Ibram X. Kendi Profile picture
May 3 11 tweets 5 min read Twitter logo Read on Twitter
More than a century before Trump and his supporters vowed to "Keep America Great," White segregationists were striving to keep California White. They passed the state's flagrantly anti-Asian "Alien Land Law" on this day 110 years ago in 1913. An #AAPIHeritageMonth 🧵 1/ Image
The growing presence of Japanese people alarmed racist White Californians. They formed the Asiatic Exclusion League in 1905. By 1908, the League had about 100,000 members. By the way, in 1910, about 40,000 Japanese people lived in California out of a population of 2.4 million. 2/ Image
In the 1900s, 1910s and 1920s, the racist actions of the Asiatic Exclusion League were numerous. They boycotted Japanese-owned restaurants and tried to segregate the 93 Japanese students in San Francisco's public schools from the rest of the student body in 1906. 3/ Image
The Alien Land Law was the most sweeping policy product of the League. At the time, only Black and White people could be US citizens. The law prevented immigrants who couldn't become citizens - such as Japanese farmers - from owning land in California for more than 3 years. 4/ Image
The Alien Land Law drastically reduced Japanese land ownership in California and likely increased elite White land ownership. In the 1920s, Japanese immigrant landowners lost at least 100,000 acres of land, not to mention the land taken from immigrants of other nationalities. 5/ Image
The Asiatic Exclusion League was not satisfied with trampling upon the rights of foreign-born Asian Americans. In 1920 and 1923, California expanded the law to exclude U.S.-born children of Asian immigrants and Asian-owned businesses from owning or leasing land in the state. 6/ Image
California's Alien Land Law helped spur other states to pass similar legislation, including Arizona (1917), Louisiana (1921), Washington State (1921), and Oregon (1923). By 1950, an additional eight states had anti-Asian laws like this on the books. 7/ Image
Racist violence and policy had facilitated the stealing of land from Native peoples, only to follow that up by driving Black, Latinx, and Asian people from land they owned. Racist ideas still justified the “manifest destiny” of “civilized” White people to take and “develop”... 8/ Image
... the lands previously inhabited or owned by “uncivilized” peoples of color. Racist ideas covered up the racist land stealing, the resulting handouts for White people, the resulting destitution of families of color by claiming they were destitute because they were inferior. 9/ Image
Elites have taken land owned and inhabited by low- and middle-income White people (at lesser rates). The annals of U.S. history are filled with elites pushing laws to take the land and property of non-elites. As we say about Black history, Asian history is American history. 10/ Image
Although challenged several times in the ensuing decades, California's anti-Asian Alien Land Law was enforced until the 1952 Supreme Court decision in Sei Fujii v. California. The court declared the law a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. 11/11 Image

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More from @DrIbram

May 1
#OTD in 1863, the Confederate Congress passed the Retaliatory Act. It said ALL captured Black Union soldiers won't be treated as prisoners of war, but as enslaved men in rebellion–that is, returned to slavery or executed. It didn't matter if Black soldiers had been born free. 1/4 Image
Confederate law to treat all Black soldiers as enslaved men in rebellion prompted a response from Lincoln. He declared: every Black US soldier enslaved, a Confederate POW would be sentenced to hard labor; every Black US soldier executed, a Confederate soldier would be too. 2/4 Image
"To ... enslave any captured person, on account of his color, and for no offense against the laws of war, is ... a crime against the civilization of the age," President Lincoln wrote in an executive order on July 30, 1863. Image
Read 4 tweets
Apr 19
#OTD in 1783, it was proposed at the Congress of the Confederation that enslaved Black people should count as 60% of a White person. Called the Three-fifths Compromise, the clause was added to the US Constitution four years later. Today its legacy endures through prisons. A 🧵 1/ Image
At the Confederation Congress, one suggestion for determining state tax rates was based on the state’s population. The more people a state had, the more tax it would owe. This raised the question: Are enslaved people, who are legally considered property, inhabitants? 2/ Image
Many delegates, especially those from southern states with larger enslaved populations, did not want enslaved people to count as inhabitants. During the debates, Maryland's Samuel Chase said, “Negroes in fact should not be considered members of the state more than cattle.” 3/ Image
Read 10 tweets
Apr 18
In Hebron, NY, a group of friends searched for a friend’s house. They pulled into the wrong driveway. As they left the driveway, a White man named Kevin Monahan came outside. Fired two shots at the car. Tragically murdered 20-year-old Kaylin Gillis. 1/ Image
There are White people who think what happened to Ralph Yarl will never happen to them. Think again. 2/

theguardian.com/us-news/2023/a…
With endless racist media reports of “Latinx invaders” and “Muslim terrorists” and “Native savages” and “greedy Jews” and “infected Asians” and “Black criminals” ... With the endless stockpiling of 400,000,000 guns to protect homes from all these so-called dangerous people ... 3/ Image
Read 10 tweets
Apr 17
Ralph Paul Yarl was picking up his two siblings. He went to the wrong house in Kansas City, Missouri. The White man who opened the door did not see a lost 16-year-old boy. He saw a threat. Shot Ralph, twice. Once in the head to kill him. Somehow Ralph survived. 1/ Image
If arrested and charged, the White male shooter will almost certainly deploy Missouri’s stand-your-ground law to claim (White) homeowners have a right to murder (Black) children who mistakenly ring their door bells. Because racist violence is usually projected as self-defense. 2/ Image
If Ralph was White, he would be playing with his siblings right now, or in school, or playing his instrument. But because he happens to be Black, he is hospitalized. 3/
fox4kc.com/news/community…
Read 6 tweets
Apr 14
On this day in 1828, 195 years ago, the 1st edition of Noah Webster's "American Dictionary of the English Language" was published. Enslavers, who banned antislavery books at the rate antiracist books are banned today, objected to Webster’s definition of "slave." A 🧵 1/ Image
While teaching in upstate New York in 1782, Webster became dissatisfied with the schoolbooks that ignored American culture. He set off on his life mission to create a uniquely American education, first with his ever-popular spelling book. 2/ Image
At 69, in 1828, Webster published "An American Dictionary of the English Language." Its 70,000 entries were split into two volumes. Webster died in 1843. George & Charles Merriam acquired the rights to Webster's dictionary, and in 1845, the @MerriamWebster Dictionary was born. 3/ Image
Read 11 tweets
Apr 13
As in TN recently, #OTD 150 years ago, White supremacists tried to expel three Black and White officeholders in Colfax, Louisiana. On Easter Sunday in 1873, they used violence, killing over 150 Black people in the deadliest attack on democracy during the Reconstruction era. A🧵1/ News clipping about the Col...
In November 1872, Louisiana voters elected Union veteran William Pitt Kellogg as governor, despite the suppression of Kellogg’s Black and White voters. Kellogg defeated John McEnery, a former Lieutenant Colonel in the Confederate Army. But McEnery refused to concede. 2/ Photo of William Pitt Kellogg
In January 1873, Governor Kellogg certified the elections of Robert C. Register as judge and Daniel Wesley Shaw as sheriff in Grant Parish where Colfax is. William Ward, a formerly enslaved Union Army veteran, had also won his election to be the area’s state representative. 3/ Map of Grant Parish
Read 9 tweets

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