Transcript

Josie Pickens

Welcome back to season two of the upEND Podcast. This season, we are focusing on the importance of coalition building between various social justice movements, as we recognize that all of our struggles towards liberation are connected both nationally and internationally. Today, we’ll discuss some international justice movements, including those happening in Palestine, Sudan, and Congo.

We’ll also explore what it means to be internationalists as well as abolitionists as we have two guests, Tarek Ismail and Nadia Ben-Youssef, who will help us connect those dots. Tarek Ismail is an associate professor at CUNY Law School, where he co-directs the Family Law Practice Clinic and Family Defense Practicum. He is also counsel to CUNY Law’s, Creating Law Enforcement Accountability and Responsibility Project, the CLEAR Project.

Jaison Oliver

Nadia Ben-Youssef is the granddaughter of artists, refugees, and revolutionaries. A human rights lawyer by training, Nadia currently serves as the advocacy director at the Center for Constitutional Rights, a radical legal and advocacy organization working with social movements to dismantle racism, cis-heteropatriarchy, economic oppression, and abusive state practices. Central to Nadia’s life work is a commitment to the liberation of Palestine, and she is proud co-founder of the Adalah Justice Project. Welcome, Tarek and Nadia.

Nadia Ben-Youssef

Thanks so much for having us. So good to be here with you all and with Tarek for sure.

Tarek Ismail 

It’s an honor to be with the three of you.

Jaison Oliver

Can you tell us about the work you do today and your journey to get here? Let’s start with you Nadia.

Nadia Ben-Youssef

Sure. Thanks for reading that bio, Jaison. I think grounding myself and my story in the legacy of my ancestors feels key to both who I am and how I do the work, why I do the work, how I ended up here. And maybe I’ll start there and then just dive a little bit more into the work. 

I, as you shared, come from a legacy of people who were daring to change the shape of the world. And those are artists, those are revolutionaries, those are refugees, people who transcend borders, migrants. My grandfather, paternal grandfather, was a Tunisian revolutionary fighting against French colonialism. On my mother’s side, my great-grandfather spent many years in prison in Spain for resisting fascism. And then their children went on to migrate, to cross borders. And then I was born in the United States and my heart is scattered around the world. And I think that’s part of why, what we’re gonna get into a bit of how our movements for liberation are intimately tied often make sort of an embodied sense to those of us who have been displaced from homelands, voluntarily, involuntarily, we know that our freedom depends on the freedom of everyone who our hearts are connected to, everyone who is also struggling for justice. 

And so I come to the work is situated in that way, you know, sort of a citizen of nowhere and of everywhere with family and loved ones around this world. And I studied law because I was, you know, profoundly disturbed by injustice and thought naively that the law was a tool of justice and learned in, not necessarily in law school, but in the practice understanding the impact of law on communities that I was a part of, that I cared about, that the law was not a tool for justice or a powerful tool of justice, but a tool of the powerful and benefits the powerful, is written by and for the powerful. 

And so our obligation as people who are not accountable to the law, but are accountable to people was to challenge those institutions of power, to build power. And so I studied law and then right after law school went to Palestine. In law school, I studied human rights and Palestine, even on a theoretical level, to say nothing of sort of the material reality, felt like a battleground for human rights.

That if human rights mattered at all, they would matter in Palestine. And if they didn’t, if there was an exception to human rights in Palestine, then that said something about human rights as a regime, the international law as a regime. And in fact, that’s what I found. Like many of my comrades in struggle around the world, Palestine was a radicalizing space for me, clarifying the contours of the institutions, even those that we thought might save us. If we thought that international institutions, the UN or international mechanisms might save us or international courts. 

I think it was a moment of clarity and disillusion about those institutions and about how the world was, the world, the economic systems, the political structures, the legal systems, our media, our education systems were designed in a particular way. And that became very clear in Palestine. That you know, it’s not that these institutions were broken. And we’ve heard that said so many times. It’s that the institutions were made exactly this way to dehumanize certain people, to criminalize certain people, and to protect others. And largely, those are white, cis men with power of the global north. 

And so Palestine sort of as it does, you know, these are, this is the frontline of, of liberation struggles around the world and I think clarifies what we’re up against. And worked for a long time and sort of together with Palestinian human rights defenders and Palestinian human rights organizations, and then came back to the States to try to shift policy and discourse on Palestine in the U.S. and this is in, you know, 2010s, which is when I met Tarek and we can talk about that.

