The kids in Gaza deserve to dance, too.

What makes us think we would have protested the Holocaust if all we knew were whispers about its dark, secret chambers of death?

*This essay was written in early May.

I just completed my final show of tour this weekend* in St. Louis, which was a 43-hour show altogether across three days. It was exhausting, and I think I'm good without dance competitions, strobing lights, and dark venues for a while. What really made this weekend endurable was the incredible talent in St. Louis. I watched some of the best group routines ever as dancers leapt in the air, wooed the audience with their facial expressions, and beautifully executed their choreography in shiny costumes and confident poise. 

Halfway through one of my favorite group dances, some older dancers rolled onto the stage a prop designed to look like a massive gift box. They uncovered the box to reveal an adorable petite dancer who shook shiny sticks in her hands for the rest of the song. Like everyone on the judge's panel and in the audience, I couldn't help melting in adoration as we watched this energetic, three-year-old girl dancing on the stage with the purest, toothiest smile. 

It then hit me like a truck: the same time I was watching this brilliant dance, there were hundreds of thousands of children in Gaza who will never get to dance again because they've lost their limbs. Or they've already been killed. That while I was exhausted from being stuck for hours in a dark venue with strobing lights and loud music, the children in Gaza have forcibly become acquaintances with darkness, flashing lights, and the sounds of warfare machinery and bombs dropping - not for hours, but for months, with no promise of silence apart from death. It makes you want to scream because it's so heartbreaking and unfair. You have to scream or you have to cry. 

Or, I suppose, you can desensitize yourself, as I did for weeks, as that is always easier but never better. 

For lack of a better word, it's been an especially horrifying time lately, as we hear about the way authority figures have responded to student protests across multiple universities in the US. It is also incredible to know that this has only empowered students and other advocates to become even more devoted to the permanent liberation of Palestinians. 

If you're hesitant in getting involved or learning more about the genocide because politics isn't your thing, I hope you're encouraged to know that it isn't mine, either. But I'd love to suggest that there is absolutely still room for you and I to care, and I invite you to, because this genocide is beyond just a "political conflict."

It is an environmental injustice. It will take decades to rebuild and restore the land in Gaza, if even possible. And without saying, the use of bombing and all kinds of warfare equipment directly destroys the environment. 

It is a gender injustice, too. Women and children are especially vulnerable. We know from history that whenever one group of people is trying to exert dominance over another, the easiest and most intimate way to reinforce power is through the domination of one body over another. 

It is a healthcare injustice, too. The medical demands in Gaza can barely be met right now as people are being bombed and starved to death. Many have also lost limbs, something even a ceasefire cannot restore. Dead bodies pile on ruined streets, creating a perfect breeding ground for disease. There is also mental trauma people who manage to make it out will be tortured by for the rest of their lives. 

It is an educational injustice, too. Every university in Gaza has been demolished so that any child who manages to out-survive this atrocity will have nowhere to get higher education at home. The Israeli military/government is not only interested in the total destruction of Palestinians in the here and now, but also in the ability for Palestinians to have any semblance of a sustainable future. 

It is a moral injustice, too. That police are dealing with student protestors more viciously than with active shooters or violent counter-protestors sends a horrifying message of what behaviors are and aren't tolerated in the terrorist country of the United States of America.

And I'd say, most importantly, it is a deeply personal injustice. Maybe not for you or me, but for hundreds of thousands, it is. For them, it is their fathers and mothers and children and relatives and friends, and they all have names and faces. It is their people. And we are finally starting to recognize how personal this genocide has always been when we hear stories of or see people our age and in schools we attend being assaulted, suspended, and arrested for practicing their First Amendment right in a country that supposedly but has continually failed to esteem justice and freedom for all. 

What is political will always be personal. 

I hope that if even one of these matters resonates with you - environmental justice, gender equality, sexual violence prevention, protection of children, physical and mental healthcare, education, or morality - that you can now see how the genocide of Palestinians is something you and I can and absolutely must care about. 

What makes us think we would have done differently? 

It is true that injustice has existed in multiple forms for as long as we can remember. And it is true that we will never perfectly abolish all forms of injustice, not in our imperfect humanness and propensity to forget and repeat history. 

But I want to make an appeal that the genocide in Gaza is an atrocity we cannot just accept as an unresolvable reality that must be tolerated. We need a permanent ceasefire and freedom for Palestinians so they can finally experience the bare minimum, which is literally just to survive without the oppression from a colonizing force. 

The way we respond to this genocide sets an important precedent we cannot mess up again. When we all learned in our history classes about the Holocaust, merely one of many genocides throughout history, we were appalled and couldn't believe Adolf Hitler was capable of influencing a terrifying platoon of Nazis and Nazi sympathizers to exterminate over ten million Jews and other minorities through strategic torture and killing methods. A very similar thing, so similar it should make us shiver, is happening, in the sense that Palestinians are also being slaughtered in a calculated manner, their exterminators no longer needing the help of isolated concentration camps and secret gas chambers to do the job but military arsenal funded by corporations, sympathizing governments, and apathetic or unsuspecting people who don't realize their contribution to an ongoing genocide comes in the form of a Starbucks drink or McDonald's Big Mac. 

The photos are now everywhere; atrocities are displayed and accessible all over the web for you and I to see. Yet, many of us remain apathetic or think this genocide is too complex of an issue to care about. What makes us think we would have protested the Holocaust if all we knew were whispers about its dark, secret chambers of death? Must we become the ones others want dead, too, for us to finally care? 

By then, it will be far too late. 

Now, while I was motivated to write all of this today in response to the horrific police/university responses to student protestors, I'm not here to say that the only way to prove you care is to jump into the streets and protest. I don't think every person weighs equal risks when deciding whether to participate in protests. People of color, especially people with black or brown skin, will inevitably be subjected to more racial profiling and receive less lenience from police officers than those with pale or white skin. As someone with yellow skin, I cannot understand to the same degree but can only imagine the burnout many of those folks feel when they realize there is always more fighting to do. Similarly, it is ridiculously naive to tell a student who comes from a low socioeconomic family, or an incomplete family, that they must be willing to risk getting arrested or suspended from school.

Not everyone can afford that; yet, we can all afford something when we recognize that doing nothing is something we cannot afford. Along with protesting, there are many ways to practice activism while embracing an understanding of intersectionality. Educating. Learning. Boycotting brands that finance the Israeli military/government. Donating to humanitarian organizations and families in Gaza. Checking in on protestors. Signing petitions that call for a permanent ceasefire. Calling your representatives. Providing pro bono or affordable mental healthcare services to protestors. Validating people's anger and grief rather than criticizing their emotions. Sharing resources. Giving supplies. Even holding conversations. 

These are just some ways to practice social justice, and no action is too small or "useless." Many people who refuse to boycott brands that funnel money into the genocide hold the faulty logic that one Disney+ subscription or visit to Chevron won't do anything; we cannot give into that same faulty logic by believing our acts of social justice are also too small. 

Anything is always better than nothing, and when united, we are powerful. 

Here's where our own personal privileges can also be taken advantage of. If you are financially privileged, I encourage you to donate more than the average person. If you have more protection due to your skin color, consider being an ally for people with colored skin during protests. Don't let them carry this burden alone, too. If you have a platform of any kind, share resources and invite conversations. Educate with kindness. Kindness - the exhausting and difficult thing it is - will invite people to join in solidarity, not guilt-tripping and judgment. (This, of course, is simply my opinion). 

It's time to become open - both in heart and mind. 

Life is easier when we desensitize ourselves to pain, but then, that's not living at all. There is no love, no capacity to experience the fullest range of joy or grief, when we numb and push away and deny. We lose humanity and succumb to our own brokenness when we choose to believe desensitization is the answer.

It's about everyday when I want to convince myself to not care instead, because there are other things in life consuming my energy, like my career or my relationships or my hobbies. So I'm not going to ask, "How can you not care about this genocide? Why isn't everyone boycotting or trying to stay informed?" It's easier not to, that's why. It's easier to not care, to rationalize injustice, and to be able to buy from Burger King and Domino’s Pizza without it rubbing your conscience even a little. You get to satisfy your preference for comfort and fulfill your immediate desires, simply by turning a blind eye.

So that's why my plea here is to allow yourself to feel. This is the same principle that applies to any other part of our lives and emotional capacity/awareness. Grieve, because what's happening right now is absolutely heartbreaking and worthy of our tears and sorrow. Allow yourself to be morally convicted, and don't try to stomp out that conviction, even if it's easier. Feel, and then let yourself be driven to responsible and life-promoting action. 

After all, you don't have to be a Palestinian to care. You don't have to practice Islam. You don't even need to be an expert on the history of Israeli occupation in Palestine to care. 

All you have to do is look at a child to see our equal-ness before the same Maker. It's in that simple look that we remember we are all the same inside, that we will always be more similar than we are different, and that there's a shared humanity within each of us that we need to vigilantly protect and value. 

The kids in Gaza deserve to dance, too. What makes us think we're more deserving of living than them? 

Resources + My Favorite Accounts to Follow: