It was great joining Njideka Akunyili Crosby — a gifted Nigerian-born, Los Angeles-based artist — to unveil our first portrait together. This piece reflects so many chapters of Michelle and my story, and we’re thrilled that it will be on display in the Hope and Change lobby at the Obama Presidential Center starting this Juneteenth.
The damage men have done to our culture, both in embracing this misogyny or ignoring it, will profoundly alter a generation. If men were Protectors, they would have hunted these men & their supporters for sport. Instead they follow them, defend them, or pretend they're irrelevant
A lot of people don’t understand what physical abuse actually looks like.
It doesn’t have to be a punch, slap, hit, or backhand.
Blocking someone from leaving is abuse.
Cornering someone against a wall is abuse.
Confining someone in a room is abuse.
Yanking someone out of a car is abuse.
Grabbing someone hard enough to leave bruises is abuse.
And physical abuse is almost always paired with emotional and psychological abuse.
I dated someone like this in college. He was jealous and controlling. One night, he tried to block me from leaving my dorm room and backed me against a wall. A friend knocked on the door, and I called out that I was coming.
That witness changed the outcome of the situation.
He moved and let me go because someone was there. Someone could hear me. Someone could get help.
He never hit me, but make no mistake: it came really cost close. That kind of physical domination is a direct path to worse abuse.
I called campus police. He was banned from my dorm.
After that, I didn’t go anywhere alone if I could avoid it. I watched shadows. I listened for footsteps. I looked for groups of people to walk near and doorways I could duck into if I needed help.
And I kept my pepper spray close.
Once, he parked outside my dorm for no reason except to scare me. That’s what abusers do. They intimidate. They control. They make sure you know they can still get to you.
So yes - showing up drunk and uninvited isn’t “nothing.”
Talking about rape as “domination” isn’t “nothing.”
Using your body to trap, threaten, grab, restrain, or intimidate someone isn’t “nothing.”
It is dangerous. It is abuse. It is a massive red flag.
When you dismiss it, you are telling women - your mothers, wives, sisters, daughters, nieces, granddaughters, and friends - that this is normal. That it’s acceptable. That they should tolerate it.
Either you have morals and stand by them, or you don’t.
I wish someone had explained this to me before college. I had to learn through experience, and I was lucky. Many women are not.
Know what abuse looks like.
Don’t minimize it.
Don’t excuse it.
Don’t look away.
@yemisi speaks the truth here about Graham Platner, his lies and his campaign.
“The risk of running someone who avoids the truth is that the truth shows up to your door anyways.”
Let’s see …
Karen Bass - first Black woman Speaker of the CA House of Representatives; Chair of the CBC; Chair of the Foreign Affairs Africa Subcommittee; short list for Joe Biden’s VP; Mayor of Los Angeles
Xavier Becerra - member of the CA legislature; Chair of the CHC; Vice Chair of the US House Democratic Caucus; member of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee; CA Attorney General; US Secty of Health and Human Services
These are ACCOMPLISHED leaders, glass ceiling breakers in their respective communities and not folks … “just hanging around.”
@KarenBassLA@XavierBecerra
Open Letter
To the President of the Russian Federation
From the President of Ukraine
When you came to power in Russia more than 26 years ago, many people in Ukraine viewed you positively. That is how it was. But that is now in the past.
Now, the overwhelming majority of Ukrainians view it positively that our long-range drones paid a visit to the opening of your forum in St. Petersburg, covering a distance of more than 1,000 kilometers. As you know very well, that distance is not the limit of our capabilities.
Moscow is killing our children. No words in the world can ever ease this unbearable pain and horror.
According to official figures alone, Russia has taken the lives of 707 Ukrainian children. Another 2,548 have been wounded and maimed by explosions. More than 20,000 have been abducted and forcibly taken from their homes. These are just dry numbers, but each one represents a lifetime of pain for a Ukrainian family.
Today, June 4, is the Day of Remembrance for Children Killed as a Result of Russia’s Armed Aggression Against Ukraine.
Everything the Russians are doing amounts to genocide. It is a systematic and clearly planned attempt to destroy the Ukrainian nation. They deliberately target our children, committing war crimes for which there can be no justification. They are destroying our history, our memory, and trying to physically kill our future.
We will never forgive the Russians for this. There is no and will never be any justification or forgiveness for crimes committed against our children. Everyone who gave these orders and everyone who carried them out will be found and destroyed. The ground will burn beneath your feet wherever you try to hide.
There are no words that can comfort parents whose lives have been shattered forever by Russian killers. But we have a duty: to bring home every abducted child and to do everything to ensure that the truth about these crimes is heard around the world.
Eternal memory to the innocent victims of Russian terror.
Glory to Ukraine!
@GrnMonsterGamin@Thefactsdude Did you read the part about her having a psychotic episode??
Also, what would you do if cops were stomping you in the head? Be specific.
The greatest threat to American democracy may no longer be found in Congress or the White House.
It may be found across the street.
The Roberts Court has become an unelected super legislature, rewriting decades of settled law, weakening voting rights, stripping away freedoms, and shielding the powerful from accountability.
This is not judicial restraint. This is judicial activism in a black robe.
History will not remember this Court as conservative. It will remember it as the Court that dismantled some of the most important civil rights and democratic safeguards of the last century.
Every federal candidate should run on reforming this Court. The American people deserve judges, not politicians with lifetime appointments.