When the conversation was entirely different. And we’ll talk about that too, I’m sure, just why those changes, why such a profound change on Palestine. And then here we are, let’s fast forward. And I’m working at an organization called the Center for Constitutional Rights as the Director of Advocacy. So thinking about the political and cultural interventions that we make alongside lawyers, alongside movements that are going to shift material conditions and get us closer and closer to collective liberation and freedom. This is work that is internationalist by its nature, that understands, you know, CCR as an organization in the heart of U.S. empire.

Looking out at the world and seeing the tentacles of U.S. militarism and colonialism and thinking that it’s our obligation as a U.S.-based organization to confront that and pull whatever lever we can to protect our people. And when I say our people, it’s not just the people in the United States. It’s our people around the world who are impacted by U.S. policies, state policies and corporate policies.

And it gets us again into understanding the systems that we’re up against and both how to dismantle them. And then I think the most exciting part of my work is to go back to where I came from is the work that I do alongside artists and creatives who chart the future and help us envision a world beyond the one that we have now and trying to do what I can to cultivate those spaces and create opportunities for just that. For artists to tell us where it is that we’re going to help us unlock our imaginations of what’s possible and what we deserve.

Jaison Oliver

How about you, Tarek?

Tarek Ismail

It’s always tough to follow Nadia. I think maybe it’ll be helpful to start with where I am now and then we can sort of work our way back to where I come from and how I got here. So I teach at CUNY Law School. It’s the city’s public university. The school loves to talk about itself rightfully, I think, as the most diverse school in the country. We are very proud of the fact that our students come from a wide array of backgrounds, including many of them from public schools here in the CUNY system here in New York City as well. And there are people who come from the neighborhoods that ACS, the Administration for Children’s Services, polices here in New York City. So they know many of them well, the work that ACS does and the harm that it visits upon families. So in that sense, it’s an honor really to work with our students in the Family Law Practice Clinic and the Family Defense Practicum doing the stuff that we do here. 

With my colleague Julia Hernandez, we started a project here at CUNY that really started to think about the impact of the family policing system in its vastest form. That is to say, when a knock comes to the door, what does someone do? What is the trauma visited upon a family when a caseworker walks into their home, into their most intimate space, and asks their child to rank their relationship with their mother from one to ten? What long-term harm does that have on that family? We really start to think about those questions. 

What does it mean when a stranger can come in and ask you to lift your shirt up when your mom says, this is your private space. What sort of message does that send to a family? So we really thought about the question that Nadia rose, which is how can we really use law in a way that’s unexpected? That is to say, how can we use a tool of the powerful when there’s such a power imbalance here. It reminded me actually of a quote from Noura Erakat in her book, Justice for Some, where she analogizes the law to a sail. And she says, you know, the law is like the sail of a boat. The sail guarantees motion, but not direction.

Politics are the winds that mobilize change and the law can be used in the service of those efforts. So the law isn’t loyal to any outcome or player despite its bias to the most powerful. The only promise it makes is to change and serve the interests of the most effective actors. And so we’re thinking here, Julia and me about what can we do to affect that sail, to be the wind that pushes the sail in a particular direction. And we thought about sort of how many cases came into court where the book was written before they even got there, right? Where they had been coerced, families had been coerced to say things that weren’t true or that weren’t the business of CPS, where things that had nothing to do with the underlying allegations were already in the progress notes and so on and so forth. 

And we thought about where a lawyer might be the least expected. And we realized that after some experimenting that that was at the very front end of an investigation. And so our work has focused on getting the word out into the community that if they feel so inclined, that they have the capacity to say no when ACS comes to the door. And that if they feel so inclined, they have the capacity to push back using the wind in the sails, that is the law, by enlisting a lawyer or a team of lawyers to help them in pushing back. And so that’s what we’ve been doing as a clinical project now for a little over a year is getting the word out into the most policed communities here in New York City that if someone is knocking on their door and they feel up for pushing back, we’re at the very least moderating the trauma that ACS visits upon that family. That we’re here to represent them with a team of students, and that we’re ready to push back.

So that’s the main focus of our work here in the clinic. We are in court when it’s necessary to back up the things that we need to be doing. And both Julia and myself also try and write in areas that bolster our practice.

I was a family defender, a family defense attorney with the Brooklyn Defender Services (BDS) for some time before doing this, in Kings County Family Court. Which, if you ever want an experience of radicalization, just go spend a day in Kings County Family Court and see what happens next.

