Through my readings, lived experiences, and conversations, I had an epiphany. As someone with Palestinian roots, I have long been fascinated by the relationship between Black liberation and Palestinian liberation, not because these struggles are identical- they are not- but because across profoundly different histories of displacement, violence, resistance, and survival, these communities have repeatedly found ways to see one another.
Black women, in particular, have seen Palestine.
From Angela Davis to June Jordan, Ruha Benjamin, and generations of Black women activists, scholars, artists, and organizers, Palestinian liberation has repeatedly entered Black feminist conversations about freedom and justice. And it makes me wonder about the direction in which knowledge travels. Black women have had opportunities to study Palestine, research its history, build frameworks around its liberation, and incorporate Palestinian advocacy into their own understanding of justice.
Recently, I found myself thinking about this while watching the story of Arianna Hamilton, a Black woman and former Burger King employee whose expression of support for Palestine became the center of an online controversy. As communities rallied around her, something beautiful came from the chaos. A Palestinian artist honored her with a mural.
It reminded me of Palestinian artists creating murals of George Floyd on walls in Bethlehem and Gaza in 2020. These gestures don’t erase the enormous differences between these histories. But perhaps they tell us something about recognition across borders.
Black womanhood saw Palestine. And Palestine saw Black womanhood.
This is where imagination possibly enters the conversation. Solidarity does not have to be transactional. Someone else’s liberation does not compete with our own; it can expand our understanding of what liberation means. Black women have given extraordinary intellectual, political, and emotional energy to causes beyond themselves, including Palestine.
What would happen if that recognition became more intentionally reciprocal?
What if protecting Black womanhood carried the same global urgency that Black women have so often extended to the liberation of others?
Protecting Black Womanhood Is Global Citizenship
Whether the cause is LGBTQ+ equality, immigrant justice, refugee advocacy, disability rights, democracy movements, or Palestinian liberation, Black women repeatedly stand at the forefront of struggles that extend beyond their own lived experiences.
This isn’t an emotional sentiment. It’s pattern recognition.
They organize. They educate. They advocate. They show up. But reciprocity requires an uncomfortable question.
When Black women need collective protection, do those same coalitions return with equal urgency?
Too often, the answer is no.
Justice loses credibility when solidarity flows in only one direction.
Protecting Black womanhood should never be treated as a niche issue. It is not separate from global citizenship; it is evidence of it.
If we truly believe in human dignity, then protecting Black women should matter just as deeply as protecting refugees, defending LGBTQ+ rights, advocating for Palestinian liberation, or standing against antisemitism, Islamophobia, anti-Asian hate, misogyny, or xenophobia.
Justice cannot ask Black women to continuously show up for everyone while expecting them to carry their own burdens alone.
For me specifically? Protecting Black womanhood is a civic responsibility. A duty. An obligation. A passionate form of advocacy.
My sister, Farah, is not a Black woman. She is fair, light brown-skinned, with hazel eyes. I would protect her with my life. My Lebanese mother, Ghada, is white-presenting. I would protect her with every inch of my soul.
So why should that instinct to protect extend only to the women who share my blood?
My “adopted” Puerto Rican mother, Neyda, welcomed me with open arms when I first moved to New York City; she was my professor, then my friend, my mentor, my mother…I would do anything for her.
Black women are no different. Whether they are in my circle, sitting in my classroom, working alongside me, or complete strangers navigating a world that has not always extended the same protection to them, they deserve that same instinct of care, dignity, advocacy, and protection.
I don’t require a woman to be my sister to care about her safety.
I don’t require a woman to be my mother to care about her dignity.
And I certainly don’t require a woman to look like me before I decide that protecting her humanity is also my responsibility.
My Citizenship Demands Reciprocity
One of the greatest privileges of my life has been teaching at Spelman College.
Every semester, I remind my students that we are a team.
I am not there simply to deliver lectures or collect a paycheck.
I am there for a purpose.
My greatest reward is not hearing my own voice.
It is watching brilliant young Black women become more confident, more curious, more courageous, and more certain that they deserve every room they choose to enter.
To me, it is reciprocation to the Black women who have helped me become the person I am today.
They celebrated me as an immigrant at times when I questioned whether I belonged.
They challenged me when comfort would have been easier.
They saw potential in me before I could articulate it myself.
They expanded my understanding of humanity.
My name is Jad-Évangelo Nasser.
I identify as a Globalist.
I travel the world searching for connection. I teach students to embrace cultural curiosity. I help organizations navigate difference. I stand on stages speaking about belonging.
People often ask me what it means to be a global citizen.
Today, my answer is simple.
Global citizenship is not measured by how many cultures we consume. It is measured by how responsibly we honor the people who expanded our understanding of the world.
The framework I have spent years building was never mine alone.
If I truly believe in global citizenship, then my citizenship demands more than curiosity.
It demands gratitude.
It demands accountability.
Most importantly, it demands reciprocity.
So, dear non-Black readers, I hope you read this essay, reflect, and perhaps reconsider how you understand the intersection of global citizenship and Black womanhood. I hope it leaves you asking not only how we admire Black women, but how we reciprocate, advocate, protect, collaborate, and show up.
And dear Black women, I hope you can accept this essay as a small gift for what it is: the reflection of an intercultural Globalist who deeply admires your existence, acknowledges how you have impacted his, and hopes to spend a lifetime returning that gratitude through action.
Thank you for expanding my world.
