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Creating Your Own World with Ishmael Butler
Ishmael Butler is a lyrical and musical visionary creating his own worlds of freedom and wonder since the first Digable Planets hit way back in 1993. And he’s continued to stay relevant as Shabazz Palaces, releasing his own work and collaborating across cultural, geographic and genre boundaries.

COLLIS BROWNE: I’ll tell just a couple things about me, leading into the interview, so you know something about who you’re talking to. I’m known as Collis Browne, artistically. I’m from just outside of Toronto, and grew up in a small town. Being in a small town, all “culture” seemed to come from very far away. In Canada a lot of the pop culture is from the US. And a lot of the American culture is very strongly Black culture, because Black culture is such a huge, beautiful part of American culture. And so I just want to, cite a couple milestones in my life that lead me into the interview. One: when I was six years old in the early 80s, the first cassette tape I got was the Fat Boys, which changed my mindset of what you could do in music, what you could do all with a capella music, with the Human Beatbox and with the storytelling and melodiousness that can come from just the voice. Two: five years in the future, another milestone was, like ‘89 when Public Enemy became really, really big and exploded globally, and it really changed my understanding of that you could be “political” and have a really clear stance about structural iniquities, and have it sound amazing and hard and beautiful, really blending those things together in a way that is inspiring. You know that Chuck D, really, spoke to so many people — my experience is very far from his, but he really spoke to us. And Three: in 1993 and I was, I think, 14-15, and there was this group called Digable Planets that made this tune — of course, “Cool Like That”. The whole record is amazing. And it made a big impact on us, but I want to call out this one song that is La Femme Fétal. It changed the way that I understood that you could have a specific viewpoint on an issue that’s highly politicized, controversial if you will, but be first of all, smooth and awesome to listen to. To be really rooted in a very personal experience, but speak very powerfully to the broader situation, the broader social dynamic. That song is where I heard of Roe v Wade. So just to see this song where you could very specifically use, twice, the word fascist in the song, but it’s very smooth and natural. And these lines that was like,
“Pro-lifers need to dig themselves,
because life don’t stop after birth,
and to a child born to the unprepared,
it might even just get worse.”
— Butterfly (Ishmael Butler), Digable Planets
I used to know all these lyrics, and just thinking about the empowerment that came from out of that. Came from out of that. So first of all, I just wanted to like, thank you from that moment, but the breadth of it, that it carried far and wide in geography, and it carried wide and like opening our understandings of like, what you can do musically and politically, and it still resonates.
ISHMAEL BUTLER: I appreciate that, bro. Thank you, man. That means a lot.

COLLIS BROWNE: You have always had a clarity around the relation between the personal, and the political, and the cultural, and the global.
ISHMAEL BUTLER: When you say the political — How do you define that?
COLLIS BROWNE: Political in the broader cultural sense. Definitely outside of electoral politics; electoral politics is a very small part of what we think of as political. I’m using political, in this sense: any aspect of who you are or what you do, or how you want to live, or who you want to love, or whatever it is, is politicized, and has a relation to power, domination and exploitation in the world.
Everything has a relation to power, to structural power, to the dynamics that are the economies and everything that runs the world. And so let’s do it mindfully. Let’s do it clearly, critically and loudly. Speak our biases. Loudly. Our bias is toward liberation for all, freedom and liberation. Our bias is toward looking at the true structures of power that run the world and how everybody either goes under the radar, or goes along with it and benefits from it, or tries to chip it apart and make it broader and more free for everybody. So that’s what we mean by political.
ISHMAEL BUTLER: Right on.
I was raised by people that directly understood that they themselves and their social situation was political, so they actively pursued that reality and gave themselves over to it as youth and on into their adulthood. The principles of taking care of yourself and really having a good self confidence was definitely instilled, but you always were to be aware that you are part of a family, a community, a city, a place, a neighborhood and a culture, you know. So that’s why I was able to naturally approach those kind of things, but also have a naturalness to it, because it was natural — I had it was all I had known, due to my people and the people that they surrounded themselves with. And my parents were the ones that were involved in the Civil Rights Movement and had seen change. You know what I mean? They had been instrumental in bringing it about. So they understood what coming together for action could attain. So we, being their offspring, that was something that they were really, really keen on instilling in us, because me and all my homies and all the people in my school did all the things that teenagers do and kids do, but we all had that sensibility as well. That’s just how it was.
