Invincible on the making of The Emperor's Clothes

I arrived in Oakland at the height of Israel's attack on Gaza, only ten days after Oscar Grant was shot to death by police in a BART train station unarmed, handcuffed and laying on his stomach. The sky was thick with police helicopters on a daily basis in response to the community protests and rallies that were being dubbed “riots” by the media.

That same week K-Salaam reached out to me about collaborating on a song to address the situation in Gaza. I definitely wanted to speak out, but writing a song seemed powerless in the face of a death count that was rising by the hundreds each day, and while the U.S. governement continued to support this mass murder by the Israeli Defense Force.

The only ray of hope I saw in the midst of this tragedy was that, if nothing else, Israel was exposing itself. Less and less people could stand back “neutrally” and say “this situation is too complicated for me to understand” while their taxes, investments, and daily consumer purchases directly funded such horrific outcomes. I began seeing more people taking a stand and connecting their struggles, especially in Oakland where Oscar Grant memorial posters and banners had statements like “Justice for Oscar Grant! Justice for Gaza! End Government Sponsored Murder In the Ghettos of Oakland and Palestine”.

One of the most concrete strategies being proposed and practiced by Palestinian organizations is to boycott, divest, and sanction (BDS) Israel. This approach was inspired by the succesful South African movement to boycott, and successfully end Apartheid.

Now that Israel has so blatantly exposed itself, many people around the globe are joining the BDS movement. But U.S. support for Israel remains the strongest on the globe, and we face great challenges to building an effective BDS movement here. I decided to write The Emperor’s Clothes in a way that would have a specific revlevance to promoting the BDS movement in the U.S. I wanted the song to show the connections and potential for solidarity between “here and there.”

So I wrote lyrics to K-Salaam and Beatnick’s beat that exposes the similarity between the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and the Native American genocide, and the connection between the struggle for justice in Palestine and the Civil Rights Movement in the U.S. Since writing the song, I've learned about even more connections–that the Israeli military has trained U.S. police forces such as the Atlanta Police Department and the Border Patrol. By boycotting Israel, we are also boycotting repressive police tactics in our cities and on our borders.

I wrote the chorus so it could easily be chanted, to lend itself at rallies and protests. The following week was my chance to put the piece in practice.

I was approached by my close friends at the Ruckus Society (who do amazing non-violent direct action and civil disobedience trainings and support) to help coordinate between their organization and the good people of the Bay Area Gaza Action Committee, who were planning to do a lock down of the Israeli Consulate in San Francisco. I supported communication between the two groups to figure out all the logistics involved, and was invited to perform The Emperor’s Clothes as part of the action.

On the day of the action, we arrived at 7AM sharp at the office building in which the Israeli Consulate is located. We drove around the block until the first set of people (who planned to be arrested) were set up, half of them locked down inside the building, half of them on the outside, chained to each other and the doors of the building, blocking the entrance. We parked at a nearby garage and as we pulled out our megaphones the parking attendant asked if we were going to a protest. “Of course not!” we replied. He laughed, looking at our walkie-talkie,s and said, “Just making sure, because sometimes protestors get arrested nearby, and then we still have to charge them the daily rate for parking here!”

As we walked up to the action site, everything was in perfect formation-the lockdown inside and out, and dozens more chanting and carrying signs outside. Palestinians got on the megaphone and told personal stories about their families living in Gaza. Caution tape blocked off the whole “crime scene” to symbolize the fact that this was a place where Israeli war criminals conduct their business. Info sheets were handed to frustrated and confused employees of other offices in the building explaining that Israel is a “dangerous neighbor” and that business could not continue as usual. Some people working there, or just walking by got upset and tried to start arguments. Others asked questions, and a few even joined the chants.

I had only finished writing the song the night before and hadn't memorized it yet, so I read it off of my phone (No Drake lol). The impending presence of police and arrests made it hard to fully focus but what got me through the piece was the passion of everybody else joining in the chant on the chorus, “Boycott, Divest and Sanction!” Shortly after I finished the song and a few more speakers read statements of solidarity, the police arrived and tore down the caution tape. They arrested all the activists who were locked down, while the rest of us continued to chant “Israel you can't hide. We charge you with genocide!” and “Free, Free Palestine!”

Despite the powerful impact this action had on everyone that planned and participated in it, as well the passersby who interacted with it, we have far from toppled the Israeli apartheid system in one day. The Gaza Action Committee was a short-term coalition of organizations coming from many different communities with the goal of exposing Israel's genocidal occupation to the Bay Area public. In the Consulate shutdown, as well as almost a dozen other actions and educational events during the Gaza attacks, the Coalition succeeded in this goal. However, it is only through the continued struggle of people everywhere taking action in strategic ways on a regular basis that we will be able to make the world wake up and speak out, and eventually Israel will have to listen.

Money talks loud and clear, which is why the Palestinian call for BDS is so important to support. We can also use cultural and academic boycott to demand "no more business as usual" with Apartheid Israel. More and more organizations, corporations, academic institutions, and individuals worldwide are taking up this call to action.