Historian | Writer | Lapsed Lawyer | Professor @johnshopkins | Fellow @wiko_berlin | Director Hard Histories at Hopkins |
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Aug 5, 2020 • 11 tweets • 4 min read
Tomorrow , August 6, we mark 55 years since the Voting Rights Act became law. ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=…
For the women of Vanguard, this was their 15th and 19th Amendments rolled into one - giving teeth to the promise of voting rights that did not accommodate racism or sexism. basicbooks.com/titles/martha-…
Aug 29, 2019 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
If you’re waking up with questions about the new USCIS Policy Alert, like I am, you can start with the text of the alert here, courtesy of @CNN. cnn.com/2019/08/28/pol…
It’s complicated; be careful about from whom you take advice about its meaning, implications, and effects. I’m following immigration law experts and practitioners @leegelernt and @prof_kari_hong. Love to hear who you’re following for expertise (rather than superficial punditry.)
Aug 21, 2019 • 9 tweets • 3 min read
It was just a few days ago that the insightful @CarolJenkins asked me if I thought a threat to birthright citizenship might re-emerge. I told her the truth: I didn’t think anyone really knew the answer. Well, now we have it. reuters.com/article/us-usa…
You might ask, has anything changed since July 2018 or October 2018 when we last heard threats to birthright citizenship emanating from the President and his agents? I’ll say that I think it has.
Fascinating thread from @agordonreed on the language we use, the word choices we make, when writing the histories of enslaved people. Her example comes from writing the lives of Sally Hemings and her family. @profgabrielle@DainaRameyBerry
A starting point when it come to word choice is an understanding of the terms used by our subjects and those around them. How did enslaved women speak of and about themselves? What sorts of words, categories, and concepts did they rely upon? How did that change over time and why?
Feb 20, 2019 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
The heart of the matter is not whether we engage in public debate. Of course we do. It is not whether we attend to political, diplomatic and military history. Of course we do. This is a debate over who sets the terms of the nation’s history and from what point of view we tell it.
I am a legal historian who writes about citizenship (for specialists and a broad public.) I write from the point of view of black Americans; for some that will always mark my work as “esoteric.” To that I say I write the past, with rigor and integrity, to illuminate our own time.
Oct 30, 2018 • 9 tweets • 3 min read
1/ I’ll weigh in here to say a few things about this issue. The first is that this issue is not one that has been directly tested or addressed by our courts. And the final interpretation here rests with #SCOTUS.
2/ The President proposes to interpret that part of the 14th Amendment which excludes persons not subject to US jurisdiction from Birthright Citizenship. His view as I take it is that children born to unauthorized immigrants are excluded from Birthright under this exception.
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