And that sensibility and awareness has suffered a hit in terms of it being a prevailing sort of attitude with everybody, but it’s still very much alive, you see in activism and participation, but it’s also very much under threat. You know, by the Empire and their goals.
COLLIS BROWNE: The way you say the Empire. I hear the capital E. That’s how I say it.
ISHMAEL BUTLER: But we’re post-apocalyptic when it comes to political things, you know, we we’re still sort of hanging on, especially here in the States, to these vestiges and notions of civility and “rule of law” and all of these things that were really miraculously held together by regardless of whether they were right or or left wing. They all sort of had an understanding of basic right and wrong. But these cats… their whole thing is, I’m trying to let you know that I’m on top and you on the bottom, and if you do what I say, then you cool. We’ll let you in. But if not, we don’t care anything about you, and we’re willing to see the end of you and your destruction.
COLLIS BROWNE: I came across a video of you a couple years ago, because we were invited by a group of Kanaka Maoli people into Hawai‘i to go to O‘ahu and join the struggle and the movement around defueling Red Hill, and while we were there we also met with Dr. Akiemi Glenn of the Popolo Project — an incredible project to “redefine what it means to be Black in Hawai‘i”. And then I came across a video of you performing and speaking there as Shabazz Palaces. And I was, I was surprised, because I love it when worlds collide.
First of all, speaking of the Empire, and the freshness of the conquest: literally, invasion, conquering and continued oppression and brutal oppression in Hawaii. It’s very, very fresh. But you had said something in the video that was something to the effect of: we want to move in a way that is centering ourselves and not centering the Empire and kind of not giving it that power. Has your thinking changed since then about how you move in direct opposition or relation, to the Empire?
ISHMAEL BUTLER: Understanding what the Empire is, to me is actually de-centering. Like, once you realize that they really are small and petty and that they’re just trying to gobble up everything, trying to be the center of everything. That’s when I was able to really get into myself and my values and the things around me, because I’m not with all that. If everything is about the Empire, the Empire, we always gotta be talking about, thinking about them and studying them — while I’m not. I mean, I try to pay attention, to stay abreast, because it’s interesting to know about the world that you live in, and the forces that influencing what is happening in your day to day life. But beyond that, they’re not the center. It’s not centralized in my life at all. That, to me, is the point: to get them out of there in that way. You know, because what they got, everybody believe in this, this fantasy of who they are. It’s just, it’s just smoke and mirrors, man. It ain’t really based on no substance. You know, always lies, always deceit, always destruction, always nefarious, always theft, always, always rape. You feel me? So 100% yeah, they’re not at the center of nothing, they’re not centralized in my world.
COLLIS BROWNE: Like not giving them the satisfaction of being the main character in your story type of thing, right?
ISHMAEL BUTLER: Exactly, because they’re really not.
They’re asserting themselves as that, try to keep a hold on, and trying to convince you with propaganda; and they’ll kill mass amounts of people to hammer that point home. But you know, it’s still not true. It may be real, it may be a Reality, but it’s not a Truth. You know what I’m saying?
COLLIS BROWNE: There’s more of a future in creating a world where the Empire is not in the center.
ISHMAEL BUTLER: I mean, look, look at Donald Trump, without illusion and deceit. If it’s just the bare presentation of the reality of the man himself, how could he be considered a statesman or or any of the things that he’s convinced the world that he is? He wouldn’t be able to. There’s no way.
COLLIS BROWNE: It’s all smoke and mirrors.
ISHMAEL BUTLER: I mean, it’s literally a man standing before you who never speaks anything true, ever, right? And let’s just look at his appearance. He’s covered up his real self with a covering, right? And his concept of the the coloring of the covering is absolutely bonkers. That’s a hell of a presentation for a world leader to be coming out with. It’s so deceitful, and it’s such a hiding. It’s like drag really. You know what I mean? It’s trying to show I’m a bronzed, healthy my skin is, you know, I’m saying, but in reality, it’s something else.
COLLIS BROWNE: I love, that no insult to drag, but it’s very fun, actually, to take, to take Donald Trump as drag.
Given that all of that that we’ve said, then what’s the world you’re building? What’s the center? if it’s not this, that the other, this psychopath, this lunatic, then tell me the world you’re building and the center of your world.
