Thread by @baratunde

Thread. Here's 3 minutes of me on @11thhour with @Bwilliams last night talking about Black people consistently showing up for America and demanding Republicans do the same. Now is the time. Keep reading thread if you prefer text version of the words

The transcript of my remarks in this video:

Black people have been in this country since the start of this county and you don't get to be more American than being owned by America. So we have some special rights of memory, of belonging to this place.

And I am in awe of the people that I am privileged to be a part of and how we consistently show up for a place that consistently tries to remind us we're not welcome.

And it sometimes feels like we're dragging America kicking and screaming toward its own creed, toward its own beautiful words and beautiful documents...

none more personified than this week, with everything you just said about the electoral results, especially in Georgia, especially given who Rev. Warnock is, who is ancestors were.

And for that same very same week to have a Confederate flag waved inside the US Capitol. So many died, so many bled to silence that rebellion and that flag and that undermining and we still live in the shadows of that Civil War...

with disproportionate voting and access to political power granted to people who lost that war, with false participation trophies of Confederate memorials propped up for traitorous losers to that Civil War.

All this in one week 'cause America is nothing if not a place of contradictions. Ugly, yes, and also beautiful.

And so to my fellow Black Americans, you're beautiful, thank you. We can still keep showing up and we need the rest to show up too. And that includes the Republicans who remain. Stand for the country. Opt back in. Join us, cause we've been fightin' this a long time. Get on board.

END THREAD.

BEGIN ACTING LIKE YOU BELIEVE IN DEMOCRACY.