Where is the rage?

lsarsour - Linda Sarsour

So I am going to tell you a story about a little Palestinian boy from a refugee camp.

In 2013, I went to Palestine with my family. I used to love going to Ramallah, a village a few minutes from my own. It’s like a downtown with shops selling embroidered Palestinian dresses, artifacts, delicious street food and so much more. One thing that you see everywhere are street vendors - young and old alike.

One day I was shopping and I passed a Palestinian child who was no older than six years old. He was wearing a red t-shirt with holes and a pair of flip flops two sizes too big. He was selling chewing gum. Each stick of gum was 1 shekel (about a quarter), so I flipped him a 5 shekel coin and walked away.

I didn’t think much of it. 5 shekels are equivalent to one American dollar. He was calling out to me in Arabic “sister, sister” and followed me down the street. Now I heard his voice but I didn’t yet know he was calling for me. He finally caught up and tapped me, I turned around and he was IRATE. His eyes were wet with tears except he never let them fall. He said to me in the same Palestinian dialect that I speak, “Listen to me here, I am not a beggar. I am a businessman. You either take the 5 gums or you take your 5 shekels back.”

I was taken aback by the conviction in his voice. I said nothing, I took the 5 gums, put them in my purse & walked away. I was ashamed. Here I was a pretentious American who thought my 5 shekels would do this child some good & here I was stripping him of his dignity, the only thing he & the Palestinian people still have that has not been stolen by the State of Israel.

This little boy taught me so much in that one encounter. He taught me that I was no better than he regardless of his circumstances, that you can be someone with everything & have no dignity & someone w/ nothing & have all the dignity in the world. He taught me that the Palestinian people don’t want my charity, they just want the opportunity to earn what they deserve and to never be treated less than.