ISHMAEL BUTLER: My family, the ideas and emotions that they are coming up with and dealing with and creating. And my passion, which is music. Making music and learning about music and learning things musical, and also the notion of, you gotta learn and you gotta work, you know. And if you’re on a learning path and a working path, you’re going to inevitably come across new ideas, at least to you have motivation to participate in the world and look at the world and try to understand it, and meet individuals that are open minded like you, and can teach you things and show you new things, and vice versa, so that it’s a rich energy is in motion, and you’re participating with the world, and you’re alive, you know, so even when things seem unclear in terms of a specific path to take, to try to surmount this stuff, at least, I know, through getting back to these things, That Imma be alive, Imma be living, and Imma be participating. You know what I mean? It’s saying something in this day and age to be able to do that.
Keep reading:
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Artists Harnessing Art, Culture, and Ancestry
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Chavis Marmol
{
"article":
{
"title" : "Creating Your Own World with Ishmael Butler",
"author" : "Ishmael Butler, Collis Browne",
"category" : "interviews",
"tags" : "",
"url" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/readings/ishmael-butler-creating-your-own-world",
"date" : "2025-05-12 12:49:00 -0400",
"img" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/uploads/Ishmael_Butler_04.jpg",
"excerpt" : "Ishmael Butler is a lyrical and musical visionary creating his own worlds of freedom and wonder since the first Digable Planets hit way back in 1993. And he’s continued to stay relevant as Shabazz Palaces, releasing his own work and collaborating across cultural, geographic and genre boundaries.",
"content" : "Ishmael Butler is a lyrical and musical visionary creating his own worlds of freedom and wonder since the first Digable Planets hit way back in 1993. And he’s continued to stay relevant as Shabazz Palaces, releasing his own work and collaborating across cultural, geographic and genre boundaries.COLLIS BROWNE: I’ll tell just a couple things about me, leading into the interview, so you know something about who you’re talking to. I’m known as Collis Browne, artistically. I’m from just outside of Toronto, and grew up in a small town. Being in a small town, all “culture” seemed to come from very far away. In Canada a lot of the pop culture is from the US. And a lot of the American culture is very strongly Black culture, because Black culture is such a huge, beautiful part of American culture. And so I just want to, cite a couple milestones in my life that lead me into the interview. One: when I was six years old in the early 80s, the first cassette tape I got was the Fat Boys, which changed my mindset of what you could do in music, what you could do all with a capella music, with the Human Beatbox and with the storytelling and melodiousness that can come from just the voice. Two: five years in the future, another milestone was, like ‘89 when Public Enemy became really, really big and exploded globally, and it really changed my understanding of that you could be “political” and have a really clear stance about structural iniquities, and have it sound amazing and hard and beautiful, really blending those things together in a way that is inspiring. You know that Chuck D, really, spoke to so many people — my experience is very far from his, but he really spoke to us. And Three: in 1993 and I was, I think, 14-15, and there was this group called Digable Planets that made this tune — of course, “Cool Like That”. The whole record is amazing. And it made a big impact on us, but I want to call out this one song that is La Femme Fétal. It changed the way that I understood that you could have a specific viewpoint on an issue that’s highly politicized, controversial if you will, but be first of all, smooth and awesome to listen to. To be really rooted in a very personal experience, but speak very powerfully to the broader situation, the broader social dynamic. That song is where I heard of Roe v Wade. So just to see this song where you could very specifically use, twice, the word fascist in the song, but it’s very smooth and natural. And these lines that was like, “Pro-lifers need to dig themselves,because life don’t stop after birth,and to a child born to the unprepared,it might even just get worse.”