CUAD AFFIRMS NO BUSINESS AS USUAL DURING GENOCIDE | ANTISEMITISM TASK FARCE | NYPD MASS SHOOTING RESPONSE
Contents:
I. READER CONTRIBUTION: ON THE SHOOTING OF DERELL MICKLES
II. STUDENTS OF THE COLONIAL UNIVERSITY PICKET THEIR FIRST DAY
III. COLUMBIA’S HYPER-SECURITIZATION REVEALS A FRAIL FOUNDATION
IV. COLUMBIA'S "ANTISEMITISM TASK FORCE" CONTINUES TO SMEAR CUAD IN NEW REPORT
V. READING GROUP DISCUSSION: BLACK, PALESTINIAN, AND WORKING-CLASS SOLIDARITY
VI. PALESTINE UPDATES: ZIONIST AGGRESSION CONTINUES; YEMENI MISSILE STRIKE MARKS NEW LEAP IN REGIONAL RESISTANCE
READER CONTRIBUTION: ON THE SHOOTING OF DERELL MICKLES
Today is Monday, September 16th. I am sitting on the floor of Butler Library. I am Black and Queer and to the State and to the fascists that infect our Earth and to the University that I attend my life does not matter. I have a little sister and a little brother. Their lives do not matter to these institutions either. Their lives matter to me more than I can possibly express! I am full of so much rage that I feel as though my heart might crack open. Yesterday, on Sunday, September 15th, Derell Mickles, a son, a chef, a Harlem resident, was shot and critically injured on the subway after he allegedly jumped the turnstiles. Derell Mickles, a son, a chef, a Harlem resident, was shot and critically injured over $2.90. His mother was not informed until this morning. The NYPD, with its $5.8 billion budget, shot and critically injured Derell Mickles, a son, a chef, a Harlem resident, over $2.90, and left a business card at his mother's door. The NYPD managed to shoot two other bystanders in the process but didn't even call Derell Mickles' mother.
I am Black and Queer and to the State and to the fascists that infect our Earth and to the University that I attend and to the New York Police Department and to Mayor Eric Adams my life does not matter. I am Black and Queer and my life is worth less than $2.90. Every day I watch the genocide of Black people in amerikkka and internalize that my life is worth less than $2.90. I internalize the fear and paranoia that comes with knowing I could be searched, hunted down, tased, and shot in the subway station that I frequent for evading a fare that shouldn't exist. A fare that exists to criminalize poverty and Black and Brown communities. I grieve my siblings before they are dead because I imagine them searched, hunted down, tased, and shot in the subway station. I grieve my siblings before they are dead because I imagine them stopped by a pig in the middle of the night. I grieve my siblings before they are dead because I know they could be surveilled, kidnapped, and incarcerated for charges that don't exist. And after, I might just find a business card on my doorstep.
Do you feel this rage too? Do you know this rage? Do you know what it means to pass a pig on the street and feel this strange mix of fear and rage and horror? Do you know what it means to watch a genocide? Do you know what it means to hold a genocide? Do you know what it means to grieve a genocide? (I do not claim to know these things). I see my siblings in every Palestinian child marytered. I see myself and my loved ones in every Palestinian martyred. I do not even know how to hold it.
So, I tie my keffiyeh across my back. Derell Mickles. I strap my drum to my chest. Derell Mickles. I beat on it and scream and scream and scream and run and run and run and I curse and curse and curse. Derell Mickles. I am joined by thousands. Derell Mickles. I see myself and my loved ones in every Palestinian who resists. Derell Mickles. We know that no form of armed resistance will ever cause more suffering and pain than structural violence does every day. Derell Mickles. I feel the rage deep in my chest and in my bones. Derell Mickles. I feel the rage but I feel the solidarity and the love and the fire and the hope too. Derell Mickles. I feel resistance in every cell in my body. Derell Mickles. I feel the interconnectedness of the Black and Palestinian struggles. Derell Mickles. I don't just feel, I know we will win. Derell Mickles, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Sonya Massey, Tamir Rice. I know we will win because we are love and we are resistance and we are the masses and we will fight. I know we will win because when we feel this rage we cling to connection. As we destroy the systems and institutions of the old, the systems and institutions that say our lives are worth less than $2.90, and we watch it go down in flames, we create.
