American Herald Tribune | Miko Peled: I'll never forget the first time I heard JayZ's "The Story of OJ." I got into a Lyft and the driver, a young black man was playing music when this song came on. "That is powerful!" I blurted uncontrollably. "It’s the most powerful Rap song I've ever heard" the young man replied. He then played it over and over again and we were both swept into a conversation about racism in America and how little most people know and how little people care.

I'm just back from Jerusalem and as I write these words I can't help notice the similarities between the US and Israel - what some like to call the "shared values" of these two countries. Both are brutal, unapologetically racist, settler colonialist regimes, thriving under the guise of liberal democracies.

All oppressed people have one thing in common: a desire to live normal lives, to be part of society to and enjoy the benefits that society offers the privileged. But in racist societies that is not possible. Racist societies want to rid themselves of the other, and no matter how hard that "other" might try, the other will never belong, he and she will always remain a nigger, a dirty Arab, or whoever else that other may be. That is why there is resistance. That is also why the systems of oppression are so afraid of anything that might legitimize the call for justice by the other.

A young Palestinian woman who is also an Israeli citizen was sitting on the light rail in Jerusalem and across from her sat two female Israeli soldiers. When one of the soldiers placed her boot on the seat next to the young woman, she asked her to remove it, stating it was inappropriate. This request unleashed a barrage of swearing and threats and of course, the young woman's identity as an "Arab" came up in the most racist and demeaning way. Needless to say, she was terrified by this experience and even more so shocked that even though she was a citizen and spoke Hebrew and really was no different than any Jewish girl, all she was at that moment was a dirty little Arab.

This young woman, being from a so called “mixed city” where Jews and Palestinians reside in the same city, though still separate and unequal, and a citizen - she was living under the impression that by being a "good" citizen and a "good" Arab she would not be subjected to such hate and racism. She was not a Palestinian from Gaza or the West Bank and so was not troublesome in any way to the State of Israel. And yet, when she thought it was safe to speak up she was immediately put in her place. Needless to say, if she was a man and a Jew the soldier would never have put her boot on the seat to being with. And, yes, Israelis and Palestinians can immediately tell when they see the "other" and so the soldiers knew for certain that this young woman was an Arab, and felt perfectly comfortable abusing her in public.

JayZ sings,
“O.J. like, "I'm not black, I'm O.J."
Okay

Light nigga, dark nigga, faux nigga, real nigga
Rich nigga, poor nigga, house nigga, field nigga
Still nigga, still nigga.”
Those two words, "Still nigga, still nigga" haunting and painfully true. They are the answer to all those who claim there has been change in America, that it is no longer the fertile breeding ground for racists and killers. But “Still nigga” is why Americans allow the mass incarceration and wholesale killing of Blacks to go on, and why they accept the mass killing of Arabs and Muslims and the destruction of Arab and Muslim countries as a necessity. Because a “nigga” and an Arab or Muslim or Mexican in the end is “still nigga.” In the context of Palestine, and the story of the young Palestinian woman on the light rail, "still Arab" is what she was told by the two female soldiers and she better know her place, a place which affords her no right to speak up. Much like Blacks in America have been sectioned off and divided into various categories, as JayZ describes so painfully well, so were Palestinians sectioned, divided and are defined by Israel. In the US, they are all "Still Nigga" in Palestine, under Israeli rules they are all "Still Arab."

A Palestinian friend recently said to me that he has a theory as to why Israel has a hard time trusting Palestinians and believing that Palestinians are sincere when they say they want to live in peace. His theory was that because of the trauma of the holocaust Jews can no longer trust and therefore Palestinians need to work harder to make their case, the help the Jews along. This is an interesting theory and points to the endless optimism and faith that Palestinians, or at least this Palestinian has in his oppressors. But it could not be farther from the truth.

The reason Israel rejects Palestinian offers for peace has nothing to do with trust or the holocaust. It is similar to why the US does not recognize the invaluable contributions made by Blacks in the US, and their right to reparations: If they accept this they will no longer be able to kill them. Accepting the legitimacy of the other delegitimizes the entire system of oppression. It goes against decades, sometimes centuries worth of arguments that try to give legitimacy to the oppressor.

The recent events in Charlottesville, VA have awakened Americans from their slumber, some might say because a well-meaning white woman was killed. Similarly, when a Jew is killed in Israel the world pays attention while the death of Palestinians is a normal occurrence and few care to even report it. And while ridding America of statues and symbols of its racist past might seem like a good idea, one might consider keeping those statues and flags displayed to remind people that their inglorious past is really not in the past but is very much present, and that the end of the day, this is America. As the late, great South African singer Miriam Makeba, also known as Mama Africa said, the difference between the Apartheid regime that used to exist in South Africa and the United States in that the South African regime admitted to being a racist apartheid regime. The United States still pretends it is not.