Speaker 1: Cool Zone Media.
Speaker 2: Hello everybody, and welcome to it could happen here. This
Speaker 2: is Scharene and I am so excited to be joined
Speaker 2: by author and journalist Sim Kern. Their latest novel, The
Speaker 2: Free People's Village, is available now, so go to your
Speaker 2: local bookstore and order it and support a voice that
Speaker 2: I believe we all need in our zeitgeist right now.
Speaker 2: So welcome Sim. Thank you so much for being.
Speaker 3: Here, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2: For those of you who don't know, Sim has been
Speaker 2: making videos recently about the genocide and Gaza from a
Speaker 2: queer Jewish anti Zionist perspective, and this is one that
Speaker 2: I think a lot of people need to be exposed
Speaker 2: to and to listen to. I mentioned this to you
Speaker 2: before the recording, but a Jewish friend of mine told
Speaker 2: me how much she connected with your voice and how
Speaker 2: much she's learned from you, and how your videos have
Speaker 2: been helping her approach really awkward and difficult conversations with
Speaker 2: her peers. So I appreciate very much, Happy to do
Speaker 2: whatever I can when you decided to start making like
Speaker 2: the first video that got a lot of attention, Like,
Speaker 2: were you seeing something that you wanted to like? Make
Speaker 2: sure you correct in the zeitgeist, like what was your
Speaker 2: perspective as a Jewish person.
Speaker 4: Well, this is the first video that I made, was
Speaker 4: encouraging people to read books by Palestinian authors, just to
Speaker 4: learn about the Palestinian perspective which is so often censored
Speaker 4: and not really allowed in our media, and also which
Speaker 4: you really have to go seek out in publishing. And
Speaker 4: this isn't the first time I've done this, since I
Speaker 4: think twenty seventeen or something was the first time I
Speaker 4: created Read for Palestine challenge on YouTube. And just creating
Speaker 4: this Read for Palestine Challenge was enough to get me
Speaker 4: put on the Canary Mission website and like outed as
Speaker 4: a anti semi by this very Zionist website that of
Speaker 4: course is a blocklist of mostly students who organize with
Speaker 4: like Students for Justice in Palestine and really anyone who
Speaker 4: speaks out publicly against Israeli apartheid. So simply like encouraging
Speaker 4: people to read these books, I think is really powerful
Speaker 4: and I know for me, growing up Jewish in the
Speaker 4: United States, I was just inundated with a lot of
Speaker 4: Zionist propaganda from my more conservative family. My more liberal
Speaker 4: family would take the line of like it's just very complicated.
Speaker 4: Both sides hate each other. Who can say who's right?
Speaker 4: And it was only by reading Palestinian voices that I
Speaker 4: really developed an anti Zionist perspective.
Speaker 2: That's awesome that you did the read for Palestine challenge,
Speaker 2: but also like not surprising about the Canary mission thing, unfortunately,
Speaker 2: but I'm glad that that didn't stop you or discourage
Speaker 2: you when you start to learn more about Palestine. How
Speaker 2: did you approach conversations with your friends and family?
Speaker 4: Again, Like I guess initially it's different talking to and
Speaker 4: family than it is talking to the internet. Honestly, it's
Speaker 4: much easier, I think sometimes to connect with the internet
Speaker 4: because it is not that like personal connection. I think
Speaker 4: I've made more headway and had a much greater impact
Speaker 4: online than I have with certain friends and family members.
Speaker 4: But you know, I do think that everyone having those
Speaker 4: conversations putting your beliefs out there, whether it's one on
Speaker 4: one in face to face conversations or whether it is
Speaker 4: doing it online, where like certainly your friends and family
Speaker 4: are going to see the things that you're posting and
Speaker 4: the things that you care about.
Speaker 3: It has a great impact.
Speaker 4: And like I've definitely noticed friends of mine over time
Speaker 4: who maybe a few intense bombing campaigns ago, were very
Speaker 4: checked out on this issue are now very active and
Speaker 4: are and are speaking out themselves. And so that's I
Speaker 4: guess that would be my message to other like anti
Speaker 4: Zionist Jews is even if the first time you're putting
Speaker 4: stuff out there about Palestine it feels like no one's listening.
