The staff of Ink Magazine want to make an unambiguous, decisive declaration of support for a free Palestine. As a VCU student publication, we want to show support especially to the student organizers and protestors who have been treated unjustly by university administration, as well as the VCU, Richmond City and Virginia State Police.
Student-led organizations are the backbone of the Free Palestine Movement on campus. Their fierce determination to continue on with their work — despite Gov. Glenn Youngkin and VCU President Michael Rao’s violent reaction to the April encampment — is a testament to their resolve and devotion to the people of Palestine. In particular, Ink Magazine would like to recognize Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), the Palestinian Student Organization and the Progressive Jewish Student Union for their ongoing organizing and community building efforts.
Ink began in 1978 as a Black student newsletter named Reflections in Ink, a collaboration between the Black Student Alliance and the VCU chapter of the League of Black Journalists. Reflections in Ink was a space where Black students could voice their opinions on global issues and speak about their experiences at VCU. The voices of those students and others nationwide who called for divestment from apartheid South Africa parallel our ongoing battle for divestment from Israel. The success of the divestment movement in dismantling South Africa’s apartheid state stands as a beacon of what student protesters can achieve.
We echo SJP’s demands that VCU discloses all institutional expenditure, divests from all companies and partnerships that support or otherwise profit from the colonization and genocide of Palestinian people, defends pro-Palestinian speech and activism on campus and declares their support for a permanent and immediate ceasefire and an end to occupation, colonization and ethnic cleansing in Palestine.
Our mission statement reads as follows: “Ink Magazine is devoted to the goals of diversity and multiculturalism that VCU itself embodies. Our goal is to reach the subcultures, the outsiders and all those who feel unrepresented in print form. We see them and they should too, in the pages of Ink magazine.”
VCU administration intends to silence the voices of students and protestors by use of a new Campus Expression and Space Utilization Policy that restricts when and where students can protest and how they do it. Per the policy, students may no longer:
- Protest or use chalk in the Compass, the “most distinguished and vital” place on campus
- Bring signs larger than 8 ½ by 11 inches to Board of Visitors meetings
- Wear masks/face coverings on campus (or be forced to present identification).
The list goes on. It is our intention in writing this letter to fulfill our mission statement and ensure all those who feel unrepresented are seen and heard.
When we say free Palestine, we say free the Congo, free Sudan, free Lebanon and free all nations who continue to be threatened by colonial and neo-colonial powers, warmongering and capitalistic plundering of land and resources.