In 1985 The famed singer and political activist Harry Belafonte gave birth to the initiative “USA for Africa” and pulled together some of the most prominent singers of that time to focus on famine in Ethiopia and Sudan. Belafonte was inspired to create a US response to the famine having been inspired by the British/Irish initiative “Band Aid” and their relief song, “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie wrote the song, “We Are the World,” and it was produced by Quincy Jones. The song soared, becoming quadruple platinum. It raised from promotions and merchandise more than $80 million for humanitarian and aid efforts in Africa. The country was listening to, humming, and watching their favorite artist in videos singing “We Are the World” as cargo planes laden with relief supplies took off for Sudan and Ethiopia to feed starving children. “We Are the World” sought to get people in touch with the fact that Black children in Africa were just as important as white children in Appalachia or in other parts of America. Starving African children were also the face of God just like any other child and life, and any heart that was cold enough to turn away when confronted with the images of starvation was a heart that was too stone-cold to beat and the person dead. That was 1985. It took this kind of popularization to stir the public to see with empathy the victims of starvation and famine, and for the world to see, hear, and be moved with compassion and try and do something to alleviate the suffering in Africa.

There have been numerous famines since 1985. Famine is generally the result of war, population displacement, climate change, drought, and poverty. All of these together make for a lethal combination. This lethal combination is apparent in Gaza right now. A war has raged unabated since October 2023, with Israel extracting genocidal collective punishment on the Palestinian population and seeking to make Gaza uninhabitable so as to effect forced removal. More than 60,000 people are dead (a conservative estimate), and the majority are women, children, and civilians. Israel has asserted that there is no famine in Gaza and that starvation in Gaza is nonexistent. But the truth is that Israel has blocked any meaningful relief efforts, and at numerous relief centers, Palestinians have come under fire and have been killed while seeking food. The Associated Press has reported that since May 2025, over 1,000 aid seekers in Gaza have been killed by Israeli fire. Israel’s justification for blocking aid has been its assertion that Hamas is stealing and selling the food. There has been no credible independent source who has corroborated Israel’s claims. Israel’s attempt to deceive the public with claims of its own largesse while deliberately starving the population demonstrates by all measure how morally bankrupt this current government in Israel is. It seems to really believe, as the saying goes, “You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time,” but as eyes open and we see starving babies with skin pulled tightly and thinly over small, frail skeletons with flies sensing the imminent – “you cannot fool all of the people all the time.“There is a famine in Gaza, and the world sees that a little beige-brown child starving to death is the face of God, and the Israel that claims that starvation is not real and famine does not exist while being the deliberate and direct cause of that deprivation is the personification of Evil! Yes, as television cameras roll, and the news tell the story of deaths, and the innocence of a child is frozen for a moment in the picture frame of a news cycle, it communicates clearly and loudly “we are the world.” The child in Gaza is our world. 

Where are the performers, the artists, rappers, wordsmiths, and cultural influencers to raise the urgency of the starvation in Gaza and to remind us that “we are the world” and that we are related to a hungry, starving child in Gaza as we are related to our own children? We need to see a collective emerge of artists, poets, and influencers of all sorts that will inspire us towards feeding the children in Gaza, but also demanding the war to end, the genocide to cease, and to stop the occupation. “We are the world”, they sang in 1985 over famine and war in Africa. Let us find the words right now and in this moment to sing, demand, and challenge the US and the world when it comes to Gaza to show “that someone cares…And their lives will be stronger and free…As God has shown us by turning stone to bread…And so we all must lend a helping hand.” We are the world, so let us feed the children of Gaza and free Palestine!

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