It is good and right to rebel and revolt against unfreedom and morally imperative to resist evil, injustice and oppression wherever we find it, in this country and around the world. And it is good to know our past and honor it; to engage the present and improve it; and to imagine a whole new future and forge it in the most ethical, effective and expansive ways.
We are a world encompassing people and take seriously the teachings of our honored foremother, Nana Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune, who told us that in the interest of African and human good and the well-being of the world, “We must remake the world. The task is nothing less than that.”
The students of all ethnicities with Palestinians at the center who righteously rage and resist across the stage of human history in this powerful and pivotal moment in support of Palestinian and human lives, freedom and justice at Columbia and more than 60 other universities and colleges, honor a shared history, rightfully resist the present state of things and fight for a future of shared good for all the peoples of the world. It is a history of campus and community linked struggles we as a people know well and we honor it also, by continuing the struggle, keeping the faith and holding the line.
We as African people know this history of resistance to the hell and horror of genocide well, the holocausts and genocides in Native America, Africa, Australia, and elsewhere. And we know how it was and continues to be carried out in the name of false gods and fictitious claims of civilization, society, and the problematic concept of progress all deeply rooted in racism, colonialism, capitalism and the will and wish of White supremacy in various forms on a global scale.
And we remember that during the height of the Black Freedom Movement, we stood up in righteous and relentless struggle in community and on campus and in the larger society to rightfully expose and radically alter the established order. It meant building unity and sustaining alliances and resisting the university as the brain of an oppressive society, its collaborator and consigliere. And it involved struggling to shut it down until essential concessions and changes were made.
Today as then, the students know genocidal war and its immoral justification or deceptive denial when they see it. And they can smell the combined rancid and reeking odor of murder-covering mendacity and mass murder and refuse to accept or collaborate in it. Indeed, they have raised up and rallied, demonstrated, occupied buildings and grounds, and set up encampments of resistance across the country and the world, expressing righteous anger and opposition against Israel’s genocidal campaign against the Palestinian People in Gaza and the West Bank Palestine.
Moreover, they have called for and demanded an immediate and permanent ceasefire to end the genocide; disclosure and divestment by their universities and schools from companies linked to and complicit in the genocide and brutal occupation of Palestine; full resumption of humanitarian aid; and a free, self-determining, sovereign and secure Palestine.
And now their universities, colleges and schools have declared the students deceived, misdirected and delinquent, and are denouncing the freedom of thought, speech and assembly and ethical agency they once taught were at the center of education and enlightenment, of being human and rightfully sensitive and responsive to human suffering and savagery against others. Indeed, these highly rated and raved-about educational institutions have called the police on them, to pummel, pound and arrest them, to teach them the hidden and hard lessons of a hypocritical society and educational system.
It is a society masquerading as an open society and democracy, a democracy which, Haji Malcolm taught, is “nothing but disguised hypocrisy.” Also, they have dragged presidents and principals to congressional hearings held by unlearned, unleashed and hypocritical inquisitors neck-and-knee deep in sleazy pretentious and self-serving posturing.
And they have expelled, doxxed, put on whitelists to disrupt and destroy their opportunities and aspirations for jobs and careers. But the students refuse to bow or back down, leaving less-than-brave administrators and posturing and pandering politicians to wait and impiously pray for semester’s end and summer break.
The students also know and the world knows enough history to realize that the war in Gaza Palestine and against the Palestinian people did not begin on October 7, 2023, but started in 1948. And it has gone on unabated in various sinister and massively destructive ways ever since, including: occupation, siege, starvation, death-dealing denial of water, destruction of infrastructure, apartheid and genocide. And the students know too the difference between self-defense and genocidal savagery.
Likewise, they reject the false right to rule, ruin and take the lives, land, property and freedom and future of others with false racist and religious claims. And they will not accept in silence the cold-blooded mass murder of children, women, men, the elderly, ill, infirm, and even the unborn in hospitals, homes, religious sanctuaries, universities, schools, heritage sites, and with no place exempt with the military amorality of artificial intelligence by an artificial humanity that programs it and sends it on its genocidal path throughout Palestine.
In the midst of active support of Israel’s genocidal war and with a self-medicating and disorienting dose of Orwellian double-speak, dishonesty, forked tongue and bad faith, Joe Biden went to Morehouse, claiming a less whitish, wanton and wicked image and interest than the moral tragedy called Trump, and hoping to repair his image and hide his real interest among Black people. He was seeking a sign of support and perhaps some reflected minimal moral status among a people with many of their members being known to be exceptionally forgiving, setting aside atrocities inflicted on them, and giving comforting hugs to the fallen and forlorn.
So, there were calls for him not to come to give a commencement speech or be awarded an honorary degree. For there was concern that his complicity in genocide against the Palestinian people would not only dishonor the African American ethical tradition of concern for the vulnerable and freedom and justice in the world, but also that he would use the occasion as just another campaign platform, seeking undeserved sanctuary and support.
Indeed, they referenced Morehouse’s most famous alumnus, Nana Dr. Martin Luther King, and his teachings and stance on the war against the Vietnamese people. All agreed Biden’s presence would be problematic, but a consensus to reject him actively and openly could not be achieved. Thus, those committed to using Dr. King as a moral resource rather than a mere reference decided to resist in various other ways for equally various reasons.
They wrote open letters and published position statements condemning Israel’s genocide against the Palestinian people and calling for an immediate and permanent ceasefire; refused to stand to welcome or honor Biden; did not clap; wore the Palestinian flag and keffiyeh, a symbol of solidarity and resistance; raised the flag of Congo, another site of colonial legacy and plunder; turned their backs, raised a resistance fist, and walked out when the vulgarly hypocritical performance began.
This reflects the unbreakable will to resist in any and every way possible, regardless of restraints and restrictions. For only in righteous and relentless resistance can we open the way for the making and emergence of a new world of shared freedom, justice and other dignity-affirming, life-enhancing and world-preserving good.
Dr. Maulana Karenga, Professor and Chair of Africana Studies, California State University-Long Beach; Executive Director, African American Cultural Center (Us); Creator of Kwanzaa; and author of Kwanzaa: A Celebration of Family, Community and Culture and Essays on Struggle: Position and Analysis, www.MaulanaKarenga.org; www.AfricanAmericanCulturalCenter-LA.org; www.Us-Organization.org.
