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‘Rampant Anti-Blackness’: Black Student Union at University of Michigan Leaves Pro-Palestinian Coalition
‘We are not obligated to sacrifice ourselves for any organization that does not value or understand us,’ the group wrote.
The Black Student Union at the University of Michigan–Ann Arbor withdrew from a Pro-Palestinian coalition called “TAHRIR” due to “rampant anti-Blackness.”
“Members of our organization and our community have dedicated their time, energy, and well-being to the continued existence and strength of the coalition despite repeated instances of being erased, belittled, and berated,” reads the statement by the Black Student Union. “These community members did so with the belief that the work of the coalition would be furthered by their sacrifice — that it would be worth the vitriol they received. However, as Black people, we are not obligated to sacrifice ourselves for any organization that does not value or understand us. The anti-Blackness within the coalition has been too pervasive to overcome, and we refuse to endure it.”
The Black Student Union concluded its statement on Saturday by confirming its withdrawal from the TAHRIR coalition, writing that “we refuse to subject ourselves and our community to the rampant anti-Blackness that festers within it.” The group did not, however, cite any specific examples of “anti-Blackness” within the coalition.
TAHRIR is a coalition of University of Michigan student organizations that seek to “decolonize the university” and advocate for “divestment from and boycott of settler colonialism, occupation, mass incarceration, apartheid, and genocide.” The coalition’s demands include 1) Divesting from “Israeli apartheid and genocide,” 2) Establishing a “people’s audit” of the university’s financial operations, 3) Severing all ties with Israeli academic institutions, and 4) Abolishing campus policing.
“We act in solidarity with freedom fighters in Palestine and revolutionaries everywhere working to dismantle global imperialism, capitalism, white supremacy, and patriarchy,” reads the TAHRIR website.
On the TAHRIR website, the Black Student Union is still listed as a member organization. Other members of TAHRIR include “Michigan Gayly: LGBT+ Issues,” “Latinx Indigenous Social Work Alliance,” “Arabesque Dance Troupe,” and the “Therapeutic Art Project.”
The Black Student Union issued a statement in November 2023 expressing “solidarity with the Palestinian people” and demanded that the University of Michigan label the “atrocity in Gaza” as “an affront to humanity, a clear continuation of war crimes, a genocide.”
“The [Black Student Union] will always empathize with the plight of oppressed peoples in their struggle for liberation — a struggle that we, as Black people in America, know all too well,” the group wrote in November, adding that “the struggles for Black liberation and Palestinian liberation have long been intertwined, and we plan to honor and continue that relationship now and in the future.”
The Black Student Union and TAHRIR previously co-sponsored an event in April titled “Fund Our Education, Not Incarceration: A Conversation About Policing, Prisons, and [University of Michigan] Endowment.” Previous events sponsored by the Black Student Union include “Anti-Colonial Resistance: Our Shared Histories with Palestine,” “Palestine 101: An Overview of Palestine from Occupation to Resistance,” and “Generational Wisdoms: Conversations with our Elders, from Detroit to Palestine.”
The TAHRIR coalition established an encampment at the University of Michigan’s Ann Arbor campus on April 22, 2024.
“Inspired by the 100+ students facing academic and carceral retaliation for protesting Columbia University’s investment in genocide, we along with Students for Justice in Palestine chapters across the country have made the bold and unwavering decision to occupy our campuses until our demands are met in full,” the TAHRIR coalition said in a statement when it launched the encampment.
According to a statement released by the University of Michigan president on May 21, 2024, the encampment protesters destroyed university property on several occasions. Encampment participants organized a protest on May 3 that later became violent, which the University of Michigan president described as “an assault on law enforcement officers” from which “multiple police officers sustained minor injuries.” The president’s statement also noted that members of the encampment led demonstrations outside the homes of several members of the U-M Board of Regents early in the morning on May 15.
“Marching and chanting in the middle of the night outside private homes, posting demands on private property, and placing a burnt cradle and fake bloody body bags on the lawn of one regent amounted to vandalism and trespass, not protected expression,” reads the president’s statement.
The University of Michigan removed the encampment on May 21 after the demonstrators refused to comply with requests to “remove external camp barriers, refrain from overloading power sources, and stop using open flames” issued from a fire inspection conducted on May 17.