. The point of this post is to discuss what we as disabled people can do to support people who are suddenly disabled without help. Becoming disabled is not easy even with support and healthcare.)
What always gets me about learning about settler colonialism is how once you learn about it you cannot unsee the violence to the land itself. My home state was previously nearly 100% wetlands, apart of the wider Ohio river valley whose biodiversity supported such large populations of hundreds of different species that many contemporary source from settlers describe it as like the garden of Eden.
The Indigenous people who farmed and hunted here (and still farm and hunt in what land they have been able to keep and reclaim) were able to grow miles of upon miles of crops with multiple harvests a year, encouraging this biodiversity by creating forest gardens with incredible amounts of food from staples like corn and squash to local fruits like pawpaws to European imports like apples alongside controlled burns which allowed fields and buffalo ranges to expand.
Nowadays my state is known almost exclusively for its fields of nothing but corn and soy beans. Driving through in between the comparatively small cities you'll see nothing but fields where the plethora of different trees and plants were chopped down mile by mile, the remaining wetlands drained and flattened, and the rich black soils robbed of their nutrients through decades upon decades of monocrop agriculture now preserved through the life blood of petrochemical fertilizers which destroy the surrounding environment.
This process was done mile by mile as the tens of thousands of Indigenous people were killed and displaced by settlers and the US army, the land measured and sold acre by acre to white settlers who raped the land as described, filling the pockets of wealthy land speculators (like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson) who bought the land directly from the government in schemes so corrupt historians have dedicated entire careers to mapping out their dramas.
It's like learning about commodity fetishism and suddenly seeing hundreds of strangers in the products that surround you. Once you learn how the land was destroyed for profit you'll never look at the miles of fields or the cracks in the concrete of buildings built on wetlands or the stench of now obsolete canals built solely for a once boat-dependent economy with no care for the environment the same.
you have to actually talk to your neighbors. you have to actually talk to your coworkers. we’re not gonna post our way through this. we’re not gonna donate our way through this. we gotta do more — collective action is the only shot we have. we have to realize the common enemy as the billionaires and their bootlickers and do what we can to stop them from killing this world. we have to try
ID: tweet by @ babadookspinoza that reads, “Loving deeply is the only way to accommodate the knowledge of so much suffering. Our love grounds us in the world and allows our hearts to grow more responsive rather than shriveling and hardening to avoid further pain. There’s no going back for any of us, but there is a choice.”
https://t.co/tQNM37KsB0
I'm finally reading South Africa's application to the ICJ against Israel and damn they really came with those receipts!! Must read document if you not only want to understand how Israel is committing genocide, but the situation in Gaza more generally also
French people raised half a million. Half a fucking million for the family of the cop who murdered Nahel Merzouk, an Algerian boy.
Well we don’t know the value of an Algerian life in France but we sure now know the reward for killing one.
To all the French people who say France is not racist fuck you. To all the Europeans who pretend to be so much better than the US a huge fuck you. To all the people getting a hard on over France fuck you. To all the people who even think about mentioning how destroying public property is bad fuck you. Fuck everyone who is not revolted by what happened.