And before that, I did some work after law school thinking about the post 9/11 national security regime and how it impacts communities. There are some overlaps actually that I’m excited to talk to you all about today between that project and the family policing project. But as we move backwards, I spent a lot of time after the years that I spent at BDS thinking about why family policing hit me so hard. In my family, we had a case called on our family when we were younger and it resolved more or less without much of an incident. So I was like, that can’t be it.

Then I started to think about my own family. I’m the son of Palestinians. I’m a Palestinian incidentally as a result. My dad was born in Lebanon in Shatila refugee camp, and UNRWA camp. UNRWA being the agency that we’ve heard now so much about. The UN agency that now the U.S. has decided to pull all of its funding from. That millions of Palestinians refugees depend on every single day. The agency flawed as it may be incidentally that educated my dad through high school and beyond to vocational school. My mom is a Palestinian daughter of Palestinians from Jerusalem and the Ramallah area. My dad’s family left as refugees from a small village in the north of what’s today Israel and ended up in a camp, much like the camps that we see, the Israeli military burning over and over again as people in Gaza who themselves are refugees move from camp to camp.

With the privilege of an American passport, I one time went back to that village. And I’ll spare you the long story, but I’ll tell you that at some point, an old lady that I met there…no one from my family incidentally has ever been back to that village because they all have different passports and different capacities to get in and all that stuff. So I met an old lady there who’s a kind of distant relative of ours. And she asked me about my family. She said, tell me about your uncles and aunts. And at the time I said, you know, my parents are in the U.S. I have an uncle in Canada. I have an aunt who lives in a refugee camp in Syria. I have an aunt in Lebanon. I have an uncle in Greece. I have an uncle at the time in Saudi Arabia and an aunt in Turkey. You know.

And as far as I was concerned at the time, that was like cool. You know, I could just like go and stay wherever I want, whatever. She started crying. And I said, what’s wrong? And she said to me in Arabic, “the thing that we lost when we lost this place was not this house that we’re sitting in, which was closed under military rule for 20-plus years after the Palestinians were rendered stateless. Nor was it the land that it sits upon or the olive groves that are around us. She said, the thing that we lost was my capacity to look into your eyes and know who your father is.”

So I thought about family policing and I thought about how difficult it would be for my dad and his siblings to have a barbecue together. If one day we decided that we just wanted to have a cookout. Where the fuck are we gonna have a cookout? It’s not possible by virtue of the family separation that we went through, through the Nakba.

And our story isn’t unique. This is the story of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who’ve been through the same thing. And ultimately, it’s a family separation story. The stories of many of my clients and friends and their children and their aunties and uncles who were separated so violently. Different forms of violence, of course, but violent forms of separation. So I think that’s really what brought me to this work and why it resonated so deeply with me in a way that I didn’t comprehend when I was in it, but when I had a second to think about it it kind of hit me like a ton of bricks.

Jaison Oliver

Tarek, you really started to make the connection with family policing. How and why should family policing abolitionists practice solidarity with international liberation movements?

Tarek Ismail

I think there are lots of reasons that we can we can talk about and I’m really interested in what Nadia has to say on this, given that she’s actively making those connections every single day. I think though, when I think about this question, Jaison, two things come to mind. One is sort of parallel struggles and experiences. Of course, there’s no copy/paste. We’re not thinking about the same things that happen exactly in the same way over time. But I do think if we take a second to think about what different communities that are impacted by power and fascism and colonialism have gone through, the parallels are just rife. They’re obvious, actually. 

When you see stories about Israeli soldiers taking children from Gaza into Israel and no one knows where those kids are now. What is that? What is that? It’s sort of obvious to us when you hear stories about the foundation even, and I speak about Palestine because it’s deep in my personal experience, but also because I’ve done a lot of thinking and research in this space. So I hope you’ll forgive my references there. But when you think about even the foundation of the state of Israel, when European Jewish colonists moved to Palestine alongside Arab Jewish colonists who also moved there. You can read about the stories of Yemeni Jews who had their children removed by the Jewish families from Europe and moved into their families on the theory that they would take care of them better than the Yemeni families would. What is that? 

The parallels are rife and we see them across the board, whether at the level of generality that I described my family or the level of specificity in these phenomena. So I think in that way we can learn from people who are struggling against different phenomena, strategies that work, strategies that don’t work. Both happening at the same time that have happened in the past and that may happen in the future. I think there’s a lot to learn there.

