Reckoning with The Slow Violence We’ve Come to Accept
At times of war, when the mainstream media or when the collective acknowledges war, we are confronted with consequences of slow violence around the world. Whether from communities most impacted by violence or we are the ones that get to say, “that’s their problem over there”, we all know violence is happening. We know the costs of that diamond, that cellphone, that the trash must go somewhere, and that the cost of gas is higher than fluctuating inflation.
Silence,
the beating heart
in knotted throats
It speaks — kills
Its voice, the storm in the rocky rubble,
the sound of air as you turn away
Silence takes energy — away
too: the inertia of movement
I’ve gotten used to the slow violence that Father of Environmental Justice Dr. Robert D. Bullard speaks of — that challenges our right to breathe clean air, drink clean water, and allows toxic dumping in poor communities. It feels violent to say I’ve gotten accustomed to any sort of violence, but that’s what is so dangerous about being killed and killing people slowly. You’ve seen it coming for years, felt its intentionality, have tried to redirect it, and at times tried to look away. You call it subtle, even though the weapons of choice are anything but…
Rob Nixon writes about slow violence in his book Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor. Nixon writes, “Three primary concerns animate this book, chief among them my conviction that we urgently need to rethink — politically, imaginatively, and theoretically — what I call “slow violence.” By slow violence I mean a violence that occurs gradually and out of sight, a violence of delayed destruction that is dispersed across time and space, an attritional violence that is typically not viewed as violence at all.” Nixon highlights that slow violence, like war’s aftermath and introduction, often happens beyond the “purview of spectacle-driven corporate media.”
I write this at a time of war. Images and videos of women, children, families, teenagers, suffering in Gaza and in Israel plaster across my many devices. I haven’t had the words, though I’ve felt the need to say something above the silencing and pressures to be silent in my worlds — worlds that try to norm me into believing I have nothing to offer the world without certain accolades. Too many people around me care about resume bullet points and the aesthetics of being radical more than impact and speaking up. I feel the pressure of silencing constantly.
During these times, I’ve turned to educating my daughter. I balance wanting her to live her life as a teenager and feeling the need to tell her to look, listen, and learn. Our conversation started with the October 7, 2023 Hamas attacks. I was and am still horrified at the chaos: the violence, people kidnapped, and the interruption of young people’s lives, Israeli, Jewish, and from afar, who were enjoying music together, as my daughter and I often do together. I don’t wish this violence on anyone.
At times of war, when the mainstream media or the collective acknowledges war, we are confronted with consequences of slow violence around the world. Whether from communities most impacted by violence or we are the ones that gets to say, “that’s their problem over there”, we all know violence is happening. We know the costs of that diamond, that cellphone, that the trash must go somewhere, and that the cost of driving our car is higher than the impacts of fluctuating inflation.
Although October 7, 2023 is when I began talking to my daughter, I had long known of first-person accounts of Palestinians’ suffering as the Between the World and Me author, Ta-Nehisi Coates describes in an interview with Democracy Now!. “While I had my skepticisms and I had my suspicion of the Israeli government and the occupation, what I expected was that I would find a situation in which it was hard to discern right from wrong — that it was hard to understand the morality at play, or hard to understand the conflict. Perhaps the most shocking thing was that I immediately understood what was going on over there,” Coats said. He went on to speak of witnessing Palestinians being mistreated and how the restrictions on mobility and voting rights based on ethnicity felt familiar to him as a Black man from the United States. He further criticizes the Western world for portraying the occupation as “complicated” to understand. Before watching this interview, I had also heard how transformative visiting Palestine can be from people close to me who had similar observations and came back with a new perspective.
My daughter and I often talk about the slow violence, the type of violence our family has been fighting for generations in our communities. I also write this in the time of multiple mass shootings and ongoing gun violence in the United States, that has my daughter and many children across the United States doing lockdown drills. My best friend and college roommate in undergrad, who is Lebanese would tell me about bomb drills she had to do in school. She described having to hide under her desk as cover from a potential bomb coming down on her school. I do not reflect on mass shootings, gun violence, and the stories from my friend to compare. I do not find value in getting lost in oppression comparisons. I am reflecting on life at so many intersections and the cost of wars. Like hip hop artist Yasiin Bey singing in solidarity with Palestine in a recent video, I too am overcome with tears in solidarity from watching the slaughter in Gaza. I’m not someone who cries enough, but I find myself outwardly expressing the grief at this time, even as I try to find the words to put on the page. I think about my friend whom I haven’t talked to for years and the ongoing devastation. I feel for the casualties in power’s wrath across colonial boundaries, in communities I have called home and beyond. This is not the world I want for my daughter or anyone.
One of the organizations that I follow on Instagram is Newark Water Coalition, a frontline organization fighting for clean water and more in the city of Newark, New Jersey. Anthony Diaz, the Executive Director, posted a video on Instagram after receiving a complaint about a post with George Floyd and the caption, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” A partner organization told him that this could be seen as hate speech and told him he had to edit the post. According to Diaz, he had to make the difficult decision to stand with Palestine and lose funding that helped them feed vulnerable communities in Newark. Despite the loss, he spoke of hope, “I believe that the occupation of Palestine will end in our lifetime. Once we can decolonize Palestine, we can move on to Puerto Rico, Congo, Sudan, and the rest of the world.” Diaz’s words of hope and compassion remind me of sentiments in Booker T. Washington’s Up from Slavery: an Autobiography, that I have been reading. Washington explains how slaves often showed unimaginable compassion for their slave owners, even post emancipation. He writes that adjusting to the freedom they had hoped for was hard, but that he does not remember feeling bitterness or a need for revenge, while knowing enslavement as a horrible institution he would not wish on anyone. He remembers compassion mostly.
I do not support the slow violence. I do not condone, support, or believe in antisemitism. I come from a long line of people (and from a people) who are compassionate and choose love even within resistances and adversity. As Bernice King said to Amy Schumer on the app formerly known as Twitter, “Certainly, my father was against antisemitism, as am I. He also believed militarism (along with racism and poverty) to be among the interconnected Triple Evils. I am certain he would call for Israel’s bombing of Palestinians to cease, for hostages to be released…”
I’d like to add an actionable item to this “think piece”. I am no expert, only someone who wants to build a better world for my daughter and other futures and rise above silence on violence — slow and in times of war. Please support and donate to Newark Water Coalition, as they provide a necessity to their community and continue to fight against “slow violence” like lead pollution and hunger. Also, check out some starting resources below on how you can educate yourself and support a Cease Fire and a Free Palestine.
Resources:
National Students for Justice in Palestine
