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Ida Bae Wells Profile picture
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22 Sep, 5 tweets, 3 min read
In a nation claiming a right to free speech as a fundamental aspect of its law/identity, the power of the state is being used to ban books & works -- including the 1619 Project. We are in dangerous times. As historian Tim Snyder says: We all must pick an institution & defend it.
Join @OneWorldLit and a host of writers and thinkers as we fight back against these attacks on free speech and the open exchange of ideas. There is a difference between private institutions implementing trainings and discussions and government passing laws against speech.
This should not be a partisan issue. You cannot have a functioning, healthy democracy if lawmakers are passing memory laws and seeking to stop the exchange of ideas they do not like. We all have a stake in this. nytimes.com/2021/06/29/mag…
The forces that are getting these laws passed are well organized and they are successfully controlling the public narrative. The opposition is lacking. We all have a responsibility during #BannedBooksWeek to raise the alarm and to fight for a free and open society.
Join us here for #BannedBooksWeek eventbrite.com/e/ideas-action…

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More from @nhannahjones

Ida Bae Wells Profile picture
7 Sep
As a journalist, I truly, truly don’t get this. Is it conservatives or liberals who’re using the power of the state to pass memory laws? That’s mobbing school board meetings & threatening elected officials? That led an insurrection? But, yes, that company slack channel is scary.
This is literally false. There are state and local local laws in Republican-led states and communities on the books and being passed RIGHT NOW that are restricting what can be taught and what ideas can be discussed in schools. There’re efforts to ban the 1619 Project from schools
That so many writers are more uncomfortable w private institutions attempting to protect marginalized groups (even if they go about it poorly) than elected officials using state power to prohibit speech just affirms that it’s not just conservatives who fear demographic change.
Read 7 tweets
Ida Bae Wells Profile picture
31 Aug
It’s not enough to succeed if your community is struggling. You have to try to pull people up with you. I am so proud to announce the launch of the 1619 Freedom School in my hometown of Waterloo, Iowa, labeled in 2018 the worst place in U.S. to be Black. 1619freedomschool.org.
I used many lessons learned from years of reporting on segregated, high-poverty schools to found the 1619 Freedom School, a free, after-school program that infuses intensive literacy instruction with a Black history curriculum. Our motto: Liberation Through Literacy.
Our curriculum, custom-designed by educators from Georgetown and the University of Missouri will be made available as free and open source for anyone who wants to teach it beginning in 2022.
Read 5 tweets
Ida Bae Wells Profile picture
20 Jul
I'm not going to say what I want because, but I guess this speaks for itself. Bezos on space trip: “I also want to thank every Amazon employee and every Amazon customer because you guys paid for all of this."
nytimes.com/2021/07/20/sci…
nytimes.com/interactive/20…
vice.com/en/article/k7a…
Read 9 tweets
Ida Bae Wells Profile picture
7 Jul
I want to say more about this even if perhaps I shouldn’t. Black Americans are amongst the most astute political and social observers of American power because our survival has and still depends on it.
I have studied power my entire life from within institutions where I wielded none. I have written about it. I have reported on it. I have read about it. I have observed it. And, over the years, I have worked myself to accrue it, which is really what angers so many people.
And so when the BoT and a rich donor decided to wield their inherited and unearned power against me, I knew that while I did not have $25 million of inherited wealth, that I have learned a great deal about how to get it.
Read 6 tweets
Ida Bae Wells Profile picture
3 Jul
I’ll say this: of course rising gun violence is a concern. But why is gun violence only seen as a liberal/Democrat problem when mass shootings are up and Republicans continue to block any and all gun control legislation? That is called framing and is not about the reality.
Our job as journalists is not to stoke hysteria or parrot political talking points, but to provide facts, context and nuance.
I live in a city of more than 8 million and tv news in the largest city in the nation dedicates two-minute segments top of the hour on someone who got beaten up outside of a bodega.
Read 4 tweets
Ida Bae Wells Profile picture
25 Jun
Worth the read. “Concocted right-wing panic about ‘critical race theory’ —which is actually a (mostly college-level) field concerned with systemic and institutional racism—has been weaponized by conservative activists as an amorphous, won’t-someone-think-of-the-children?”
“As with all right-wing panics, this one has come to assume the form of a media feedback loop: right-wing outlets have blown up outrageous-sounding anecdotes, driving attention as conservatives kick up a fuss at school-board meetings.”
“All the while, state-level Republican politicians are pushing restrictive education laws—just as they used Trump’s lies about the election as cover to push restrictive voting laws. As Hannah-Jones noted on MSNBC last week, the two types of legislation go “hand in hand.”
Read 4 tweets

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