Hasheemah Afaneh | Legitimate Grievances | Poets Resist

Hasheemah Afaneh, MPH (she/her/hers) is a Palestinian-American writer and public health professional based in New Orleans. The themes her works center on are social justice, equity, identity, and day-to-day musings of the world. She has contributed to Sinking City Literary Magazine, Poets Reading the News, Shado Mag, This Week in Palestine, and others. Her poetry is forthcoming in Caldera Magazine and in 580 Split Journal in spring 2020. Quality time for her is family time, laughs with friends, and reading.

Hasheemah Afaneh's Website

Hasheemah Afaneh on Twitter

Also by Hasheemah Afaneh: Military Occupations and Baton Rouge The Night the Election Robs Palestinians is Afternoon in America All the Shades of Anger

Poets Resist
Edited by Christine Taylor
January 27, 2020

Hasheemah Afaneh

Legitimate Grievances

“When an individual makes their grievances, however legitimate, more important than the feelings of their competitors and the competition itself, the unity and harmony as well as the celebration of sport and human accomplishment are diminished.”

— statement from International Olympic Committee on banning political protests in 2020 Olympics

Our mamas told us that there was a time and place for everything, but we grew up in neighborhoods of teargas and bullets — and love, there was always love lest they forget — and sometimes, everything we do seems like a protest because we want to live, love, live to love, and so we might take a knee & kneel and tell them it’s a prayer to God, asking Him to unlock the locked knees, and destroy the locked doors and loaded weapons, and if they aren’t convinced with this prayer, tell them that harmony is a prayer that looks like this, and then we might raise a fist & expose our palm to the universe, unleashing the power that came before and after us — for and because of us, and if they aren’t convinced with this magic, tell them that this is the unity that our mamas told us about, as we grew up crossing borders, narrow like the hyphen between our identities, where some protested our humanity and we protested for a humanity worth celebrating.