This photo essay comes from the Instagram account of For Black Women and Girls UK.
It is reproduced here to raise awareness of a troubling increase in the number of black women going missing and later found dead by/ within bodies of water.
“Plotting, like learning, is about “invention and re-invention…the restless, impatient, continuing, hopeful inquiry human beings pursue in the world, with the world, and with each other,” says Brazilian educator Paulo Freire. Your plot, too, doesn’t have to mean committing to only one thing. Whether digging deep or sowing seeds far and wide, plotting is about questioning the scripts you’ve been handed and scheming with others to do and be otherwise for the collective good of all.”
— Ruha Benjamin, Viral Justice: How We Grow the World We Want (2022), pg. 23-24
Restoring the “Day of Palestinian Struggle”: From the Discourse of the Nakba to the Project of Liberation
By Khaled Barakat
Monday, May 11, 2026
Please consider reading the above article printed on masarbadil.org by Khaled Barakat, member of the Executive Committee of the Masar Badil, the Palestinian Alternative Revolutionary Path Movement, was originally published inArabic at Al-Akhbar:
Every year, as the fifteenth of May approaches, Palestine returns to the forefront of global memory as an open wound since 1948. Images of displacement, massacres, the destruction of Palestinian villages, and the uprooting of the people from their land are revived under a name and a slogan that has become firmly entrenched in political and media discourse: the “Nakba.”
Read on here
The difference between the two expressions is not superficial. “Nakba” refers to catastrophe and defeat, while “Day of Palestinian Struggle” refers to resistance, continuity, and popular will. The first focuses on what colonialism did to the Palestinian people, while the second focuses on what Palestinians do to confront and uproot colonialism. Between the two discourses lies a profound difference in the construction of political consciousness, especially among the new generations in Palestine and the diaspora. – Khaled Barakat
Today marks the 78th anniversary of Nakba.
What is Nakba?
Nakba refers to the ethnic cleansing, genocide and apartheid of Palestine by Zionist militias to make the land clear for the creation of Israel in 1948.
This premeditated military campaign resulted in the murder of thousands of Palestinians, the destruction of hundreds of villages and the displacement of nearly 80 per cent of Palestinians from their homeland.
The violence went on for more than a year, and the result was the creations of the State of Israel taking over 78 percent of historic Palestine.
West Bank and Gaza made up the remaining 22 percent. This too fell into Israeli hands later and remains under Israeli military rule today.
What is also disgusting is that Britain had a hand, still has a hand, in all of this, due to the “Balfour Declaration”.
For 100s of years Palestine was part of the Ottoman Empire. During the First World War, Palestine was captured but the British. The League of Nations then gave Palestine to the British to mandate. Not taking into account the wishes of the Palestine people, the British were given control of the land, making decisions for the native population until it was decided they were deemed capable of being an independent state. How colonialist is that?
Great Britain, didn’t care about what was right. Didn’t care about the Palestinians who have lived within their homeland for centuries. Nope.
The British Mandate incorporated the “Balfour Declaration” that pledged to establish “in Palestine a national home for the Jewish people”, who made up less than 10 percent of the population at the time.
So all the time Palestine as under the mandate, 1923- 1947, the British were working with Zionists to suppress and eradicate Palestinians, through whatever means necessary, to create a homeland for Jews. Facilitating the immigration of European Jews to Palestine, providing weapons for Zionist’s and training them to kill, all increased the occupation of Palestine by Jews and suppressed the native people, Palestinians.
Once Britain announced its plan to end the mandate in 1947, they left it up to the UN to decide the fate of Palestine. The United Nations decided to partition Palestine into two : 55 percent to a Jewish state, and 45 to an Arab state, while keeping Jerusalem under international control.
It sickens and angers me that other states play god over other states. What right do they have to take away the land and home of the Palestinians?
Palestinians were not consulted over the proposal which never materialised. Because once Britain announced its withdrawal, Zionist groups began their attacks on Palestinians to have complete control over all of Palestine for the return of the Jews.
Nakba was the result.