Speaker 4: It feels like, you know, you're not making a difference
Speaker 4: over time, you're planting the seeds of like questioning the
Speaker 4: Western media's you know, pro Israeli perspective over time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a really really good point. But my friend
Speaker 2: also mentioned she would never have been exposed to your
Speaker 2: voice if I didn't share it or if people were
Speaker 2: not sharing it. So I think people really underestimate the
Speaker 2: value of social media sometimes or speaking up on social media.
Speaker 2: They're just like, oh, people are already talking about it
Speaker 2: or whatever. But everyone has a community they can reach
Speaker 2: that no one else can reach. So I think that's
Speaker 2: important to remember. You made some points in some videos
Speaker 2: that you made that I would love for you to
Speaker 2: not like regurgitate, but maybe just like cover for people
Speaker 2: that haven't watched your videos or are just unaware in general.
Speaker 2: I think a really important point you made was how
Speaker 2: suffering is not monopolized or exclusive or any word or
Speaker 2: better than other people suffering if regardless of what identity
Speaker 2: they are. Can you get into that a little bit.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So I made a video that was actually responding
Speaker 4: to a comment by someone saying like, how dare you
Speaker 4: compare the suffering of Palestinians to the suffering of Jews?
Speaker 4: How dare you compare genocides? That that's disgusting and that
Speaker 4: cheapens the Holocaust? And that was again I think responding
Speaker 4: to a video or I was saying, like, read about
Speaker 4: other genocides besides the Holocaust, because I think it again,
Speaker 4: as a Jewish American, I grew up steeped in Holocaust literature.
Speaker 4: I read every book I could about it. You know,
Speaker 4: I think a lot of Jewish kids, by the time
Speaker 4: were adolescents. We have like this PhD level knowledge of
Speaker 4: the Holocaust. I think that our peers who are non
Speaker 4: Jewish maybe don't have quite as much exposure and understanding
Speaker 4: of the Holocaust. But that is often the only genocide
Speaker 4: that is taught in US schools, And so there's a
Speaker 4: narrative that the suffering of the US in the persecution
Speaker 4: of Jews is uniquely specific, and that it was all
Speaker 4: about the religion. It's something about Judaism itself is why.
Speaker 3: We've been persecuted.
Speaker 4: Well, I as an author, I'm currently I'm writing a
Speaker 4: book on Jews in the seventeenth century, and I've just
Speaker 4: done a ton of research on medieval and early modern
Speaker 4: Jewish history. And of course there was religious hate, but
Speaker 4: it was motivated by and I contended in this video
Speaker 4: that all genocides are motivated by land and wealth and power,
Speaker 4: and the hate is manufactured by people in power to
Speaker 4: justify taking people's land and wealth and to solidify their
Speaker 4: own power as rulers.
Speaker 3: And the Christian Church use this.
Speaker 4: Against Jews in the medieval and early modern period and
Speaker 4: in our times. It's there's no one religion that has
Speaker 4: a monopoly on'm committing genocide, you know, there's no one.
Speaker 3: State and because really it's states.
Speaker 4: That are that are committing genocide that you know, it
Speaker 4: is not directed to one people. So I've encouraged people
Speaker 4: to read books about here in the United States, obviously
Speaker 4: the genocide of the Native peoples, the Congolese genocide. You know,
Speaker 4: I just recommended a couple of different titles, the Rwandan
Speaker 4: genocide for a more recent example, and it is I
Speaker 4: reject the framework that you can't make comparisons between genocides.
Speaker 4: I think that keeps us ignorant. I think that keeps
Speaker 4: us from being in solidarity with one another and understanding
Speaker 4: the mechanisms of power and control and wealth accumulation that
Speaker 4: underlie all of these genocides. And I do believe what
Speaker 4: is happening in Palestine right now is a genocide being
Speaker 4: committed by the Israeli state.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and also really good point about justifying it by
Speaker 2: creating all of people in Palestine as barbarians or terrorists
Speaker 2: or this just this rhetoric that becomes really dangerous and harmful.
Speaker 2: As we've seen, people can die. A sixty year old
Speaker 2: can die from this rhetoric.
Speaker 4: Right man, Yahoo just said this is a struggle between
Speaker 4: children of light and children of darkness.
Speaker 3: Like that cannot rhetoric.
Speaker 2: I cannot believe that tweet. And I mean he deleted it,
Speaker 2: but I mean the Internet is forever. I just can't
Speaker 2: believe that was that is so normal for him to tweet,
Speaker 2: just confidently at one point, just to say that out Loud.
