Hair Toss for a Cause: Professor Suri's Benefit Concert
In March 2025, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) illegally arrested and detained Dr. Badar Khan Suri, a member of the Georgetown Faculty and community, for three months. Dr. Suri, a postdoctoral scholar and peace researcher from India, outspokenly supports Palestinian rights. His advocacy, though, angered the Trump administration, and, in an unjustified act of revenge, it attempted to silence him. The Georgetown community and members of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) detested the detention and began filing emergency petitions, fighting venue shifts, organizing protests, and defending bail.
On Saturday, Sept. 12, I listened to Dr. Suri speak at a benefit concert hosted in his honor at the Pearl Street Warehouse. The event aimed to raise money to help pay the legal fees owed to his stellar attorneys at the ACLU. You may be wondering: why choose a punk concert to benefit a detained peace researcher? Alternative punk music has its roots in rejecting “the man” and “the establishment.” This genre empowers listeners and encourages them to stand up and stand out. Our community rallied together to support Dr. Suri at the punk-alt-indie concert; like-minded people gathered to listen to some hair-flippingly good music and grooved in the name of helping a great man. Who knew advocacy could be so fun?
After listening to Dr. Suri speak between the sets of local punk bands Fetcher and Someone's Daughter, I understood why so many have rallied behind him. Dr. Suri is a father, teacher, and husband, and he’s an activist because of these identities—not in spite of them. He is lovable and kind, his caring spirit evidenced by the sheer number of people who gathered together to listen to original songs in some random bar venue at The Wharf.
In Dr. Suri’s speech, he explained that he's not thinking about those two or three months of detention last year, but rather “the ordeal he is kind of living right now.” Suri confessed, “This was sort of a bad dream,” but offered the concertgoers hope. " It doesn’t shape our life; it just makes us a bit aware; that’s it.” The bands channeled Suri’s optimism and charisma as they played. Organizers who spoke heard his passion, especially when Dr. Suri’s kids performed a little song called “Grown Ups on Bottom, Kids on Top.” I’m a sucker for both live performances and talented public speakers, and I got chills when the crowd erupted for Dr. Suri on stage. The joy and love in the room were palpable, and the raging music was worthy of a mosh pit.
Not only did a crowd come out to support Dr. Suri, but all the bands performed for free. Fetcher, compelled by the trust and confidence radiating from the packed venue, played their newest single, “Same Ol’ Story,” for a live audience for the first time. Moshing like no one was watching, the array of people in black studded attire, colored hair, ripped tights, and black eyeliner toward the front of the stage were seemingly experiencing ecstasy (and maybe they were on it, too.) As I glanced at one of my friends who accompanied me to the concert, she screamed over the speakers, “I’ve never been to anything like this before; I love it!” The unique crowd of Georgetown students and the band's supporters doused the venue in encouragement and reflected Dr. Suri’s message. On stage, he proclaimed, “I love all of you.” I felt it through the blasting speakers and the blinding strobe lights.
After their set, the lead singer of Fetcher thanked the crowd and encouraged everyone to stream their songs on Spotify. Naturally, I dashed to their page. In their bio, they define their sound as a “a funky soup of everything we grew up listening to and have found along the way.” Approaching the frontman, Louey Peraza, I thanked him for performing for such a critical cause. “Thank you for showing up,” he replied.
The spectacle I witnessed at Pearl Street Warehouse proved there is strength in numbers. By simply showing up, we can demonstrate to the Trump administration that we are here to fight for a wonderful, strong man who deserves to be both at our university and in our country. We, too, must refuse to allow violent injustices, like wrongful detention, to be swept under the rug. After attending the first meeting of Georgetown’s ACLU chapter, the board members’ message about “court watching” struck me. They claimed that judges are more likely to give an empathetic verdict in the immigration circuit court system if the community fills the hearing room. Filling a room, whether it be for a concert or a hearing, emphasizes the importance of showing up in solidarity. Another campus advocacy group, Hoyas for Immigrant Rights, urged concertgoers to attend Dr. Suri’s hearing on Tuesday, Sept. 15. As Jonathan Mendoza (GRD ’25), a graduate student and advocate for Dr. Suri, explained to me, we have to “play the system to get the future that we want right now.”
Throughout the concert, I couldn’t stop smiling. I was overcome by positivity and hope for the future, and even though hardcore punk isn’t usually on my radar, I felt deep respect for everyone who showed up and for the musicians who played their hearts out. Between the headbanging and hair flips, I witnessed an unbreakable community of people rallying together to support Dr. Badar Khan Suri, and to support justice.
Olivia Dittmar is a Freshman in the SFS studying Culture and Politics. She has never been in a mosh pit.
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