the most cringe thing you can do online rn
plus: being history conscious in the midst of a genocide
Oops, I did it again! (Neglected this Substack because as it turns out, launching a business and starting graduate school at the same time was a bit of an insane plan).
That being said: I’ve been working hard on revamping Gut Feelings so there’s more regularly content without it feeling like unnecessary noise. Since the beginning, I knew I wanted this Substack to be an exploration of feelings as it relates to current events and sociopolitical movements. I’ve talked about our culture’s whiplash response to the Depp v. Heard case, no longer seeking validation from white institutions, the scam of self-care, and more. But the feeling on my mind these past few weeks have been devastation.
I am, of course, talking about the genocide in Palestine.
I’ll cut to the case: what’s happening in Gaza—what has been happening in Gaza, not just this month—is ethnic cleansing. James Baldwin talked about this and other Black freedom fights (Audre Lorde, Angela Davis, etc) have astutely written about how the Palestinian liberation movement is directly tied to settler violence everywhere. The same forces of Western imperialism used to oppress the Palestinian people are what’s oppressing people everywhere. If you didn’t know, the United States use the same police training as the Israeli Defense Forces and during the Black Lives Matter protests, it was the Palestinian people who gave advice on how to treat gas wounds and more.
My reporting around Palestine is not finished; in the incoming weeks, I’ll be sharing more of my own writing around Gaza, particularly what’s playing out on college campuses. But in the meantime, I did want to lead with this brief, mini-essay on what Americans should stop doing (among other things).
American exceptionalism is embarrassing all of the time, but in some simple words: some people are really showing their asses. New York Magazine published a decent essay on why it is Americans feel the need to make statements any time the world collectively experiences a crisis (in this case, I won’t mince words, a genocide). Now: some events do demand attention and again, genocide is one of them. We should all be speaking up about the truly insane and unhinged amount of propaganda coming from Israel, how much the United States is sponsoring apartheid, and the lack of humanitarian aid being given to Gaza right now.
But there’s also a vast majority of Americans who don’t know anything about the Middle East but, really, really, really wants us to know that they 1) don’t condemn terrorism 2) they’re self-caring during this really hard time.
Which, okay!
There’s no shame in being uneducated about the long history of Israel-Palestine… up until now. Israel is the biggest success story to come out of Western imperialism and it is in their best interests that the average Joe stays ignorant. What is shameful is not only taking the bare minimum to read a book, listen to a podcast episode, or talk to the many, many scholars and activists and writers who are actively educating folks right now. What’s deeply shameful is centering chosen ignorance during a time when thousands of Gazans are dying en masse per day and then posting about how stressful it is to feel confused and social media is just so tense right now and ugh!!!1
I am sympathetic because it is challenging to know what to say. I am sympathetic that people are being forced to reckon with zionism and xenophobia in real time. I am less sympathetic to the fact that most people situated in the Global North is doing all of this on their iPhones and I am not at all sympathetic to the fact that Americans are so self-centered they’re broadcasting what they’re going through in the midst of a genocide.
This isn’t to say that people shouldn’t go on their walks or drink water or spend less time online, but there is such a thing as reading the room. And shutting the fuck up.
In a few short decades, our digital footprints will reveal where we were while Israel attempts to wipe Palestine off the map. I can’t help but imagine the same Americans in the 1800s posting to their stories like, “it’s okay to unplug 🤍 “ during the Civil War.
In conclusion: be offline or don’t be. But giving lengthy explanations to why you’re taking a mental health break in the midst of a genocide is probably not warranted, ever.