I do not declare to know the full history. I’ve probably butchered the history as I’ve tried to share it here. Please go and read up on it yourself as it wouldn’t be the first time that histories are shared as ‘facts’ and are really just ‘lies’, manufactured to make the oppressors the victims and heroes.
One thing I am sure about as fact is that the Palestinian people have been brutalised and persecuted from time, kicked and killed out of their own country to make way for ‘the promised land’ of a another people, and that somehow makes it all okay?
Zionists called it a ‘transfer’ of people to other places. I call it genocide. Innocent people killed indiscriminately to create the State of Israel, was wrong then and continues to be wrong today.
What do you do to be involved in the community?
I’m been expanding my reading of late. I’ve just become a member of the Abolitionist Futures Reading Group which is focusing on abolition, obviously.
Reading in community, sharing ideas and thoughts which are probably considered radical, revolutionary to the majority is so refreshing and affirming.
It makes me feel less alone in my way of thinking and {BEING}. It gives me hope that there are alternatives to the current system and that together we can get there.
Abolition, might be associated recently with prisons, or defunding the police, and closing detention centres.
But abolition is much more than this. Started with the aim of abolishing Transatlantic Slavery, abolition of prisons has been there since the inception of prisons themselves. Abolition is revolutionary because in order to decarcerate the Prison Industrial Complex not only does the whole of society have to change, be overhauled not reformed as that just wouldn’t work, but we also, the people have to change.
The world has to change at the same time as the people within this world change. We have to move away from the indoctrinated belief that prisons and the police, state terror more like, are the only means of deterring crime and criminals. Which jus isn’t the case.
We have to stop focusing on the individual ‘evildoers’ who deserve the harshest punishments for whatever crimes they committed, to taking an honest look at our societies and cultures that have forced people to commit such crimes ( or in a lot of cases no crimes being committed but still punished with prison sentences.)
I’m talking about poverty, economics, drug abuse, race, class, sexuality, isolation, migration etc.
To reiterate, rather than try to imagine one single alternative to the existing system of incarceration, we might envision an array of alternatives that will require radical transformations of many aspects of our society.
Alternatives that fail to address racism, male dominance, homophobia, class bias, and other structures of domination will not, in the final analysis, lead to decarceration and will not advance the goal of abolition. – Angela Y. Davis
Me reading, thinking and becoming anti-prisons, anti-establishment, becoming an abolitionist is just the next step on this journey of fugitivity, via black anarchism. And I’m so pleased and relieved that I don’t have to walk this path alone. I have a community around me as support.
I spend so much time and energy on the work I share at Sunderland University, one or two sessions, out of their social work studies that I’ve decided the share what I create over on my Patreon in a special collection.
It’s just the power points for now. I’ll go back in at some point and share the resources as well. But I just thought it might be of some use for someone else. I’m not expert either. And my style and message has changed over the six years of doing it. I’m mighty please withy last one, November 2025, because I just centred blackness all the way. I was unapologetic and intend to stay this way.
I really appreciate it when you’ve bought a book and are ready to dive into it, but you’re just not feeling it. You can’t get into it. So onto the book shelf it goes, collecting dust. Maybe even taunting you.
And then, over time, into a different time, you pick up said book again and you dive into this time, deeply. It’s singing it’s message through you mind, body and soul.
This practice happened for me with Women Who Run With Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes and here it’s happened again with What is antiracism? by Arun Kundnani.
It’s that time of year again where I’m due to go back into Sunderland University and lecture within the Social Work Department around anti-racism. This started in 2020, in the pandemic and the Black Lives Matter uprisings around the world. Up until this point there had been no addressing of race and racism within social work training. And you could still say this is the case as one session, 2-3 hours long, is hardly making a dent into racism and its consequences. But I digress.
Anyway each year, my thinking and practices have changed as I’ve read more and developed more as an anti-racist, anti-capitalist agitator, organiser and activist.
I share my learnings and findings as I want to bring about change for everyone. And this transformation can’t be just limited to working on a personal level as the usual anti-racism training/ education would have us believe.
The problem is not just on an individual level, our unconscious biases etc, the problems are structural and are engrained into the bedrock of our societies, countries and communities.