STUDENTS OF THE COLONIAL UNIVERSITY PICKET THEIR FIRST DAY
Columbia University's first day of classes saw the mobilization of pro-Palestinian students demanding an end to the institution's perpetuation of genocide. At 9:30 AM, students gathered in front of the 116 and Broadway gates, where the line to enter had already stretched around the block thanks to Columbia's draconian "public safety" measures.
The flyers distributed on the busy sidewalk alongside The Barricade's September 3 morning edition pointed to Columbia as an institution turning the gears of the war machine and highlighted the ties our university has to Gaza:
"It's back to school season in both Gaza and in New York — but while we are privileged enough to move into our dorms ready for the new school year, 715,000 Gazan children receive their education in the form of airstrikes: dumb bombs, BLU-109s, MK-82s, MK-84s, GBU-39s, JDAMs, white phosphorous. The bombs falling on the heads of our people in Gaza are not just American-made. Their very production is facilitated by Columbia University's investments in the imperial war machine.
Columbia University is the war machine. It teaches brilliant engineers and creative scientists how best to murder humans, pumps out silver-tongued writers and professors to make acceptable the shrapnelled lives of Palestinians, and readily beats down any cry of dissent through its disciplinary proceedings and the physical force of its Public Safety and NYPD."
As the picket began in earnest, Columbia swiftly called in the NYPD. At this point in time, the gates were still accessible since the students were not forming a blockade. Despite this, the NYPD arrived on-site around 10 AM with barricades to create a pen for picketers to file into. To avoid this, the picket moved a few feet down on the sidewalk. With numbers swelling, half of the group broke away to form a concurrent picket at the Amsterdam gates. At both entrances, students were monitored by the NYPD who threatened arrests for the use of megaphones. Meanwhile, care teams distributed snacks and cold water, and prayers to honor people killed in the genocide were read. The prayers reminded picketers of the love that informs our revolution:
"Ya Allah, please have mercy on all our martyrs, please forgive them and elevate them in your ranks, and reunite them with their loved ones and the most righteous of your creation in the highest levels of paradise.
Ya Allah, please clothe their unclothed, feed their hungry, house their unhoused, shelter their displaced, heal their injured and their sick, protect them and give their resistance strength, grant them endurance, and make their patience an excellent one and allow it to be met with a swift and beautiful victory sooner rather than later.
Ya Allah, grant us the courage to live ethically, to empower others, and to fulfill our responsibilities to this earth, and to recognize our bonds of kinship and community and responsibility to those people who make our clothes and our food, who keep our spaces clean, and whose labor we forget to appreciate or neglect.
Ya Allah, please deprive those who use their money to oppress others, who profit from genocide and the displacement and pain of our people in Palestine and Harlem and Sudan and the Congo and elsewhere, deprive them of all their wealth, and return it to the people who need it."
Around 12 PM, the two pickets came together once again in front of the Broadway gates. The NYPD responded by illegally kettling students within the pen, forcing the students into a tight area. Students improvised the formation of two concentric picketing circles to accomodate for the lack of space. However, as tensions rose, picket leaders led students outside the barricades and across the street to Barnard College. They were followed by the NYPD who brought their barricades to split the group into two.
It was at this moment that students resisting the illegal kettle by standing in front of barricades were brutalized by the NYPD at the explicit direction of Barnard administration. Demonstrating a typical disregard for anyone's safety and acting on the impulse to hurt protestors, the NYPD grabbed a protesting student. Fellow picketers witnessing the arrest tried to save their comrade from the clutches of the police. The result was a momentary brawl with NYPD shoving and punching their way through the crowd until they ultimately hauled their target student away from the picket, wrestled them to the ground, and ziptied their hands behind their back. The comrade was then dragged away into the arrest vehicle, with another student being arrested shortly after. The picket continued until 1:30 PM before dispersing for jail support.
The first-day-of-classes mobilization served as a reminder to put aside excitement for the new school year and to remember instead the countless students and educators in Gaza who knew that the purpose of any education should be to benefit the people.
As a beloved comrade once said, the colonial university inculcates within us the desire to be good students, to show up to class, and to dutifully complete our assignments, never mind the fact that our learning at this institution has tangible connections to dispossession from the right to education elsewhere.
