I was at UCLA on Wednesday night...

A Sunday read for y'all + and invitation to a prayer circle TODAY at 11am PST

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Inside: An invitation to a multifaith prayer circle TODAY at 11am PST/2pm PST to help move us towards radical action in our ongoing commitment to & work for a free Palestine; AND a pre-liminary description of my experiences at the UCLA Pro-Palestine Anti-Genocide encampment on the night of the raid.

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Invitation to a multi-faith prayer circle today, full invite below, scroll down…

Sitting in traffic on the 405 on the way to UCLA on Wednesday evening, I heard the blare of sirens. In my rearview mirror, I could see a hoard of cop cars heading towards me. As everyone pulled to the side of the road, the cop cars continued by the hundreds, a portent of what was to come.

When I got to campus, I was amazed at how organized people were. Hundreds, if not a thousand people or more were already there, gathered on the Tongva Steps, chanting for a Free Palestine.

[The video above is from when I first arrived on Wednesday night].

These folks had gathered to protect the Pro-Palestine Anti-Genocide encampment, which only the night before had been viciously and relentlessly attacked by Zionists and Proud Boys for over 4 hours.

The attackers had blared genocidal anthems and babies crying, just like the IOF. They sprayed bear spray (a chemical weapon that causes a painful burning sensation that can’t be washed away) and shot fireworks into the Pro-Palestine Anti-Genocide encampment.

For hours they attacked the barricades the students had set up to protect themselves. They pulled students out of the encampment by the hair and beat them with batons and crow bars.

The security that UCLA had hired to “keep an eye on things” ran and hid in Royce Hall. When the cops arrived HOURS later, they stood by for an hour and a half watching the Pro-Palestine Anti-Genocide camp fending off these right-wing zealots for an hour and a half and did NOTHING. No arrests were made.

It’s hard to come to any other conclusion but that the Zionist/Proud Boys, the Cops, and the UCLA administration were in cahoots with each other.

Because the next night, the UCLA administration used the attack as an excuse to bring in the cops to break up the Pro-Palestine camp, because “safety”.

The next night, Wednesday night, cops came in by the hundreds. They came in riot gear. They shot flash bang bombs and rubber bullets, they had snipers stationed on the roofs. They beat students bloody and arrested over 200 people.

[In the videos I filmed below, you’ll see a student arrested and brutally pushed to the ground by over a dozen cops].

I was there from about 6pm to 3am, the cops had been trying to break up the encampment all night, but by 3am, they seemed to have retreated. So I left at that point, but moments after I left was when the worst of it came.

[Here below is a video of the cops pretending to retreat].

I had promised y’all an email on Friday, but I wasn’t able to do it, because I was so exhausted. It wasn’t the staying up late that had exhausted me but the encounter with the vile, brutal, lying, fascist force of the Necrostate — seeing it in all its self-righteousness, attacking 20 year olds who put their bodies on the line to plead with the state that it stop murdering children. It broke my heart.

I can’t even tell you how many lies I’ve seen spread about this situation.

One that sticks with me is when a news org interviewed a Zionist student at UCLA about the Pro-Palestine encampment, and he said something to the effect of, “I don’t mind them exercising their right to free speech, but they’re preventing me from getting to my classes and the camp is a health hazard because there is urine and feces everywhere.”

THAT IS BLATANTLY UNTRUE.

The students had kept the encampment clean and were using the bathroom facilities at Royce Hall and Powell Library. In fact, the encampment had first aid tents, art supply tents, healing tents, and was incredibly organized and peaceful. Focused on CARE. While I was there, they were singing folk songs.

This idea that protestors are dirty is not only blatantly untrue it’s also RACIST. It’s a well worn racist trope that white supremicists trot out to justify their persecution of people of color. It’s also a trope Nazis used against the Jews leading up to the holocaust. It’s what Trump says of the people trying to cross the border from Mexico.

Furthermore, the students could easily get to their classrooms, but the Zionist students deliberately tried to route their way through the Anti-Genocide camp so that they could film it and then broadcast to everyone that their rights were being infringed upon.

And yet it was the Pro-Palestine Anti-Genocide students who were sprayed with chemical weapons, beaten with clubs, subjected to sleep deprivation, harassed, sent to the hospital, and arrested by the hundreds.

Through it all, the students remained steadfast and focused. Far from being “against Jews” (there were many Jewish students in the Pro-Palestine camp, in addition to the majority of students being students of color including Muslim/Arab, Asian, Black, and Latinx ), they were focused on ending the suffering, apartheid, and genocide of the Palestinian people.

I met one freckle-faced girl who had been in the camp the night of the Right-Wing attacks. She’d been sprayed with bear spray, which she said lasted for hours and made her scream and want to jump out of her skin.

“It’s the kind of pain where you think you’re going to go crazy and you just can’t bear it anymore,” she said. But then she said she’d do it all again for a Free Palestine. You could see the pride shine in her eyes, she was standing up for what she believed in.

These were the students the cops were attacking, in their squadrons, with their military gear, and military formations. And it was seeing that relentless, brutal, militaristic violence inflicted on unarmed STUDENTS chanting, “Please don’t harm us, we are students,” that has me shaking with anger and disgust.

The police were sicked on the students by the VERY PEOPLE who were supposed to protect and care for them. The University administration and the (Necro)State.

As a reminder, one of the characteristics of Fascism is the use of the police force to carry out political aims, specifically in suppressing dissenting voices, intellectuals, and the arts.

Anyway, I could go on, and I probably will at some other point, but I wanted to touch base and let you know why you didn’t hear from me on Friday.

I’m still recovering from watching people I love and care about, and whom, as a TA and elder I want to protect, be brutally suppressed in order to justify the continued murder and maiming of children.

I am so grateful for this community, for your compassion, love, care, and magic. You’ll be hearing more from me soon, my loves.

But in the meantime…please attend this prayer vigil this today at 11am PST/2pm EST:

JOIN US SUNDAY MAY 5 - 11-12:30pm Pacific/2-3:30pm Eastern

Virtual (to register see 🔗 below), organized by Dori Midnight and Safiya Heart of Earth

We come together to pray: a multitude of voices, languages, streams of traditions with the intention that these practices can irrigate us, steady us, open us, fortify us, anchor us, & move us towards radical action in our ongoing commitment to & work for a free Palestine

knowing that prayers are not enough in a ongoing genocide

knowing that the notion of praying is sometimes used as a way to bypass the rigorous work that is required in this moment 

we will be rigorous in our prayers

praying together not as a way to bring comfort or ease for ourselves, but to continue to be steadfast, to move & act with courage & conviction

with

@afrolez

@auroralevinsmorales

@adriennemareebrown

@oracleofla

@rowenwhite

@samantharise

@heartofearth_

@dorimidnight

& Siyamin Shan Vyas