In response to the unfolding famine in Gaza and the genocides devastating Black and oppressed communities around the world, AQE will observe fast tomorrow, Wednesday, July 30. This fast will be a rejection of the excesses that so often coexist alongside genocide, and a refusal to accept the suffering that their continuation demands. In a moment of global crisis, we’re choosing to fast — to grieve, bear witness, and demand more. Today, the public education advocacy organization Alliance for Quality Education released the following statement:
“Children cannot learn when they are hungry, grieving, or living under constant fear, whether that’s in New York, Gaza, Khartoum, or Port-au-Prince. The conditions that make learning possible — nutrition, safety, and care in their communities — also shape the futures any society might be capable of building. When those fundamentals are taken away, children are cut off from chances to grow, play, and imagine what comes next,” said Zakiyah Shaakir-Ansari and Marina Marcou-O’Malley, Co-Executive Directors, Alliance for Quality Education.
“The famine in Gaza is at a level 5 starvation, which is the highest level of malnutrition, even though food and medicine have been at the border for months just miles away. As with so many of the injustices we fight for here at home, the issue Palestinians currently face is not about scarcity. It’s about control and cruelty. Starvation has always been a tool of colonial power, from the forced removal of Indigenous peoples to the engineered food deserts in Black, brown, and lower-income communities today. By withholding the resources communities need to live fully and freely, the goal of extinguishing hope and consolidating power becomes all the more clear. The forms this takes may differ from one context to the next, but the intent to marginalize and control remains disturbingly consistent.
“This violence doesn’t stop at any one border. It echoes in the silence surrounding the mass suffering in Sudan, the Congo, Haiti, and beyond. Anti-Blackness continues to abound, explaining why some lives are grieved publicly and others quietly erased. The same systems that treat Palestinian life as expendable also treat Black life as disposable, both around the world and here at home.
“We cannot separate our fight for a more equitable public education system for New Yorkers from this broader fight for justice abroad. When children are denied food, care, and stability, their futures and lives are stolen in real time. We’ve been calling not only for a permanent ceasefire, but for an end to the multiple genocides unfolding across the globe. That call continues to be urgent, but it cannot be where our commitment ends. The work ahead is deep. Ending occupation, dismantling racial capitalism, and building public systems rooted in deep care. Our fight may be rooted in New York, but our vision is global. Every child, everywhere, ought to enjoy the freedom to live, to learn, and to have a part in building what comes next. Shame on us all if we don’t do everything we can to make sure that happens.”