Why race and colonialism matter in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

In the 1950s, the wave of decolonization was sweeping Africa and the Black civil rights struggle in the United States was picking up steam. According to historian Tyler Stovall, the battle for Algerian independence from France was a thorny issue for expat Black Americans. They saw themselves as refugees from America’s racism, yet they could be expelled by France for championing the Algerian cause.

Literary giants such as Richard Wright largely chose to protect their status as residents of France by remaining silent on the Algerian war and the oppression of immigrant Arabs, but writer William Gardner Smith did not. In his novel “The Stone Face,” the main character, Simeon, is a Black man who leaves the racism of the United States to live in Paris. Simeon encounters a French policeman brutalizing an Arab man, which triggers his memories of police encounters in America.

Since the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, and Israel’s subsequent assault on Gaza, I’ve been thinking about solidarities, allegiances and the unique yet precarious space that Black people in America fill in discussions of these horrible events within the context of Western colonization and liberation.

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