But I also think that like not just learning from one another, but in this theory of building power, power isn’t restricted by borders in this way. And to the extent that we want to think about how best to build power, I think it’s important that we not limit ourselves to a nation state or to one particular set of tools. And so if we conceive of the law, for example, as our only tool, we’re fighting a losing battle, right? And so to the extent that we might think about, how might we build with another community that’s doing this thing in that place so as to take advantage, to exploit power imbalances that exist in different places, I think there’s a lot to be gained.

Nadia Ben-Youssef

Yeah, I think Tarek too, it’s how we will win. It’s how we will win. And I think taking that manifestation seriously requires this sense of a shared humanity that’s both principled, like we belong to each other as a principled matter. But as Tarek was saying, as a strategic avenue towards victory. This is how we build power. This is how we win. If instead we are focusing on our individual fights and our individual, as Tarek was saying, in our context, whether those are nation-state contexts or the sort of institutions and structures that we’re operating within. If we limit ourselves there, how easy is it for the system to adapt to our little victories and adjust and undermine the long-term aim of freedom for all of us by pitting us against each other, by giving us little crumbs, by creating hierarchies of who benefits from that victory or not? 

And I think if we’re serious about winning, it requires us to have a worldview, an internationalist worldview that transcends difference, race, gender expression, ability, class, and these arbitrary borders that Tarek mentioned. We have to cultivate that sense of ourselves as part of this whole of humanity so that we can, yes, exchange strategies because the authoritarian playbook is the authoritarian playbook in Israel, in the United States, in India, in Brazil. This is the playbook. And so the people’s playbook needs to also be made by exchanging these strategies and understanding how we’re going to move, maneuver the system. What are the vulnerabilities of the system? What are the cracks? Where are we going to build? 

And I ultimately think that solidarity is what makes, and I’ve said this before because it makes so much sense to me and I’ve not because it only makes so much sense in an abstract way, but because I’ve experienced it, but solidarity makes the empire tremble. They lose it. They sense our power. They sense the power of the multitude. Like when people are linking struggles together and say what happens in Palestine matters because it matters for the rights of migrants around the world. It matters for Black people in this country. It matters because our liberations are tied. Suddenly the idea and the strategy of the oppressor to pit us against each other and pit our movements against each other and our victories against each other fall apart. And they’re left looking at themselves as the small oppressors that they are.

And looking out at the multitude and the vastness of people who believe in a completely different world where not only certain people have value and only certain families are protected. And so with family policing and with any other struggle for justice, I think it’s imperative for us to be able to have a view of the world and of the opposition. Like, what are we up against? 

You have to look out at it in, you know, as clear, as clear-minded and as open-hearted as one can to really assess what it is that we’re up against. And then the last thing I’ll say, and I think you were saying this too, Tarek, like as we’re building power, part of our work is to build the alternative world that we’re trying to live in. And we do that together with others, again, because if we achieve freedom for ourselves and leave others in chains, then our freedom means nothing. This is Fannie Lou Hamer, you know? Like, this idea that only some of us can get free is an illusion. Is an illusion and sucks our collective humanity dry. And so we have to insist that we share our present, our past, and our future, and we have to organize that way and we have to work with each other in that way.

Josie Pickens

That’s so good, Nadia. Really, both of you have answered the next question that I have, but I just wanted to give you an opportunity to add anything that you might feel is relevant. When we talk about what it means to be an internationalist in this moment, and as I said, I feel that you both have already given us so many points of why that is important, but if you want to add anything to what it means to be an internationalist and why being internationalist is important, I’d love for you to add that now. You can start, Nadia.

Nadia Ben-Youssef

Sure. Thanks, Josie. You know, a number of things come to me about why to be an internationalist. Part of it is what I was sharing about, you know, the idea that your community is defined by those with whom you’re struggling for justice. Your community is those with whom you are struggling for justice. And that can’t just be confined. It isn’t confined and it should make us feel hopeful that it is not confined, that it’s a vast, it’s a vast multitude of people who are struggling for justice. So I’ll say that one, that’s where sort of internationalism gets us. But I will also point us to the definition of radical that Dr. Angela Davis offered, which is that it…it’s the etymology of the word, which is that it’s to get at the root. 

It’s to grasp something at the root. That’s what it means to be radical. And when we grasp injustice at the root, you don’t find a thousand roots. You find very few. You find colonialism. You find capitalism. You find white supremacy. You find ways of organizing our society that create a hierarchy of human life. You find an economic regime, a legal regime, a political regime, rooted on the lie that some people deserve to be full human beings, that only some people deserve to live in the fullness of who they are. And that others are disposable. That others don’t deserve life, that they don’t deserve family, that they don’t deserve to live and thrive and to see their children live and thrive. You find that at the root. You find that lie at the root. So internationalism, when you start seeing what Tarek was saying, that these systems are replicated all around the world.

