Is this the world we want?

and the May wrap-up.

This is the monthly round-up of Stacks & Spoons, where I share the books, trends and headlines that caught my attention this month, plus snapshots from my daily life. If you enjoy it, make sure to subscribe here.

Photo by Ronen Zvulun for Reuters. Text added and posted by @palestinianyouthmovement on Instagram.

Remember at the beginning of May when I said I was taking a 30-day social media break? Well, it lasted about seven. I got the flu and gave up on mental clarity for the sake of the Wonderful World Wide Web and all its distractions. Not the goal, but still pretty good for someone as chronically online as I am, right? (please validate me.)

But getting sick wasn’t the only reason for my early return to the ‘Gram. Israel upped its attacks on Rafah, and the people I trust to give me the facts on Palestine are on Instagram. People like Bisan Owda, Motaz Azaiza, Hind Khoudary, Subhi, Sim Kern, and groups like @protectpalestineorg, @seastersjones, and @theslowfactory.

(Social media and I have worked out a compromise. I’m using an app that blocks social media from 9 AM to 5 PM weekdays. So far, so good!)

Every video I’ve seen over the last 7+ months has been nightmarish, the kind that makes you think ‘this is the worst thing I’ve ever seen,’ and then you see something worse a day later.

Here in the US, even those of us paying attention still live in a split-screen of normalcy vs chaos, the kind that makes us feel like we are going mad. Take this very newsletter for example, in these paragraphs I’m writing about the genocide Israel is committing against Palestinians, but scroll down and you’ll find a list of books and TV I’ve been consuming this month. This isn’t the world I want to live in.

It was such a mindf*ck to watch videos of people in Rafah dying at the hands of American bombs while Memorial Day fireworks exploded all over the city. Reading the words ‘legally killed child’ made me feel sick. Then there’s Nikki Haley writing Finish them! on a bomb about to be dropped on Palestinians, even drawing a little heart – surprising considering she doesn’t have one. Over 7 months of photos shared by Palestinian journalists putting their lives on their line, only for an AI image to go viral a la 2020’s famous Black Squares. Red line after red line after red line becomes a trail of blood.

Then: celebrating Trump being found guilty on all 34 counts. But: knowing he could still end up as President, and even if he doesn’t, I doubt he’ll ever see the inside of a prison cell.

I’d tear my hair out if it wasn’t already falling out from stress.

This is not the world I want.

A mural in my Brooklyn neighbourhood of Palestinian children, a man holding his keys, a mother cradling her dead child, and a journalist.

But then I look outside and see the poster in my neighbour’s window across the street. Free Free Palestine, it says. I can see it now as I write this. I walk through my neighborhood and see the mural of Palestinian children with the words !Viva Palestina! I find stickers slapped onto lampposts that say Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. I see the posters in shop windows calling for a ceasefire. I wear my keffiyeh and notice others wearing theirs, too.

What gives me hope is knowing there are people out there who don’t want this world, either, who are fighting to build something better. Not just the people I see when I scroll Instagram, but the people on my block. People like me, who care and are willing to do something about it. The artists and writers, the activists and organizers, the students and teachers, calling for a Free Palestine and doing it because they believe in something better.

They believe in liberation for all.

With Pride month starting tomorrow, I want the protest part of ‘Pride is a Protest’ to be front and center. For the LGBTQIAP+ community, this is the month our voices are the loudest, when we have more eyes on us. We can use this time to call for a ceasefire and end to the occupation, we can carry Palestinian flags and wear keffiyehs (and masks!) to Pride parades, we can raise money for families trying to flee Gaza. I desperately want to see the queer community rally together for our Palestinian siblings, because too many of us (especially white queers) have been silent.

And being silent in the face of violence and oppression is the opposite of what Pride stands for.

Black trans activist and Stonewall icon, Marsha P. Johnson, put it best:

“No pride for some of us without liberation for all of us.”

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MAY WRAP UP

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Stacks…

Books I read this month: