It’s difficult to think about much else, so I want to first use this space to speak on what happened on our campus. Today (Monday) our very own Chancellor and Admin called upon riot police to incite violence unto their own students. I saw with my own eyes, my classmates and friends get maced, beat with batons, and thrown to the ground by violent riot police. I felt the fear, terrror, and solidarity of standing up against violence with my fellow classmates and being met with a taste of the very violence we are protesting. It’s a very scary reality to come to the understanding that the institutions that are supposed to protect us as students, were never built for that purpose in the first place. It’s easy to feel hopeless, but it’s also impossible to not feel utterly upset and therefore motivated to do even more to advocate for what’s right.
Our class themes of translanguaging and code-switching are so ingrained in the multicultural and international experience. In discussing a genocide, and the ethnic cleansing of an entire group of people, it’s essential to be aware of the destruction of culture that comes with, even if that destruction comes via appropriation of food, language, song, etc. In our class, we’ve seen how language is a medium, the bridge between thought and expression, and a way to express our culture and all the wonderful things (and sometimes the baggage) that comes with it. But we often do not talk about how language is weaponized. I see the weaponization of language through harmful rhetoric that’s been passed and repeated defending the cruel decisions of Israel and other Western leaders. This language, transporting across oceans, unifies those who see innocent Palestinians as animals who deserve to have their entire livelihoods destroyed with inhuman violence. This harmful language has the power to dehumanize communities and entire countries. It has the power to dehumanize children, so that the rest of the world’s citizens turn a blind eye to genocide.
It makes me think of ways I can use the power of words to combat violence, I think my piece is needing more power, more definitive desire/action, and I’m feeling inspired to add these elements in a way that is true to me.
Isha prayer at Price Center Lawn the weekend before the encampment was violently torn apart.
Using our language and art to humanize.
Display of students using their voice, condemning the actions of the Chancellor.
Radio Chthulucene 87.9 FM 
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