Speaker 2: I think that's absurd, and also just like to see
Speaker 2: how Yoev Galant has been saying like human animals or
Speaker 2: referring to Palestinians in such a dehumanizing way. You mentioned
Speaker 2: something really important that I think I appreciated about how
Speaker 2: maintaining the dehumanization of the Palestinians is vital to maintain
Speaker 2: the white supremacist, imperialistic thing that is Israel. Can you
Speaker 2: get into that a little bit?
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, I think that was me trying. That came
Speaker 4: out of me trying to understand why there was such
Speaker 4: backlash when I, when I first years ago started recommending
Speaker 4: people read Palestinian books. Is because when you read a
Speaker 4: book by a Palestinian author, it is going to humanize
Speaker 4: the Palestinian people for you, and that is incredibly threatening.
Speaker 4: And Palestinian authors face a ton of discrimination within publishing.
Speaker 3: I mean, look at.
Speaker 4: What was it Earlier this week the Frankfurt Book Festival
Speaker 4: polled or canceled a ceremony for a Palestinian author, Adania Shibley,
Speaker 4: and then has made more time for Israeli voices and
Speaker 4: Israeli specific panels at that book festival, and simply because
Speaker 4: she's a Palestinian. She writes books dealing with real, factual
Speaker 4: Palestinian history, and her books are critical of Israel. But
Speaker 4: the silencing of Palestinian voices is a global project. It
Speaker 4: is across all media industries. You see it in you know,
Speaker 4: traditional book publishing as well as journalism. Another an author
Speaker 4: friend of mine, hannein Ricott, has had the hardest time
Speaker 4: she's been on sub with her book, and she's been
Speaker 4: told by multiple editors to change the main character from
Speaker 4: a Palestinian character to just a generic Arabic character because
Speaker 4: being Palestinian is seen as inherently too controversial to publish.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I read that. That's just I mean, again, not
Speaker 2: completely surprised, but just so shameful that that is something
Speaker 2: that is still happening in these modern times. I think
Speaker 2: another thing to remember is a lot of people get
Speaker 2: confused between the differences between being non white and white
Speaker 2: in the scope of like this world. I guess it
Speaker 2: just seems so obvious that colorism and racism both exist
Speaker 2: in today's world. And I really liked what you mentioned
Speaker 2: about the difference between colorism and racism. Can you talk
Speaker 2: about that for a little bit.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Yeah, So I was explaining that in the Western media,
Speaker 4: Israelis are treated as white and Palestinians are treated as
Speaker 4: non white, and it really is regardless of the color
Speaker 4: of your skin. So a lot of people giving me
Speaker 4: pushback on that common say, oh, but there's black and
Speaker 4: brown and white israelis yes, And in the racist apartheid
Speaker 4: state that is Israel, people of different skin tones are
Speaker 4: treated very differently. Within Israel, there was force sterilization of
Speaker 4: African Jews immigrating to Israel. Well, when it comes to
Speaker 4: the Western media, our view of the conflict is not
Speaker 4: as nuanced as recognizing those differences. And so I was
Speaker 4: explaining that colorism is discrimination based on the color of
Speaker 4: your skin. Racism is a racial construct us about social, economic,
Speaker 4: and legal discrimination. And while colorism is often used to
Speaker 4: determine racism, that's not always one hundred percent the case.
Speaker 4: And in the case of Israel, when you're talking abo
Speaker 4: the Western media looking at Israel, they report on Israelis
Speaker 4: as people, as people who are to be mourned, as
Speaker 4: people are whose deaths are important, as people whose lives
Speaker 4: are valuable, And they report on people in Gaza Palestinians,
Speaker 4: as you know, human shields is the most sympathetic way
Speaker 4: we hear.
Speaker 3: Them talked about.
Speaker 4: Their deaths are not deemed important. They are not humanized
Speaker 4: within the media. If they're killed, they're either combatants or
Speaker 4: they were a human shield, they were someone being used
Speaker 4: by combatants, and their deaths are you know, maybe the
Speaker 4: lip services paid to those debts being regrettable, but they're
Speaker 4: seen as necessary and not not unconscionable in the way
Speaker 4: that deaths in Israel are reported on.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think you bring a really good point about
Speaker 2: the media and how important semantics are. I think something
Speaker 2: that we've been seeing time and time again is how
Speaker 2: deep the dehumanization goes. Like Israelis have been killed versus
Speaker 2: Palestinians have died. The Gaza strip is being referred to.
