There is now a tendency among the activist portion of the black community that white people no longer deserve an explanation, that we have oh-so-politely explained to them the reality of white supremacy, taking pains not to appear too angry, and it still doesn't seem to be taking, and that it is no time for concern for white feelings when our people are literally dying in the streets at the hands of our own government. I, however, am more charitable, because I do not believe that Ferguson is a culmination of anything, but rather a beginning, and I believe that white America, like all people, deserve an explanation for what may be about to happen to them.

 The connection between Ferguson and Gaza that has appeared in recent demonstrations is one made more than just of convenience, or rhetorical flourish, and it is one that should give the Fox News crowd and other assorted defenders of American Liberty quite a few moments of pause. Because as Israel is a font of occupation, so is Palestine a font of resistance, and it is that idea of resistance that is beginning to catch on in the land of the free speech zones.

 At the rallies I attended over the past weeks, there was much of the typical rhetoric in black political gatherings, about the need for us to come together, of the importance of voting and education, about the need for change in this country, all so wonderfully reminiscent of Obama's 2008 campaign, because indeed none of this is new. But there was also something different, a sense that this time enough was enough, that after Trayvon Martin and Eric Garner, after stop-and-frisk and the gutting of the Voting Rights Act, after 30 years of economic policy that has pushed the black/white wealth gap back to 1967 levels, and yes, after Macklemore winning the Grammy award for best hip-hop album over Kendrick Lamar, after ceding almost all of our political direction to the Democratic Party, it may be time for a, if I may borrow the term, intifada. I mean, when even B.o.B. is getting political...

 But to bring it back to the individual, American style, the past fortmonth I have spent educating myself on the Palestinian struggle, I, along with a few others, have begun to notice some interesting parallels. For example, the way in which parties with certain interests try to redirect the discourse to an irrelevant topic, i.e. “Why do they only care about Israel's killing? Where are the protests over Syria or ISIS?” vis a vis “I see all this outrage over police killings, but where is the outrage over black-on-black crime?” Additionally, “Why are the Palestinians so hung up on right of return? It was so long ago” vis a vis “Why are black people still mad about slavery? Just get over it.”

 I am well aware that the people who ask these questions do not actually want an answer, but remember, I am in a giving mood, at least for the second inquiry, which gets at colonial logic itself. To suggest that an oppressed peoples let go of their anger, that victim-hood is a self-imposed concept, that everything would be OK if they just turned that frown upside-down and embraced the bright bold Western capitalist future, is to suggest that a people forget their own history, that they forget the reasons as to why they face these circumstances in the first place, is to ask them to give up their very identity. This suggestion is, in no uncertain nor hyperbolic terms, a suggestion of cultural genocide. And here is where the connection between Gaza and Ferguson gets real. Here is where the idea of “existence is resistance” begins to take hold.

 Truly, to exist as an individual black person, much less as black people collectively, and to affirm this identity publicly, is to resist the unceasing process of white colonization, to reject the idea that We Are All Americans Now. White supremacy is not America's original sin, it is the fault line on which this city on a hill rests.

 Already, there has been a flourishing of activism from the younger generation, from groups such as the Dream Defenders, the Organization for Black Struggle, and closer to home, the Ohio Student Association. These organizations and the work they do are nothing less than admirable, but if I may play the role of resident pessimist for a second, the potential avenues for working within the system do not seem effective.

 This is because the level of federal control over local police departments required to end police brutality nationwide, the mandatory imposition of body cameras, the demilitarization of police, the requirement of an active safeguard against racial profiling, the mandate that police live in the communities in which they arrest and kill, would be such a violation of states rights and the belief in local sovereignty, that we would see the literal revolt against federal government tyranny oft prophesied by InfoWars and company.

 Think I'm playing? It was federally enforced desegregation of schools that brought movement conservatism to power, that gave George Wallace 13 percent of the voted and five states in the 1968 election, that gave Ronald Reagan the White House, that prompted riots in Boston and indeed is the source of the animus against an “overreaching federal government” in the first place. And that was just about schools. Imagine when the jack-booted thugs of Eric Holder's (or whomever Hillary appoints) Department of Justice come for the freedom of law-abiding proud Americans to police their own communities.

 And so we come to John Crawford. Given that the killing was recorded on video, that there were eyewitnesses, and that he was on the phone when it happened, there should be no surfeit of evidence for the State of Ohio to be able to determine whether or not it is a justifiable homicide for the police to kill a person who was breaking no laws. If no charges are filed, or if the officer is acquitted, it would not be a surprise. After all, justice is blind, an axiom far more telling than the lovers of Western civilization who espouse it ever imagined.

 The obvious facade of post-racial America is now crumbling before our very eyes. I will not predict the future, and I am not a strong believer in nationalism, but I will leave you with one detail that I find relevant: Black Americans, per the UN charter, have a right to political self-determination under international law.