A Break in Our Usual Programming

I know I am usually here to slide into your inboxes and make jokes about one of the silliest shows imaginable. I do plan to return next week—and you’ll get this week’s recap when the season is over, a fun treat from the past. I hope you’ll forgive me when I say I found my task impossible this week.

I have watched a place—a people— who have been living under the long, oppressive arm of Israel’s colonialism disappear. Colonialism that has been encouraged and funded by the United States, by a government that claims to represent us. Palestinians are being killed in front of our eyes after being murdered and dehumanized for years, one genocide leading to another, endless links in a chain that stretches throughout history.

We are told that what we are to bearing witness to, is justified, is right, is moral. We have been assured that this is what is must be done, that to be fired and doxxed and threatened and harassed for disagreeing is the price we must pay.

It is not. There is nothing just or moral  about what is happening in Gaza right now. What is true is that it is our responsibility to speak out against it, just like it is our responsibility to refuse to let the voices of the people who are living under a constant and relentless attack as we speak to be ignored. It will matter, I think, to be able to say that you were not silent as these atrocities were committed. That you stood up for what is right. I know it will matter to me.

I don’t have the most visible voice, nor the most important one. But I do have this space. The least I can do is use it.