Posted by | Ray Cornelius
Clutch Magazine is reporting that famed author of The Color Purple, Alice Walker has penned an open letter to Alicia Keys, asking the Grammy-winning singer not to perform her upcoming July 4 concert in Israel. Instead, Walker is requesting that Keys joins the many “global conscious artists” that support the U.S. Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel.
According to Walker, the Israeli government and its businesses are “consciously downplaying the Palestinian conflict by using culture and arts to showcase Israel as a modern and welcoming place.” The Pulitzer Prize-winning author suggests that Keys lend her voice to the children of Gaza and help bring some attention to the current “apartheid” that she compares to the US South 1960’s Civil Rights Movement.
“You were not born when we, your elders who love you, boycotted institutions in the US South to end an American apartheid less lethal than Israel’s against the Palestinian people,” says Walker. “Google Montgomery Bus Boycott, if you don’t know about this civil rights history already. We changed our country fundamentally and the various boycotts of Israeli institutions and products will do the same there.”
Walker calls Keys her “younger sister, beloved daughter and friend” in the letter and warns her that by performing in Israel would put her “soul” in danger.
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