A week of Palestinians being killed for fossil fuels, an all-white school board removing Black history courses and protestors blocking airports

Hi, I’m Marcela: I’m a comedian, I live in Brooklyn, and I really like to tell people how to feel about the news. After wowing zoomers all over on TikTok by giving them news with a sense of humour and anarchy, I decided to start a weekly Sunday newsletter to share my feelings about more news. 

My weekly newsletter has evolved into this beautiful Tuesday weekly news column for shado which also covers international news. I hope the newsletter keeps you informed and makes you laugh a little. We live in hell and I believe humour helps keep this place a little bit cooler.

I’m sharing my feelings about Palestinians being killed for oil and gas, all-white school board in Missouri voting to remove Black history and literature courses, and Free Palestine protestors blocking airports and bridges in New York.

Onto the news… 

News that made me tell you about my childhood

I remember being a teen and watching the news coverage of the Iraq anti-war protests. My third favourite show after Moesha and Gilmore Girls was the news. I loved the news so much I would spend weekends in high school filing newspaper clippings in tubs for speech and debate tournaments.

My parents were very confused about my obsession with the news, to the point that they assumed I was using it as cover for some other “nefarious” teenage activities. I wish I was! I wish I was drinking Smirnoff Ices and hiding from cops! The closest I ever got to a party where there was alcohol was watching movies about teens doing things I never did. 

One particular sign that was etched in my memory from watching the footage of people marching against the war in Iraq was “kein blut für öl” which directly translates to no blood for oil. I remember this sign because I was taking German in school at the time. I learned German because my dad speaks German. He also speaks English, Swahili, and Luo – as do I.  So there was really no need for me to learn another language to be told to wash the dishes in. 

Fast forward decades later and “kein blut für öl” replays in my brain because I’m very high and I just ran into this article stating that the genocide in Palestine is about oil. The US satellite known as Israel wants to displace Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank for oil and gas.

It is currently 47 degrees Fahrenheit during winter in New York City because of global warming, primarily caused by fossil fuel production. I hate the cold and love being warm, but not like this. I don’t want to go to the beach every day because the planet is dying; I want to go to the beach every day because we have staged a revolt and destroyed capitalism. 

The occupying government is killing Palestinians for oil and gas, which are literally poisoning our planet and causing deaths due to extreme weather events. I know colonisers carry out colonisation to get other people things. Whether that’s labour or land, colonisers don’t go to colonised places to bring fun to the colonised. 

However, carrying out a genocide to obtain something that will kill people is the type of mind-boggling cruelty that I simply do not understand. Maybe if I would have taken coloniser calculus in college it would be much easier for me to understand this. 

I was even more mortified to find out that there is an initiative in the United States congress to condition US foreign aid to countries in the Middle East based on their willingness to take in Palestinian refugees. I can’t describe how I felt when I saw this map highlighting the foreign aid by country, not because I’m terrible at discerning my emotions. It’s because screaming and yelling fucking colonisers over and over again isn’t on my emotion wheel.

News that made me tell you why I don’t drink coffee

An all-white school board in Missouri voted to remove Black history and Black literature courses from the school district. Five of the seven board members voted to remove the classes without wearing KKK hoods to hide their identity because it is 2023 and racists are not ashamed of being racists. 

There is no reason why you wouldn’t want courses centering Black lives to be taught to students unless you are proud of your racism. Just like there is no reason why I would drink coffee unless I wanted a panic attack.

But why would these board members be ashamed of being racist when a former openly racist president is taking inspiration from Hitler for his campaign speeches? Why be ashamed of being a racist when your tax dollars are paying for a racist genocide? 

These board members can proudly embrace their racism without wearing hoods because this country has made them feel comfortable to be racist. Let’s be honest, this country has always made it comfortable for racists to be racist, otherwise Tucker Carlson would have never had a job and all the late night show hosts wouldn’t be white men.

