PUBLICITY STUNT

By Matt Witt

Danny Danon, Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations, on X.

When 500 leaders from 40 countries formed a flotilla to try to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza, the Israeli government arrested them and said the flotilla was a “publicity stunt” and against the law.

When auto workers sat down in a General Motors plant in 1937 and refused to relinquish the factory until the company recognized their union, that was a publicity stunt and against the law.

When young Black people challenged segregation by sitting at whites-only lunch counters, that was a publicity stunt and against the law.

When suffragettes chained themselves to the White House and went on hunger strikes in jail to win the right to vote, that was a publicity stunt and against the law.

When protesters in India led by Gandhi boycotted British goods as part of a campaign for independence, that was a publicity stunt and against the law.

When South Africans deliberately violated apartheid rules like curfews in Black townships, that was a publicity stunt and against the law.

So many laws. So much power. So many publicity stunts yet to come.

October 4, 2025

Matt Witt is a writer and photographer in Oregon. His work may be seen at MattWittPhotography.com. His latest book is Monumental Beauty: Wonders Worth Protecting in the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument.

SUBJUNCTIVE

by Adrienne Pilon

Source: American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee at Instagram

If I write we are going to the sea if I write
shall be free if I write Palestine if I write 
protest or encampment or salaam
my brother if I write Allah if I write 
genocide if I write bombing or Gaza  
or Hamas if I write Zionist if I write
apartheid or war crimes if I write 
nearly 50,000 dead or children are dying
or ceasefire now these words may 
rise up from the text, flagged and marked 
by a force that gives no quarter 
to what it does not care to understand.
The ink of my pen draws a target 
on my back on the back of my mother 
my father my wife my husband 
my daughter my son my sister 
my brother salaam my brother 
salaam salaam salaam salaam

Adrienne Pilon is a writer, educator, and activist. Recent and forthcoming work appears in The Tiger Moth Review; Room; Tendon Magazine and elsewhere.

SILVER AND GOLD

by Donna Katzin

On April 25, 2023, the world lost beloved artist and activist Harry Belafonte after nearly a century of barrier-breaking music and work for social justice.  He played a major role in the U.S. Civil Rights Movement and anti-apartheid movement, and campaigns at home and abroad. He lived only five years after the death of his renowned friend, Hugh Masekela, who has been described as "the father of  African jazz."  Masekela gave voice to the struggle for freedom in South Africa—and around the world.

 

Their kindred cries

pierced our consciousness,

awakened us with irresistible reveilles

of "Day’O" and blasts of a sleepless horn

on two thirsting sides

of the same ocean.

 

On Calypso waves

and thunderstorms of jazz,

they bore us across seas and continents,

linking melodies and arms with others

in the push and pull of brothers,

igniting voices of a new time.

 

With silver tongue and golden trumpet,

they faced apartheid, Ku Klux Klan, Jim Crow—

unblinking in the face of whips and bullets,

released our inner rivers when we tired,

rekindling the fire in our blood

and our rebellious hearts.

 

They filled our streets with relentless rhythms,

marched with Black miners, laborers hungering

for the promises that gleamed

like ripe bananas in the sun,

mended our torn souls with

lullabies and love songs.

 

Today they are together, once again,

and we are left with their legacies

and indefatigable rhythms.

We can listen, hear them

—Harry and Hugh—

raising hell in heaven.

Donna Katzin is the founding and former executive director of Shared Interest, which facilitates access to credit for low-income Black Southern Africans.  She co-coordinates Tipitapa Partners, which helps feed and empower impoverished mothers and children in Nicaragua, and serves on the board of Community Change in the U.S.  A proud wife and mother, she is also a contributor to New Verse News and author of With These Hands—poems about the "new" South Africa giving birth to itself.

WOEFUL MISERY

by Charles Frederickson & Saknarin Chinayote

Amnesty International published a report early Wednesday accusing Israel of war crimes in its 50-day war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip this summer, saying its military showed “callous indifference” to civilians in airstrikes on homes that felled entire families. NY Times, November 4, 2014

Global sympathies aroused supporting disheartened

Palestinians constantly suffering imposed indignities

Humiliated confused cheated cursed outraged

Only recourse uncivil wronged rights

Born into unfortunate misbegotten circumstance

In-denial bias prejudice intolerance narrow-mindedness

Everything old is new again

Long deserving own sovereign homeland

There are more than fifty

Israel laws that discriminate against

Palestinian citizens of Israel including

Land access education criminal procedures

Nakba Catastrophe Palestine’s native inhabitants

Were turned into stateless refugees

Second class non-citizens driven out

Apartheid however you label it

Profound inequality enforcing conspiracy laws

Series of walls military checkpoints

Separating displaced refugees West Bank

Gaza Strip Golan Heights families

Twisted armlock crying Uncle Sam

Ungrateful one time too many

Lobbyists playing politricks mistreated threats

Unsettled grievances claiming tsouris heartburn

No Holds Bard Dr. Charles Frederickson and Mr. Saknarin Chinayote proudly present YouTube mini-movies @ YouTube – CharlesThai1