Michael Harriot Profile picture
Jun 25, 2023 25 tweets 8 min read Read on X
The problem with Nikki Haley is not that she is a woman or a 1st generation immigrant or even conservative. It’s how her hypocritical use of these weaponized racist dog whistles.

You know who Nikki Haley really hates?

Nikki Haley

A thread
For instance, Nikki Haley supported tuition vouchers and tax credits for school choice and thinks that governors should refuse funding for schools that talk about race teaches students to act like victims.

Damn, she’s brilliant!
See, to understand the origin the idea of using tax credits and vouchers school choice, you gotta know CRT!

You gotta talk about race!

See, for most of its existence, SC was majority Black. After the civil war, SC had to rewrite the state constitution to become part of AMERICA
On Jan 14, 1868, 76 Black men and 48 white men gathered in three-story house in Charleston, S.C. On the first day, they created what we know as American school system.

But it wouldn’t last.
In 1876, Wade Hampton III, a white supremacist terrorist who was the largest slave owner in the state, led a violent insurrection in SC, and declared himself governor bc the places where Black people voted didn’t count.

This would NEVER happen today

The consequence of this was that the Compromise of 1877. Basically federal government took a hands off approach to white supremacy.

Or, as we call it now:

Jim Crow.

One of the byproducts was that SC basically stopped funding Black schools.

But instead of playing the victim…
They built their own. By the 1930s, 1/3 of Black kids in the South attended schools funded by private donors, communities & churches while their tax dollars paid for white schools

In 1948, Harry & Eliza Briggs filed a lawsuit to stop this legal theft

scencyclopedia.org/sce/entries/br…
Briggs v Elliott was the 1st of 5 combined cases that became Brown vs Board of Education

Now here’s a thing NO ONE EVER TALKS ABOUT.

Why is the famous desegregation case is called Brown v Board?

After all, Briggs was 1st chronologically & alphabetically

Well I know the answer
First let me tell you about 1 the most powerful racists in the HISTORY of America

James F Byrnes was a Supreme Court judge, congressman & the Secretary of State who told Truman to use the Atomic Bomb. He led the exodus of segregationists to the GOP

Then he ran for governor



Byrnes was kinda bad at all his jobs but he ran as a racist, so he won.

No, seriously, m his whole platform was “I’ll be racist.” That’s it.

Ok, maybe I’m infusing a little CRT. Here’s how he put it:
So when Byrnes heard about Briggs vs Elliot, he knew they’d win. He was on the Supreme Court, remember. But because he didn’t want his state to be responsible for the end of education segregation, he actually came up with a plan
And when the SCOTUS ruled, it wasn’t named after the SC case.

To this day, this has INCENSED my family members who fought for civil rights

apnews.com/article/brown-…
Anyway, when Briggs v Elliot found that segregation was unconstitutional, white parents in SC freaked out.

But they had time. SC schools would not desegregate until 1963, when Harvey Gant became the first Black student at Clemson University
The next year, white parents in Orangeburg opened Orangeburg Preparatory Schools a segregation academy created to “avoid the pernicious experiment being foisted upon the people of this state and nation.”

What was its name?
It didn’t change its name to Orangeburg Prep until 1986, when Nikki Haley was a sophomore in at slavemaster high.

Thankfully, they didn’t teach CRT, talk about race or teach students to “play the victim”

Oh wait…
To be fair, I’m sure Nikki Haley talked about race with black student at her high school.

That’s not a typo. According to a 1989 Boston Globe article, the year Haley graduated, there was literally ONE Black person at her school…

Kinda
But how could those parents start a segregation academy in ONE YEAR?

Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce you to a novel idea called school choice.

The whole voucher/tax credit and school choice idea started with Nikki Haley’s alma mater
And ALL THAT TIME, Nikki’s father taught at Voorhees College. And her mother taught at Bamberg County schools.

Wait.. didn’t I say that Blacks in SC had to fund their own schools because the whites were taking their money? Was I playing the victim again?

What about Voorhees?
But Nikki didn’t go to Voorhees or Bamberg. She went to a pro-confederate school that honors slave masters and teaches pro-white white history…

When she graduated from white supremacy high school, she attended Clemson University which was desegregated by Harvey Gantt
I bet Haley loves him. He paved the way. He wasn’t one of those Blacks who talks about race and CRT.

I wonder what ever became of him?
Anyway, I wish there was a way Nikki could learn this true history instead of trying to erase it. I had the fortune of knowing people who were part in this history and dedicated their lives to teaching it. Maybe she loves America and doesn’t know where to go learn it
The guy who told me a LOT of this stuff was a great civil rights photographer.