You know, we’ll talk about Sudan, about Haiti, about the Congo. What are we looking at? We’re looking at political instability. We’re looking at systems of extreme exploitation, economic depression that’s enforced by the global order. We’re seeing mass displacements. We’re seeing climate catastrophe. We’re seeing violence. We’re seeing harm done to the most marginalized people, particularly those on the edges of society. What is at the root? What is at the root? 

And when you look at all these systems, it helps to not become so overwhelmed to be like, but there’s all of these disasters happening in the world. And internationalism says, you’ve got this because you trust yourself and you know that your values are that every human being, every human life is a universe. Every human life is precious. And that’s what internationalism demands. And then when you have that as your orienting frame, then also those systems, clarify themselves and you can stand very firmly on your own principles that these are my values.

These are my values and this is how I understand power. And this is how we have to intervene to disrupt that destructive, extractive, death-making power. And you situate yourself in that way and you use whatever tool, as Tarek said, is at your disposal. You use whatever gift you have to stand there, to stand there, to fight there, to build there. And then the world gets smaller and smaller and smaller until you are face to face with whoever has been made other in your life. And you are so close to them. You are so close to them that you feel their suffering. You are so close to them that you celebrate their joys. They are your joys. It’s your love. You get so, so close. So internationalism, both, is an expanse, but it’s also a narrowing. It’s a narrowing of the distance between human beings.

Josie Pickens

We hope you’re enjoying The upEND Podcast.  A quick note: upEND is funded through the generosity of people like you who believe that ending the harm of the family policing system will help us to create a safer future. If you’re enjoying this podcast, we hope that you’ll consider donating to our work. Visit upendmovement.org/donate for more information.

Jaison Oliver

I know there’s a lot of, there’s conflict all over the world. And in this moment we’re seeing particular attention being paid to Sudan, Palestine, and the Congo. Tarek, can you give us a broad overview of why these countries in particular are being watched so closely?

Tarek Ismail

Yeah, I’ll start by saying I think we’re in a particular moment in which active conflict is being broadcast in ways that it has never been before. In which we’re able to view active conflict on the subway, in our cars, on a walk home, as we stroll our kid down the street. Where folks in Sudan, which is in the throes of treacherous civil war, or in the Congo, or in Palestine, are able to upload images in ways that we simply haven’t been able to see them in real-time in the past. And so, it’s not as if conflict in which oppressive regimes exact their power on marginalized communities is new. It’s not a new thing. But today we have immediate access to it. 

And those people who have intimate understanding are able to connect with those who have less intimate understanding and sort of concentric circles all the way out such that we’re able to sort of digest more or at least hear more about issues that we may never have. In terms of why they’re under closer watch. I can speak particularly to Palestine on this front. In the United States, at this point, it’s become, as Nadia was saying, 10 years ago, it may not have been something that everybody knew about, but it’s now sort of old hat to recite the fact that we send over $3 billion every single year to Israel in military funding. That we are responsible ultimately for the 2,000-pound bombs that are being dropped on refugee camps. That we are responsible through our elected officials and others for every decision that’s being made. That if we imposed the sanctions, for example, that the International Court of Justice just ordered on the Israeli regime that we could affect the course of history. 

We have a role to play, not just a role in stopping it, but unfortunately a role in perpetuating it. We are aiding and abetting this ongoing genocide. And while it was a slow-motion genocide in the years before this one, we’re seeing over and over again how the pedal has gone to the metal and we’re playing a role. Our foot is on the gas too. I think people, young people in particular, are hip to that point. They’re not gonna unsee it and they’re not gonna stop. And so these countries will remain under close watch. School’s been out for the summer, but we’ll be back in a couple weeks. And y ‘all can watch. I think y’all will hear this in September. Consider this a prediction that we will see students active again on these issues because the page has been turned on that front, I think.

Jaison Oliver

Nadia anything you want to share here, especially about the role that we can play in the West in thinking to help resolve these conflicts or work toward a greater resolution in whatever way that that could look.

Nadia Ben-Youssef

Absolutely. And it’s to pick up Jaison on what Tarek was saying, like about the role of students, because the students are also making these connections. You go to the encampments and there is a demand to free not only Palestine, but to free the Congo, free Sudan, free Haiti. And I read as there were sort of, intersecting overlapping crises that we’re witnessing in the world, I read something to the effect of Haiti wrote the first chapter on the end of colonialism and Palestine is writing the last. And there’s something about this particular moment where the very fabric, flimsy as it is, that’s holding up our current intolerable status quo is being contested and being seen for what it is. That this is the afterlife of slavery. This is the afterlife of colonialism. 