— Butterfly (Ishmael Butler), Digable PlanetsI used to know all these lyrics, and just thinking about the empowerment that came from out of that. Came from out of that. So first of all, I just wanted to like, thank you from that moment, but the breadth of it, that it carried far and wide in geography, and it carried wide and like opening our understandings of like, what you can do musically and politically, and it still resonates.ISHMAEL BUTLER: I appreciate that, bro. Thank you, man. That means a lot.COLLIS BROWNE: You have always had a clarity around the relation between the personal, and the political, and the cultural, and the global.ISHMAEL BUTLER: When you say the political — How do you define that?COLLIS BROWNE: Political in the broader cultural sense. Definitely outside of electoral politics; electoral politics is a very small part of what we think of as political. I’m using political, in this sense: any aspect of who you are or what you do, or how you want to live, or who you want to love, or whatever it is, is politicized, and has a relation to power, domination and exploitation in the world.Everything has a relation to power, to structural power, to the dynamics that are the economies and everything that runs the world. And so let’s do it mindfully. Let’s do it clearly, critically and loudly. Speak our biases. Loudly. Our bias is toward liberation for all, freedom and liberation. Our bias is toward looking at the true structures of power that run the world and how everybody either goes under the radar, or goes along with it and benefits from it, or tries to chip it apart and make it broader and more free for everybody. So that’s what we mean by political.ISHMAEL BUTLER: Right on.I was raised by people that directly understood that they themselves and their social situation was political, so they actively pursued that reality and gave themselves over to it as youth and on into their adulthood. The principles of taking care of yourself and really having a good self confidence was definitely instilled, but you always were to be aware that you are part of a family, a community, a city, a place, a neighborhood and a culture, you know. So that’s why I was able to naturally approach those kind of things, but also have a naturalness to it, because it was natural — I had it was all I had known, due to my people and the people that they surrounded themselves with. And my parents were the ones that were involved in the Civil Rights Movement and had seen change. You know what I mean? They had been instrumental in bringing it about. So they understood what coming together for action could attain. So we, being their offspring, that was something that they were really, really keen on instilling in us, because me and all my homies and all the people in my school did all the things that teenagers do and kids do, but we all had that sensibility as well. That’s just how it was.And that sensibility and awareness has suffered a hit in terms of it being a prevailing sort of attitude with everybody, but it’s still very much alive, you see in activism and participation, but it’s also very much under threat. You know, by the Empire and their goals.COLLIS BROWNE: The way you say the Empire. I hear the capital E. That’s how I say it.ISHMAEL BUTLER: But we’re post-apocalyptic when it comes to political things, you know, we we’re still sort of hanging on, especially here in the States, to these vestiges and notions of civility and “rule of law” and all of these things that were really miraculously held together by regardless of whether they were right or or left wing. They all sort of had an understanding of basic right and wrong. But these cats… their whole thing is, I’m trying to let you know that I’m on top and you on the bottom, and if you do what I say, then you cool. We’ll let you in. But if not, we don’t care anything about you, and we’re willing to see the end of you and your destruction.COLLIS BROWNE: I came across a video of you a couple years ago, because we were invited by a group of Kanaka Maoli people into Hawai‘i to go to O‘ahu and join the struggle and the movement around defueling Red Hill, and while we were there we also met with Dr. Akiemi Glenn of the Popolo Project — an incredible project to “redefine what it means to be Black in Hawai‘i”. And then I came across a video of you performing and speaking there as Shabazz Palaces. And I was, I was surprised, because I love it when worlds collide.First of all, speaking of the Empire, and the freshness of the conquest: literally, invasion, conquering and continued oppression and brutal oppression in Hawaii. It’s very, very fresh. But you had said something in the video that was something to the effect of: we want to move in a way that is centering ourselves and not centering the Empire and kind of not giving it that power. Has your thinking changed since then about how you move in direct opposition or relation, to the Empire?ISHMAEL BUTLER: Understanding what the Empire is, to me is actually de-centering. Like, once you realize that they really are small and petty and that they’re just trying to gobble up everything, trying to be the center of everything. That’s when I was able to really get into myself and my values and the things around me, because I’m not with all that. If everything is about the Empire, the Empire, we always gotta be talking about, thinking about them and studying them — while I’m not. I mean, I try to pay attention, to stay abreast, because it’s interesting to know about the world that you live in, and the forces that influencing what is happening in your day to day life. But beyond that, they’re not the center. It’s not centralized in my life at all. That, to me, is the point: to get them out of there in that way. You know, because what they got, everybody believe in this, this fantasy of who they are. It’s just, it’s just smoke and mirrors, man. It ain’t really based on no substance. You know, always lies, always deceit, always destruction, always