Deirdre

Writer Teacher Poet
she/her

[Deirdre @DearDei]

I just published Facing That Mess: When Police Murdered My Unarmed Dad
This is how I survived. Until I couldn't.
https://t.co/iukFJPyakt
#MentalHealthMatters #death #BLM #childhood #PoliceBrutality

[Typical African @Joe__Bassey]

Speaking fluent English while your grandmother's tongue dies in your mouth is not progress. It is the most successful colonial experiment in human history.

They didn't just take your land. They took the language you used to name it. Every time a child grows up fluent in English but mute in their mother tongue, the colonial project wins—silently, generationally, completely. This is not about rejecting English. It is about understanding what was stolen before you decide what to keep.

There are over 2,000 languages and dialects spoken across Africa. Linguists predict that by 2100 more than half will be extinct—not because Africans forgot them, but because Africans were punished for speaking them.

This was not accidental. Lord Macaulay said it in 1835 in his infamous Minute on Indian Education, but the same blueprint was applied across Africa: create a class of people “Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, opinions, morals and intellect.” Replace the mind. Control the continent forever.

Here is what they never taught you: African languages are not primitive. Yoruba has a tonal complexity that English cannot replicate. Xhosa uses click consonants that modern linguistics still struggles to fully map. These were not simple tongues. They were sophisticated systems of thought.

When you lose a language, you don't just lose words. You lose a way of seeing the world. Concepts, medicines, histories, philosophies—entire civilisations of thought—exist only in those languages. When the language dies, the knowledge dies with it. Permanently.

The most disturbing part: many Africans today voluntarily finish what colonisers started. Parents refuse to teach their children their native tongue. “It limits them,” they say. This is not practicality. It is a trauma response dressed as ambition.

Some will say English opened doors. And they are right. But ask yourself—who built those doors? Who decided which language unlocks opportunity and which one marks you as less than? Accepting that system without questioning it is not intelligence. It is submission.

You were not born ashamed of your language. That shame was installed through beatings, policy and generations of conditioning that told you the coloniser's tongue was civilisation and yours was noise. Thousands of Africans today cannot hold a full conversation in their ancestral language. That is not a coincidence. That is a designed outcome.

Ask yourself: if your language disappeared tomorrow, what exactly would be lost? And who benefits from you never asking that question?

[Kentah Gwanjez @GWANJEZ]

"If you can only be tall because somebody is on their knees, then you have a serious problem. And my feeling is, white people have a very very serious problem."

[Amunet @freakoutsideofx]

To all the girls that were told that they couldn't🖤👌

[Kentah Gwanjez @GWANJEZ]

"I'm writing for Black people. I don't have to apologize." Toni Morrison

[philip lewis @Phil_Lewis_]

The city of Fort Worth, TX and the family of Atatiana Jefferson have agreed on a proposed $11.25M settlement 6 years after she was killed in her home by an officer

https://t.co/ceKwaz11P9

[Meidas_Charise Lee @charise_lee]

The name Benjamin O. Davis refers to two historic, trailblazing African American military officers: Benjamin O. Davis Sr., the first Black general in the U.S. Army, and his son, Benjamin O. Davis Jr., the first Black general in the U.S. Air Force and commander of the Tuskegee Airmen. Together, this father and son duo played a vital role in breaking racial barriers and pushing for the complete integration of the United States Armed Forces

[NowThis Impact @nowthisimpact]

This speech has been circulating in MAGA circles, and they’re absolutely horrified by it.

[kevin blue @kevinblue345]

Jerard rented a truck and drove his white friends from Illinois to the festival, and the group returned home without him Michigan State Police Jerard died by suicide withoutfoul play. Jerard was the only Black person in the white group

[Joao @dollyp2025]

He fucked around & found out

[philip lewis @Phil_Lewis_]

23-year-old Daniel Cressy just became the first person in Louisiana to be functionally cured of sickle cell disease through gene therapy https://t.co/snRE0wOGaP

[‏Middle East News @MiddleEast_Eng]

A Saudi man married a Sudanese woman in Sudan and had a son with her. He then divorced her and took his son back to Saudi Arabia, telling him that his mother had died.

When the son grew up and was over thirty years old, the father confessed to him that his mother was alive.

That young man is Abdullah Khoujali, a player for the Saudi Al-Nassr football club. A satellite channel interviewed him after secretly bringing his mother from Sudan, surprising him with her presence. Watch the mother's first interview.

[Queer Latifah ✨ @TheAfrocentricI]

The chapter about her Mom having to leave South Carolina because she spoke up to a white store owner for treating her poorly & that’s how her Mom ended up in Philadelphia makes this story full circle. Dawn coming back to South Carolina & winning on her ancestral grounds matters.

[UCLA Gymnastics @uclagymnastics]

She brought back an oldie but a goodie for her last routine in Pauley! THANK YOU, JORDAN CHILES, for four years of greatness in this building!

📺: @BigTenNetwork
#GoBruins

[Ben Crump @AttorneyCrump]

Barber-Scotia College was the first higher education institution for Black women in this country. Today it is fighting to survive. The 144K Collective is asking 144,000 people to donate just $1.44 to help save this historic institution. Our HBCUs are not just schools. They are the foundation of our history, our culture, and our future.

[America Red Voice 🇺🇸 @AmericaRedVoice]

🚨BREAKING: Rep. Ted Lieu says the full Epstein files contain information that Donald Trump RAPED minors.

So he started a war to distract us from his crimes.

What's your response to Ted Lieu......??👀

MAKE THIS GO VIRAL ON 𝕏. LET’S GO 👏

[Brian Krassenstein @krassenstein]

SAY HIS NAME: Nurul Amin Shah Alam

Trump's immigration officials picked up a blind refugee, who walked with a walking stick last week in Buffalo.

Then, after realizing he couldn't be deported, they dumped him five miles from his home in the freezing cold. He died trying to make his way back to his house.

I hope the family sues the Government for $1 billion.

[Tempesttdenise @tempesttdenise]

Parents make their children have a dance off when they fight. 😂😂

I should have done this 😂😂😂

[Michael Harriot @michaelharriot]

I've seen SO MANY ppl use the shutdown as an opportunity to demonize people who receive SNAP benefits, WIC and any kind of government assistance.

Here's the thing:

I agree with those people.

We need to end the WHITE welfare state

BECAUSE welfare works.

A thread:

[Up Workout @Upworkout]

A friend from Spain taught me how to make broccoli this way. So delicious 😋 Better than meat