This desire festers within many of us, until we see as our enemy the protestor who seeks to disrupt the status quo, instead of the institution which paralyses our most humane instincts and monitors our daily lives. The beating heart of the student revolution tells us instead that it is good to be a sore thumb in the side of empire, that the joys of a first day of school are trivial and bitter when seen alongside the immense scale of loss in Gaza.
Thus, we call on all members of the colonial university, from its workers to its faculty, from its students to the officials manning the gates and herding us like sheep: resist your pacification, know your true enemy, and join the struggle for our collective liberation.
COLUMBIA’S HYPER-SECURITIZATION REVEALS A FRAIL FOUNDATION
Last week, a security guard stood with hands on his hips, watching the statue of The Thinker as if, at any moment, it might come alive and voice its support for Palestine. Down the steps, guards were positioned around Alma like she was a head of state. Exiting campus, a guard was stationed at the crux of the fencing. A group of them patrolled Broadway, scanning the crowd for anyone deemed "suspicious."
Though Columbia has employed personnel from contract security for years — having them "patrol" Harlem, telling them to report unhoused people, and ordering them not to interact with community members —the university has funneled increasing amounts of these guards onto campus since the first encampment in support of their goal of a closed campus.
Why has Columbia administration decided to shut off campus from the outside world? Some of our fellow students would blame us and our movement. In their minds, we are too rowdy, too rabble-rousing. They think we are controlled by pernicious "outside agitators" who want to run roughshod over the student body and cause chaos for the sake of chaos.
But this campus closure comes from the same impulse that views those community members who stand alongside us as "outside agitators." It is a myopic, narrow-minded, insular, and quite sad view of things. Columbia does not want to be accountable to the outside world. They want us and everyone else to ignore the Harlemites they displace, the arms manufacturers they invest in, and the genocide of Palestine that they normalize. They think in terms of "us" and "them" — terms always cast in racist tones, especially considering Columbia's history of excluding Black and brown people.
And when we don't ignore it? When students come together with community members who are willing to sacrifice their comfort to hold this institution to account?
Then, Columbia brings out the guards, they lock the gates, they watch us from their CCTV lairs. It is not us that cause the travails that come with campus securitization — long lines that make you late for class, a loss of ID throwing the whole day off the rails, guards questioning you about your whereabouts and what you're doing — it is a decision made wholly by Columbia.
Further, it is one that makes visible the actual nature of the university in its present form. They would love to permanently keep out the preschool classes that used to frolic around campus in their safety vests — after all, remember when Columbia evicted Red Balloon Preschool, one of the few preschools in Harlem to accept Child Care Vouchers? And what member of the administration wants to look a displaced community member trespassing on their manicured campus in the eye?
The securitized campus is simply the logic of Columbia made physical. This is a place of elites. This is an institution actively invested in continuing oppression. That is why there is furniture gifted by Mussolini in the Italian House, that is why they gentrify Harlem, and that is why they support the genocide of Palestine.
So, for those who bemoan us as dastardly organizers who delight in "ruining FDOC" with schadenfreude as our end, we say that this is an incorrect analysis. We protested an institution built on exploitation. Nothing that rests on such a frail foundation can stand. Join us and fight to make Columbia an institution opposed to death and open to all.
COLUMBIA'S "ANTISEMITISM TASK FORCE" CONTINUES TO SMEAR CUAD IN NEW REPORT
In the midst of a genocide, Columbia's Task Force on Antisemitism thinks that it is of the utmost importance to baselessly criticize our movement for being "antisemitic." They write:
"...to advocate for the active dissolution of the world’s only Jewish state is quite different from even the bitterest critique of its policies. Given the absence of such a position in relation to virtually any other political state in the world, anti-Zionism, as it has been expressed in campus demonstrations during the past academic year, hews far more closely to antisemitism than to a simple critique of Israel."
What must happen to someone to cause them to write such pablum, to think these words are defensible or worth publishing in some trumpeted statement? It would be difficult to find something less intelligent spoken in one of our seminar classes where no one has done the reading.
But maybe this is not surprising, coming as it is from a task force co-chaired by Ester Fuchs who found it acceptable to meet with the president of the Zionist entity while it commits a genocide.
They wonder why we would "advocate for the active dissolution of the world's only Jewish state"? Other than the fact that we find ethnostates distasteful in all forms, there's also the matter of this state being premised on the extermination of Palestinians. To argue that this is acceptable is to reveal that one thinks Palestinians are less than human.