Anyhow, this book What is antiracism? is not only giving me the historical evidence of racism, the term and practices, but is also sharpening my argument around how racism and classism go hand in hand and that you cannot have a revolution without black workers leading the way. As black workers have always fought for freedom and the dismantling of capitalism for everyone, not just for (white) workers as the revolutions within Europe have done.
We have the French Revolution in the 1700s, lead by the urban masses. We have the Russian Revolution lead by the vanguard party for the proletariat. But we have the Saint-Domingue Revolution in the 1700s lead by the enslaved for abolition of all enslavement in the colonies and Europe, in tandem with the French Revolution happening in Paris. The first time that black and white workers were fighting a common cause together on this scale.
Which revolution succeeded?
The revolution lead by the enslaved, black forced labour, which created the sovereign state of Haiti, a black revolution which had at its heart radical action to transform all societies.
This is what we need now.
I’m trying here. Really trying to look after myself. To rest when I need to. To eat well. To move my body. To protect my mind, body and soul. To make a way out of nothing. Protect my energy. From what I hear you say?
Vampires. Blood fucking sucking vampires. I’m not referring to the Count here. I’m referring to those people who treat others like a puppet or pawn ( insert whiteness/ white people here).
All paternalistic, thinking they’re doing me some kind of favour when they take my ideas and run with them and then come back to me ( that is if they do) and present some kind of gig/job/role for me to carry out sometimes for free( sometimes for a fee) and think/expect/assume that I’m okay with this. That I’d jump at the chance of doing this shit for them on their own terms with them assuming all the control and power when I’ve been doing this shit by myself for others for as long as time, without shit from them.
Exploitation. Extraction. White supremacy culture comes to mind. Comes to heart here.
No discussion. No seeking permission. No asking if this is okay. Nothing.
Except the conceited, privileged, racist assumptions/ take over that this is something I would do and not refuse to do because … that I need them? Or that I need the money or the exposure? That this is the only way to do it? Or what?
I don’t know because they didn’t see fit to talk to me about it.
So many things are wrong about this situation. The whole concept. The timeframes. The costings. The language used to describe my people. My community.
Not to even mention that they spelt my name wrong throughout the whole fucking ‘proposal’.
I don’t think they know who they are dealing with. I don’t think they really know who I am or have been listening to me all along. Really listening to me and understanding who I am and where I’m coming from.
There’s blood in the water.
The sun has broken through the dark.
Vampires are not feasting on my fucking soul anymore.
I sold my soul once before and it didn’t turn out well for me.
With soul and dignity and integrity intact I’m not about to surrender them again for jackshit. For someone who does not hear/ value/ see me.
I refuse.
Jog on!
I’m been talking here about finding my tribe. About my search for comrades in solidarity. I’ve remained pine in the process, for real. From one particular source I asked for further reading, as something was niggling me. Id expressed my concerns in terms of using the oppressors language as well as, well I felt as, the lack of warmth, kindness, care and love. And then through the further reading it all became clear. This was my response.
I believe that there needs to be unity to fight all oppressions. You can’t fight racism without fighting against capitalism.
But I realise through this further reading where my concerns lie. It’s not in the socialist/Marxist movement as a whole but it’s with the people who make up the movement.
I’m not sure if the people of the movement have/ or continue to take the time to work on their own racism. There seems to be a given that because the movement is against all oppressions that it means those who are part of the movement can’t be racist or sexist because they say they are against all forms of oppression. Saying it is one thing. Practising it is another.
In practice there is still the use of the oppressors language as I’ve mentioned before. Using ‘non-white’ or ‘minorities’ is offence as they still centre whiteness which is used for division and oppression.
The articles mention the BPP alienating white people because of their support for Black Nationalism and Separatism, and their language used around Black Power. You even mentioned yourself that we can’t fight capitalism through language and its use. Modifying language is not going to bring about material change you say.
And yet it is language the party is using to rally the masses, to bring people together.
Language is the tool of persuasion no? Language is the tool of education.
But if that language continues to use the language of the oppressor and is offensive to certain groups of people, they are accused of being confused, ill informed and falling into the identity politics trap again.