nefarious, always theft, always, always rape. You feel me? So 100% yeah, they’re not at the center of nothing, they’re not centralized in my world.COLLIS BROWNE: Like not giving them the satisfaction of being the main character in your story type of thing, right?ISHMAEL BUTLER: Exactly, because they’re really not. They’re asserting themselves as that, try to keep a hold on, and trying to convince you with propaganda; and they’ll kill mass amounts of people to hammer that point home. But you know, it’s still not true. It may be real, it may be a Reality, but it’s not a Truth. You know what I’m saying?COLLIS BROWNE: There’s more of a future in creating a world where the Empire is not in the center.ISHMAEL BUTLER: I mean, look, look at Donald Trump, without illusion and deceit. If it’s just the bare presentation of the reality of the man himself, how could he be considered a statesman or or any of the things that he’s convinced the world that he is? He wouldn’t be able to. There’s no way.COLLIS BROWNE: It’s all smoke and mirrors.ISHMAEL BUTLER: I mean, it’s literally a man standing before you who never speaks anything true, ever, right? And let’s just look at his appearance. He’s covered up his real self with a covering, right? And his concept of the the coloring of the covering is absolutely bonkers. That’s a hell of a presentation for a world leader to be coming out with. It’s so deceitful, and it’s such a hiding. It’s like drag really. You know what I mean? It’s trying to show I’m a bronzed, healthy my skin is, you know, I’m saying, but in reality, it’s something else.COLLIS BROWNE: I love, that no insult to drag, but it’s very fun, actually, to take, to take Donald Trump as drag.Given that all of that that we’ve said, then what’s the world you’re building? What’s the center? if it’s not this, that the other, this psychopath, this lunatic, then tell me the world you’re building and the center of your world.ISHMAEL BUTLER: My family, the ideas and emotions that they are coming up with and dealing with and creating. And my passion, which is music. Making music and learning about music and learning things musical, and also the notion of, you gotta learn and you gotta work, you know. And if you’re on a learning path and a working path, you’re going to inevitably come across new ideas, at least to you have motivation to participate in the world and look at the world and try to understand it, and meet individuals that are open minded like you, and can teach you things and show you new things, and vice versa, so that it’s a rich energy is in motion, and you’re participating with the world, and you’re alive, you know, so even when things seem unclear in terms of a specific path to take, to try to surmount this stuff, at least, I know, through getting back to these things, That Imma be alive, Imma be living, and Imma be participating. You know what I mean? It’s saying something in this day and age to be able to do that."
}
,
"relatedposts": [
{
"title" : "Culture Must Be the Moral Compass That Geopolitics and Economics Will Never Be",
"author" : "EIP Editors",
"category" : "essays",
"tags" : "",
"url" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/readings/culture-must-be-the-moral-compass-that-geopolitics-and-economics-will-never-be",
"date" : "2025-07-15 16:14:00 -0400",
"img" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/uploads/2025_7_Opposing_Nazism_1.png",
"excerpt" : "The widespread cultural rejection of Nazism in the West did not emerge spontaneously from humanity’s innate sense of right and wrong. It was not simply that people around the world, and especially in the West, were naturally alert and to the moral horror of fascism.",
"content" : "The widespread cultural rejection of Nazism in the West did not emerge spontaneously from humanity’s innate sense of right and wrong. It was not simply that people around the world, and especially in the West, were naturally alert and to the moral horror of fascism.Rather, the transformation of Nazism from a nationalist ideology admired by many Western elites into the universal symbol of evil was a story of narrative engineering and the deliberate construction of collective memory. It is a story that reveals a larger truth: culture has always been the moral compass that geopolitics and economics cannot, and will not, provide on their own.And at this moment, it is crucial to understand and use the power of culture to shift geopolitics, and not the other way around.Understanding this history matters today more than ever. Because if it was possible to turn Nazism into the ultimate taboo, it is equally possible to reposition other violent ideologies and state projects—such as Israel’s ongoing system of apartheid and settler colonialism—as morally indefensible. But to do so requires acknowledging that cultural reckonings don’t simply arrive; they are made.Pre-War Ambivalence: When Fascism Was FashionableContrary to the comforting myth that the world naturally recoiled from Nazism, in the 1920s and 1930s many influential Americans and Europeans viewed Hitler’s Germany with admiration. American industrialists like Henry Ford openly praised Hitler’s economic management and fierce opposition to communism. Ford even funded antisemitic propaganda through his