Apartheid-Free Communities pledge - sudo-discuss

4 Jun 2025

Jake, Lo, and I (Aaron) talked about the Apartheid-Free Communities pledge at
tonight's meeting! Here are some combined thoughts.
=== We should sign as soon as possible ===
Signing the pledge will counteract ongoing harm in a small but real way, so we should sign
it as soon as possible.
=== Our obligations ===
Here's an idea of what we think we're promising to do, as an organization, by
signing the pledge.
--- Items 1-3 ---
...
  WE AFFIRM our commitment to freedom, justice, and
 equality for the Palestinian people and all people
 WE OPPOSE all forms of racism, bigotry,
 discrimination, and oppression
 WE DECLARE ourselves an Apartheid-free community 
These are things we have or should have affirmed already, so (re)affirming them presumably
won't change anything about how we operate.
--- Item 4 ---
...
  WE PLEDGE to join others in working to end all support
to Israel's
 Apartheid regime, settler colonialism, and military occupation. 
Here are some ways we can uphold this promise.
- Sign the pledge. As Lo pointed out in the quoted e-mails below, just putting our name on
the list of signatories already helps uphold our obligations: "It reflects public
support to our elected officials when we press them to divest from Israeli violence. It
reduces harm to Palestinian and Arab members of our community. It challenges the official
narratives and expands the public consciousness around Palestine."
- Confirm on our wiki that we've signed the pledge, and add the Apartheid-Free
Communities logo.
- Facilitate (and, if possible, promote) the use of our space by organizations
"working to end all support to Israel's Apartheid regime, settler colonialism,
and military occupation."
- Provide information resources (like flyers, zines, articles, book chapters, and a
listening / watching / reading list) in the space.
=== Background on the campaign ===
This Apartheid-Free Communities campaign is financed by the American Friends Service
Committee, a Quaker organization. You can find some steering committee members on the
campaign site's "About" page (https://apartheid-free.org/about/).
All the listed steering committee members are Christian or Unitarian organizations, which
for one of us (Aaron) is kind of a red flag.
On the other hand, the list of pledge signatories seems to include more diverse religious
organizations. In particular, it has a good number of Jewish organizations, including the
national and Bay Area chapters of Jewish Voice for Peace.
...
  On Mon, 2 Jun 2025, Jake Watters via sudo-discuss
wrote:
  Let's have a meeting this coming Wednesday,
in two days! Last week just
 three or four of us got together and discussed things as can be seen in the
 meeting notes:
 https://sudoroom.org/wiki/Meetings
 Here's a proposed agenda:
 * catch up on new membership applications
 * continue talking about the process of sudoroom becoming its own 501(c)3
 * the volunteer effort of updating our membership list
 * fundraising including reaching out to members who may have forgotten to
 pay dues
 * sudoroom signing the "Apartheid-Free Communities" pledge! See below for
 more info
 Lets say this Wednesday, 7:30PM?
 -jake
 ---------- Forwarded message ---------
 From: Lo via sudo-discuss sudo-discuss(a)sudoroom.org
 Date: Tue, May 27, 2025 at 7:37 PM
 Subject: [sudo-discuss] Proposal: SUDO room joins the Apartheid Free
 Communities Campaign
 To: sudo-discuss(a)sudoroom.org
 Dear Sudoroom members and leaders,
 For the past 2.5 years I’ve been a Sudoroom “member” (I say this in
 quotations because I’ve been paying dues and attending but have never been
 endorsed as a full fledged member), but I’d like to make a proposal that
 Sudoroom become an Apartheid Free Community!
 I am writing as a member of SURJ Bay Area’s Palestine Solidarity Campaign.
 As a racial justice organization, SURJ believes it is our moral obligation
 to demand an end to Israel’s system of apartheid, its genocide in Gaza, and
 its increasing violent seizure of land in the West Bank. All this is paid
 for by our tax dollars, with the U.S. directly funding the Israeli
 government to the tune of $35 billion a year.
 We invite Sudoroom to join us to support the Palestinian people’s human
 rights, lives, and lands by taking the pledge to become an Apartheid-Free
 Community.
 Apartheid is a crime against humanity. As defined by the United Nations
 https://legal.un.org/avl/ha/cspca/cspca.html, apartheid includes:
 • Acts such as murder, torture, inhuman treatment, and arbitrary arrest of
 members of a racial group
 • Deliberate imposition upon the subjugated racial group of living
 conditions calculated to cause its physical destruction
 • Legislative measures that discriminate in the political, social,
 economic, and cultural fields
 We could fill pages with examples of how Israel’s treatment of Palestinians
 meets this criteria—from arrests and imprisonment without charges to the
 destruction of Gaza by bombing homes, hospitals, and schools and cutting
 off food, water, electricity and medical supplies. Palestinians are
 subjected to entirely different laws and judicial systems, without freedom
 of movement and economic opportunities.
 Inspired by the anti-apartheid movement that helped topple the white
 supremacist regime in South Africa, the Apartheid-Free Communities Campaign
 is bringing communities together to end apartheid in Israel/Palestine. We
 encourage Sudoroom to join the over 500 organizations across the globe,
 including cities, schools, faith-based communities, labor unions,
 businesses, and organizations, in taking the pledge to become an
 Apartheid-Free Community.
 Signing the Pledge makes a difference! It reflects public support to our
 elected officials when we press them to divest from Israeli violence. It
 reduces harm to Palestinian and Arab members of our community. It
 challenges the official narratives and expands the public consciousness
 around Palestine. We ask that you sign this pledge, and take actions, in
 whatever way makes sense to Sudoroom, to be part of this effort.
 Be sure to let me know if you have any questions and how I can support your
 Sudoroom in signing the Pledge and joining this campaign.
 In Solidarity,
 Lo
 P.S. We have materials including buttons, posters, and pamphlets you can
 use to increase awareness and build support. Plus the Apartheid-Free
 Communities website https://apartheid-free.org/about/ is full of great
 resources and educational materials.
 --
 *Lo *
 Pronouns: She/They https://www.mypronouns.org/
 There is no neutral body from which our bodies deviate. Society has
 written deep into each strand of tissue of every living person on earth.
 What it writes into the heart muscles of five star generals is distinct
 from what it writes in the pancreatic tissue and intestinal tracts of Black
 single mothers in Detroit, of Mexicana migrants in Fresno, but no body
 stands outside the consequences of injustice and inequality
 *― *Aurora Levins Morales
 _______________________________________________
 sudo-discuss mailing list -- sudo-discuss(a)sudoroom.org
 To unsubscribe send an email to sudo-discuss-leave(a)sudoroom.org
 More options at
 https://sudoroom.org/lists/postorius/lists/sudo-discuss.sudoroom.org/
 _______________________________________________ 
 sudo-discuss mailing list -- sudo-discuss(a)sudoroom.org
 To unsubscribe send an email to sudo-discuss-leave(a)sudoroom.org
 More options at https://sudoroom.org/lists/postorius/lists/sudo-discuss.sudoroom.org/