And until as a world community, we decide to uproot those systems fully and firmly, you’ll see mass devastation in the global South. And a comrade of mine at CCR, maya finoh, who leads our political education and research, they would say the global majority, not the global south, the global majority will suffer unless and until we are willing to uproot the structures of colonialism, of racism, of capitalism and demand a completely transformed world. 

Why is there mass displacement in Sudan, in Haiti? Why is there mass migration in response to climate catastrophe that these people, these countries have nothing to do with? And how dare we then, as the United States close our borders? Separate families? Destroy communities? And punish entire countries, regions, people for our own crimes. And again, maybe to remove language of criminality, which is also a tool of the oppressor. But it is also to say that we have created these problems in the world, the West, the global North, because we have decided that certain people will have rights and certain people will not have rights, that we will extract and exploit the global majority for the benefit of the few in the global West and the global North.

And I think, as Tarek said, you know, the youth, the kids, the next generation, and it’s maybe because we are parents of young people who believe very much and hope very much in a world that is different from the one that we have now. But the kids see it. They see it. And they’re not playing games anymore. And they say, you know what? You have me reading a paper of record that is spouting lies. You have me learning a history that is completely whitewashed of reality. You have me believing that my enemy are migrants when you have fascists in power? Like, we’re not playing anymore. We’re not playing anymore and we see it for what it is and we refuse to stand by when there’s a genocide happening. We refuse to stand by when there’s mass displacement of our people around the world. We refuse to stay silent even if you claim that we are terrorists, even if you criminalize our activity. 

You know I just turned 40 this year and I’m trying to remember as a 20-year-old, would I have been so brave as these kids? Would I have been so brave to say “you want to take my degree? Take my degree.” What is a degree in a burning world? What is a degree when children are dying, when we are killing children? Like I don’t need that. So it’s a whole new situation. It’s an inspiring one and I think it is, you know, clarity about what is actually going on in this world, who is benefiting from this status quo, and why is it incumbent on us to fight like hell to change it.

Josie Pickens

Thank you, Nadia. And I think that what you’re saying here feeds into my next question. It’s almost as though you all are answering the questions before we can ask them, which is always a wonderful thing to have. When we’re having these conversations, it means that we are, you know, flowing in symmetry. But I want to ask a question about harm and how it is exported and imported. Meaning, what relationships do we see between state violence taking place in other countries and systems of harm that we experience here domestically?

Tarek Ismail

I can take a stab at this Josie. I have a couple thoughts on this. One is, I think it’s clarifying for us as folks who are invested in the abolition of family policing to take a look at our adversaries here in the United States. People who claim the mantle of children’s rights. People who claim the mantle about caring. What happens to young people and to safeguarding those young people from bad things that could happen to them. And I’m gonna name names. I’m thinking about people like Naomi Schaefer Riley, like Elizabeth Bartholet, like Laura Rosenbury, who’s now the president of Barnard College. Anne Dailey. People who have published left and right articles about how Black parents are just too dangerous to leave their children with them. And therefore we need to do what’s right, which is to remove children from their care and let’s say not restrict them to other Black parents. Put them with white parents, ultimately.

The benefit in some respects of internationalism now is that it exposes the lie behind the concern that they claim. Look up all the people I mentioned and see whether they have said a word about a Palestinian child murdered by the Israeli military. We’re nearing 14,000 dead Palestinian children and there will be more by the time that this airs. Not a word spared. What is it about that? What can we understand from this obsession as we see it here? A deep obsession with Black children and saving them from their parents, but the disposability, theoretically, with Palestinian children or Black children in the Congo or Black children in the Sudan or Black children in Haiti, right? Their disposability vis-a-vis what we see.

And I think about a piece that I read recently in Parapraxis magazine. The author, I wrote it down here, is Yasmin El-Rifae. The piece is called To Know What They Know. And she writes about what it is about Palestinian children in this moment. What does this contradiction expose? And she makes the argument, I think rather convincingly, that what we’re seeing here is the obsession that people have with children as the embodiment of innocence. Children represent to us innocence as compared to their parents who are tarred by the ways of the world. But no, these children are innocent and they deserve to be saved from their parents or from whatever it is. 

And she argues in this piece that she’s written that in fact, Palestinian children in this context are not seen as innocents because they are exposed to the harms of their oppressor from the day that they are born. When you are born in a NICU where you cannot even be guaranteed the life-saving medicine that you need when your mother has to give birth in a tent. When you are born in a tent, when you are born rolling around in the dirt, you don’t have the innocence of feeling benevolence toward the person who put you in that position and therefore you are subject to execution.

And so we see through that lens that if we deem you something other than innocent, vis-a-vis the empire that Nadia has spoken about, then you are disposable. And if you are innocent vis-a-vis that empire, then we will deign you worthy of our saving arms. And so we see this disregard for human life exported left and right and especially today in Gaza. And one other way that I want to think about it is through the use of language. And so we see these parallels that to me are quite glaring. The way that language renders someone guilty or not innocent. 

To the extent that our government has labeled a resistance movement as a terrorist movement, any advocacy alongside that movement, any expression of sympathy for that liberation movement, any expression of support for that liberation movement is deemed morally outside the bounds for sure. It’s deemed criminal sometimes, right? And it’s deemed sometimes worthy of execution. If you are labeled a terrorist, it means that you do not have the support of the government in seeking the thing that you want to seek and therefore we can get rid of you. And we see the same sort of thing happen when someone is labeled a neglectful parent or an abusive parent. 

When that label sticks, it sticks. And that person is deemed disposable. That person is deemed unworthy. That person is deemed as someone we should put to the side and substitute with someone else who does not have that label stuck to them. We are invested in these labels as a society and our project, I think, as we think about the harm that’s exported, this sort of label of terrorist that we have exported, imported initially and then exported literally with bombs that we drop on people’s heads as a movement, I know in the family policing movement, we have become invested in problematizing this language. What is neglect? Really, ultimately, who’s responsible for this neglect? Is it really an individual problem? Is there a collective problem that we might want to think about as we seek the roots as Nadia’s talking about them? 

We’re invested in problematizing that language. The same is true of terrorism. What is terrorism really, right? Besides sorting between violence that we deem as a nation acceptable and violence that we deem as unacceptable? And not just violence, but any form of resistance, including speech, which Laura Rosenbury herself has shut down at Barnard College as its president, despite having written in the new law of the child that she deems children’s interests in exposure to new ideas, expressions of identity, personal integrity, participation in civic life as key to a reason why children should have an autonomous relationship that’s unaffected by their parents. No, that’s on pause when those values are being used to advocate for the rights of Palestinians. So ultimately, like we have an investment, I think, in thinking about this language that if we push on shifting it, it’s another instance of us blowing wind into the sails. So there is this import-export relationship that we see over and over again.

Josie Pickens

I’m thinking about the entire conversation that we’ve been having here as we’re recording this podcast. And these are conversations that I’m always having. And I have friends sometimes who ask me, how do you always know what’s happening all over the world? And how do you always have something to say about it? It’s heavy holding all of that.

And I think a lot of people are trying to figure out how do we stay informed about global challenges like the ones that we’ve discussed today and atrocities that we’ve discussed today without feeling hopeless and overwhelmed? And how do we effectively organize around specific issues while managing all of this information and wanting to support those who are also organizing around what we look at as these interconnected and global challenges and struggles? Nadia, do you want to start with an answer to that?

Nadia Ben-Youssef

Yeah, I can try to start and, one, I’m grateful for this conversation and I think insisting on the conversation is a key part of staying informed and connected and accountable to each other. There are many things to say in response to the sense of despair and of hopelessness and how to witness what it is that we are witnessing and continue with our lives. And I have a couple of answers, though perhaps they’re insufficient. I think one is that community will save us. You cannot hold, you cannot hold the pain of the world alone and you should not have to. And I’m looking at you Josie because so often Black, femme, women, non-men are meant to hold the weight of this devastating world. 

It is not yours to hold alone and it is ours to hold in community. And I think that’s one thing that allows me to both witness and accompany the suffering of the world and to not be destroyed by it. So find your people, find your community. The expectation is not that everyone will drop their work, their purpose and gifts and life to tend to the catastrophe that we are witnessing, whether that’s in Palestine, Congo, Sudan, Haiti. 

