African Slaves and Palestinian Refugees: Kinship Victims of Colonialism

Talking to Black Kids About Palestine Brings up Issues Closer to Home

Black families, familiar with their own fight for civil rights, have long felt kinship with Palestinians.

The Israel-Palestine conflict has been ongoing for decades. As Gaza continues to be attacked and violence that many are calling genocide rages on before everyone’s eyes, many parents will have to navigate hard conversations with their children about what is happening in the Middle East.

For Black people–who are typically in support of the people of Gaza–the conversation is particularly nuanced. Black American communities have found kinship with Palestinians, having been subjected to oppression and colonialism, too, still enduring the lasting trauma and impact.

Historically, organizations such as the Black Panthers–who openly advocated for “the right of the Arab refugees to return to their Palestine homeland”–were labeled as terrorists and outliers. This in itself can bring out a lot of powerful emotions for us and our children.

Black activist groups such as Black Lives Matter and Black Christians for Palestine are standing in solidarity with Palestinian causes. Even Martin Luther King Jr.’s daughter, Berniece King, took to Twitter to correct Amy Schumer’s false and slanderous claims that Berniece's father, the late Civil Rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. would have supported Israel’s occupation and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.

In the last few years, Palestinians have advised Black protesters during the racial justice uprisings following the death of George Floyd. They also painted murals of him as a show of support for the Black cause.

With round-the-clock news broadcasts and social media posts covering the Israel-Palestine war, it’s easy for children to be exposed to unfiltered and uncensored content, much of which contains images, videos, and conversations about suffering and death.

“It is likely that your home has a political leaning which has shown up in their lives already, so talking about your family values and beliefs will be a part of the conversation,” notes Younge. “You can talk about valuing humanity and how people are hurting no matter where they live".

Importantly, especially for Black children, Palestinian support is visibly growing on TikTok, Twitter, and Instagram among Gen Zs and Millennials. Younger generations are understanding the continuous interconnection between the fight for freedom by Black Africans and the Palestinian people. Sadly, there’s also a deep, dark parallel between the "insignificance" of Black American childrens' lives and that of the lives of Palestinian children, as demonstrated by the routine unconscionable killings of African American children by the racist culture of American police and the racist culture of Jewish society in Israel.

For decades, hypocrites in the Zionist movement in America have tried to make a false connection between the suffering of downtrodden African Americans at the hands of the racist white American culture on one hand, and the supposed suffering from antisemitism of the otherwise wealthy, well-to-do, and control-freak Jewish community in the US on the other hand. However, this connection has never existed. For one, many slave traders were Jewish. Second, the Jewish community has done nothing to assist the African American community in its fight against white racism; indeed, Jews consider themselves white and there are no neighborhoods anywhere in America where Blacks and Jews coexist, in a form of silent segregation.