Leon Bass was a nineteen-year-old African-American sergeant serving in a segregated army unit when he encountered the "walking dead" of Buchenwald. Like many others, he tried to repress his memories of the horrors that he saw there and "never talked about it all."
🧵 But in the 1960s, while involved in the Civil Rights movement and teaching, he met a Holocaust survivor and felt moved to declare to his students that “I was there, I saw.”

It has been 10 years since Darren Wilson killed Michael Brown. Shelby Steele and I made “What Killed Michael Brown?” & I am often asked what the lasting impact has been.

Answer: What happened in Ferguson split America into two & we have not recovered. 🧵
amazon.com/Killed-Michael…
One side believes that America is systemically racist and the other side believes that America has made much progress since the 1960s.

Why do I celebrate the 4th of July?

Yes, America is the nation that enslaved & segregated my family going back who knows how many centuries — I am the first male in my family to be born free of those historical oppressions.

Yet America also made my family today possible.

🧵: My paternal grandfather, born in 1900 to parents who were born in slavery, marched for equal rights for all because he believed in the American principles despite being denied them.

I was recently invited onto a podcast. Emails were exchanged, the date set. Then I mentioned my deafness and my need to lipread. What happened next was that I was ghosted.

A friend asked if I was angry. To my surprise, I said no and that I felt blessed.
🧵 The one lesson I learned early in life due to my deafness is that life is unfair. It just is. Yet, at the same time, life is full of endless opportunities.

After enduring a week of unwarranted takedowns of the Killing America trailer on @Youtube and @Vimeo as well as receiving a baseless cease and desist letter that seeks to prevent my documentary from being shown in its original form, I’ve decided to release the full (38 min) version of Killing America on this platform.

Let’s be clear, @TheMAChronicle claims that this is a copyright issue, but it is not. Our work is fully protected by the Fair Use doctrine, which allows us to use even copyrighted footage under certain guidelines. (See explanation in comments section.)

These left-wing activists cannot stand dissent or opposition to the ideological order they seek to impose in our schools as well as our larger society. What you are witnessing here is the weaponization of the copyright law in these ugly culture wars to prevent my film from being shown in its full form. This is nothing less than suppression of free speech, which includes artistic expression and free thought.

The "crime" that Killing America commits is telling the truth during these ideological times. Watch the film and you’ll see why extremist ideologues are doing everything in their power to censor the film and why I decided not to play their game and go straight to you, The People.

Lastly, I have made the point to release this film as widely as possible for free because I want the word out. We've been too far timid and we've allowed ourselves to be intimidated for too long, so please share this film widely.

At the same time, people have asked if they can donate small fee for watching the film or make a contribution to cover the cost that I personally incurred during the making of the film as well as legal fees (lawyer consults). I truly appreciate this because this film was a labor of love for me, a continuation of my family’s legacy of civil rights activism that dates back to 1942:

#KillingAmericadonate.stripe.com/cN24ja95E06SgL…

https://x.com/Hebro_Steele/status/1775951075792839148

What happens when you try to tell the truth in a world invested in ideological lies?

This AM, I received an email from @YouTube: “We received a copyright removal request for your video (#KillingAmerica). Based on applicable copyright law, we removed your video from YouTube.”
🧵 The complainant was Menlo-Atherton High School’s newspaper, M-A Chronicle (@TheMAChronicle), and they objected to the inclusion of a two-second clip in the Killing America trailer. I checked the trailer’s @YouTube page and, indeed, it had been removed.

Very sad to hear about the passing of Lavondale "Big Dale" Glass. I met him thru Pastor @CoreyBBrooks at Project H.O.O.D. Big Dale was one of the most notorious gangsters who reformed himself and helped prevent as many as 50 retaliation shootings a month. More remarkably, Big Dale lost his own son to gang violence and knew the shooter, but chose to stay true to his reformed path.

To honor him, I'm posting an article I wrote on him and Varney Voker below as a thread:
foxnews.com/opinion/roofto… Pastor Brooks recently met with two ex-gangsters who were once destined to kill one another. Varney Voker ran the Black Disciples as a top bosses & ruled with ruthless business savvy. A block away, Lavondale Glass ran the rival Gangster Disciples with equal ruthlessness.

"I pastor one of Chicago's toughest neighborhoods on the South Side and @mcuban's defense of DEI is deeply flawed for one reason: this poisonous ideology has no impact on my community, the very community it professes to help." -- Pastor @CoreyBBrooks

A 🧵in the pastor's words: From my church located in one of Chicago’s most violent South Side neighborhoods, I watched with disquieting fascination the public trial of Claudine Gay. I followed the debates on the influence and impact of the DEI movement not just in the case of Gay but throughout America.

2023 was the year of the "Great Awokening" for many.

One question I'm often asked by those who recently left the woke is, "How long will this culture war go on?"

They thought Oct. 7, the Claudine Gay farce, etc., would shock America back into reason and common sense.

Long 🧵: These folks also ask, “Why can’t they see what we see?” I’ve been in this culture war since my teens and I have asked myself this question too many times.

For the last 40 years, I've watched my father counsel countless of Americans to have the courage to stand up to the Left's merciless assault on the American principles and its institutions.

Hardly nobody listened.

🧵: Lately, I've thought about what this courage looks like. I think it comes down to two essential things: 1) shedding white guilt and 2) embracing colorblindness.

There have been accusations that those who decried cancel culture in the past years are now the cancellers themselves.

The obvious charge here is hypocrisy.

🧵: Were people wrong to demand accountability from the 34 Harvard organizations that signed a letter that held the "Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence" and that "the apartheid regime is the only one to blame?”

I have known people like Claudine Gay my entire life and they are the reason why I never checked the black box on college and employment applications.

If I had, I would not be a free individual today.

🧵: People often told, "Oh, it’s nothing, just check the box and you’ll get an upper hand." Indeed, I was once offered a $25,000 MLK scholarship, a lot of money in 1993. So checking the black box was tempting, yes.

The fact that microagressions exist today is bull. I am deaf and I wear this weird looking device attached to the side of my head by a magnet. If I were to consider every remark or question about my cochlear implant a microagression, I wouldn’t get through the day.

🧵: Microagressions have been generally defined as slights, intentional or not, against a marginalized group. I guess being deaf qualifies me as marginalized though I would never describe myself as such.

Why do I celebrate the 4th of July?

Yes, America is the nation that enslaved and segregated my people for centuries — I am the first male in my family to be born free of those historical oppressions.

Thread: America is also the nation that admitted in the 1960s to its great racial evils. Since then, it has tried to right those wrongs, however flawed those efforts may have been.

You hear about how bad San Francisco is. I was filming a shot of my father , Shelby Steele, and in the ten minutes we were gone our SUV was broken into and nearly $15k of cameras stolen. Called 911 & they hung up twice. This is the video. Black Chevy Blazer with license plate #9AAZ318. Still no SF police.