Co-Sponsored by Middle East and Islamic Studies at GMU
Today, United States-Israeli friendship, partnership, and cooperation are commonly celebrated across the U.S. political spectrum. In our troubled times, this issue remains one of the last with truly bipartisan support. But what about the other side of the coin? If United States-Israeli cooperation is seen as natural, what about solidarity between the oppressed populations in each country? What about the idea of Black- Palestinian solidarity? In this talk, drawn from his book, The Palestinian Idea, Greg Burris examines the history of Black-Palestinian relations through the lens of media and culture. Focusing on a number of recent instances in which links between these two communities have been fashioned through an array of media forms including YouTube videos, Twitter feeds, Facebook posts, spoken word poetry, hip-hop music, and television news spectacles, Burris argues that Black-Palestinian media activism presents an opportunity to critically examine and challenge our notions of race, identity, and solidarity itself.
