Dear President Wong and CSU Board of Trustees:
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We are writing on behalf of Black for Palestine, a national network of Black activists and organizers committed to supporting the Palestinian people's struggle for freedom, justice, peace and self-determination. We integrate our work around Palestine into the global and domestic struggles for Black liberation and human emancipation.

We are dismayed at the lawsuit and charges levied against the university, which target the General Union of Palestine Students, Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas program, and College of Ethnic Studies professor Rabab Abdulhadi.

Dr. Abdulhadi has been a tremendous resource and ally to Black for Palestine and to larger struggles for justice across the country and across the world. Her contributions to the “indivisibility of justice” are ones that benefit us all.
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We view this lawsuit in the climate of increasing vilification and attacks on Muslims at home and abroad, and coordinated legal attacks on the movement for Palestinian rights.
We also view this lawsuit as an attack not just on Palestinian students, faculty and their advocates, but on freedom of speech and freedom of protest, which communities of color are always at the forefront of leading and the frontlines of backlash.

We have watched for years as Dr. Abdulhadi has sought university protection in vain from attacks on her academic work with Al Najah University in Nablus, Palestine and on her AMED program at large.

Last spring, one of our members was present on campus while GUPS and other students of color were attacked for their protest of the racist and discriminatory policies of Jerusalem mayor Nir Birkat. This member saw the university coordinate with police and Israeli officials to throw its students under the bus.

And this spring, we witnessed the university fail to protect Palestinian students and faculty from rightwing attacks on campus, via the dissemination of posters labeling them as ‘terrorists.’

We understand the intense vilification that occurs when we take action for our rights as Black people or speak out against racism and white supremacy; we view the attacks on Palestinians who speak out against their oppression as cut from the same cloth of rightwing reaction and repression.

Accepting this baseless lawsuit against Palestinian rights would be an egregious discriminatory act against Palestinian members of the San Francisco State community--a community the university has failed to protect and defend for years. It would also undermine the work of the students who fought for the establishment of the nation’s first ethnic studies program through the historic Third World Liberation Front in 1968.

We hope that the university will not abandon its legacy.

As current and former students from universities across the country, we understand this lawsuit, if successful, endangers critical thinking, debate on college campuses that is necessary to further the development of students, staff, and professors.

Palestinians are being targeted right now, but if this lawsuit is successful, it will be other vulnerable ethnic groups and their academic studies programs that are targeted next.
We urge the university to reject this case.

Signed,
 
Black For Palestine 

The following is a tribute to Korryn Gaines submitted by a Palestinian student:

When I see them, I see us. And when I saw Korryn Gaines, I saw myself.

When I first heard of Korryn Gaines, my first reaction, regrettably, followed the mainstream narrative. She had a gun. She shot back at the police. She could have avoided her death if she had not fought back. Why did she do that? I then recollected my thoughts, and reminded myself to relate the Black struggle to the Palestinian one, as I often do whenever I try to understand other people’s struggles. It was then that it struck me--it was then that when I saw her, I actually saw myself.

When I saw Korryn’s 20 minutes-long Facebook video, I understood that all mainstream narratives, that went from accusing her of being another “thug” to a “mentally deranged girl” were not fitting of her story. Korryn was not a thug, she was not mentally ill, and most importantly, her choice was not irresponsible, nor irrational.

More often than usual, oppressed people are faced with a choice: either being “rational” and accepting humiliation, or fighting for their dignity and acknowledging the risk they are taking by doing so. I know this because I was born and raised in Palestine and was confronted with this dilemma with every interaction I had with Israeli soldiers. Korryn Gaines knew that as well.

In her Facebook video, we saw a worried but yet determined Black woman that fought for her dignity and rights, even though she knew that she would not be heard, nor respected. Korryn Gaines knew her rights very well (ex: when she asked the officer for his delegation of authority order), and she knew that the police had no right to treat her the way they did, she knew that as a Black woman in the U.S., she would not be heard, she knew that she risked another unjust arrest or even death, and yet, she still fought for her rights with all the risks she knew.

This is where the whole mainstream narrative should be challenged. What non-oppressed privileged people do not understand is that sometimes, complying with unjust orders and accepting humiliation becomes more deadly than actual physical death. Oppression is not only physical, it is also psychological, and when oppressed people choose to fight back, it is because they promise themselves not to accept it anymore.

Yes, Korryn Gaines could have given her papers willingly to the police, she could have gone to the scheduled court session, and she could have accepted her arrest, but she didn’t. In the same way, last December when I went back to Palestine, I could have given my phone to the Israeli soldiers when they asked to see my photos, and I could have avoided a 3 hours long thorough search that risked my own imprisonment, but I didn’t. I did not do it not because I was oblivious of the risk I took, it is because I knew that they had no legal right to take it, and I wanted to fight for that.

While a thorough search and probable arrest is not to be compared with the risk the Korryn took, it is important to know that our choice stems from the same roots of oppression.

Korryn was not only another recent police victim, she was a freedom fighter, in the same way that every Palestinian martyr and prisoner are. Their choice is dangerous for their own physical wellbeing, but it is nevertheless a brave rational choice.