Thread by @michaelharriot

Did y'all see those lines yesterday?

For years, I've been arguing that we shouldn't refer to institutional race-based discrimination as "racism" and yesterday was a perfect example of this.

The correct term is "white supremacy."

A thread.

First, you have to understand how America is set up.

The Constitution isn't racist, it's a manual for setting up a white supremacist state. Even the founders who were against slavery believed Black people were inferior humans.

Tanke Thomas Jefferson, for instance:

Even before he wrote that BS about "all men are created equal," he was purchasing human chattel to rape and enslave. He said Africans were "as incapable as children" and called them "savages."

But he wanted to abolish slavery because he loved America.

Also, he was scared AF.

He was scared that slaves were going to rise up and kill their white oppressors. What was his reasons for this belief?

Well, I'll let the authorities at Monticello explain it:

And James Madison, who wrote the Consitution, had the same opinion. He wanted to end slavery and he thought black people should be considered human beinfs. But he owned slaves because...Well... Farming is hard.

He was also scared AF

So, in the Constitution, Madison relented and counted enslaved African as 3/5ths of a person. He didn't do it because he hated Black people. He did it because his goal was to maintain white men's status in this new country.

There's only one term for that.

White supremacy.

What does this have to do with long lines in Georgia?

Hold up, I'mma get to that.

But let's keep going

I keep mentioning slaves but what about free Black Americans?

Well, they could vote at first... Until white men started losing political power.

And it wasn't just the South

Take NY, for instance.

In 1770, there were more enslaved Africans in NY than in Georgia. But the free Black property owners could vote. Then, when the state abolished slavery, what did they do?

First, they just made it HARD to vote.

To vote, a black person had to prove:

But Black people started doing it.

So in 1821, NY changed its Consitution. They didn't just give ALL white men the right to vote. Because NY had so many black people, they STOPPED black people from voting.

Why?

To maintain white supremacy.

They gave other reasons, though:

As you can see, America didn't slowly progress toward granting people equality to black people. They ALWAYS knew we should have them. But, to maintain their system of superiority, they TOOK THEM AWAY.

This ain't racism or some kind of hate, y'all.

This is white supremacy.

And then, after the Civil War, the racist white people in the South slowly recognized our humanity and eventually came around to letting us vote.

The End.

Except that's not how it happened at all.

After the passage of the 13th (emancipation), 14th (citizenship/equal protection under the law) & 15th (the right to vote) amendments Black people actually outvoted white people.

We went to the polls in droves, especially in the more racist states.

Wait, lemme ask a question:

Why do you consider some states more racist than others?

Well, there's an answer to this.

See, I would argue that those perceptions date back to exactly what I'm talking about.

I would argue that the "racist states" are the places where black people lived and outvoted whites.

After the Civil War, white people were scared AF that Black people were gonna take over.

They were right.

Mississippi seated Hiram Rhodes Revels, the first black Senator. Then they elected ANOTHER BLACK SENATOR. The first Black Congressman was SC's Joseph Rainey.

How? Weren't these the racist places?

Well, in post-Civil War Mississippi, Black voter registration was 90% AND there were more black people than whites in SC a Mississippi. In Ga., Fla. La. and Ala. , the black population was over 45 percent.

All that "riots"* you read about during Reconstruction wasn't about hate. It was about power.

The only way for whites to preserve their political and social power was through violence, so they started killing Black voters.

To be fair, they called them "riots" for a reason.

Some of my favorites are The New Orleans Massacre, the Camilla Riot in Ga., the Kirk Holden War in NC. (Not that I like massacres, I just like when white people call Black people "violent.")

But they happened because Black people were voting.

But here's the crazy part:

It didn't work.

Black people continued to vote EVEN WHEN IT MEANT DEATH.

So, when they started running out of bullets, they started changing laws. They put polling taxes and literacy tests in place. They had "whites only" primaries. My favorite was SC's 8-Box Rule.

If you lived in a majority-black district in SC, you couldn't just vote (remember, SC was majority black until around 1940). You had to write your candidate's name on a sheet of paper and put it in 1 of 8 unmarked boxes at the poll.

If you put your vote in the wrong box or if your paper was the wrong size, they threw out your vote.

If you went to Alabama in the '60s or '70s and talked to a Black person, you might think: "Damn! All these negroes sound like constitutional scholars!"

