Reflecting on the Flour Massacre
Israel starved the Gazans, and then murdered scores of them two days ago for starving.
The Israeli military’s version of the story is that the unarmed Palestinians’ desperate rush towards the humanitarian aid trucks posed a threat to the soldiers on the ground.
And US President Joe Biden still ships weapons to Israel.
No Israeli can justify this form of genocide by saying “But October 7 … “
No American can justify this form of genocide by saying “But October 7 … “
Biden can’t run for reelection, while justifying this form of genocide by saying “But Trump … ”
Establishment Democrats can’t look past this form of genocide by saying “But Trump …”
Let me finish the Democrats’ defensive sentence: “But Trump is the head of a pseudo Christian death cult”.
Still, yesterday’s Gaza tragedy does not justify genocide.
All of this explains why I think the recent Gaza tragedy also marks a sad day in America.
I alluded to this sad day almost eight years ago, when I wrote about the 2016 election as a question of “where would you like to count the dead bodies”.
I continued to say back then how one candidate will lead to dead Black, Brown, and Slavic bodies overseas, while the other candidate will lead to dead bodies across America.
I looked back at those four years of Trump in 2020, and believed he served up a taste of the America many Americans feared — save for the country steering clear of the full-on war with Iran that I predicted and, thankfully, almost got right.
My 2020 lens didn’t expect Biden to offer a treatment to the Levant in 2024 that would be much different from what Secretary Clinton could offer eight years prior: I saw more dead, Brown bodies.
We’ve rolled forward to January 8, 2024, and an example of being prompted to choose where to count dead bodies visited Mother Emanuel AME Church — an African-descendant place of worship and the site of racist trauma in 2015 — during President Joe Biden’s campaign stop, and the church’s parishioners drowned out protestors’ calls for a ceasefire in Gaza with “Four more years!” chants.
The scene brought my head to this otherworldly imagery that seems to borrow the metaphorical propaganda from the film They Live, and combine with the allegorical rat-race-to-nowhere of Hunger Games, as I reflect on my words from back then.
Whose trauma should Americans live with for the next four years?
So-called Progressives head into an election year with a choice to make between beating inflation, or standing up for the skull-exposed body of a starving Palestinian child.
An arc of crisis revival 7,000 miles away, or American white supremacists who think Black and Brown people are the enemy to destined greatness.
A lynched African-descendant jogger in Georgia, or Palestinian children scraping flour from a dirty road to save for a meal.
Trump’s feared retribution tour, or more Gazan deaths than the 30,000 we’ve seen since October 7.
Biden in 2024 — and a population cleansed of Brown bodies in Gaza — or Trump in 2024, along with the threat of more violent domestic whiteness.
The Levant has seen bad and bloody days for decades — and there appears to be more bloody days ahead.
And It’s sad that Americans feel forced to choose which version of love — and which version of tragedy — they prefer to see tomorrow.
Can humanity be saved by dissecting and saving only part of it?
There’s no song in my head right now.
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