The Panic Button

“Please don’t get in my comment section and try to shame me into supporting Palestine because I’m Black and I should be supporting brown people. No, I’m not going to do that, because you’re ignorant and skin-color obsessed. You don’t even understand the fact that, in Palestine, there are neighborhoods called Al-Abid, translated as ‘the slaves,’ where Afro-Palestinians live. These are marginalized Black neighborhoods that are called Al-Abid, ‘the slave,’ and many Palestinians still refer to Black people as abid, meaning ‘slave’ in Arabic. Why? For those of you who are unfamiliar and unaware, number one: the Arab Muslim slave trade is the longest-spanning slave trade in history. It’s even longer than the transatlantic slave trade. Number two: many of the Afro-Palestinians who currently reside in Palestine were taken there during the Ottoman Empire, a large Islamic empire that was known for the forced servitude and enslavement of many cultures and groups of people. So, many of the Afro-Palestinians in Palestine were taken there through forced servitude and enslavement, and they still reside there in neighborhoods where they are referred to as slaves. Again, as a Black person, if you’re going to try to appeal to my race, which, by the way, I don’t make decisions based on race and skin color; I make decisions based on truth, then come up with something better, because it isn’t cutting it.”