The racists of Francis Howell School District can feel extra comfortable being racist because their campaigns were paid for by the racist Francis Howell Families Political Action Committee (PAC). Imagine being so racist that you create a PAC to fund your racism. I can’t imagine it because I hate money and racism – but I’m sure Donald Trump and Joe Biden’s fans can.

I can confidently say the Francis Howell Families PAC is racist and proud of it because the first agenda item of the board members funded by the PAC was to rescind the school district’s anti-racism resolution. The resolution was the school district’s commitment to fight against discrimination. Fighting against discrimination is something that racists are famously against, so the racist board members ended that commitment and committed themselves to fighting for discrimination.

I wish I could say that when I first saw that an all-white school board voted for discrimination I was so surprised that I looked at my calendar to make sure it’s 2023 and not 1923. However, if I was surprised by white people being racist in 2023, I would be surprised by my edibles getting me high. 

I expect these things. Not just because this country has always made it comfortable for white people to be racist or because I’m a negative person who doesn’t believe things can change. I believe things can change. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t spend my free time yelling at the cops.

I expect white racists to be proud of their racism because the George Floyd uprisings showed that there are people in this country willing to tear this country to shreds for their freedom. This is the backlash. To love America to these people means to fight against anything anti-America. Nothing is more anti-American than fighting racism. These white racists are fighting to keep racism because they know this country is built on racism and destroying racism would end this country as they know it.

News that made me say call me when colonisers have stolen your home

On 1st January, Free Palestine protestors in so-called New York City blocked traffic to JFK International Airport, LaGuardia Airport, Brooklyn Bridge, Williamsburg Bridge, and Kosciuszko Bridge. 

I couldn’t imagine a better way to start of the year than protesting genocide – I’ve done some pretty epic things to start the year. One time I got high and laid down on my sofa staring at my ceiling for the entire day. Laying down doing nothing is an active rebellion against capitalism; you should try it. 

However, it doesn’t come close to flying Palestinian flags in a caravan while blocking traffic to an airport to object to the fact that Palestinians are not allowed to move freely in their homeland. Not to mention carrying out this action on the busiest travel day of the year, all while people in the United States can move freely within the country and internationally.

The action organised by Within Our Lifetime and endorsed by multiple NYC organisations initially planned to block Terminal 4 of JFK by foot and car as flights to so-called Israel are located in the terminal. The action was so successful that no one was allowed to take public transit to the terminal without a boarding pass. Instead of ending the action there, the organisers switched their attention to blocking LaGuardia Airport and multiple bridges in the city.

May all our attempts to fight for liberation in 2024 be as undeterred as the actions of these amazing protestors. When the government prevents us from carrying out one action, let’s be as adamant as people under 21 trying to get into nightclubs. These children will acquire fake IDs to go into a dark, loud building and drink terrible drinks with hopes of having fun. Night clubs are not fun, but fighting for liberation is so let’s put more effort into fighting against genocide and all oppression.

Of course I’m excited about causing mayhem in the centre of the evil empire because I hate imperialism. However, cheerleaders for imperialism like the NY Post and Daily Mail referred to this beautiful act of solidarity as a ‘nightmare situation.’ Describing being inconvenienced at the airport as a ‘nightmare situation’ while Palestinians are being actively murdered is the type of crude behaviour I expect from pro-genocide media. It’s the white supremacist idea that colonisers should live in comfort while colonisers’ labour supports terror against colonised people.

I’m sorry not sorry that you had to wait outside the airport in your comfortable Lululemon leggings because your flight was delayed. Call me when you’ve been kicked out of your home by colonisers and I promise I’ll fight for you. Until then, I’ll be participating in the interruption of your comfort with glee. 

If you don’t want people interrupting your brunch-filled #travellife, you should do everything to make sure that genocide isn’t happening. Maybe you should find a way to get Joe Biden to stop selling arms to the occupying government of Israel.

That’s it for the news this week.

See ya later,

Marcela