“Power responds to all threats. The response is repression. If the threat is a small one, the fascist tactic is to laugh it off, ignore it, isolate it with its defense mechanism—media. The greater the threat the greater the corresponding violence from power.” (George Jackson, Blood in my Eye)

American politicians have targeted recent City University of New York (CUNY) law graduate Fatima Mousa Mohammed following her courageous commencement speech delivered May 12. Of the many commencement speeches made at the nearly 1,700 public, four-year universities in the U.S. and the four million post-secondary degrees those uni’s awarded graduates, reactionary American state representatives are actively targeting the Yemeni immigrant for repression. Mohammed has incited fear within the ruling class as her commencement speech called out the oppressive colonial occupation imposed by the illegitimate settler-state of Israel. Just as the FBI attacks efforts of the black community to participate in the electoral arena, American politicians and state-aligned publications have slandered Mohammed, issuing bogus claims and weaponizing the mechanics of racism.

#HANDSOFFUHURU strongly unites with Mohammed’s use of that bourgeois stage and resources for the purpose of raising the communities’ level of consciousness. The role of the intellectuals of any particular class is to put forward a direction and clarify the interests of that class. For the working class colonized populations, it is critical that our intellectuals expose bare the colonial system that imposes a parasitic relationship on our peoples for its economic and political benefit.

The class repression imposed in response serves as further validation of the contradictions Mohammed brought forth in her May 12 speech (i.e., Israeli settler-colonization of Palestine; NYPD collusion with Israel Defense Forces (IDF); and the support for colonialism expressed by CUNY Law execs). 

The New York Post, a rabid white nationalist tabloid cites the tweets of several American politicians and other deranged critics who punitively propose defunding CUNY. Make no mistake, the Israeli State is advancing a Palestinian occupation and utilizing genocidal tactics to do so. 

A 2012 article published by The Burning Spear explains, “For the past 64 years, Israel has functioned as a military outpost for U.S. imperialism, used to protect the imperialist oil interests in the Middle East.” This article goes on to explain that “just like the State of Israel, the U.S. was created through a process of genocide and colonialism, the European invasion of Indigenous land, the systematic extermination and the forcible expulsion of the masses of the Indigenous people into concentration camps and graves.” 

Mohammed’s speech spoke to the global contradictions connected to the founders of CUNY and supported by CUNY Law’s Jewish Law Students Association (CUNY JLSA). CUNY JLSA represents the university’s Jewish student body. In contrast, the university—aligned with the NYPD which militaristically colludes with Israeli occupation forces—has denounced Mohammed in order to defend its now jeopardized funding.

CUNY cannot continue to claim to be a “transformative engine of social mobility” as it does in its mission statement on one hand, and then on the other hand unite with the attack on students who challenge the parasitic relationships that impose the oppressive social and political relationships that it claims to “mobilize” them out of. You cannot be for the colonized and the colonizer at the same time. They must end their unity with the attacks on Fatima Mousa Mohammed!

HANDS OFF UHURU!
HANDS OFF AFRICA!
HANDS OFF PALESTINE!
#StandWithFatima