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My TL is full of conservatives who don't understand how Affirmative Action worked.

Three points

1. The demographic that benefitted MOST from AA—more than Black, Latino, & Asians COMBINED—are white women.

1/ 2. AA was NEVER about accepting unqualified people, it was always about ensuring underrepresented qualified people ALSO had a fair shot at acceptance. Universities systemically discriminated against non-white applicants. AA required them to also consider non-white applicants.

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Disability rights & healthcare are human rights. Let me share a story about Santos López (L) & @HFUSA

Santos's story began when he was 3 & fell into a cooking pit. He suffered severe burns & lost 90% of his vision. Drs informed him he needed a cornea transplant to see again.

/1 Santos suffered from osteoarthritis. In July 2019 matters got worse when he suffered a painful bone fracture. Santos needed treatment, but the medical costs were too high.

Santos had no financial means, no guaranteed healthcare, & no access to accommodate his disabilities.😳

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A broken system is when 4 Justices nominated by POTUSs who lost the popular vote, confirmed by a Senate who represent 40M fewer Americans, strip rights the vast majority of Americans support, while taking bribes from billionaires b/c they know they face 0 accountability.

/1 Under this SCOTUS Americans have so far LOST protections to:

•clean water

•voting rights

•reproductive health

•wrongful incarceration

•religion/state separation

•safety from gun violence

•4th amendment protections

•5th amendment protections

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On #TrumpArraignment Day, here’s your handy thread to debunk the 7 most common MAGA and Fox News defenses of Trump’s indictments:

[Spoiler: None of their defenses are based in facts]

Let's dive in...

/1 CLAIM: Dems are targeting Trump because he's running for President.

FACT: The investigation has nothing to do with his candidacy. The investigations into Trump stealing classified docs began BEFORE he declared his candidacy. And running for office does not shield criminality

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MAGA wants SCOTUS to block $10K student loan forgiveness for low income people b/c its "unfair."

Okay, let's play that game and see where it takes us.

Black people paid taxes for pools schools & libraries they couldn’t use during Jim Crow (1865-1965)—$0 reparations

/1 Native people had 270M acres of their land stolen via Homestead Act (1862-1987)—$0 reparations

"But that's ancient history!"—MAGA

So? In 2023—Undoc immigrants pay taxes for welfare benefits they can’t use

Documented immigrants pay taxes for welfare benefits they can’t use

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Keenan Anderson—a 31-year-old high school teacher & father—stopped LA police for help after an accident. They instead cuffed him, pinned him, & tased him repeatedly as he begged them to stop.

Keenan died of cardiac arrest from excessive tasing.

His crime—asking police for help. Here's the media story.

LAPD is already blaming Anderson for his own death, claiming he was erratic and on drugs. The video footage doesn't lie. He asked for help, and they instead pinned him, cuffed him, tased him, & killed him.

How Do You Reform This?
theguardian.com/us-news/2023/j…

Thread on a wild yet not uncommon exchange while getting my oil changed. I share as an anecdote of how embedded racism is in our society & how intrinsically it's tied to economics.

A white guy named "Bill" age ~60 looks at me & says, "Where are you *from* from?"

Me: [sigh]

/1 Me: I'm from Pakistan. [I go back to my phone]

Bill: Pakistan? What do you do for a living?

Me: Civil rights lawyer

Bill: I'm a lawyer too! But I stay away from race and women stuff. Last thing I need is to be called racist or accused of sexual harassment

Me: Huh?🤔

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As a human rights lawyer I've supported refugees, asylees, incarcerated citizens, abuse survivors, & the religiously persecuted

Today I share a client story—a Black & Indigenous Christian community whose ancestral cemetery was sold & desecrated—& our fight to get it back

/1 Tl:dr Prince William County improperly sold the Scott Cemetery & property—an ancestral cemetery of Black & Indigenous people—to a wealthy land developer & stood by as they desecrated 100+ graves. We're suing to return that property & need your support gofundme.com/f/save-histori…

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As a human rights lawyer I've represented women seeking justice my entire career.

As Iranian women protest Iran's hijab enforcement—while the 'morality police' murder Mahsa Amini—I want to post this thread about Hijab in Islam. I hope every guy (esp in Iran) reads this.

/1 People often conflate "Hijab" & "headscarf." Wearing the headscarf is one form of Hijab, but men often forget that Hijab is much more.

Accordingly, when addressing Hijab, the Qur'an does not address women first. It addresses men first.

What? Men observe hijab? Since when?

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I’m celebrating my 30 year anniversary of becoming a US Citizen. I love my country & I demand a more perfect Union

Per the great James Baldwin, “I love America more than any other country in the world &—exactly for this reason—I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.” Growing up in Section 8, on food stamps, & working since I was 15, I experienced for a decade the struggle that is every day for tens of millions of Americans.

I've experienced our country's ugly side—the death threats & xenophobia for being a Muslim immigrant of color, AND

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Black people paid taxes for pools schools & libraries they couldn’t use during Jim Crow (1865-1965)—$0 reparations

Native people had 270M acres of their land stolen via Homestead Act (1862-1987)—$0 reparations

Spare me MAGA outrage on $10K loan forgiveness for low income people In 2022

Undocumented immigrants pay taxes for welfare benefits they can’t use

Documented immigrants pay taxes for welfare benefits they can’t use

Returning citizens pay taxes for welfare benefits they can’t use

Spare MAGA outrage on $10K loan forgiveness for low income people

Pitting Black people vs Asians is a common attempt to deflect from the legacy of Jim Crow white supremacy. So let's dig into it.

