Invoking the anti-imperialist roots of Asian American identity is useful, but nostalgia is ultimately not a sustainable politics. The point isn't that they were anti-imperialist so we should be too, but that the structure of US imperialism in Asia they opposed remains in place.

When it comes to theorizing Asian American relationships to Palestine, the question is not whether Palestine is part of Asia but whether Asian America is (still) part of the Third World

It is interesting, to put it politely, that Tiananmen remains the American reference point for state violence against political movements instead of, I don't know, Kent State, Wounded Knee, the MOVE bombing, LA '92, Ferguson, Standing Rock, NoDAPL, Stop Cop City, etc etc etc

unleashing state violence to stand against 'hate' -- pretty paradigmatic at this point

‼️Join us this Thursday to demand TAAF drop Greenblatt and the ADL!‼️

🕦When: Thursday, May 2 @ 6pm
📍Where: Glasshouse, 660 12th Ave, Manhattan (between 48th and 49th st)

Police were quite literally throwing tables and pushing students down the stairs until one passed out. Inviting the NYPD onto campus at Columbia University University has both destroyed more property and endangered more people than the original occupation of the building.

This holocaust survivor 88 years old beautiful lady says 'I take courage and inspiration from you to keep going' to university Gaza solidarity encampment pro humanity protestors

This absurd line of thinking nonetheless appeals to a deeply ingrained racial/imperialist schema. TikTok is the connective tissue between the specters of 'Islamic terror' and of 'Red Asia'—the two bogeyman that have informed US intervention in Asia for almost seventy years now.

Re: characterizations of the 1968 student movement as anti-war but not pro-North Vietnam, here's the Harvard Crimson board in 1969:

'The National Liberation Front whom we have been trying to exterminate has the support of the people of Vietnam. It deserves our support as well.'

One thing about the call for divestment is that it forces us to confront just how naturalized the imperialist position is. It's considered a non-political issue for higher ed institutions to profit from war, genocide, and occupation. What's 'political' is asking them to stop.

Why are so many protestors wearing masks?

Yes it's to protect against facial recognition and doxxing, but it's also to keep communities safe from COVID.

As an organizer puts it: 'we deny the Biden administration’s narrative about COVID — that it’s no longer a big deal.'

Mass graves uncovered in Gaza show victims’ hands were tied before they were killed and buried. Among the dead are doctors, zip tied and still wearing their scrubs.

Further evidence of Israeli forces extrajudicially executing Palestinian civilians.
news.un.org/en/story/2024/…

'Jewish safety' has been made to stand in for the institutional security of the university, the nation-state, and the empire, and that is a dangerous conflation for us all.

If you’re involved in any of these anti-genocide actions at universities, please make sure to save your emails, flyers and other papers so that in 50 years your university can proudly display them as part of their special collections

.New York University called the cops on students and faculty tonight. People were brutalized, tear gassed, and arrested

The protest had been peaceful ALL DAY

And now the uni president sends us a message that 'high among the university's aim was to avoid any escalation or violence'

What student protesters are proving is that the logic of the university is ultimately that of the corporation, which is to say that of capitalism, which is to say that of imperialism. In their embrace of state violence, these vaunted institutions further prove the point.

The moving acts of solidarity on the part of students & faculty striking for Palestine only echo in a small way the exponentially greater acts of solidarity exhibited by the Palestinian people—who have shown us a politics of care for one another amidst unimaginable stakes.

i wish people would listen to columbia student organizers and center gaza. our escalation is long overdue and we are escalating for palestine & nothing else. please have all eyes on palestine and do not cease coverage of gaza whatsoever.