Speaker 2: I've seen it as an enclave. Oh my god, you know,
Speaker 2: an enclave where terrorists lurk.
Speaker 4: So yeah, the words used to describe the city of Gaza,
Speaker 4: the words used to describe people as combatants, the words like,
Speaker 4: you know, Palestinians die in a clash when that clash
Speaker 4: was racist Jewish settlers with machine guns coming after them,
Speaker 4: you know. So yeah, yeah, Patay does a lot of work.
Speaker 2: It does, it does. I mean We've seen it just
Speaker 2: recently with the hospital bombing. How the New York Times
Speaker 2: changed their headline like three times from strike and then
Speaker 2: to blast. I believe was what they landed on blast,
Speaker 2: which I just find honestly comical when I really think
Speaker 2: about it too hard.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Elizabeth War came out and condemned clasts.
Speaker 2: Like that is just so just the passive voice is
Speaker 2: so dangerous because it it really off usecates the truth,
Speaker 2: which is that Palestine people are dying of genocide. Even
Speaker 2: calling it a war or a conflict does not do
Speaker 2: what's happening justice because it still implies there are two
Speaker 2: equal sides that are fighting against each other versus an
Speaker 2: occupier and oppressor versus the occupied the oppressed. So I
Speaker 2: think semantics are so important for us to keep in
Speaker 2: mind even when we're talking about it with our peers,
Speaker 2: to make sure that we talk about in the correct way,
Speaker 2: because I feel like it unconsciously becomes ingrained in us,
Speaker 2: even if we don't realize it when we keep talking
Speaker 2: about certain things the way the media wants us to
Speaker 2: talk about them as a conflict or as a clash
Speaker 2: or whatever it is.
Speaker 4: And something else that I've really tuned into is really
Speaker 4: being careful not to pit this as a struggle between
Speaker 4: muscles and Jews. Any framing like that is both Islamophobic
Speaker 4: and anti Semitic and incredibly inaccurate. This is about an
Speaker 4: ethno state, a nation state and apartheid state, which is
Speaker 4: Israel targeting it is captive population, and it is and
Speaker 4: there are Palestinians who are of all different faiths who
Speaker 4: are discriminated against because they are Palestinians within occupied Palestine.
Speaker 4: So like, for example, it just came to my attention
Speaker 4: that there are some in the I'm a book talker,
Speaker 4: my book talk channels in books to gram is mostly
Speaker 4: what I do is just, you know, share about books
Speaker 4: for folks to read, and share.
Speaker 3: About the books I'm working on.
Speaker 4: And some of my fellow book talkers have been recommending
Speaker 4: people read books by both Palestinian and Jewish authors so
Speaker 4: they can show both sides. A Palestinian author, Hannahmushabak, just
Speaker 4: wrote a great letter to sort of call in our
Speaker 4: community and explain this is a this is very anti
Speaker 4: semitic to conflate Judaism with Israel.
Speaker 3: The policies of Israel.
Speaker 4: You know, yesterday we saw five hundred Jewish activists get
Speaker 4: arrested in the Capitol building here in DC in protests
Speaker 4: and demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. So there are many,
Speaker 4: many anti Zionist Jews. Judaism and Zionism are not the
Speaker 4: same thing, but conflating them gives Israel more power and
Speaker 4: gives it a stronger moral foothold to say, oh, we're
Speaker 4: representing all Jews, not just this state. So that's something
Speaker 4: also to be really careful about, is to not pit
Speaker 4: this as a Muslim versus Jewish fight, because it's not.
Speaker 4: It's about Israel, the state versus Palestinian people.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's vital to remember. Let's take our first break
Speaker 2: right here, and we will beat right back and we
Speaker 2: are back. You were just talking about how this is
Speaker 2: just one percent not a religious issue, and I think
Speaker 2: talking about semantics again. I framing it as a religious
Speaker 2: issue is another way for people to stop talking about it,
Speaker 2: to be too afraid to get into this complicated, ancient
Speaker 2: battle of all times, archaic thing that we can't even
Speaker 2: get into because we can't understand it. I think the
Speaker 2: Zionist narrative wants us to believe it's about religion. So
Speaker 2: people can ignore what's actually going on and be too
Speaker 2: scared to speak out. It's like time and time again.