Addressing the perception that since Asians are "thriving" while are Black people still impacted by white supremacy?

Thread

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https://twitter.com/_BarringtonII/status/1559234129039851524

1. It isn't a myth that Black people are still impacted by white supremacy. Currently, the median white family's wealth is $147K while the median Black family's wealth is $3600. jstor.org/stable/pdf/res…

Black wealth is projected to drop to $0 by 2053 theguardian.com/inequality/201…

Today I turn 40-years-old. I'm incredibly blessed, & find myself thinking what I would tell my 20-year-old self if I could go back in time and talk to him?

So if you'll indulge me, a short thread on the "always do" and "never do" things I'd tell my younger self...

1/ 1. Always remember to cut yourself slack & lift yourself up. Plenty of folks will try to tear you down—don't join them. Be your own biggest champion because sometimes you're all you're gonna have, and you should know that you're enough.

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SCOTUS ruled in 2005 that police have “no legal duty to protect the public.” A Federal judge reaffirmed in 2018 when Parkland students sued the cop who ran away. They lost. AND—Qualified Immunity protects 99.9% of police negligence & violence.

So—how do we fix this?

Thread

/1 First, we must stop seeing public safety as a Police matter—& instead see it from a societal needs lens. One that accounts for (but not limited to) addiction, poverty, mental health, homelessness, suicide prevention—all things cops are NOT trained to do but asked to do anyway

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NRA Contributions to GOP Senators

Mitt Romney (UT) $13,647,676
Richard Burr (NC) $6,987,380
Roy Blunt (MO) $4,555,722
Thom Tillis (NC) $4,421,333
Cory Gardner (CO) $3,939,199
Marco Rubio (FL)$3,303,355
Joni Ernst (IA) $3,124,773
Rob Portman (OH) $3,063,327

Thread

/1 Todd C. Young (IN) $2,897,582
Bill Cassidy (LA) $2,867,074
Tom Cotton (AR) $1,968,714
Pat Roberts (KS) $1,581,153
Pat Toomey (PA) $1,475,448
Josh Hawley (MO) $1,391,548
Marsha Blackburn (TN) $1,306,130
Ron Johnson (WI) $1,269,486
Mitch McConnell (KY) $1,267,139

/2

As SCOTUS preps to repeal Roe—despite 72% of Americans favoring Roe—Clarence Thomas says "We cant be an institution that can be bullied into giving you just the outcomes you want." SCOTUS has *never* reflected the American people & have often blocked what Americans want

Thread
1 1857: Dred Scott v. Sanford

SCOTUS ruled 7-2 that Black people are subhuman & therefore can't be citizens. This prevented any peaceful solution to ending slavery and likely further enabled the eventual Civil War in which 600,000 soldiers died.

2/

In March 2018 an extremist on Twitter repeatedly threatened to murder me for my faith as a Muslim.

Now in March 2022, my lawyers at @MuslimAdvocates and @HuntonAK secured a legal victory against that extremist for his online death threats. It's been a long 4 years.

Thread
/1 After the death threat, I blocked & reported him. Twitter suspended, then unsuspended him, resulting in more Islamophobic, racist, white supremacist hate.

He even called for us to meet in person so he could kill me.

Not long after, I got a call from the FBI

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TW: Police murder of an unarmed Black man asleep in his own home😓

Amir Locke was 22, murdered by MN Cops while sleeping during a no knock raid. He wasn’t even named in the warrant. This horror is modern day lynching. It’s tyranny. You cannot reform this.
Body cam proves every line in MN Police report is a lie:
•Police did NOT announce themselves before entering
•Locke did NOT point a firearm at them
•The passive "shots were fired" tries to absolve police
Just like the George Floyd press release, this was a murder coverup.

GOP VA Governor just set up a tip line to report schools & teachers who teach about racism.

Email: helpeducation@governor.virginia.gov

Whatever you do, don't make a mockery of this with fake tips. That would be a terrible thing to do. RT so everyone knows NOT to send fake tips. I launched Common Purpose to help fund and elect compassionate & justice minded progressive candidates so we can stop this GOP nonsense. If you’re in a position to support us, every dollar counts.
#CompassionThroughAction

secure.actblue.com/donate/cp_qasim

Voter suppression is:
•Forcing Black ppl to wait 2X as long as white ppl to vote
•Requiring a new ID even after an ID was confirmed at voter registration
•Banning IDs disproportionately used by Black voters
•Closing polling locations in Black neighborhoods
#VotingRightsAct Voter suppression is:
•Racial gerrymandering that disproportionately represents white voters over non-white voters
•Police target/charge Black people at higher rates, disenfranchising them
•Longer sentences for Black Americans,blocking them from more elections
#VotingRightsAct

Page County, VA school board meeting

“No mask mandates. My children will not come to school Monday with a mask on. I will bring every single gun, loaded & ready…I’ll see y’all on Monday.”

This woman should be arrested for threatening a school shooting.
UPDATE: Local law enforcement is aware of the school shooting threat but no arrests have been made because she’s “apologized for her statement.”

White privilege is openly threatening to shoot up a school and police forgive you because you’re really really sorry.🤦🏽‍♂️