Ragga Nyc stands in total solidarity with the people of Palestine, who continue to suffer under violent Western neo-colonial legacies and the government of Israel, and who are demanding a liberated ancestral home, free of genocide, settler colonial occupation, and cultural erasure.
As artists, musicians and gatherers of people, we will fight alongside Palestinian organizers and communities until all Palestinians have secured the right to return home.
Ragga Nyc commits to adhering to the Palestinian international call for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) and to complying with the guidelines of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI):
• Boycott any cultural product commissioned by an official Israeli body
• Boycott any cultural product funded by an official Israeli body, even if not commissioned
• Boycott any cultural event that is partially or fully sponsored or funded by an official Israeli body
• Refrain from participation in any form of academic and cultural cooperation, collaboration, or joint projects with Israeli institutions, including suspension of all forms of funding and subsidies to/from these institutions
• Refrain from hosting or circulating any events or cultural products operating under the auspices of “normalization,” or which advance a false symmetry between oppressed and oppressor
• Support Palestinian academic and cultural institutions directly without requiring them to partner with Israeli counterparts as an explicit or implicit condition for such support
To be clear, Ragga Nyc denounces any kind of anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, and the comparison of anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism. This is not a boycott of individual Israeli writers and artists, but a boycott of the government of Israel. Any actor or cultural institution acting on behalf of the state of Israel or in efforts to change its image will be subject to this boycott.
More and more cultural organizations and tens of thousands of artists worldwide are endorsing PACBI’s 2004 call, which adheres to the BDS movement’s anti-racist principles and its targeting of institutions, not individuals, and of complicity, not identity. Visit their bdsmovement.net/pacbi &writersagainstthewarongaza.com/pacbi or reach out to pacbi@wawog.com to find out how you can join.
A personal note from Ragga Nyc founder Christina:
“I’ve been thinking a lot about queer Western judgement (some coming from black/ brown people themselves) of black and brown countries in relationship to queer rights and “pride”. The American elitism and how it’s penetrated queer folk here even while our own rights at home are eroding everyday (especially of our trans/ NB/ NGC siblings) is wild. This weaponization of homophobia and transphobia by Western white countries founded in colonial settler ideology to keep Western residing queers “in place” and quiet is so dark. When really we need more compassion across the black/ brown and larger queer community.
Think about the rhetoric around Palestine queer rights/ life. If you have been following this Ragga Nyc project doesn't it remind you of what people have said about Jamaica? I believed it too until I got on a plane to Jamaica and saw for myself. From there I realized how programmed I was here in the West so I built @connekja with the community there.
Remember: they laugh, love, dance and dream just like us here in the West…
What is happening in Palestine is not complicated; it's settler colonialism and ethnic cleansing.
We as black and brown people in the West and from the Caribbean diaspora are no stranger to settler colonialism. Let’s not stand by and watch it happen again and again. It’s the right thing to do to stick up for people of color and other queer people when we see their same oppressor is one that we can recognize.
