Days after a violent police raid at Columbia University, movie stars and New York socialites lined up in outfits that would have been ridiculous at any time, let alone in the middle of a U.S.-sponsored genocide. In a particular fit of celebrity, Camila Cabello wore an ice purse worth $22,000, which melted before the event was over. This, then, was the Met Gala of 2024: gold, lit by white phosphorous.
This year’s theme was “Sleeping Beauty: Reawakening Fashion.” It featured dresses too delicate to be worn and a walk through the history of fashion, while ignoring the historical moment occurring in the real world. One block from the Gala protestors chanted, “Gaza! Gaza!” and waved Palestinian flags. These students, protesting their universities’ role in funding the genocidal zionist project, spilled into the streets, demanding from these celebrities their voice alongside the rallying cry of those demanding an end to the genocide. Police arrested twenty-seven of them, but you can still hear those voices on the media footage of the event, chants breaking through the metal barricades set up on the street to reach the ears of the wealthiest and most influential fashion party in the U.S..
The dress code was supposedly the “Garden of Time,” a J.G. Ballard story about a wealthy couple who are on the verge of being attacked by an angry mob, forestalled by their magic garden, whose flowers stop time when picked. They rely on plucking roses to turn back time, but roses and time are both running out. The garden withers; time comes for the couple, turning them to stone and their palace to dust. With the police barricading the surrounding streets and their silence on a genocide, these celebrities are acting out the Ballard story on the grand scale; the spectacle is meant to buy time for a system doomed to die at the hands of a mob.
As boozy celebs pranced about in Manhattan, the zionist occupation rained hell on Rafah, answering the protests with an ear-splitting run of explosions. Joe Biden, never one to restrain his imperialist dog in the Middle East, immediately folded on his so-called “red line.” The insulting opulence of the Met Gala was set against a backdrop of unceasing violence. At an event two days later, billionaire Kim Kardashian overheard, “Free Palestine” and replied, “Free everybody!” This sanctimonious neutrality, this “All lives matter” equivalent to an ongoing genocide, demands our criticism; the genocide in Gaza is as plain as day, and we do not accept that the best anyone with a platform can do is half-baked platitudes. We need to put the pressure on.
In another sense, though, all residents under the umbrella of the U.S.-Canadian Empire are in the Garden of Time, picking the flowers. This system will not last forever. The exploited nations are throwing off their shackles. The Met Gala itself relies on the fickleness of fast fashion, providing a respectable veneer for the destructive waste of the fashion industry. Fashion brands use the Gala for promotion, while profiting heavily from the destruction of the environment and exploited labor of the Global South. One would think, given the Gala’s theme, that these designers would pay mind to the environment they share with us, but we instead saw designs meant to be thrown away. This is an empire that uses things up and spits them out. The clothing goes into a landfill, the factory that made the clothing dumps its pollution into the water, and the human beings who made work under obscene conditions are then cast aside.
The crimes of fast fashion are the crimes of the U.S. Empire. It’s not just poor taste that inspires celebrities to carry ice purses, nor is it simply bad moral judgment that they ignore the cries of the protestors. They need the imperial system to continue to keep hold on their obscene wealth. The glitterati will always stand against the people; their wealth comes from the imperial ruling class.
But our struggles are the Palestinian struggles; the world’s struggles. U.S. police “innovation” is tested on Palestinians in occupied territory before it comes home. Capitalists — and zionists — run slave mines in Africa, and their political interference in Latin America creates hundreds of thousands of refugees. The climate deteriorates further under the capitalist system, and they offer no solutions. The walls of the garden of time are cracking. The empire is crumbling. The ruling class is losing control.
On the question of Palestine, the tide has turned. The working people of the world, particularly the young, see the zionist entity for what it is: a genocidal state with the full backing of the US. The U.S. celebrity network celebrates in lavish outfits while our government funds and backs a genocide, but you wouldn’t know it with the coverage of the event. The media is merely the hand that washes away the blood of empire. Our government buys missiles and sends them to kill tens of thousands of Palestinian children trapped in Gaza where they cannot run; every new “safe” space becomes a bombing target. Zionist forces maim and kill civilians without hesitation. U.S. military technology is key to Israel’s entire war effort. Yet our political caste refuses to reign the zionist state in, because our outpost in the Middle East is too valuable and our empire too rigid for even genocide to make Joe Biden constrain the zionist monster.
We are living on borrowed time; the capitalist system cannot fix our climate, and the world cannot bear the weight of American consumption much longer. Our flowers are running out. Americans need to stand with the protestors and make our voices heard. We cannot afford to turn away, to retreat further into senescence and decrepitude. We must reject the genocide in Gaza along with the system that requires it. Reject the silence of celebrity and hold the American ruling class to account; put their feet to the fire and secure our own liberation. It is this that will make a truly international revolution. The Black struggle, the Indigenous struggle, and the Palestinian struggle are all struggles for national liberation. The broader class struggle — our struggle — depends on their unconditional victories. The same imperial system conducting this genocide brings its murderous lessons home to use against us. We need to struggle together, or we will die together. We who live in the heart of the empire have the choice; we did not choose this empire, but we can choose its destruction. We have the tools to remake the world. Reject our genocidal ruling class. Stand with Palestine. Stand with liberation. Stand with life. Free Palestine!
