Let's talk about it. 

 

I understand why it might be alarming to some of you that currently on the Alter Planning Co. website, it says “From the River to the Sea.” A few of you have reached out and I wanted to address it publicly in an effort to be transparent with the entire APCo. community.  

 

With full sensitivity, I am aware of the statement. I'm also aware of the ways things are conflated and distorted in western media to ensure the progression of certain agendas. 

 

In no way am I endorsing or in support of ethnic cleansing or genocide which is why the statement is there. It is why there is an edition of the planner with the watermelon on it. From my understanding of the people who are currently persecuted in Palestine (and descendants of people from the land), it is a statement about freedom and equality for all people and in this vision, no one is being persecuted or subjected to anything other than freedom, joy, and equality. 

 

With my own understanding of media and studies of mass communications, this phrase is being twisted in the same ways that "Black Lives Matter" was "dangerous" and a "rallying cry against police officers" and became "All Lives Matter" in an effort to silence an oppressed group of people and create more division between the groups of us that need to be in community with one another. 

 

There is never a situation in which I, a Black woman from South Louisiana,  would co-sign antisemitism when so often in history and in present day, it is often the same group of people targeting  Black Southerners and Jewish people. I am sorry that the current media landscape would even prime the idea that I could.

 

In this moment of devastating lost, I do not have a choice but to the amplify the voices of those who need it and make it plain that I, too, dream of freedom for Palestine. For Sudan. For Congo. For Haiti. For Hawaii. 

 

There are peoples across this globe who live there entire lives being oppressed, persecuted, and hunted to progress agendas for politics, ideologies, and money based on their race, religion, nationality, gender, sexual orientation, age, etc. Here and abroad. My heart aches for us all. I dream of days when this is not a component of our reality. When we are able to collectively imagine ourselves in joy and freedom that is expansive enough for us all. 

 

If this is not a dream that you share in, if this is a dream that makes you uncomfortable, then I understand, but please know I do not build for you.  

 

I create, I dream, I build for us. 

 

To those who share in this dream, I thank you for your support throughout the years. I thank you for the kind words you've shared via DMs and email. There is so much more I want to create with and in support of you.  To what we may build together. 

 

scottie.