WEBVTT

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I wrote this poem when we were doing a direct action

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at my university, there were Palestinian citizens and Israeli soldiers

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and I'm very petty about this thing so I said

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"I will only be a Palestinian, I refuse to be a settler or soldier."

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So, I was lying on the ground and this guy came

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and kicked me in the guts and said:

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"You deserve to be raped before you have your terrorist children."

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At the time I said nothing but then I wrote this poem.

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for this young gentleman.

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Allow me to speak my Arab tongue

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before they occupy my language as well.

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Allow me to speak my mother tongue

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before they colonise her memory as well.

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I am an Arab woman of color.

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and we come in all shades of anger.

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All my grandfather ever wanted to do

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was wake up at dawn and watch my grandmather kneel and pray

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in a village hidden between Jaffa and Haifa

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my mother was born under an olive tree

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on a soil they say is no longer mine

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but I will cross their barriers, their check points

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their damn apartheid walls and return to my homeland

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I am an Arab woman of colour and we come in all shades of anger.

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And did you hear my sister screaming yesterday

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as she gave birth at a check point

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with Israeli soldiers looking between her legs

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for their next demographic threat

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called her baby girl "Janeen".

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And did you hear Amni Mona screaming

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behind their prison bars as they teargassed her cell

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"We're returning to Palestine!"

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I am an Arab woman of colour and we come in all shades of anger.

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But you tell me, this womb inside me

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will only bring you your next terrorist

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beard wearing, gun waving, towelhead, sand nigger

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You tell me, I send my children out to die

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but those are your copters, your F16's in our sky

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And let's talk about this terrorism business for a second

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Wasn't it the CIA that killed Allende and Lumumba

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and who trained Osama in the first place

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My grandparents didn't run around like clowns

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with the white capes and the white hoods on their heads lynching black people

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I am an Arab woman of colour and we come in all shades of anger.

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"So who is that brown woman screaming in the demonstration?"

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Sorry, should I not scream?

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I forgot to be your every orientalist dream

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Jinnee in a bottle, belly dancer, harem girl, soft spoken Arab woman

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Yes master, no master.

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Thank you for the peanut butter sandwiches

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raining down on us from your F16's master

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Yes my liberators are here to kill my children

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and call them "collateral damage"

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I am an Arab woman of colour and we come in all shades of anger.

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So let me just tell you this womb inside me

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will only bring you your next rebel

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She will have a rock in one hand and a Palestinian flag in the other

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I am an Arab woman of color

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Beware! Beware my anger...