Thread by @meganfrancis

- Ida B Wells: 1892 wrote first lynching expose
- NAACP: 1909 argued 1st civil right was protection of black lives & launched massive campaign

If u are trying to understand blk rage; deconstruct ur romantic version of civil rights & sit w/: #BLM struggle is over a CENTURY long

Blk ppl are mking rationale decisions about what does/nt work in political, legal, & economic systems

These are not new problems & thus we have to imagine a diff world. So instead of arguing what does/nt work: I implore ppl to listen to black activists as they dream a new world

If I'm honest: I'm tired. BECAUSE THIS KEEPS HAPPENING

So if u want to do better: there is much u can do: educate yourself, organize w/ others, give$

And stop asking blk folk on twitter to be your free racial justice instructors. Do the work.

And YET there is so much black genius the last 24hrs... so this is a quick round up of 4 articles I taught in my HKS class on racial violence & a few recent articles I will teach:

these are meant...just to get ppl started...so much more on the internet:

Claudia Rankine on Charlottesville being the amplification of what was...

nytimes.com/2017/09/13/mag…

Read this by @KhalilGMuhammad

"Democracy can expand or contract; include or exclude; protect or destroy. But a democracy of the racially vulnerable and economically insecure is not a democracy worthy of its name."

bostonreview.net/race/khalil-gi…

Always read @ProfCAnderson to understand white rage, civil rights, and democracy.

this article and her award winning book:
washingtonpost.com/opinions/fergu…

Go ahead and read my book about the NAACP's historic campaign against lynching and mob violence in the first quarter of the 20thC to appreciate how long blk folk have been fighting to live

cambridge.org/core/books/civ…

I considered this podcast on Prison Abolition w/ @prisonculture @jduffyrice @ClintSmithIII as required listening in both my Harvard courses this year...incredibly helpful in understanding abolition theappeal.org/justice-in-ame…

Reupping this tweet again bc we need to think much more about the unequal democratic sacrifice asked of black people:

https://twitter.com/meganfrancis/status/1265388762474872835

"What are the alternatives to protest when the state cannot perform its basic tasks..? If you cannot attain justice by engaging the system, then u must seek other means of changing it. Thats not a wish; its a premonition

@KeeangaYamahtta always brings🔥

nytimes.com/2020/05/29/opi…

Part of our limited imagination of blk protest is a result of the way history is written...@elizabhinton provides necessary history context to the uprising in Minneapolis

bostonreview.net/race/elizabeth…

"The deaths of Floyd and Taylor follow a tragic pattern of racist state-sanctioned violence that has shaped U.S. history for centuries." -@KeishaBlain

washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/0…

"Racism is litigated over and over again when another video depicting another atrocity comes to light. Black people share the truth of their lives, and white people treat those truths as intellectual exercises." - @rgay

No one is coming to save us.

nytimes.com/2020/05/30/opi…

That is it for my primer of past and present articles to check out to contextualize the current nightmare.

Next thread: resources to donate $$$

because if you got some...share some!