However, from my experience, through reading the literature of the party, I feel that the language used reflects a party line where the people behind that line are not continuing to work on their own racism/ biases while focusing their efforts on society’s ills, outside of themselves.
I do not feed into white supremacy culture with the characteristics of either/or. I believe in and/both. That means for me, there has to be the work on the individual’s internalised racism and sexism at the same time as working against oppressions within society. Working on our own blind spots and prejudices can only benefit the movement as a whole. Where this fails to take place is where the oppressors divide and rule become fixed without our recognition of it.
To say that ‘non-white’ is every day language, quote, ‘commonly understood by ordinary people as respectful ways to refer to some people who are oppressed’, as a black person being referred to as ‘non-white’ is offensive to me and I’m not really bothered if other black people are okay with it. I might be falling into an identity police trap but one my identity is not built on my relation to whiteness that is racism. Two, if someone says they find it offensive and that is not recognised or is questioned and explained away as being the norm is denying that person’s experience which is racist. Three, to bring this up then to have it dismissed as being defensive and accusing someone of being a bigot/ racist and dismissed as a distraction from the cause is another example of an individual failing to check themselves and work on themselves to combat their racism/ discrimination tendencies.
I work on myself daily to check my prejudices or biases or judgments and blind spots. I only wish more people would also as I do believe the world would be a better place because of it. Movements and societies are groupings made up of individuals. Working on the individual at the same time as the collective can only strengthen that connection and keep moving it forward in an effective way, I believe.
If we think about what is happen in the USA today, and the ICE raids within every community. The Latino community is coming out and asking where are the black people why are they not out here on the streets with them protesting? Why are they sitting this fight out etc.?
Black people are tired, esp. black women. Black people told everyone to vote for Kamala Harris and they didn’t listen. They voted for Trump. And now he is doing all that he said he would do.
Now people are asking for black people once again to put their bodies on the line. And yeah this is a prime example of the ruling class dividing and ruling. Pitting one group against another. But what is true there and what is true here, black people only make up a small percentage of the population. In the states 12% here 4% with other ethnicities. And yet it is expected for us to save the world. ( Aside here we might be termed ‘minorities’ within these countries but we are the global majority. I don’t use ‘minorities’ because it is used as language of control. Black Feminism or Third World Feminism has always been global in its remit).
It is expected for black people to put aside those differences which on a daily effect our life chances. Our lives in terms of life and death. And this is not feeding into a victim hierarchy and who’s suffering is more than someone else’s. It’s a reality. Black people, black women do not just suffer violence and brutality from the state but do so from person to person in their every day and yet black feminism still criticises and attempts to bring material change for all through fighting all oppressions including capitalism and yet if they ‘fail’ to bring about material change it is because of ill-fighting or confusion in their ideology but no mention of doing this within a racist/ sexist society that does not see Black women as anything except mules of the world. Not either/or but and/both.
As black women we continue to not be seen as human. Read Fugitive Feminism by Akuwgo Emejulu to understand this, which is anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist and anti-colonialist. It’s arguing for a rejection of the whole system. A refusal of what has already been refused to us. Other ways of being are possible.
Marx himself saw the future of capitalism as self-destruction and a social mode of production being the outcome. Fugitive Feminism is being/working now with the other possibilities. It’s about creating an outside while still on the inside. Creating spaces of liberation and joy on our own terms. It’s not waiting until then for it to be now. It’s collective and speculative and might be fostered by black women but can be utilised for all, all oppressions including capitalism and the class struggle.
It is probably dismissed though because it comes from the mouths, minds and hearts of black women.
Thanks for all these readings. They have helped in clarifying where I stand. In solidarity but at the same time in my own fullness and power which I lend to any movement which recognises this and works with me to bring about dismantling all oppressions for all people.
The reply I got, was thanks, I’ll reflect on it, and wish you luck on finding your people.
I’m sharing it here as I don’t want my realisation to do to waste. The words I shared to go to waste, as I’m still open for the conversation, still open to standing together.
Living Wild Studios 