publication, The Dearborn Independent. British aristocrats, including the Duke of Windsor, flirted with Nazi sympathies, seeing Germany as a model of discipline and order.It was only when Hitler’s ambitions clashed with the strategic interests of other nations that fascism became intolerable. And even then, many major US and UK companies maintained their business interests with the Nazis, including Ford, IBM, GM (Opel), Standard Oil (now ExxonMobil), Chase Bank, and of course Coca-Cola, who famously created the brand Fanta so that it could break the boycott and do business with Nazi Germany.This distinction is critical: condemnation of Nazism began not as a moral imperative, but as a political necessity. Germany’s aggression threatened the European balance of power, British imperial security, and eventually, American economic and military interests. The moral narrative would only come later, after the fighting was over.It is important to learn from the past and see that only culture can shift perception, and to use culture to shift the economic realities that would otherwise wait to be shaped by politics.Wartime Shifts: From Enemy State to Symbol of EvilWorld War II did not instantly transform public opinion. For many Americans, the war in Europe remained remote until the bombing of Pearl Harbor in December 1941. Even then, the decision to fight Nazi Germany was entangled with power politics: Hitler declared war on the United States first, effectively forcing Roosevelt’s hand.Nevertheless, the war provided fertile ground for a reframing of Nazism. Wartime propaganda efforts by the Allies recast the Nazi regime as a brutal, alien threat to civilization itself. Hollywood joined in: The Great Dictator (1940) ridiculed Hitler’s delusions of grandeur, while Casablanca (1942) romanticized resistance. Images of goose-stepping soldiers, swastika flags, and shattered cities circulated widely.As the Allies advanced, they encountered the first concrete evidence of the Holocaust: ghettos, mass graves, and emaciated survivors. Yet even then, much of this evidence remained unknown to the general public. It was only after liberation that the full horror became impossible to ignore.Post-War Revelation: The Holocaust and the Cultural BreakThe turning point came in 1945, with the liberation of the camps and the Nuremberg Trials. The images and testimonies from Auschwitz, Dachau, and Bergen-Belsen revealed the industrial scale of genocide. Millions murdered with chilling efficiency. A systematic attempt to erase an entire people. For the first time, the abstract notion of “Nazi evil” was grounded in visceral, visual evidence.Sociologist Jeffrey Alexander describes this phenomenon as the cultural construction of trauma. Atrocities do not automatically generate collective memory; they must be narrated, documented, and ritualized until they become an inescapable moral reference point. The Nuremberg Trials played this role by broadcasting confessions and evidence to a global audience. Schools, museums, and the press reinforced the narrative: Nazism was not simply defeated; it was unmasked as pure, irredeemable evil.Cold War Myth-Making: The Free World Versus FascismThe Cold War further cemented this narrative. To build legitimacy against the Soviet Union, the United States and its allies positioned themselves as the moral victors of World War II, the saviors of Europe from fascism. In reality, many of the same powers—Britain, France, and the United States—continued their own brutal colonial projects and enforced systems of racial hierarchy at home.But the cultural story was powerful: the West stood for freedom; the Nazis had embodied totalitarian darkness. School textbooks, popular films, and Holocaust memorialization institutionalized this story, forging a shared moral identity that could be contrasted against communist “evil.”This process was neither accidental nor purely altruistic. It was a strategic use of culture to consolidate power, project moral authority, and deflect scrutiny of the West’s own violence. The lesson is clear: collective memory is not a neutral mirror of reality. It is built, contested, and leveraged.The Sociological Core: Why Public Opinion ShiftsTo understand how an ideology once admired by many became the universal emblem of inhumanity, we must look beyond military defeat. Several mechanisms combined:Symbolic Association: Nazism transformed from a nationalist experiment into a symbol of mechanized genocide and racial supremacy.Cultural Trauma: The Holocaust became a shared wound that redefined moral frameworks across the West.Visual Storytelling: Images and films, rather than mere text, anchored the horror in the public imagination.State Rebranding: The Allies used anti-Nazism to build a postwar myth of moral superiority, even as they pursued imperial ambitions elsewhere.These insights are not simply historical trivia. They are a roadmap for how cultural shifts happen—and how they can be deliberately engineered.Israel, Palestine, and the Next Cultural ReckoningToday, Israel’s treatment of Palestinians—systematic dispossession, apartheid laws, and repeated military assaults—remains largely protected in Western discourse. Politicians insist on Israel’s right to defend itself. Media narratives