Why

Because, to cast ballots in some Alabama counties, Black voters had to recite the Constitution.

Not the preamble, the WHOLE THING.

THAT'S when Black voter registration declined

And THAT'S how these states became "the racist places."

Again, what does any of this have to do with a long lines yesterday?

Well, white people eventually discovered a secret.

Killing us won't stop us. Beating us have never stopped us from voting. Inconveniencing us never stopped us from voting.

Only one thing works.

I'mma tell you what it is, but first, let me tell you a story.

In the 2018 midterms, millions of votes suddenly vanished.

It only happened in majority-black precincts.

The most knowledgeable experts in America couldn't explain how it happened.

theroot.com/exclusive-thou…

In the SAME ELECTION, voting machines in majority-black counties literally started switching people's votes.

No one has figured it out.

theroot.com/black-voters-i…

In the SAME ELECTION, the state threw out hundreds of thousands of Black voter regristrations.

theroot.com/actually-no-on…

In the SAME ELECTION, someone found a hack in the state's voter information website:

theroot.com/brian-kemp-doe…

In the SAME ELECTION, on election night, @TheRoot reported from a precinct where the voting machines were delivered without any power cords.

In the SAME ELECTION, the Secretary of State who was in charge of all of this won the Governor's seat.

Well, just before that election, Kemp told his supporters that his main concern was mail-in & absentee ballots. He had done all he could. He closed polls in black districts & purged rolls

theroot.com/brian-kemp-cau…

This was his 2nd time saying something like this. Here's the 1st

What's weird about this?

Well, Georgia had some of the oldest machines in the country. So, after the last midterms, they decided to buy new ones.

Now, everyone told them that the most secure machines use hand-marked paper ballots.

Hand marked paper ballots aren't more expensive. They are more reliable in recounts. The ONLY drawback is that there is a a lot of paper involved.

Kemp wouldn't do it though. He bought touchscreens instead, which are notorious for errors and the ability to be hacked

In the primaries, a LOT of errors happened.

But here's the crazy shit.

The NEW MACHINES PRODUCE PAPER

The voter gets a paper "receipt" that they are supposed to check, whose barcode is then scanned into a separate scanner.

But if the barcode is wrong, you're shit outta luck

And then, Georgia's officials take the memory cards from the machines, drive them to a county voting site, and then someone takes ALL THOSE MEMORY CARDS to a ANOTHER secret location warehouse where they count the votes

NOT THE PAPER BALLOTS, The memory cards!

Which brings me to my last point.

Everyone points to his voter purges, his insecure systems and his voting machines. But none of these things cause those long lines.

Here's what did it:

When Brian Kemp was Secretary of State, preparing to run for Governor, he closed 214 polling sites.

Where were they located?

Well... You read it:

So, now, instead of hacking hundreds of memory cards to manipulate Georgia's vote, they can do it easily.

Oh, and that isn't a conspiracy theory because, remember:

SOMEONE HAS ALREADY HACKED GEORGIA'S VOTING SYSTEMS

TWICE!

Well, here's where everything comes full circle.

There is no historical evidence that Black people don't vote. In many Southern States (the racist places) like SC and Mississippi, according to the Census Bureau, black people STILL vote in higher percentages than whites.

In fact, HISTORY teaches us that there is only way to stop black people from voting.

Steal their votes.

Now, I know many of you are saying that there's no evidence that someone will steal black people's votes in the upcoming election.

You are ABSOLUTELY RIGHT. There is no evidence.

Except, the most noted authorities in the world says something weird happened to Black votes in the last election.

Black voters say the machines changed their votes,

Brian Kemp said his party "needs to do something" out of his own mouth.

Election security experts say it is vulnerable.

Statisticians say the state purged Black voters.

Yesterday, you saw with your own eyes that Black people will wait in line for HOURS to vote.

Kemp's shenanigans have nothing to do with hate and EVERYTHING to do with maintaining power.

But, with all this evidence, there's only one reason to believe that Georgia isn't trying to steal this election:

It is called "white supremacy."

And finally, it's not just white people who say that ignorant BS about black people being dumb, scared or too apathetic to vote. There are black people who believe it.

But I will admit, those idiots are right about one thing:

They are definitely NOT like my ancestors.