Still shaking my head that people were enraged that I said we make substance abuse an issue in the Democratic primary like there aren't literally thousands of people dying every month from the #opioidcrisis alone.
We can do more than one thing at a time.
Really, we can and must.
If I didn't know better I'd ALMOST think that as soon as MSM caught up with the fact that POC were dying in as large numbers as white people from #opioidcrisis, we stopped prioritizing it.
But since I live in a black neighborhood in a majority black city, I know that the #opioidcrisis hit the black community as hard as the white community but access to care is far less.
🧵Throughout this election cycle I've been so disheartened by the disconnect between actual voters who I report on and the Very Online interpretation--largely through a yt male prism--of what the election is "really" about. Some of us--though not many--warned against Biden or Bernie as 2020 nominee precisely because this moment would arise.
1/
My concern was 2024 would create a crisis of the sort being manufactured now at a time when the GOP was flexing it's power and voter solidarity. Dems consistently run from conflict instead of addressing it, AND don't vote, which is how we have GOP leadership in the House.
2/
The multiplicity of perils facing the country and more microcosmically the Democratic party, must be addressed and NOW--not at the convention, which would be disastrous and ensure a Trump victory. The lessons of 2016 and party schism were never learned, in part due to the disruption of the pandemic.
3/🧵
So let me say this: A few dozen MAGAs in my mentions are telling me I'm a "self loathing white person," so let me clarify for those folks and anyone else that my support for Black women like Jasmine Crockett (who has been very supportive of me during my recent illness and bereavement) is my being an ally. I am blessed to have some fabulous Black women in my life and I support many Black women politicians and Black women activists. My mentor for two decades was a Black woman theorist and writer. I grew up with strong Black women Civil Rights activists staying in our house because my parents were Civil Rights workers. I was in college before I truly understood how unusual that was--that a Black woman activist would be sleeping in my bed and I would be sleeping on the floor in a sleeping bag while she told me stories about her life in Mississippi. I am grateful to have been raised by anti-racist parents and I have tried to carry on that legacy. So no, I am not self loathing. I am proud to stand with Black women (and my many Black male friends as well!). And you thinking I have to hate myself to lift up and support Black women is a you problem that you should work on because racism continues to wreak havoc on this country.
I wrote this piece about a few weeks back about Civil Rights, my parents' activism, my early childhood in the Civil Rights movement and the long ugly history of bathroom discrimination in America and the harn it's done and does. (Gift 🎁 link) epgn.com/2024/03/28/the-
I wrote this tribute to my longtime friend and mentor Audre Lorde 9yrs ago. I can still see us dancing together like it was yesterday, not decades ago. I so wish she were still with us. I love this essay. I hope you will too. (Gift 🎁link.) lambdaliterary.org/2015/02/dancin…
🧵I once filed a column from cardiac ICU when I was 30something and my heart just went haywire when I was out on assignment and started beating in the 200s and I passed out and was taken to hospital via ambulance and they had to shock me several times. It is nothing like on TV.
🧵 It's like having a hot iron (remember those?) dropped from a tall building onto your chest. They never show that on TV. It's pretty terrible. It didn't work, so they had to do a coronary ablation, where they try to re-set your heart's electrical circuitry by threading some wires into it.
🧵I was just thinking that maybe I am being a big baby by not working today due to my having surgery yesterday ("you can work from bed") and then I thought about when I did that column (I was at the Daily News then) and the nurse coming in and yelling at me because the alarm went off on my machine because I was stressing.
OMG. This @ABC special #OnTheBrink with Diane Sawyer and @rachelvscott is absolutely gutting and should make everyone enraged that women are being subjected to this.
Termination committees are being convened to determine whether women deserve an emergency medical abortion. Insanity.
One woman was sent home with bleeding and fever and pain because she wasn't sick enough to be treated. She ended up hemorrhaging into the toilet and is rushed to the hospital, she is put on life support.
#OnTheBrink
Hollywood podcaster "reporting" on Hamas and the IDF from L.A. while real journalists like myself are covering the actual conflict. Yet folks like his narrative more--even as they blame "the media" for real reporting: They don't like what we tell them and how awful it is.
In reality IDF has razed northern Gaza and Netanyahu told hostage families his priority is attacking Gaza, not rescuing the 160 hostages still held. Thousands are demanding Netanyahu's resignation.
Pay more attention to people like @AlonLeeGreen, actually in Israel and doing real work.
Now I am flat out sobbing. Vivian Silver was such a remarkable person. So dedicated to making the world better. Oct 4th she was leading a peace march--she founded Women Wage Peace. Oct. 7 she was abducted by Hamas from a closet where she was hiding.
Vivian Silver worked constantly with/for people in Gaza. She drove Gazans to Israeli hospitals. She fought for wage increases. She was dedicated to a two state solution and put herself out there every day. She embodied tikkun olam.
May her memory be a blessing and a revolution.