🧵In the past 7 years, the U.S. Supreme Court has made a series of decisions (and non-decisions) that have reaffirmed the United States' colonial control over Puerto Rico and directly harmed our people.

And if you think it's been just the conservatives on the Court—read on. 1/X 2016 | Puerto Rico v. Sánchez Valle | 6-2 opinion written by Kagan

SCOTUS says Puerto Rico has no sovereignty and all its legal authority comes from Congress.

In a way, this is the best decision, since it accurately describes the legal and political reality of colonialism. 2/X

I get that it's well intentioned—really, I do. But, for the umpteenth time, "I will not take a position on whether my country should annex or free a nation it invaded" is not the reasonable and moral position most American liberals think it is. 1/X

https://twitter.com/DavidBegnaud/status/1564084435514900480

It's certainly not a *helpful* position. The history of this issue is littered with the corpses of decolonization efforts (including, soon, the PR Status Act) that stall because it's easily ignored by legislators whose constituents think it's wrong for them to take a stance. 2/X

Occam’s razor: what’s the simplest + therefore likeliest explanation? That a single lobbyist and a handful of community orgs. are more powerful than PR’s elected officials and multiple members of Congress, including the #2 Democrat in the House? OR… 1/6 latinorebels.com/2022/08/17/pue… …that they’re a convenient scapegoat for inaction by Congress, which wants to push a divisive, culture-war-adjacent issue that could rule up Republicans three months before an election like it wants the plague? We’ve seen this movie before, folks… 2/6

🧵- I talk to a lot of Americans about Puerto Rico and, invariably, especially on days like today👇, many do recognize that PR's status is a grave injustice. But that recognition is usually intellectual, theoretical. It's rarely personal, emotional... 1/X cnn.com/2022/04/21/pol… Like, Americans would, of course, have to admit that 3 million "Americans" living in a de facto colony is a greater injustice than some random thing Trump tweeted in 2018. But they were definitely more upset about the random Trump thing than they have *ever* been about PR 2/X