African Americans are descendants of enslaved Africans in the U.S. Black Americans encompass African Americans and Black immigrants and their American-born descendants from Jamaican Americans to Nigerian Americans. Some African Americans have joined with racist White Americans like Trump to attack immigrants. I don’t think those African Americans realize that racist White Americans have historically seen us as. . .immigrants.

A thread 🧵 Most U.S. presidents from Thomas Jefferson to Abraham Lincoln supported deporting *free* African Americans out of the United States, as if we were immigrants. This policy plan was known as “colonization” in the 19th century. The American Colonization Society, which lobbied for this mass deportation of African Americans, was larger and more powerful and better funded than any abolitionist society.

If the SCOTUS refuses to disqualify Donald Trump from running for POTUS after leading an insurrection on January 6, 2021, then it will be the latest indication that the Confederates lost the military battles but won the legal war. 1/4 The 14th Amendment, adopted in 1868, disqualifies from holding office former government officials who engaged in an insurrection against the U.S. 2/4

The 13th Amendment allowed slavery to continue "as a punishment for crime." #OTD in 1913, prison officers forced 12 Black men into a tiny cell for not picking cotton fast enough on a state-run prison plantation in Richmond, Texas. Eight died because they couldn't breathe. A 🧵1/ Since the 13th Amendment allowed slavery “whereof the party shall have been duly convicted,” prison farms became the new plantations to violently exploit Black labor. In 1910, almost 100% of the population on these Texas plantations were Black when 17.7% of Texans were Black. 2/

The racist violence of the past is ever present in the racial makeup of numerous towns across the US. On this day in 1903, after failing to lynch a Black man, a racist White mob forced the Black residents to flee Whitesboro, Texas. Today this town is less than 1% Black. A 🧵 1/ The history of many US towns is the history of the violent expulsion of Native peoples and later Black residents. Whitesboro is named after Ambrose White who fought in the Black Hawk War in 1832, when Sauk, Fox, and Kickapoo people crossed into Illinois to reclaim their land. 2/

The litigants, who have falsely framed #affirmativeaction as anti-Asian before the Supreme Court, have been silent about—or supportive of—a real anti-Asian threat in the United States: laws prohibiting Asian nationals from owning U.S. land. 1/ Nearly half of U.S. states—24 to be exact—have passed or proposed bills that would bar people of several nationalities, particularly Chinese people, from purchasing land. Some laws apply only to land near certain military installations; others ban purchases outright. 2/

#OTD in 1898, the US launched its invasion of Puerto Rico as part of the Spanish-American War. Ostensibly begun to help the Puerto Rican people throw off Spanish colonialism, the United States replaced Spain as colonizers. Puerto Rico remains a U.S. colony 125 years later. A 🧵1/ The Spanish-American War was an outgrowth of Cuba's war of independence against Spanish rule. U.S. economic interests, as well as "yellow journalism" that inflamed public sentiment toward Spain's wartime conduct, compelled the US to declare war on Spain on April 25, 1898. 2/

Enslavers and their historians argued for decades that enslaved Black people benefited from American slavery, were civilized by American enslavers, were better off than peasants in Europe and Africa. All to defend slavery from abolitionists.

Here are two examples. A thread 1/

https://twitter.com/ibramxk/status/1681781039029526528

In the early U.S., British abolitionists pointed out the hypocrisy of Americans declaring their nation the land of the free while enslaving people. This theory of slavery as (partially or totally) good for Black people dates back to a defense of the U.S. from these critiques. 2/

Lincoln spent the first two years of his presidency plotting to deport all Black people out of the U.S. Political support for "colonization" evaporated #OTD when the all-Black 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment fought the Second Battle of Fort Wagner near Charleston. A 🧵 1/ Before the Civil War, most *anti-slavery* White Americans hardly supported the abolitionist movement for immediate emancipation. Most were like Lincoln, supporting the colonization movement that advocated for gradual emancipation and shipping out emancipated Black people. 2/

To claim a White nationalist is “not racist,” to claim that describing a White nationalist as “racist” is a matter of “opinion,” is indicative of a larger problem: People believe there's no scientific or verifiable definition of “racist” or “racism.” A🧵1/

https://twitter.com/acyn/status/1678579616376651777

People too often define "racist" and "racism" in a way that allows them to opine they are "not racist," racism against people of color is a myth, and White people are the primary victims of racism. They dismiss definitions based on the material and historic reality of racism. 2/

Cecil Rhodes was born #OTD in 1853. Rhodes, a British imperialist whose brutal rule killed and dispossessed millions in southern Africa, inspired White American supremacists, such as the Charleston church shooter and the propagator of “anti-racist is code for anti-White.” A 🧵1/ Rhodes was born on July 5, 1853 in Hertfordshire, England. From 1890 to 1896, he was the Prime Minister of England's Cape Colony, what is now South Africa. He also organized and owned De Beers Consolidated Mines, which had a market share of 90% of the world’s diamonds by 1891. 2/