Speaker 2: Something that I want to remind people is that it's
Speaker 2: not Muslim versus Jewish, which is what it gets framed
Speaker 2: by most of the time. But speaking of Zionism and
Speaker 2: how it's not equated to the Jewish religion at all.
Speaker 2: If anything, Zionism is anti Semitic in and of itself.
Speaker 3: I believe that wholeheartedly.
Speaker 4: I believe Zionism makes all do so much more unsafe.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's also rooted in a lot of anti Semitism.
Speaker 2: Even the way it was even the way the state
Speaker 2: of Israel was created was Europeans being like, hey, Jews,
Speaker 2: can you go here? It wasn't this gift to the
Speaker 2: Jewish people. It was also about to be in Africa,
Speaker 2: which I find fascinating. And also I think people always
Speaker 2: forget the majority of Zionists in the United States are
Speaker 2: Evangelical Christians. That is one percent accurate. That's why they
Speaker 2: support Zionism, and it's because they want all the Jews
Speaker 2: to go to Israel for the rapture to happen. It
Speaker 2: is the most like comic book idea I've ever heard,
Speaker 2: and everyone just goes along with it. Yeah, that brings
Speaker 2: me to another thing he brought up in your videos
Speaker 2: about needing a homeland. I think what you discussed is
Speaker 2: really important because because of this narrative that a lot
Speaker 2: of Zionists teach to Jewish people about how they're constantly
Speaker 2: being perted, I think people are led to believe that
Speaker 2: Israel is their safe haven, Like if all us fails,
Speaker 2: I have Israel to go back to that as my home,
Speaker 2: even like American Jews that have no connection to Israel. Really, why,
Speaker 2: in your opinion, do the Jewish people not necessarily need
Speaker 2: a homeland? Right?
Speaker 4: Well, I made that video speaking to like other leftists.
Speaker 4: I was addressing other leftists. So I think if you
Speaker 4: agree with me on the premise that everyone should have
Speaker 4: a safe place to live and everyone should have equal rights,
Speaker 4: which I think are two pretty pretty basic tenets of
Speaker 4: being a leftist, then you just can't have anybody having
Speaker 4: a theocratic ethno state, which is what Israel is de
Speaker 4: fact I mean they say they're not, but that is
Speaker 4: how they act.
Speaker 3: And how that is how that country is run.
Speaker 4: And so you know a lot of people misinterpreted that videos,
Speaker 4: as you know, try kind of try to argue with me, saying,
Speaker 4: but there's other theocratic ethno states. But I'm saying, yeah,
Speaker 4: if you're a leftist, you should think that's bad everywhere,
Speaker 4: because a theocratic ethno state is an inherently fascist construct.
Speaker 4: It's inherently saying one religion and or one ethnicity, in
Speaker 4: the case of the way Israel interprets Judaism, these people
Speaker 4: are more valuable and are more citizens here and have
Speaker 4: more rights here than everybody else. And that is just
Speaker 4: incompatible with leftist values, I think. And so the point
Speaker 4: of that video is nobody should have a theocratic ethno state.
Speaker 4: And this is a line that I've heard even some
Speaker 4: leftist Jews saying, well, oh, we you know, this is
Speaker 4: a complicated issue because Jews need a homeland. Well, I'm sorry,
Speaker 4: our world is just two heterogenous, too diverse. You know,
Speaker 4: migrations have been going on for tens of thousands of
Speaker 4: years all over the place. There's no one plot of
Speaker 4: land on Earth anymore that you can carve out and say, Okay,
Speaker 4: just this one type of people are going to get
Speaker 4: to live.
Speaker 3: Here and be citizens here and have rights here.
Speaker 4: Now I'm an anarchist personally, so I when I say
Speaker 4: no theocratic ethno states, I'm also like in a bigger
Speaker 4: picture way saying like no states would be the ideal
Speaker 4: for me. But certainly theocratic ethno states are even worse
Speaker 4: within that framework compared to like liberal democracies or something.
Speaker 4: So yeah, that was a video that was like intended
Speaker 4: to be an in group conversation, and then it got
Speaker 4: a million views and got because my following has like
Speaker 4: really exploded over the last week. So I wasn't expecting
Speaker 4: it to go so far. And so for people who
Speaker 4: idealize ethno states, like Japan or Sweden, they were really
Speaker 4: having a hard time with me with me saying that,
Speaker 4: and think it was really anti semitic for me to say, Oh,
Speaker 4: I don't think Jews should have theocratic ethno state, but no,
Speaker 4: I think nobody should have a theocratic ethno state.