We believe in dignity for all people and the destruction of all systems of oppression. That is why we believe that the Zionist entity has no right to exist.
We refuse to get bogged down in bad-faith battles over terminology or chants that hurt the feelings of those who want genocide to continue. We recognize this discourse for what it is: an attempt to lay the rhetorical groundwork to repress our movement further. We will not countenance it. Long live the student intifada!
READING GROUP DISCUSSION: BLACK, PALESTINIAN, AND WORKING-CLASS SOLIDARITY
For our last reading group, we read several articles on the historical connection between the Black and Palestinian struggle against imperialism and reaction.
We began our conversation with what struck us the most across these articles. One comrade noted the reference to imperialism’s methods of division. This theme is demonstrated by Malcolm X's analysis of Israel's strategic positioning as a way to fracture unity within the Arab region and between Africa and the Arab world. Additionally, several articles reference the taking of revolutionaries as political prisoners. Even across our local struggle for divestment, we see these divisive ploys, whether it’s in the demonization of the so-called “outside agitator,” or in the different deals cut with Columbia students versus City College students, and the punishments given to Columbia versus Barnard students. Imperialists and their lackeys seek to divide us to undermine our struggle for political power. They fear the unity of the masses in the Middle East and Africa rising against imperialism, so they place israel as a tool of aggression pointed at the heart. They fear strong leadership that can agitate and organize the masses so they imprison and assassinate leaders. Among the student movement, they fear what havoc our collective action can wreak on their profits, so they try to placate and silo us through academic and legal discipline.
One comrade mused on how insidious this division can be, particularly how it meretriciously shows up in academia under the term “intersectionality.” We discussed how intersectionality divides our common struggle against imperialism into smaller, fragmented battles, diluting the potential for unity. As another comrade noted, by placing race, gender, sexuality, and class on the same plane, intersectionality obscures the fundamental role of class, implying that anyone from a marginalized background is revolutionary or has common interests solely on the basis of identity—that someone like US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin could possibly have common interests with the masses of Black people that oppose genocide.
One comrade reflected on how this fragmentation of struggle benefits imperialists in electoral politics. As we’ve noted in other editions of The Barricade, capitalist politicians don’t represent us. However, they purposefully exploit identity to conflate "visual representation" with actual politics. Killer Kamala’s campaign desperately aims to appeal to people of color and women on the basis of identity. Meanwhile, when it comes to policies, she has the same platform as Biden and constantly strives to position herself as more hawkish than Trump. Imperialists will select whatever puppet that can best regurgitate their talking points in a way that will convince the oppressed to legitimize their own oppressors. Our discussion emphasized that working-class politics, not identity politics, will best unite us in our struggle against imperialism.
But what are working-class politics? We engaged with this question by discussing a recurring theme in the articles we read: internationalism. One comrade remarked on the myopia mentioned in the Bourdon article. Specifically, how being short-sighted in our analyses serves this imperialist division. We contended with the false notion that we must resolve problems locally before taking up international struggles. Working people across the world form one international class. While our struggles are multifaceted depending on our respective conditions, the root is the same. We must support anti-imperialist struggles internationally, not only because they serve to strengthen our local fights, as we see with the Palestinian struggle for national liberation, which both exposes and weakens the imperialist powers we confront globally. But more importantly, this is our fight because we belong to one international working class, and any blow to imperialism is a victory for the masses everywhere.
Our next reading group will be a continuation of this discussion, but we will focus specifically on Black and Palestinian political prisoners.
PALESTINE UPDATES: ZIONIST AGGRESSION CONTINUES; YEMENI MISSILE STRIKE MARKS NEW LEAP IN REGIONAL RESISTANCE
The war in Palestine has now entered its 11th month. Israel's ongoing genocidal occupation has claimed over 41,000 Palestinian lives and devastated millions more, displacing nearly the entire population of Gaza amid a brutal blockade of food, water, and medicine.