The term "race conscious," as a descriptor for affirmative action, is as flawed as the term "race neutral" for the other admission metrics, as @DrUJayakumar and I explain @TheAtlantic. "Race conscious" reinforces the "race neutral" and "colorblind" frame.
theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/… Affirmative-action policies are antiracist because they reduce racial inequities, while many of the other admissions metrics, like legacies, test scores, and boosts for relatives of employees and donors, are racist because they maintain racial inequities.
theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…

In banning affirmative action, the Supreme Court has *not* banned using race in college admissions. "Race neutral" is a legal fantasy, the latest to conserve racism. As Uma Jayakumar and I write @TheAtlantic, “race neutral” is the new “separate but equal.”
theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/… The idea of "race neutral" admission metrics, like test scores, is a fantasy, like the Court doctrine that segregated schools were “separate but equal.” We show how several admission metrics disadvantage Black, Latinx, Native, and many Asian students.
theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…

This #PrideMonth, it is important to recognize non-binary and gender nonconforming people have been here from the beginning of the U.S. Here is a thread on one of the most influential such persons in early America. An abolitionist minister known as The Public Universal Friend. 1/ The Friend was a Christian preacher who lived from 1752 to 1819. Assigned female at birth and given the name Jemima Wilkinson, later in life this person eschewed gendered pronouns, preferring to be addressed as "the Friend." 2/

With elections looming, in some US states it is harder to vote than it was a decade ago, particularly for people of color. Because #OTD 10 years ago in Shelby County v. Holder, the Supreme Court gutted the 1965 Voting Rights Act, leading to a flood of voter suppression. A🧵1/ The 1965 Voting Rights Act (VRA) prevented racist voter suppression policies through "federal preclearance." The VRA required that districts with long histories of electoral racism submit any proposed changes to their voting procedures to the federal government for approval. 2/

As we celebrate #Juneteenth, let us keep in mind that African Americans during the Civil War distinguished between *abolishing slavery* and *freeing people.* Many formerly enslaved people did not feel *free* in 1865 and thereafter, and they clearly articulated why. A thread 1/ On January 12, 1865, General William T. Sherman met with twenty Black leaders in Savannah, Georgia, over the future of African Americans in the area. These African Americans gave this Union general a crash course on their definitions of slavery and freedom. 2/

The paperback edition of HOW TO RAISE AN ANTIRACIST is out! In time for Father’s Day. This is without question my most vulnerable book. Hitting closer to home than any other. Let me explain. A thread 1/
penguinrandomhouse.com/books/671925/h… Hardly anything is more important to me as a parent and teacher, than protecting vulnerable children from racist messages—verbal and non-verbal. And we won’t be able to protect our children if we continue to believe—against all evidence to the contrary—that our kids. . . 2/

Gov. Greg Abbott signed a racist law that orders all state-funded colleges and universities in Texas to close their diversity, equity, and inclusion offices. Let’s put this action in perspective. A thread. 1/

nbcnews.com/politics/polit… Texas Republicans pushed this bill through on the White supremacist talking point that diversity is anti-White. They ignored all the studies showing that diversity is beneficial to White students. So Texas Republicans don’t care about White Texans. 2/

Six years ago I became enamored by the power of comics. To clarify the complexity of history. Keeping us thinking and laughing and learning. Like our graphic history of racist ideas, Stamped from the Beginning, which I'm proud to announce is out today. 1/

penguinrandomhouse.com/books/665573/s… There is something special about comics. This artistic form takes people places, allows people to overcome their fear and go on a journey of history that they know or suspect they must see. And this graphic novel with Joel Christian Gill is a must-see. 2/

penguinrandomhouse.com/books/665573/s…

In the 1930s and 40s, zoot suits were the hottest trend for young Filipino, Mexican, and African American men like Malcolm X. An emblem of swag, of pride, of defiance. What White servicemen hated. Their mass attack on zoot suiters began #OTD 80 years ago in Los Angeles. A 🧵1/ The zoot suit style began at the tail end of the Harlem Renaissance in 1930s. Young men flocked to urban dance halls to socialize and dance. As a compliment to their moves, dancers started wearing zoot suits. Wide pants. Long coats. Wide-brimmed hat. And watch chain. 2/

To explore his conception of history, Gillian Brockell reviewed DeSantis's first book (which is out of press): "Dreams from Our Founding Fathers," a troll of Obama's first book, "Dreams from My Father." 1/

washingtonpost.com/history/2023/0… DeSantis dismisses slavery as a "personal flaw" of the Founding Fathers, while also excusing those flaws by saying slavery existed "throughout human history." DeSantis imagines that "slavery was doomed to fail in a nation whose Constitution embodied" freedom. 2/

On this day in 1943, German Nazis suppressed the four-week-long Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. It was the largest and longest Jewish uprising during the Holocaust. Remembering this rebellion today as Jewish people, as we all, face a resurgence of neo-Nazi violence across the world. 1/ The term “ghetto” first described an area of Venice, Italy where authorities segregated Jews in 1516. Nazis created the Warsaw ghetto in Poland in 1940, enclosing it with a 10-foot brick wall. Nazis created at least 1,143 “ghettos” in occupied eastern territories like Poland. 2/