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RBIG people of color letter to Rainbow grocery
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 the people of color of Palestine 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,
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