On Tuesday, September 10, Israeli warplanes dropped three bombs on tents sheltering displaced Palestinians in Gaza's al-Mawasi, creating massive craters and killing at least 19 people. Twenty-two others are missing, believed to have been vaporized by the intensity of the blast. It is suspected that Israel used US-made MK-84 bombs in the attack, a 2,000-pound ordnance with a pressure wave so powerful it wipes out life and infrastructure within a 400-yard radius. The MK-84, which the US briefly suspended from being supplied to Israel in May, is being used to commit war crimes of extermination against Palestinians. Despite this, the US approved a $165 million weapons sale to Israel on September 12, funding tank trailers for delivery in 2027. Earlier this year, a $20 billion weapons package for Israel was also announced, further entrenching US support for Israel’s war crimes. The Biden-Harris administration have provided more funding and armaments to Israel in the last 6 months than any other government. These atrocities, funded by American tax dollars and facilitated by companies like General Dynamics, underline the urgency of divesting from Israel at all levels. Columbia University, among others, continues to invest in corporations complicit in Israel’s genocidal operations.
On Wednesday, September 11, Israeli airstrikes targeted the UN-run al-Jaouni Preparatory Boys School in the Nuseirat refugee camp, where displaced Palestinians had sought refuge. The strike also hit two homes, killing 34 people, including six UNRWA employees who were volunteering to provide aid. Israel regularly bombs schools that shelter tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians. In the West Bank, Israeli forces conduct raids and airstrikes that decimate neighborhoods and kill civilians, often under the pretext of targeting militants. These terroristic strikes on densely populated "safe zones" have become a common practice. On Saturday, September 14, the IOF issued new evacuation orders for thousands of Palestinians in northern Gaza, raising fears of an imminent ground invasion. Another school sheltering displaced Palestinians in northern Gaza was hit by airstrikes, killing five and injuring dozens. Meanwhile, in the West Bank near Bethlehem, Israeli settlers and troops attacked Palestinians and their homes in Khaletel al-Louz, using live ammunition and tear gas. Settler violence against Palestinians is surging. On Sunday, September 15, Israeli forces carried out an airstrike in the Zeitoun area of Gaza City, killing six more civilians.
On Saturday, September 14, the Turkish-American activist Aysenur Ezgi Eygi was buried in her hometown of Didim, Turkey, following a martyr’s ceremony in Istanbul. She was murdered by an Israeli sniper in the occupied West Bank while protesting against illegal Israeli settlements. The brave Eygi was an organizer in the encampment at the University of Washington, where she graduated from this past spring. She has become a symbol of solidarity for all who stand with the Palestinian resistance against genocide and occupation. May she rest in peace.
On Sunday, September 15, Ansarallah struck a military site in Tel Aviv with a hypersonic missile. The attack reportedly caused widespread fear and panic, with over two million Israelis rushing to bomb shelters. A statement from the Yemeni Armed Forces credits the "tremendous efforts in developing missile technology to meet the requirements and challenges of the battle against the zionist enemy." The missile landed near Ben Gurion Airport, sparking a forest fire and causing damage to a nearby train station.
The attack was met with widespread support amongst other resistance groups, including Hamas, whose statement of support called the operation "a natural response to the [Zionist] entity's aggression against our Palestinian people, as well as against brotherly Yemen and the Arab region." The PFLP noted in their statement that the operation reaffirms the fragility of the zionist entity's defense system, which has "long relied on support from the United States and its allies."
On Tuesday, September 17th, in an act of Zionist terrorism, Israel simultaneously detonated thousands of pagers across Lebanon. Preliminary reports indicate that the Zionist entity implanted explosive material in pagers that were imported to Lebanon 5 months ago. On Wednesday the 18th, a second round of explosions occurred. More information, such as alleged US knowledge of the operation, continues to unfold. As of now, this gruesome attack has killed at least 26 and wounded thousands more. Those targeted were not only members of Hezbollah and people who happened to be in their immediate vicinity, but also countless other individuals. In a statement extending solidarity to the people of Lebanon, Palestinian Islamic Jihad said, "Although the enemy's resort to this option is intended within the framework of psychological and intellectual warfare, it indicates the level of frustration and the narrow options they now have after the blows they have received from multiple fronts supporting the Palestinian people." Glory to the resistance.
DIVEST AND BOYCOTT THE GENOCIDAL APARTHEID STATE OF SO-CALLED ISRAEL
LONG LIVE THE STUDENT INTIFADA
LONG LIVE THE PALESTINIAN NATIONAL RESISTANCE
FREE PALESTINE FROM THE RIVER TO THE SEA WITHIN OUR LIFETIME
GLORY TO ALL OUR MARTYRS