by President Heidi R. Lewis
October 7, 2024
I write this blog from Colorado Springs, CO. Stolen land—the unceded territory of the Ute Peoples, to be precise—developed with stolen and exploited labor. I do so, because as my colleague Dr. Natanya Ann Pulley points out, acknowledgements are “more than identifying or recognizing someone or something. Acknowledging is also an act of honoring, blessing, celebrating, and thanking.”
Part I: Today is October 7
Twenty years ago, my son AJ (pictured above) was born—Thursday, October 7 at 1:55 pm ET, to be exact. That day, October 7 became a forever occasion to celebrate life and love—the day I became a mother, the day my husband became a father. AJ is a sophomore at Morgan State University now, and I’m sad I can’t be with him to celebrate his special day. But I am thankful I get to spend some time with him later this month when I’m in D.C. for work. Morgan is in Baltimore, just an hour away.
Thirteen years ago—Friday, October 7, 2011—AJ turned seven. I love that age. So many seven-year-olds I’ve had the honor to know and often love are curious, calculating, and yes, very cute. My son and his friends were very much like that. So, I was really excited for his party that Sunday, a joint one with his flag football teammate. So were my husband Tony, our daughter Chase, and, of course, AJ. A bunch of kids smiling, laughing, playing, and eating birthday cake and ice cream for hours? Sign us up.
But that year, October 7 would take on a new meaning. In 2011, October 7 became a forever occasion to grieve and sometimes mourn.
While my kids were at school, I received a phone call telling me Tiffany lost her battle with leukemia at the tender age of 37. I forget who called me, but I do recall screaming a scream I hate to remember, throwing my phone across the room in disbelief, and running to the basement to tell Tiffany’s daughter Ta’Nyra, who’d moved in with us not too long before that so she could experience life outside northeast Ohio and attend school. We screamed and cried together for God only knows how long, cradling one another on my basement floor. I couldn’t tell you much about what happened after that, but I know I called Tony at some point to give him the news. He loved Tiffany, too—so, so much—and she loved him.
Tiffany was my paternal cousin, my second cousin. Her mother and my grandmother were sisters. Allow me to be more romantic than usual. Tiffany was my cousin, but she was more like a sister to me. That’s because we loved each other the way I always imagined sisters should. In fact, she’s a big reason I still imagine and try to do sisterhood that way. That’s probably also because I’m an only child from a very small town. So, my family was close knit especially because of proximity. My maternal and paternal grandparents partied together before they got saved in the late 1970s, and my mom and dad were high school sweethearts. Before I was even born, my parents would do outings with her niece and nephew (also more like siblings to me), as well as with Tiffany and her little brother—at the carnival, the zoo, and what seemed like everywhere else, let the pictures tell it. On top of that, Tiffany was only seven years older than me. Growing up, I spent many, many days and nights at their house, sometimes far more than I spent in my own house, especially during summers when my mom was at work and needed a babysitter. I was at the hospital when she gave birth to Ta’Nyra, her first child. She passed me my first joint. She gave me “the talk” when I had sex for the first time. I was the first person she called before receiving her leukemia diagnosis to say, “Heidi, I think I’m dying.”
I think I got that call in 2006, the year Chase was born. That was also the year Jay-Z released “Lost One,” the second single from Kingdom Come. I had no idea that five years later, Tiffany would be gone and “Lost One,” namely the third verse, would become a hymn to my heartbreak.
“[My sister] died [on my son’s birthday]. So, I’m under the belief [that ruins his day]. Close my eyes and squeeze. Try to block that thought. Place any burden on me, but please not that, Lord. But time don’t go back. It goes forward. Can’t run from the pain. Go towards it. Some things can’t be explained. What caused it? Such a beautiful soul. So pure. Shit! Gonna see you again. I’m sure of it. ‘Til that time, [big sis], I’m nauseous. Your [daughter got] pregnant, the Lord’s gift. Almost lost my faith. That restored it. It’s like havin’ your life restarted. Can’t wait for your [grand’s] life to be a part of it. So now, I’m childlike, waitin’ for a gift. To return, when I lost you, I lost it.”
Part II: The World Is on Fire
Fast forward to last year when October 7 took on yet another meaning.
That day, Mohammed Deif, Commander-in-Chief of the Izz El-Din Al-Qassam Brigades (the military wing of the Islamic Resistance Movement, a Palestinian nationalist organization also known as Hamas), enacted the Al-Aqsa Flood operation. Soon after, nearly 5,000 rockets were launched, and Palestinian fighters broke the barriers separating Gaza from 1948 Palestine, invaded Israeli settlements, and took hostages. Since then, over 41,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed, over 100,000 have been injured, thousands are missing, millions have been displaced, and these numbers are grossly underestimated.
As our comrades in the Palestinian Feminist Collective remind us, “The current violence we are witnessing did not begin on October 7, 2023, but stems from over 100 years of colonialism, 75 years of conquest, 56 years of military occupation, 17 years of siege in the Gaza Strip, and two years of increased Zionist violence targeting Palestinian land and life [...] Since October 7th, more than half of all Palestinian homes have been destroyed and more than 1.4 million Palestinians have been displaced. For some, this exodus marks the sixth forced displacement in seventeen years and the ninth since the 1948 Nakba [...] Since October 7th, 2023, there has been a surge of anti-Palestinian, anti-Arab, and anti-Muslim racist violence, harassment, stalking, doxxing, retaliation by employers, and government surveillance.” For these reasons, I have “unequivocally and unapologetically demanded that Palestine be free.”
