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Ady Barkan @AdyBarkan
, 10 tweets, 5 min read Read on Twitter
Like usual, @realDonaldTrump is attacking smart black people who disagree with him. Today's installment? Saying that Jay Z and @VanJones68 should be grateful to him for low black unemployment rates.

@shawnsebastian has a full rebuttal here. I'll give you the abridged version.
First, Donald Trump gets zero credit for the strong economy. Take a look at these 2 charts. The recovery started 8 years ago (under a Black president).

And it was propelled forward until now because Janet Yellen insisted on pursuing true full employment.

Trump fired Yellen.
Yellen was most successful Fed chair in history. She pushed unemployment down & kept inflation low. But Trump replaced her with a less qualified man because he wanted to make his mark on the Fed.

So, his taking credit for this economy is really rich.

politico.com/magazine/story…
Second, the economy still isn't strong enough. Especially for black workers. If there were 6.8% unemployment among white workers, it would be a national crisis. And that figure doesn't include the millions who are incarcerated or have left the labor market out of discouragement.
The racial inequality in our economy is not due to education or effort. It is due to discrimination and structural racism. Want some proof? A black college student has the same chances of getting a job as a white high school dropout.

thinkprogress.org/a-black-colleg…
Want some more proof? Housing discrimination, predatory lending, and "first fired, last hired" labor market practices meant that the great recession totally destroyed black wealth in this country. And it's still hasn't recovered.

slate.com/articles/news_…
Rather than promoting policies that would create jobs & higher wages for black (and all) Americans, Donald Trump's #GOPTaxScam took money out of the pockets of working families and sent it up to hedge fund managers & real estate developers.

Yet he wants Jay Z's appreciation.
So, what's the solution? How do we push forward on economic & racial justice at the same time? How do we tell a narrative to the American people that defeats Trump's racism and faux-populist kleptocracy?

We use a simple formula:

Civil Rights + Full Employment = Freedom!
It's a formula handed down by our forebears, those famous participants in the March on Washington for Jobs & Freedom.

It's a formula to which Coretta Scott King dedicated her life, culminating in the 1978 Full Employment Act.

Learn our shared history.

theintercept.com/2017/07/17/the…
And it's a formula that can win Congress this Nov., win the presidency in 2020, and help us build the multiracial, class-conscious mass movement that America him needs if we are going to win social justice.

Say it. Over and over again.

Civil Rights + Full Employment = Freedom!
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More from @AdyBarkan see all

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Today I’m excited to endorse @NancyPelosi for Speaker of the House of Representatives.

It’s really important that all progressives push to elect her in the coming weeks, for 3 good reasons.

Short thread below.
1. From 2007-11, @NancyPelosi was the most effective and progressive Speaker of the House in many decades.

If the bills she passed out of the House had made it out of the Senate as well, we would be living in a dramatically better world.
On issues from climate change to labor law, a public option to financial regulation, campaign finance to voting rights, @NancyPelosi organized and supported a bold progressive agenda.

She has pledged to be even bolder next year.
Read 7 tweets
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There is a very important meeting happening within the Democratic Party right now. Here are my thoughts about it. 1/
The question on the table is what kind of a Democratic Party is going to govern the House of Representatives. Will it be progressive? Or moderate? Will it pursue #MedicareForAll? Will it repeal the #TaxScam? How bold will its agenda be? 2/
The answer to these questions depends in large part on the shape of the leadership of the Democratic caucus in the House. And there are negotiations going on right now to figure out who will be in leadership and who will key committee seats. 3/
Read 8 tweets
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2 years ago today, @rachael_scar and I walked into the neurologist's office. She was carrying 4-month-old Baby Carl on her chest.

We walked out an hour later with my death sentence. ALS would paralyze and then kill me, and there wasn't anything we could to stop it.
How would we persevere? What we do with the short time I had left? How could we find hope in the dark?

These were our personal challenges. But they became questions for the nation a month later when Donald Trump was elected president.
Over the past 24 months, I lost the ability to run, and then even to walk; the ability to cut food, and then even to feed myself; the ability to speak quickly, and soon even to speak at all.

And yet, this journey has been better than I feared. On most days, I am happy.

How?
Read 6 tweets

Related threads

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Unfollowing self-described "empathetic educators" after they post a piece calling Haidt & Lukianoff's new book "the most important educational book of our time" is quite satisfying tbh
Don't @ me with "you should listen to people you disagree with." Not when they're saying some of my students they have to courteously sit there and take arguments from people who literally deny their full humanity.
It's telling that only upper-middle and upper-class white men are the ones chastising us about The Discourse™ and Both Sides. Easy to say when your basic rights have never been the object of Liberal Debate Club.
Read 5 tweets
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From today's Second Circuit hearing, Jay-Z doesn't have to fear the revival of a $7M copyright suit against him. One of the judges said to the lawyer of the man suing him:

"The problem that you have is that this case has a real stench to it."

Background: courthousenews.com/designer-can-p…
An attorney for Roc-a-Fella wants the designer's lawyer to face sanctions for bringing the suit.

Story ahead.
Appeal Puts Jay-Z Copyright Accuser on the Ropes

courthousenews.com/appeal-puts-ja…
Read 3 tweets
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Today marks Day 3 of #PrisonStrike2018. I wrote about ending low-wage prison labor and investing in incarcerated people forbes.com/sites/angelaha…
First, the facts: about half of the 1.5 million people who are currently incarcerated work. Most work in "correctional industries," which are state-owned enterprises, and are compensated 86 cents per hour, on average. The federal minimum wage is $7.25 (which itself is very low)
Some of these jobs are mundane, but others are quite dangerous. For example, 58 youth, according to a @CACorrections tweet, are "fighting wildfire flames"
Read 15 tweets
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"Saying rap isn't real music isn't racist"

We're still getting replies like this a week later, so this deserves a thread. Sit back, this one's gonna be a lot./

-B
Rap music has always been a historically black genre. With the rise of gangsta rap in the 90s, it was demonized, treated as something dangerous to the public eye because of the lyrics that seemed to "glorify violence.
What these critics don't understand is that rap in that time was a reflection of the lives these people lived. Gangsta rap rose from communities affected by the war on drugs, the rise of gangs, and the crack epidemic. They're not gonna rap about unicorns and painting fruit.
Read 18 tweets
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#Today's story to #EndFamilySeparation Four months ago, Dad and 4-month-old entered at the Texas/Mexico border and requested #asylum. Dad and child were immediately separated and the baby put in ORR custody. #FamiliesBelongTogether
Dad was detained in a #Texas detention center where @RAICESTEXAS consulted. Dad accepted a deportation to be quickly reunited w/ his infant child. However, the Dad was deported & NOT his child. The now 8-month-old baby has been in ORR custody for 4 months. #EndFamilySeparation
The Mom and Dad now have once weekly Skype calls with their 8-month-old baby. That's right, folks. They Skype with an infant. #EndFamilySeparation #FamiliesBelongTogether
Read 7 tweets
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Today marks the 50th anniversary of the passage of the Fair Housing Act.

In 2018, the homeownership gap between Af-Ams and whites is greater than it was when the Fair Housing Act was passed in 1968.

bit.ly/2t9eV2V

#FairHousingIs50 #housingsegregationineverything
At almost every stage of searching for a place to live and in every part of the country, black ppl face more constrained choices about housing. They are more likely to be told by real estate agents that homes or apartments aren't available.

n.pr/2GTBvPo
They are more likely to be denied loans to buy homes than white people, even when they have the same incomes and financial histories as white loan applicants.

nyti.ms/2ILNbnG
Read 22 tweets

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