Macklemore pays the price for killing the joy of ignorance on Palestine

Rapper Macklemore getting a stadium full of Americans chanting "Free, Free Palestine" quickly circled the globe, shaking the foundations of Zionist power in the U.S., writes Yuki Lindley.

MACKLEMORE STOOD ON STAGE in front of 90,000 Americans, opening for his friend Ed Sheeran’s U.S. tour, and used the spotlight to speak honestly about America’s ongoing complicity in the live-streamed genocide of the Palestinians.

Images of Macklemore getting a stadium full of Americans chanting "Free, Free Palestine" quickly circled the globe, shaking the foundations of Zionist power in the U.S.

First, Pink came out with a statement, explaining how the liberation of Palestinians made her feel afraid, conflating calls for a free Palestinian state with antisemitism.

Pink explains her feelings in a 1300-word statement posted on Instagram (Screenshot)

Then longtime friend Ed Sheeran called him to let him know he was dropped from the tour.

Robert Kraft, who owned Gillette Stadium, had told him that Macklemore could not perform in his stadium.

As Macklemore himself said, Ed was put 'in a fucked up position’.

But when Ed told him that the words "Free Palestine" and waving a flag were hurtful to many around him, Macklemore responded that:

‘If those words are more offensive than tens of thousands of Palestindian children being killed by Israel, then there was a fundamental disconnect between where those people stood and where I stood.'

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Ed Sheeran couldn’t get past his public-facing, "I don’t take sides" position, but refusing to take sides is never neutral.

Sheeran is a man of incredible wealth; he’s not a starving artist a few gigs away from not paying his rent, and he was handed a moment in history to use his platform to speak about the harm that was being done to women, children and men.

Yes, he would have been punished; yes, he would have made some powerful people around him uncomfortable, but an act of courage is what is needed from us all, and none more so than those whose wealth and privilege offer them more protection than most.

Macklemore offered us all a new vision of what masculinity can look like, what it looks like to show courage and step into discomfort to speak up for those not in the room.

Ed Sheeran shows us what too many men do when faced with violence that does not impact them directly.

He is the guy who looks uncomfortable and laughs off a friend’s joke about a female colleague, the guy who changes the topic when men say the kinds of things men say only in the company of other men, the kind of men who like to think of themselves as one of the good guys, but are unwilling to take a hit, sacrifice a little comfort and speak up about things they know are wrong.

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Sarah Ahmed encourages us all to become "feminist killjoys", a term long used to disparage those men and women who will stop the conversation, kill the "joy" in the room by asking pointed questions, "What did you mean by that, Brad?"

And that’s exactly what Macklemore did; he stepped into a stadium full of "apolitical" Ed Sheeran fans and made it uncomfortable.

He sucked the joy of ignorance out of the room by naming the harm, the harm we are all being made complicit in, and he was punished.

But rather than making it about himself and claiming victimhood as Pink earlier did, he reminded us that he was not the victim, Pink was not the victim, Ed Sheeran was not the victim; they all get to go home, their children are safe, no, it’s the Palestinians who are the victims, the 20,000 children killed by U.S./Israel’s bombs that are the victims, today, tomorrow and until Palestine is free.

There is a phrase in Arabic, "la shukra ala wajib", which translates as "there is no thanks for a duty".

This ethos of obligation – this decentering of the self and centring of community that lies at the heart of so many non-Western societies – is what is most needed as the world is being ripped apart by the powerful.

To take a position was never optional; we are all taking positions whether we know it or not.

Remaining ignorant is a position, remaining silent is a position, and to lean into discomfort is perhaps the most difficult position of all — to break the silence and kill the joy that allows harm to continue.