At the same time, and as my colleague and friend Dana Olwan points out, attention to local and global connections is at the heart of the intersectional, transnational, antiracist and decolonial feminist praxes to which NWSA is committed. I agree wholeheartedly. So, I have also insisted we continue “working together to end the occupations of Palestine, Okinawa, Kashmir, Tigray, and all other colonized lands.” According to Najib Mikati, the Prime Minister of Lebanon, Israel’s recent bombing of Lebanon has displaced up to 1 million people and killed over 2,000. On September 24, poet and activist Marcellus “Khaliifah” Williams was executed in Missouri despite DNA evidence proving his innocence. It’s been more than 500 days since the brutal proxy war in Sudan between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces. Thousands of dockworkers in the U.S. recently shutdown over 30 ports, striking for better wages and job protections. Crass consumerism and hyper-reliance on new technology is killing the planet and contributing to child slave labor in Congo, which is also suffering from escalating tensions between the Congolese armed forces and M23 rebels. We all (should) know I could go on and on.
Part III: Today Is October 7, and the World Is on Fire
We didn’t cancel my son’s 7th birthday party in 2011. I didn’t even want to. As hard as it was, I wanted to celebrate love and life—the day I became a mother, the day my husband became a father. I still wanted to see and hear a bunch of kids smiling, laughing, playing, and eating birthday cake and ice cream for hours. I wanted to begin learning how it might be possible to do all of that while grieving and sometimes mourning.
So every October 7, I make sure to think about Tiffany. She was so fun, so funny, so loving. There was hardly a time when I called and she didn’t answer. She wanted to hear all about my new life as a graduate student then professor. Sometimes, when amazing things happen to me, I imagine her saying, as she often did, “Go ‘head, then, Heidiiiiiiiiiii! Okaaaaaay!” She was always down to gossip and talk shit. She was a hard worker, walking more than 30 minutes to and from work almost everyday for years. She also had serious, concerning bouts with lethargy. She was sometimes short-tempered. Hell, until she got pregnant with Ta’Nyra, she hated me (her words!). But then, we became best friends, sisters. And every year on October 7, I get to take space to remember that and all the complicated parts of her and our relationship that I miss so dearly.
I’ll also be thinking about the fact that Black folks in the U.S. are less likely to have leukemia, but have the lowest survival rates across all subtypes. Some researchers suggest that’s because we get treatment less often, as we live further from treatment centers, lack insurance, and avoid institutional healthcare because of the subjugation and oppression we face there. Go figure.
I’ll also spend much of today thinking about my son. AJ is very much a Libra in that he’s balanced, intellectual, and almost obsessively aesthetic. He loves nature. If he could, he’d spend the majority of his time in the mountains surrounded by wildlife. In fact, he requested Tony and I take him to Rocky Mountain National Park for his 18th birthday weekend. So, we did just that. Don’t be surprised if he ends up transferring to a college or university in Colorado. He play way too damn much—on the videogame (just like I did as a teen) and wit’ me. He’s a bullheaded know-it-all, also just like me. Haha. He’s had a deep, admirable, unconditional love for his little sister since he first laid eyes on her. He’s always had the cutest laugh that makes him sound like one of The Chipmunks. He’s defensive and contrarian at times. He can be a bit reactionary. He’s thoughtful and romantic just like his daddy. And every year on October 7, I get to take space to reflect on his life and mine as a mother.
I’ll also be thinking about the fact that he’s a Black boy approaching manhood while living over 1,600 miles away from home. Who’s to say he won’t be forced into a situation that’s similar or even identical to the one in which Marcellus Williams was forced? I mean, let’s be real. He could.
I’ll also spend much of today thinking about our world, which is, again, on fire. I’ll think about the parents, siblings, grandparents, partners, lovers, and others who’ve lost their loved ones because of racism, colonialism, misogyny, xenophobia, transphobia, and other forms of systemic violence and terrorism. I’ll think about the mothers, the fathers, the parents who will never get to spend another birthday with their children—the mothers, the fathers, the parents who will be forever grieving, sometimes mourning. I’ll think about the words of our brother Marcellus “Khaliifah” Williams, who wrote to the children of Palestine while facing the death penalty. I will remember that our struggles, while certainly unique, are absolutely intertwined.
despite the actions of the few
And excessive retaliation,
drones,
planes,
bombs,
tanks,
rubble,
buildings demolished,
vanished houses and neighborhoods,
hospitals targeted,
U.N. shelters disrespected,
murder,
death,
deliberate killing of noncombatants,
babies buried alive,
amputations,
hunger and political starvation,
lack of or no water,
strategic sanitation,
daily terror,
and terrorized daily,
military maneuvering,
moving here and there,
to return back again to nowhere,
trauma with all its manifestations,
international prayers and hesitation,
defiance to the realization of two nations,
global aid thwarted,
global amnesia,
siblings and relatives gone forever,
parental worries –
in the face of apex arrogance
and ethnic cleansing by any definition…
still your laughter can be heard
and somehow you are able to smile,
O resilient Children of Palestine!
“The Perplexing Smiles of the Children of Palestine: A Poem for Palestine”
—Marcellus “Khaliifah” Williams, during the last year of his precious life.
Per my strategic plan, “Reconnect, Repair, Restore: A More Thoughtful, Transparent, and Trustworthy NWSA,” my President’s blogs aim to give members a chance to get to know me and generate excitement about our upcoming conference. As painful as this blog’s focus is, it aims to do both. Hope to see you next month when we “gather to listen, talk, laugh, cry, dance, and sing,” as well as “work together to routinely name, interrogate, and resist colonialism in Detroit and throughout the world.”