default to framing the violence as a “conflict” rather than an occupation. Solidarity with Palestinians is often smeared as antisemitism.Yet history shows that moral consensus is not fixed. With enough sustained exposure, narrative work, and cultural pressure, the global imagination can be reshaped. Just as Nazism’s legitimacy eroded, so too can the idea of Israel as an unassailable “victim-state.”This is not a call to equate the Holocaust with the Nakba—each is historically distinct. It is, however, an argument that the techniques which made Nazism morally intolerable—trauma visualization, reframing language, relentless storytelling—are tools available to any liberation movement.Here is how such a transformation could unfold:1. Narrative InversionIsrael’s founding story must be contextualized: a state born from the trauma of European antisemitism that, in turn, created the dispossession of another people. Exposing this contradiction—survivors becoming occupiers—breaks the simplistic binary of oppressor and victim.2. Visual Culture and TestimonyJust as photographs of emaciated bodies in camps forced an awakening, so too can images of bombed Gazan neighborhoods, amputee children, and anguished families. Digital archives and survivor testimonies can anchor these experiences in collective memory.3. Linguistic ReframingTerms like “apartheid,” “settler colonialism,” and “ethnic cleansing” shift perception from tragic conflict to structural violence. Legal frameworks—UN reports, ICC filings—can fortify these terms with institutional legitimacy.4. Media SaturationBypassing corporate media gatekeepers requires a multi-platform strategy: TikTok clips, Substack essays, livestreamed trials of Israeli policy, viral documentaries. Saturation is what makes denial unsustainable.5. Global RealignmentPositioning Palestine within global struggles—Black liberation, Indigenous sovereignty, anti-colonial movements—expands solidarity. When the Global South embraces Palestinian liberation as part of its own decolonization, moral isolation will deepen.6. Cultural Institutions and EducationJust as Holocaust education became standard in Western curricula, Nakba education can be mainstreamed. Museums, memorials, and fellowships can institutionalize remembrance and scholarship.7. Policy Pressure and Legal ActionPublic consensus is the soil in which policy change grows. Boycotts, divestment, and sanctions, coupled with legal prosecutions of war crimes, transform moral clarity into material consequences.8. Making Occupation a LiabilityWhen supporting Israel becomes politically and financially risky—akin to defending apartheid South Africa—corporate and governmental alliances will fracture. Reputational risk can be a powerful motivator.Conclusion: Cultural Reckonings Are EngineeredIt was not “natural” for the West to reject Nazism. It took defeat, trauma exposure, and decades of cultural labor to enshrine anti-Nazism as a foundational moral principle. Similarly, it is not inevitable that the world will recognize Israel’s oppression of Palestinians as an urgent moral crisis. It will require strategic, sustained, and courageous cultural work.Culture—more than geopolitics or economics—sets the terms of what is morally acceptable. It is the compass that can point humanity toward justice. But only if we are willing to pick it up and use it."
}
,
{
"title" : "Neptune Frost",
"author" : "Saul Williams, Anisia Uzeyman",
"category" : "screenings",
"tags" : "",
"url" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/readings/eip-screening-neptune-frost",
"date" : "2025-07-12 16:00:00 -0400",
"img" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/uploads/netune-frost-movie-poster.jpg",
"excerpt" : "Thank you for all who joined the special screening of Neptune Frost, with exclusive introduction from writer/director Saul Williams. Stay tuned and become a member for our next edition of our EIP monthly screening series.",
"content" : "Thank you for all who joined the special screening of Neptune Frost, with exclusive introduction from writer/director Saul Williams. Stay tuned and become a member for our next edition of our EIP monthly screening series.Multi-hyphenate, multidisciplinary artist Saul Williams brings his unique dynamism to this Afrofuturist vision, a sci-fi punk musical that’s a visually wondrous amalgamation of themes, ideas, and songs that Williams has explored in his work, notably his 2016 album MartyrLoserKing. Co-directed with the Rwandan-born artist and cinematographer Anisia Uzeyman, the film takes place in the hilltops of Burundi, where a group of escaped coltan miners form an anti-colonialist computer hacker collective. From their camp in an otherworldly e-waste dump, they attempt a takeover of the authoritarian regime exploiting the region’s natural resources – and its people. When an intersex runaway and an escaped coltan miner find each other through cosmic forces, their connection sparks glitches within the greater divine circuitry. Set between states of being – past and present, dream and waking life, colonized and free, male and female, memory and prescience – Neptune Frost is an invigorating and empowering direct download to the cerebral cortex and a call to reclaim technology for progressive political ends."
