You could say I’m a fan of Radiohead. You could say I’ve spent more than half of my life listening to them, own all of their albums, tattooed myself with lyrics from Karma Police before I was even 20 years old, have seen them in concert on multiple occasions and in multiple countries, each experience rapturous. Yes, you could say I am invested.

And yet, today I sit here disillusioned by this group of five men from Oxfordshire, who are nowadays looking much less like keen-eyed and sharp-tongued auteurs and more like lolling middle-aged rock stars (Jonny Greenwood basically said as much while promoting his artisanal olive oil brand — the very existence of which says all you need to know). Nowhere has this shift  felt more apparent than the band’s “can’t we all just get along” stance on Palestine. 

This isn’t new territory for Radiohead, admittedly. Ahead of a 2017 Radiohead concert in Tel Aviv, Roger Waters publically encouraged Radiohead to cancel the concert in support of the BDS movement. This came after repeated attempts at private discussion. Many Radiohead fans expressed support for Waters’ perspective. Thom Yorke responded in a lengthy statement that lambasted Waters and BDS — saying that their “black and white” way of thinking was unproductive, and demands paternalistic at best. The concert went on as planned. 

Now, in light of the daily starvation, murder, and ethnic cleansing happening in Gaza, fans have renewed their requests to the band to stand up for Palestine. I am among them. I admit, my desire to have Radiohead speak on the issue is rooted in equal parts altruism and selfishness. I believe that we all have a moral calling to amplify the cries of Palestinians to the best of our ability. I also hope that artists who have been so important to me are brave enough to agree.

Last week, Thom Yorke — who, by the way, has released four albums and toured extensively in the last two years — finally released a statement via his Instagram. I admit I was optimistic as I began reading Yorke’s perspective on, as he put it, “the unfolding humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza.” My hopes quickly fell. 

What could have been a long-awaited opportunity to correct the record and join the chorus of voices in support of the oppressed was, instead, a pale lamentation on celebrity coupled with half-baked centrist politics. Yorke expressed surprise that his “supposed silence was somehow being taken as complicity” and that the “social media witch-hunts” have taken a “heavy toll on [his] mental health.” I can’t say for sure, but I imagine the mental health toll of watching your entire family burn alive is likely worse. 

Yorke pressed on: “[T]he unquestioning Free Palestine refrain that surrounds us all does not answer the simple question of why the hostages have still not all been returned?” Ignoring the fact that this sentence structure resembles a college freshman’s attempt to appear erudite, Yorke’s derision of pro-Palestinian activists as unthinking horde cut to my core; cut through 15 years of admiration, late nights driving home alone, taking the long way so I could sing along to In Rainbows, posters taped above bedframes, and songs carefully selected for mix tapes. 

The man I have so long felt a connection with has turned out to be a paper-thin bourgeois faux-intellectual fence-straddler. His words are the words of those who wish to be perceived as progressive, while maintaining their access to comfort and power. 

Yorke’s statement concluded with finger-pointing at Netenyahu and Hamas, as opposed to a century-old colonial settler project, and platitudes about how much is meant to transcend borders and other self-serving bullshit. Maybe the fault was mine to begin with. What was I thinking, idolizing a 56-year-old British man? It was a project doomed to fail from the start. Either way, I am left wondering where to go from here. 

Maybe I shouldn’t wonder too hard. Centering myself and my feelings makes me no better than the man who I have allowed to let me down for the last time.