Speaker 2: That's a really good point to make. It's I mean,
Speaker 2: it goes back to the idea of Jewish suffering being
Speaker 2: more valuable in some way than other suffering. I think
Speaker 2: it continues this hierarchy of sorts and everything you described
Speaker 2: about people not being treated the same and not having
Speaker 2: enough rights. That's all apartheid. I think people forget like
Speaker 2: Israel is committing the definition of apartheid and has been
Speaker 2: against the Palestinian people, and I find it weird that.
Speaker 2: I mean, Amy Schumer posted this crazy video proving in
Speaker 2: her words that it's not an apartheid state actually and
Speaker 2: how people have all the rights in the world when
Speaker 2: in reality it's shameful.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's like the UN, Amnesty, International, Human Rights Watch
Speaker 4: are all saying this is an apartheid state. But okay,
Speaker 4: Amy Schumer, Yeah, it's it's not actually that complicated.
Speaker 2: It's really not. I've been really appreciating Amanda Seals. She
Speaker 2: did like a reaction video to what Amy Schumer posted
Speaker 2: and laid out all the racist reasons why actually apartheid
Speaker 2: is what you would call that. I think something that
Speaker 2: has bothered me within the both sides thing is this
Speaker 2: is not a term that I hear often anymore. But
Speaker 2: like the progressive except Palestine, I think that idea has
Speaker 2: been really damaging because it makes it seem like you
Speaker 2: can still be so liberal and progressive and still not
Speaker 2: really recognize that Palestinians are being genocided for almost a century.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and this is just so frustrating because again, what
Speaker 4: you're seeing in Palestine, it's so stark, the violence is
Speaker 4: so obvious, and it's so egregious. And there's all these
Speaker 4: social justice you know, organizations and accounts that I followed.
Speaker 3: There's like queer Jewish.
Speaker 4: Liberation accounts who have said nothing about Palestine. There's also
Speaker 4: non jew its, just queer you know, all sorts of
Speaker 4: queer liberation queer activists out there, which is like a
Speaker 4: whole other network that I'm tapped in into, and many
Speaker 4: of them are staying silent on this genocide. And it's
Speaker 4: like we are all fighting the same evils, the same
Speaker 4: type of oppression, and if you want people to stand
Speaker 4: with you when your rights are being taken away, you
Speaker 4: got to stand with everybody else.
Speaker 3: That's the only way.
Speaker 4: Intersectionality is the only way that we can overcome these
Speaker 4: enormous forces of oppression in the world. So, yeah, it's
Speaker 4: it's been very frustrating to see just how many you know,
Speaker 4: anti racist organizations, queer liberation organizations are just staying completely
Speaker 4: silent on Palestine.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I have been really frustrated about that as well, because
Speaker 2: it encourages this sort of selective outrage that is reserved
Speaker 2: for certain kind of people that are deemed as human
Speaker 2: versus the people that are not. I really believe one
Speaker 2: of the most powerful voices in the fight for Palatine
Speaker 2: liberation are Jewish anti Zionists because they can speak to
Speaker 2: what people deem is the source of that problem from
Speaker 2: a different place. But I hope you realize how important
Speaker 2: your voice is just in general, especially now. And yeah,
Speaker 2: I just really thank you for what you've been doing,
Speaker 2: because it's kind of scary too. I'm sure to suddenly
Speaker 2: have a big platform and have all these people analyzing
Speaker 2: everything you're saying and trying to find little holes in
Speaker 2: your arguments. But I appreciate that you're not backing down.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I went from six thousand to one hundred eighty thousand
Speaker 4: followers on Instagram in like a week.
Speaker 2: I didn't realize that you started a six thousand. I
Speaker 2: was wondering about that. That is a crazy jump.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it happened really really fast.
Speaker 4: And on TikTok too, I had I had fifty thousand
Speaker 4: on TikTok just from my book talk author talk account,
Speaker 4: which I've been you know, growing over the course of
Speaker 4: two years, and then it went.
Speaker 3: Now it's like at one.
Speaker 4: Hundred and fifty thousand, so like tripled on TikTok. But yeah,
Speaker 4: it's definitely made me more careful about what I say.