}
,
{
"title" : "Uranus & The Cycle of Liberation",
"author" : "Céline Semaan",
"category" : "",
"tags" : "",
"url" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/readings/uranus-and-the-cycle-of-liberation",
"date" : "2025-07-11 16:25:00 -0400",
"img" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/uploads/EIP_Uranus.jpg",
"excerpt" : "I’m definitely not an astrologer. I don’t even know where Uranus is in my chart. But I do know how to read systems and translate them to the public. What I’ve learned, through years of designing for social and environmental justice, is that history doesn’t just unfold. It cycles upwards. And if we learn to pay attention to those cycles, we can prepare—not just to resist collapse, but to shape what comes after.",
"content" : "I’m definitely not an astrologer. I don’t even know where Uranus is in my chart. But I do know how to read systems and translate them to the public. What I’ve learned, through years of designing for social and environmental justice, is that history doesn’t just unfold. It cycles upwards. And if we learn to pay attention to those cycles, we can prepare—not just to resist collapse, but to shape what comes after.Even if you don’t care about astrology, the timing of these celestial movements provides us a way to examine macro trends that we can learn from. History may not exactly repeat itself, but it does echo.Uranus—the planet astrologers associated with upheaval, rebellion, and technological transformation—entered Aries in May 2010 and stayed there until 2018. That cycle coincided with a surge in political uprisings, many of which redefined our understanding of mass resistance in the 21st century.The Arab Spring began in late 2010, starting in Tunisia and erupting across the Middle East. It wasn’t just about corrupt regimes—it was about reclaiming voice, land, and dignity after decades of foreign interference, neoliberal decay, and post-colonial repression. From Tahrir Square to Pearl Roundabout, these movements were leaderless, fast, and media-savvy.Occupy Wall Street followed in 2011, challenging the violent inequality embedded in late capitalism. In 2013, Black Lives Matter emerged after the murder of Trayvon Martin, later exploding into a global uprising in 2014 and again in 2020. Standing Rock (2016) reminded the world that Indigenous resistance was not only alive but visionary. #MeToo (2017) became an international reckoning with patriarchy and sexual violence, a reminder that personal testimony is political terrain.Across these years, protests were decentralized, digitized, and visual. Social media moved from a personal tool to a frontline of collective witnessing. Livestreams replaced press conferences. Memes became political language. Design itself became a protest, and Slow Factory built the visual language for it.This was not coincidental but archetypal, because Uranus in Aries, even symbolically, tells the story of radical ignition, collective fire, visionary unrest.And yet, none of it was sustained. What followed was a backlash: fascist resurgence, climate denial, propaganda wars, and intensified state surveillance. We saw mass demobilization, media fatigue, and widespread disinformation. Many of the movements that sparked global hope were either crushed, co-opted, or burned out.So now, as Uranus moves through Taurus (2018–2026), the terrain has shifted. Taurus is about materiality, land, value, and stability. It demands we not only rise up, which is crucial, but to build. We are asked to not only critique systems, but replace them. Not just “burn it all down”, but radically imagine what’s next.This is the political and spiritual context I hold as I continue my work.At Slow Factory, we spent the past decade offering free education, cultural strategy, and ecological design rooted in climate justice and human rights. And with Everything is Political, we’re building an independent media platform not beholden to corporate donors or foundation filters—a place where movement memory, critical analysis, and cultural clarity live. If we don’t design the next phase of liberation, someone else will design it for us.This work isn’t about virality. It’s about continuity. We are here to hold political memory. To protect the intellectual commons. To ensure that the next generation doesn’t forget who stood for truth—and who profited from silence.The ask is to build the very systems we are all looking for, and for that we deserve the time, energy and support to imagine, design and co-create as a community. We can’t delegate our liberation to politicians, and we certainly won’t see startups capitalizing on the changes our society needs. Perhaps we will witness the hyper privatization of every single service our communities need, but we must strategize for during and after collapse. Funding structures will have to be challenged, as they are designed to sustain themselves and uphold status quo. However, we are witnessing the collapse of every industry: media, education, banking, all industries we rely on, will be challenged. We are going to need to rely on our creative skills and our ability to build true solidarity across our communities towards a common goal outside of dogma and division. It’s a cultural moment, and we are here for it.Resistance isn’t just about protest. It’s about imagination. And imagination requires discipline, community, and space.We are creating that space right here. And together we can co-create together if everybody puts in effort and care. For now, we are imagining what systems of mitigation amidst systems collapse will look like. Will we outsource our infrastructure to highly funded Silicon Valley funded platforms feeding off of public data feeding ads markets and Ai learning in real time from our work? Or are we truly invested in building sovereign media? I personally invest in the latter, and hope you all join us. Because we are the majority, and truly if we align we are unstoppable."
}
]
}