May 16, 2025

The Thinker

by Sima Shakhsari

Forwarding a praxis of radical antifascist activist-scholarship, activist and University of Minnesota-Twin Cities scholar Sima Shakhsari follows the example set by Angela Davis, Kimberlé Crenshaw, and bell hooks in interrogating the academic detachment pervading their milieu.

—Nour Eldin H., assistant editor

We are flesh measured in kilograms,
my Palestinian colleague says in desperation
But you are a thinker not a doer 
So you do nothing

—Sima Shakhsari

The Thinker

On the other side of this screen 
heads line up in squares
a collage of talking heads

You sit posed
surrounded by books curated on a shelf 
academic rigor de rigueur 
gravitas a self-respecting scholar must display

Your head heavy with thoughts
ponderous air of self-importance
So heavy
its weight 
demands support
hand under chin
eyebrows pulled together 
a pensive gesture
a serious scholar
comrade, compatriot, colleague
Full of contempt
driven by competition 
No chance of a haptic connection here
No chance of commune across this disembodied screen

I am a thinker, not a doer, you say 
I am a theorist, not an activist, you insist
body split from mind 
Theory above praxis
The rational academic
Cold and collected
Never vulnerable
Never weak

Keep your pose, dear colleague
Do not shed a tear
Do not burst in anger, even in the face of genocide
You think therefore you are
The Man with capital M
Or perhaps a derivative 
Mimicry at its worst
The Brown academic’s burden: 
To Think and not to do
To Think and not to feel
To strive to climb the ladder of Man
Alienated
Colonized mind split from Brown body
You are a thinker, not a doer
You have a lot to prove 
You tell yourself that
your brown body on the streets
protesting, shouting, angry
your brown body, a doer
cannot possibly be a thinker
They told you so
so you choose to think. You choose not to do

* * *

On the other side of the screen
a father holds his child’s headless body 
no talking heads here
Literal forced separation of decapitated body and mind
A boy in shock holds his little brother’s corpse in his arms
Bodies without organs 
Dead without shrouds
A little girl tells her cat
I beg you not to eat us when we die
please . . . if you stay alive after we die, 
don’t eat us, our scattered flesh.
Our Ashlaa
What to make of the human/animal split? 
of human/animals
of hungry animals eating human flesh in the rubble
What to make of the Human?
of rights?

A father carries two plastic bags, one in each hand
 أيها الناس
هَذِهِ هِيَ أَوْلَادِي
People! These are my children 
Flesh dumped in bags
Enough to match the weight of a human child
after starvation
Organs without bodies

We are not even numbers
We are flesh measured in kilograms,
my Palestinian colleague says in desperation
But you are a thinker not a doer 
So you do nothing

A 20-year-old man burns alive 
with an IV tube still attached to his body 
Shabaan’s screams fade
in the loud roar of fire collapsing the hospital tent
Ya allah Ya allah Ya rab Ya allah 
Silence
Smell of burned flesh permeates the cold computer screen
Ya allah Ya allah Ya allah
But you are a thinker not a doer

Dear colleague,
Hearts are aching
bodies restless
Mind the body
Maybe you can feel the rage
Maybe you can feel the grief
Embody your theory
Write in flesh
Maybe you can shut down your screen
Maybe 
Just maybe we can shut it down
Step out
Join hurting bodies on the street
soulful, thinking, hurting bodies 
Ya allah Ya rab Ya allah
Yallah, be a doer and a thinker
SHUT. IT. DOWN.

Sima Shakhsari is a professor at the University of Minnesota and a member of the UMN Educators for Justice in Palestine.