Speaker 4: Like again, I had that one video that was sort
Speaker 4: of like an in group comment to leftists because I'm
Speaker 4: used to being on like the leftist side of TikTok,
Speaker 4: and then realized, like, oh crap, like everything I say
Speaker 4: is going to go out to like absolutely every single
Speaker 4: kind of audience, So I need to like really think
Speaker 4: about the context of what I say and.
Speaker 3: That it Yeah, it's a it's a lot. It's a lot.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm I mean, it sounds really overwhelming and even
Speaker 2: navigating it well and I don't know, I really appreciate you.
Speaker 2: Before we wrap this up, I would love for you
Speaker 2: to talk about your work a little bit, maybe your
Speaker 2: book where people can find it, where they can support
Speaker 2: you in your work. The platform is all yours.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So I actually had a book come out about a
Speaker 4: month ago called The Free People's Village, and it is
Speaker 4: relevant to this topic. It's a very leftist book. It's
Speaker 4: about a punk band organizing to save their warehouse from
Speaker 4: demolition to make room for a new electromatic magnetic hyperway
Speaker 4: in an alternate timeline where al Gore won the two
Speaker 4: thousand election and declared a war on climate change instead
Speaker 4: of a war on terror. But it's a book that's
Speaker 4: really critical of neoliberal politics. So this solar punk utopia
Speaker 4: that's been created this world has really only impacted wealthy
Speaker 4: white neighborhoods while leaving everybody else behind. So it's a
Speaker 4: book about centering racial justice within climate organizing. And the
Speaker 4: final scene of the book actually takes place at a
Speaker 4: Free Palestine protest, and so that's definitely like a present
Speaker 4: throughout the book, and based on experiences I've had organizing
Speaker 4: with the incredible Students for Justice in Palestine and Palestini
Speaker 4: youth movement organizers that we have here in Houston.
Speaker 3: So for people who.
Speaker 4: Are listeners of this podcast, I do think they would
Speaker 4: enjoy the Free People's Village. And you can get it.
Speaker 4: The best place to get it is always your local
Speaker 4: indie bookstore. Of course, you can also support your local
Speaker 4: indie bookstore by shopping at bookshop dot org, which allows
Speaker 4: you all the convenience of ordering online, but you get
Speaker 4: to pick your favorite indie bookstore to benefit. And then
Speaker 4: of course you can get it also from all of
Speaker 4: the big corporate retailers, and it's available in hardcover and
Speaker 4: ebook and audiobook. And you can find me online at
Speaker 4: sim Kern on TikTok and if you search simcar it's
Speaker 4: at sim Bookstagram's badly on Instagram, but if you just
Speaker 4: search sim Kernel, I'll pop up on Instagram.
Speaker 2: And that is s I N K E r N.
Speaker 3: For people that don't know, Yes, just.
Speaker 2: To leave us with something that we can take away
Speaker 2: from this, do you have any advice for people that
Speaker 2: are trying to open up these discussions with their peers
Speaker 2: and how should they approach them? And I don't know.
Speaker 2: I think these conversations are essential to humanizing Palestinians. Again,
Speaker 2: so do you have any advice before we sign off?
Speaker 4: You know, same advice which was the first piece I gave,
Speaker 4: which was just.
Speaker 3: To read a lot and learn.
Speaker 4: A lot and seek out those Palestinian voices. Also Jewish
Speaker 4: Voice for Peace.
Speaker 3: If you go to.
Speaker 4: Their JVP dot org website, they have a ton of
Speaker 4: like great tools and kits for learning how to talk
Speaker 4: about Palestine. And so I would say, you know, always
Speaker 4: be learning and reading if you feel like you don't
Speaker 4: have the language yet to have these conversations.
Speaker 3: Like you said, it's really.
Speaker 4: Powerful to repost things by commentators that you respect, journalists
Speaker 4: on the ground in Gaza right now who are doing amazing,
Speaker 4: courageous work. Just letting people know what is happening and
Speaker 4: putting something out that disrupts an imperialist narrative can be
Speaker 4: really really powerful.
Speaker 2: Thank you for saying all of that, because it's really needed.
Speaker 2: And I will put in the description all the info
Speaker 2: to where you can follow sim and their work, and
Speaker 2: maybe I can put some recommendations for Palestinian books as well.
Speaker 2: And yeah, that's the episode. Thank you so much for
Speaker 2: being here.
Speaker 4: Thanks for having me Free Palestine.
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