It's Time to Listen to What Gaza Youth Have to Say

In 1988, the plight of a young, poor, and seemingly invisible community living in tenements, amidst gang violence and deeply systemic racism, was broadcast far and wide. This was personally transformative and pulled the curtain on living conditions theretofore unrecognized by a privileged white kid from affluent Connecticut. By the way, that kid was me.

In pursuit of a way out, six young men from Compton, Calif., better known as N.W.A, told the story of their lives through sampled beats and rhythmic spoken word — some call it rap. The wick they lit followed the worldwide release of their inflammatory protest song called "F**k tha Police."

Sweeping vitriolic response to the song surprised few in the music world. The FBI and the U.S. Secret Service sent letters to Ruthless Records and began surveillance on rappers Eazy-E, Ice Cube, and Dr. Dre. Concert dates were canceled. Police increased pressure in Compton, Inglewood, and Watts. For many black urban youth, the situation seemed to go from bad to worse.

Today, I read the "Gaza Youth's Manifesto for Change" and again felt the powerful sensation of standing on a levee torn asunder by tidal forces. Though often tenuously constructed and with generously sprinkled vulgarities, the Gaza youths' plea for sanity displays striking commonalities between disenfranchised youth in Los Angeles circa late 1980s and those living in the occupied territories of Palestine today. The shared vernacular is unmistakable and demands acknowledgement of lives bound by concrete walls and doomed to inferiority complexes from an endemic denial of basic human rights.

The daily struggle for Palestinians is also different and in many ways incomparably worse than life around Compton in the years before Rodney King and Reginald Deny were plucked from anonymity. You'd be hard-pressed to find many rap songs about two hours of daily electricity and little access to clean water. Nor would many urban youths accept the indignity and injustice of daily, armed, and often tense check points.

Nonetheless, rights in name are rights in vain when whole communities are denied their full measure of social justice. Racial double standards have long existed in the United States. In Israel, where institutionalized racism is quickly becoming the order of the day, one rule exists for Jews and another for Arabs.

No matter where the injustice, speaking truth to power is and always will be a revolutionary act requiring a certain level of sacrificial resignation. Will I be punished for my actions? Will I be silenced for telling the truth?

The Gaza Youth Breaks Out group has courageously pulled the curtain back on Palestinian suffering and shattered the hegemony of various power structures quartering the occupied territories. Now its members wait to see from where and how swiftly the storm of retribution arrives.

Is the manifesto terse and uncomfortable at times? Yes. Is it inflammatory, angry, and immature? A bit. Is it exactly what the world needs to finally accept that the occupied territories of Palestine represent a collective failure so universal that we each shoulder a small measure of blame for the suffering of nearly four million stateless people? Without any doubt.

Twenty-some years ago, N.W.A. brought the streets of Compton to life for millions. I think they'd be happy to know that in Gaza today, young people are picking up where they left off, sounding back with an answer to Dre's line, "Why don't you tell everybody what the f**k you gotta say?"