Tarek said, if you want to be radicalized, go to family court. If you want to know how despicable, racist, devastating this world is. Look around you and tend to that and tend to that. But tend to that knowing that your efforts to insist on the life and freedom and liberation of that one person is connected to every struggle that insists on the life and freedom and liberation of all people. And so part of our obligation is to just walk through the world with others’ struggles and dreams and visions of a future that is liberated, etched on your being. So that when you walk into a space that’s addressing family policing, when you walk into a space that is demanding queer and trans liberation, when you walk into a space that is fighting for the students’ right to demand an end to their institution’s complicity in genocide, we bring each other with us. We bring all of those struggles with us so that at your table, all are present and all are welcome. 

And it’s not because you’ve completely shifted a life to work on a particular issue. It’s not that. But it is how we understand what that issue is, what it’s connected to, and then ultimately what our freedom requires, which is that we care for each other deeply. We care for our community deeply, and we have an expansive understanding of what that community is. And then, you know, maybe another piece is something that I’ve learned from Mariame Kaba, extraordinary abolitionist and thinker. She says, you know, when the whole world has to change, it can feel completely overwhelming. But when the whole world has to change, that means that everything we do to change it matters. Every single thing we do matters. 

If that’s your aim is to change this world that serves no one, this reality that serves no one. So everything that you do matters. So do your best work. And that I think will give you hope too. Do your best work. You are storytellers. Tell stories. You are community builders. Build community. You are a healer. Heal. You are an artist. Make art. You are a lawyer. Use the law in the service of the people. Do that work and do it as best as you can. And that I think will generate a sustainable level of joy in the midst of a hopeless world.

Jaison Oliver

Anything you want to share there Tarek, especially in thinking about reliable sources of information. Even that is a challenge right now. Where do people go? Where do you go for reliable information and how do you manage it?

Tarek Ismail

Yeah, it’s a tough question, I think, because for a variety of reasons, including that the most reliable sources that we’ve got are people on the ground who are telling us what’s going on, and among them, journalists. And at least in Gaza, we know over 160 journalists have been killed since the beginning of this onslaught. So when we turn to those journalists, we turn to them with humility, I think, for the work that they’re doing. And we turn to them recognizing that their work is putting them in harm’s way. I think, though, keeping your ear as close to the ground as possible seems the best advice that I might share. 

Let me put that maybe a little bit differently. Keeping your ear to the ground, I think, is the way that you’re going to guarantee yourself the most accurate version of the information that you’re going to get to the extent that you are able to find lists and people have done such a good job of compiling lists of people who are reporting live from these areas. Follow those people. 

The interpretation that we’re getting from our news sources here is tinged with the whatever-colored glasses of empire that we might be looking through. So, first, listen to the people who are being most affected and listen closely. And I think then if you follow out, you’ll find secondary and tertiary sources that are reliable. But I think most importantly, I would suggest finding lists of people who are affected and listening closely to them.

Josie Pickens

I think your answer also goes into our questions or being curious around language because we are unfortunately taught in academia that those are not reliable sources. Impacted folk. But I love that answer and the understanding that people who have the most information on what’s happening in the world or the people who are living through what’s happening in the world and we should absolutely be listening to those voices and uplifting those voices as much as we can. 

This has been so, so good and an informative conversation but also such a compassionate conversation. We appreciate you both so much for joining us today. And we want to make sure that our listeners can follow you, follow your work, learn more about all of the things that you are doing in the world. So can you tell us how people can stay connected to you and your work? And Tarek, if you would like to start.

Tarek Ismail

Sure. You can follow CUNY Law School at @CUNYLaw on Twitter. I’m not as active, but you can follow me too at @tarekzismail on Twitter. And I think we’ll be launching a family defense practicum platform on social media to get the word out too. So keep your eyes peeled for that as well.

Nadia Ben-Youssef

Yeah, I’d definitely follow the Center for Constitutional Rights on socials (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter). And through that, you’ll be connected to some of the most remarkable frontline human rights defenders and social movements of our time. so click on the CCR links, but then click on those links that we connect you with our movement partners and those who are resisting and daring to dream in impossible circumstances. So you can similarly, I had to look up my name on X because I’m like, am I using this anymore? But it’s at @nadiaby and I hope to see listeners in the streets or I hope to see listeners take these ideas and lessons and a praxis of solidarity in whatever work you are doing to abolish the family policing system, to imagine new worlds, to create actual real safety for our communities where our kids and our families can thrive. Take it and let me watch you, really. I’m grateful for you all for this. This is the work.

Jaison Oliver

Thank you both for joining us. It has been, like Josie said, a really compassionate and generative conversation, something that I’ll definitely be sitting with. So I’m grateful for you all. Thank you for joining us.

Tarek Ismail

Thank you.

Nadia Ben-Youssef

Thank you for having us.