Photo: Rainbow Grocery Cooperative store, Folsom Street, San Francisco.
People of Color Support Rainbow Grocery to Boycott Israeli Goods
On the Web at:
http://rainbowbig.blogspot.com/2008/08/people-of-color-support-rainbow-grocery.html
5/10/2008
Dear Rainbow Grocery
We are writing as shoppers at Rainbow Grocery who are people
of color. Some of us are in RBIG (Rainbow Boycott Israeli
Goods) which as you know has been asking for a meeting with
the collective since mid 2006. We have taken up the boycott of
Israeli goods because the issue of Zionism is first and foremost
a racial justice issue.
Some of us are fairly new to the Bay Area and some of us have
been Rainbow shoppers since the 1980’s. We shop at Rainbow
because we are fighting for our lives in a racist (and sexist)
system that relentlessly assaults our health and wellbeing.
Rainbow is a very important resource for both knowledge of and
access to healthy living food and other natural supports for
disease prevention and cure. We also believe in and support
the concept of collectives.
We also shop at Rainbow because we expect progressive
organizations like Rainbow be responsive to community and
to take a position and strong action for justice. As you know,
the Palestinians are being subjected by Israel to an apartheid
system where people with darker skins are humiliated and
brutalized every day and treated in a savagely racist way. This
is the 60th anniversary of the Nakba, when Israeli soldiers went
from village to village massacring Palestinians young and old.
Israeli policies of ethnic cleansing and seizure of lands from the
indigenous people are eerily reminiscent of the way Native
Americans were treated in this country.
In the April 2008 issue of Vanity Fair, the role of the Bush
administration in deepening the suffering of Palestinian people,
who are people of color, is presented in great and gory detail.
“Vanity Fair has obtained confidential documents, since
corroborated by sources in the U.S. and Palestine, which lay
bare a covert initiative, approved by Bush and implemented by
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Deputy National
Security Adviser Elliott Abrams, to provoke a Palestinian civil
war.” This article exposes how at the behest of the US
government, Israel has unleashed an unimaginable level of
violence aimed at expelling those Palestinians who can/will go,
and killing/maiming as many people as they dare of those who
remain.
As individuals and organizations (including small businesses)
we must confront the question of what it means if we refuse to
stand with people of color around the world and to protest our
racist enemies’ closest friends abroad. As people of color we
daily, must confront the question, what does it mean for our
struggle against racism that Bush's closest ally is empowered
to do as they like with complete impunity by those of us who
consider ourselves to be anti-racist.
We are adding our voices to those calling immediately for a
meeting with Rainbow to discuss Rainbow’s boycotting Israeli
goods.
Sincerely,
Nell Myhand
Synthia Green
Shirley Yee
Faris Barhoum
Pablo Jim
Samia Shoman
Jahahara Alkebulan Maat
Sharon Lungo
Chris Lymbertos
Lily Haskell
Adnan Hamwi
Sannah Rahim
Phil Hutchings
Jess Ghannam
Happy Hyder
Joyce Umamoto
Ayesha Gill
Chris Mazaleh
Nissor Ahmed
Ali Abong
Patricia Hemphill
Grace Shalhoub
Shirley Yee
Faris Barhoum
Pablo Jim
Samia Shoman
Jahahara Alkebulan Maat
Sharon Lungo
Chris Lymbertos
Lily Haskell
Adnan Hamwi
Sannah Rahim
Phil Hutchings
Jess Ghannam
Happy Hyder
Joyce Umamoto
Ayesha Gill
Chris Mazaleh
Nissor Ahmed
Ali Abong
Patricia Hemphill
Grace Shalhoub
__________________________