For years he tried to get funding for one of the greatest collection of history in SC, including everything in this thread.

And for years, there was one person stopping him

Nikki Haley
When realized that this museum would never happen, he played the victim. He gave up. He realized his race was holding him back.

Just kidding.

He literally built it himself...
postandcourier.com/news/cecil-wil…
It’s filled with everything Nikki Haley hates

And it’s right down the street from Orangeburg prep.
But one thing about Nikki…

She’s not just dog-whistling

She’s about that anti-truth, anti-Black history life

She learned it in school

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More from @michaelharriot

Jan 9
Oh, they understand the question; they're just laughing at how dumb it is.

But since you asked, I actually know the answer.

Now, I don't want to misquote you, so here is the specific question you asked:

A thread. Image
Now, the first thing we have to acknowledge the inherent whiteness of your question.

You don't get to define the idea of freedom. For instance, there is a reason why most countries don't allow everyone to own guns carte blanche; it's stupid.
Had it not been for slavery, 2nd Amendment wouldn't exist in the federal constitution. Only 4 of the original 13 state constitutions contained a "right to bear arms'

So, by your logic, between 1776 & 1791, MOST Americans were not free.
nytimes.com/2018/05/24/opi…
Read 27 tweets
Jan 6
According to @Grok, Apartheid Elon is literally the biggest spreader of misinformation on Twitter. But I'm willing to give the literal Grammar Nazi a pass on this one because he doesn't know much about HIS OWN history.

A thread.
It began before America existed, when the Favres, a white family (Yes, an ancestor of Brett) moved to the Mississippi Valley to start a family business. They initially worked for France. Then, Spain. They eventually secured a lucrative contract with the US government. Image
Image
Image
Image
The scam was simple. They would move near a indigenous people to trade guns in exchange for allowing white people to live in peace.

Now, EVERY CULTURE fought over territory, including the Choctaw & other natives. So having more guns than a rivals meant more territory.
Read 26 tweets
Dec 4, 2025
While different tribal groups, nations and shared identities always existed, “race” was used to describe a KIND of thing

Burgundy region of France produced a different “race” wines than Chianti Italy.

Until white people got obsessed with it racial classifications Image
In 1669 & 1670, the Va colony passed 2 laws

The first allowed the “casual killing of slaves.”

The second created a distinction between a slave and a servant:

The Black ones were slaves

But Black people are obsessed with race Image
Read 22 tweets
Nov 10, 2025
Someone tagged me on this because I've told it before.

Basically, it WAS Canada Dry, until...

A thread
In the days before WebMD, an enterprising scammer could make a fortune promoting ANYTHING as a health product. If you wanted to stay healthy, you needed to include gin, a few cigarettes and some tonic to your health routine Image
But if a scammer REALLY wanted people to trust a product, they would sell it straight to a pharmacy. Like the dude who couldn't sell his tonic named after Dr. Joseph Lister (who had nothing to do with it). He made a deal pharmacist, & the pharmacist sold it as a health drink
Read 25 tweets
Oct 31, 2025
I've seen SO MANY ppl use the shutdown as an opportunity to demonize people who receive SNAP benefits, WIC and any kind of government assistance.

Here's the thing:

I agree with those people.

We need to end the WHITE welfare state

BECAUSE welfare works.

A thread:
The original welfare program began when the government decided to help the lazy, uneducated Jamestown colonists who didn't want to work. In exchange for bringing carpenters, farmers & indentured servants who knew how do stuff, colonizers received 50 free acres in "headrights" or "patents."
Virginia even recorded names of the migrant workers. On Apr 19, 1638, George Menefie received 3,000 acres for 60 "servants." But there's only 37 names.

What happened?

He received 1,150 acres, an area about the size of Harlem, for 23 unnamed "negroes..."

Behold the first welfare check.Image
Image
Read 26 tweets
Sep 4, 2025
I’m sure you think I’m gonna mention Jean Baptiste Point du Sable, the Black fur trader who is known as the first non-indigenous resident of Chicago.

But du Sable was not enslaved when he moved to the mouth of the Chicago river in 1790.

So who TF was buying furs?
Well, remember all that was French territory. In 1719 French entrepreneur Philippe François Renault hopped in a boat in the South of France, stopped in Haiti to purchase 200-500 humans beings & headed to “Upper Louisiana”

By 1760, 900 ppl were enslaved in “Illinois Country” Image
Read 15 tweets

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