There was a time when I didn’t want to write #HowToBeAnAntiracist. There was a time when I feared revealing my shame, and challenging prevailing racial thought. There was a time when I was not sure whether I’d be able to finish #HowToBeAnAntiracist. 1/
And so, finishing the book was a gift, working with the book guru Chris Jackson to build it and tune it up just right was a gift, working with the whole crew at One World and Random House (especially Maria and Stacey and Ayelet and Cecil and Nicole) was a gift, 2/
sharing the book with the world on my birthday was a gift, seeing it debut at No. 2 on the New York Times Best Seller list was a gift, every person who read and recommended the book was a gift, 3/
every person who came to a book talk was a gift, every person who helped organize a book event was a gift, every smile and selfie and story and embrace in signing lines was a gift, 4/
every form of constructive feedback was a gift, when a National Book Award-winning and Pulitzer Prize-winning author described the book as the “the most courageous book to date on the problem of race in the Western mind” in the New York Times it was a gift, 5/
every interview with a reporter or thought leader was a gift, every conversation about the book with every person was a gift, when a quote from the book made up a cover of the Washington Post Magazine it was a gift, 6/
when I was listed at No. 15 on the The Root 100 between LeBron and Serena it was a gift, every bookstore that put up “Be Antiracist” posters in their windows was a gift, 7/
witnessing individuals and institutions accept the challenge of #HowToBeAnAntiracist was a gift, every Best Book of 2019 list it made was a gift. 8/
As we turn to stare the struggle for 2020 in the face, I wanted to look back at 2019 and express my eternal gratitude for all these gifts, for all the gifts to come regarding #HowToBeAnAntiracist. I wanted to express my eternal gratitude to you.
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If the SCOTUS refuses to disqualify Donald Trump from running for POTUS after leading an insurrection on January 6, 2021, then it will be the latest indication that the Confederates lost the military battles but won the legal war. 1/4
The 14th Amendment, adopted in 1868, disqualifies from holding office former government officials who engaged in an insurrection against the U.S. 2/4
But as a neo-Confederate declared around that time during the war against Reconstruction, the 14th and 15th Amendments “may stand forever; but we intend. . .to make them dead letters.” 3/4
The 13th Amendment allowed slavery to continue "as a punishment for crime." #OTD in 1913, prison officers forced 12 Black men into a tiny cell for not picking cotton fast enough on a state-run prison plantation in Richmond, Texas. Eight died because they couldn't breathe. A 🧵1/
Since the 13th Amendment allowed slavery “whereof the party shall have been duly convicted,” prison farms became the new plantations to violently exploit Black labor. In 1910, almost 100% of the population on these Texas plantations were Black when 17.7% of Texans were Black. 2/
Prison plantations were a lucrative state-owned and operated business. By 1910, the majority of profits generated by the Texas prison system were from these plantations. However, they came under fire from reformers who found higher levels of abuse compared to other prisons. 3/
The racist violence of the past is ever present in the racial makeup of numerous towns across the US. On this day in 1903, after failing to lynch a Black man, a racist White mob forced the Black residents to flee Whitesboro, Texas. Today this town is less than 1% Black. A 🧵 1/
The history of many US towns is the history of the violent expulsion of Native peoples and later Black residents. Whitesboro is named after Ambrose White who fought in the Black Hawk War in 1832, when Sauk, Fox, and Kickapoo people crossed into Illinois to reclaim their land. 2/
Between 1882 and 1942, around 700 people were lynched in Texas. In 1901, someone accused Abe Wilder of assaulting a White woman in Whitesboro. Racist White terrorists kidnapped Wilber. Then, a racist mob of 1,500 White people watched Wilder be tortured and set on fire. 3/
The litigants, who have falsely framed #affirmativeaction as anti-Asian before the Supreme Court, have been silent about—or supportive of—a real anti-Asian threat in the United States: laws prohibiting Asian nationals from owning U.S. land. 1/
Nearly half of U.S. states—24 to be exact—have passed or proposed bills that would bar people of several nationalities, particularly Chinese people, from purchasing land. Some laws apply only to land near certain military installations; others ban purchases outright. 2/
The DOJ recently blocked Florida's SB-264, which would've gone into effect on July 1. The bill would restrict nationals from several "foreign countries of concern" from purchasing land. But the harshest restrictions were placed on Chinese nationals. 3/
#OTD in 1898, the US launched its invasion of Puerto Rico as part of the Spanish-American War. Ostensibly begun to help the Puerto Rican people throw off Spanish colonialism, the United States replaced Spain as colonizers. Puerto Rico remains a U.S. colony 125 years later. A 🧵1/
The Spanish-American War was an outgrowth of Cuba's war of independence against Spanish rule. U.S. economic interests, as well as "yellow journalism" that inflamed public sentiment toward Spain's wartime conduct, compelled the US to declare war on Spain on April 25, 1898. 2/
Even before the war, U.S. imperialists had their eyes set on Puerto Rico. As US Secretary of State James Blaine wrote in 1891, "There are only three places that are of value enough to be taken, that are not continental. One is Hawaii and the others are Cuba and Porto Rico.” 3/
Enslavers and their historians argued for decades that enslaved Black people benefited from American slavery, were civilized by American enslavers, were better off than peasants in Europe and Africa. All to defend slavery from abolitionists.
In the early U.S., British abolitionists pointed out the hypocrisy of Americans declaring their nation the land of the free while enslaving people. This theory of slavery as (partially or totally) good for Black people dates back to a defense of the U.S. from these critiques. 2/
Philadelphia Federalist Robert Walsh published AN APPEAL FROM THE JUDGMENTS OF GREAT BRITAIN RESPECTING THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA in 1819. “Your work will furnish the 1st volume of every future American history,” Thomas Jefferson accurately predicted in his positive review. 3/