If we do not defend each other, the wrong people benefit. If you see sexism, stop it. If you see racism, do something. If you see xenophobia, act. We cannot allow ourselves to be swayed into bad faith to the point we ourselves are co-opted into doing the work of our enemies.

It's wrong felons are used to prop up state economies or extinguish our fires w/o pay, or packs of vultures descending upon their commissaries & phone calls w/ loved ones to monetize imprisonment, grist for money & political convenience, & through fear & hatred, we've allowed it.

I don't know how it'd be possible to bang on & on (as I do) about gerrymandering, political violence, misinformation, low pay, dark money, voter intimidation & SO much more, yet conclude the singular reason citizens suffer authoritarianism is they don't go to the polls enough.

It's an incredibly shallow worldview that correctly identifies systemic problems but takes its frustration about the complications those problems implicate out on an individualized group that can be conceptualized as uniquely or even primarily responsible.

Part of the problem here is white people assume our inferiority, so naturally believe no convo about Black identity could be complex enough to elude them, which they're wrong about as they boldly, blindly amble where it should be fairly obvious (to them) they've little expertise.

I don't know a lot about race just because I'm Black—I know a lot about race because I went to college & studied it. It's a discipline. A thing you can learn. It requires thought & work. You don't get it tattooed at the nursery. I didn't get a HiveMind download of BlackScript®.

Your thoughts are not controversial — they're infused with prejudice precisely bc they're unqualified. You don't have the capacity you need to follow the convo. Considering white U.S. culture is often more distant, they take unity in the face of struggle to mean we're identical.

If you think it's wrong or gauche to place race and culture on an equivalent level of the complexity of molecular biology or quantum physics, you have a LOT to learn about the social world and its nuances and complications before you opine on anything.

The hubris is off the charts—you don't know, you *know* you don't, & nevertheless, you persist cuz you assume your word or opinion means something even if you've literally zero idea what you're talking about, instead of paying any attention to people who DO. You'll just wing it.

Bc even if we don't win, I consider that trans kid we helped have a larger range of free options than those offered to us a good thing. I think you should save that orca & forest. I think you should vote, protest, *&* b*tch like hell against the powerful ... & more. 😘 We must.

The energy it took (and takes) to survive the way Black Americans do could power an atomic bomb, & currently sustains everything from prisons to campaigns you can't win without us. That dependence only demonstrates the hollowness of the proclaimed grandeur of the elite.

The world has gotten chaotic enough that people have given up thinking. About the pandemic, the war, the midterms, race, gender — I don't want to think. I find trans people confusing, voting complicated, & climate change unstoppable. "I am tired of the constraints of empathy."

Think of marginalized students going to school on stolen land in buildings named after slaveowners who are too busy experiencing that oppression, many times receiving it from the very people they gained that knowledge from, having to both learn it *and* learn around their biases.

This is the crux of oppression — we're not talking about this because "Oh the poor Black & trans people" — but because of the debilitating nature of oppression & how our enlightenment constitutes direct defiance of a system whose abuses did everything it could to keep us from it.

I know you can. What you can't plausibly claim is debility by past indoctrination while actively rejecting the light of the present. Because that represents knowledge. That represents a choice. And you can either keep the wheel of suffering spinning ... or smash it like we did.

🎶Y'all gon' make me lose my mind, up in here, up in here, y'all gon' make me TAP THE SIGN, up in here, up in here!!🎶 x.com/Ame0baRepublic…

They extract because it's all they know how to do, as the children who weren't raised in the fabulous riches of this ill-gotten wealth typically don't grow up to be fans of it. Go figure. Is that magic? No. I heard Lift Every Voice & Sing when I was 5. x.com/Ame0baRepublic…

They're not interested in that kinda education, though they plead, because it makes it harder to justify an *ongoing* extraction. And they need to justify it because they need to do it & to do it they need people to do it & they need people to suffer it. x.com/Ame0baRepublic…

"Well, what's your plan?!" I will play your game. Here's my plan: — Get rid of the filibuster — Impeach Thomas — Pressure Manchin & Sinema w/n an inch of their lives — Repeal the Second Amendment — Reduce cop spending — Reduce military spending — Clean the water — Raise taxes