What does it mean to live because other people are dying? A friend posed this question at Cornell Students for Justice in Palestine’s vigil Tuesday night, describing the agonizing cognitive dissonance of living a “normal life” while your country carries out imperialist ethnic cleansing across the globe. How can you know that your tax dollars and tuition are bankrolling an ongoing genocide that has likely already killed upwards of 180,000 people and not spend every waking hour attempting to wash the blood from your hands? How the hell can you apply for a job at Boeing?
Most Cornell students live simultaneously in two realities: one where they are aware that American missiles are being used in one of the most repugnant acts of ethnic cleansing in human history, where every day brings new stories of mothers forced collect the scattered remains of their infant children in plastic bags; and another where they are pursuing a lucrative career that will allow them to live comfortably in the most powerful nation on Earth after graduation. It is time to recognize that these realities are not only simultaneous, but deeply connected — your comfortable life in the imperial core is predicated on violent dispossession and occupation in the rest of the world.
On Wednesday, students disrupted the ILR School’s Human Capital and HR Career Fair, which featured recruiters from weapons manufacturers Boeing and L3Harris. Students organized with the Coalition for Mutual Liberation........