I am 55 years old.
America is the only country I've ever known.
And I love my country.
When I was in school, I learned about the horrors of slavery. Sure, it was a limited education, but I totally got the gist of it.
We learned how people were taken from Africa, and how many DIED during the journey here, forced to labor in hot fields while being whipped, raped, deprived of education, and murdered.
In fact, when I was young, there was a mini-series on TV called Roots that depicted the brutality of slavery in horrifyingly explicit detail.
And then I did my OWN research, reading more books and watching more documentaries and movies.
But somehow, I was able to maintain my love of America. Despite all of the cruelty and brutality I had learned about, I was somehow able to figure out that the people alive in America today had NOTHING TO DO with slavery 200 years ago.
Somehow, I can still say the Pledge of Allegiance and sing the Star Spangled Banner, no problem.
But dishonest fascists like Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Ron DeSantis want to deprive American children of the knowledge of slavery, and African American studies because they say it's "propaganda leftist agenda" designed to teach kids to “hate America.”
That's a preposterous lie.
There are PLENTY of evils and horrors America is responsible for, and if you don't teach kids what happened in the past they may be DOOMED to repeat those horrors in the future.
Today's kids are being asked to treat as normal these "shooter drills" where the possibility of being shot with bullets that make them unrecognizable is a very real possibility, but we think they can't handle learning the truth about what happened 200 years ago?
If you ask me, those of us who learned the truth about America, and STILL love our country, are even more patriotic than those who are trying to whitewash it and hide the truth from kids.
Don't minimize it.
Don't rationalize it, with bullshit like "oh, it wasn't all bad because some people learned skills."
RESPECT THESE KIDS.
TELL THEM THE TRUTH.
Just left the San Diego Emergency Operations Center -- meeting with @MayorToddGloria as California prepares for #HurricaneHilary.
Southern California: Make sure to stay safe and listen to local official warnings.
This is what it means to live next to a terrorist state. This is what we are uniting the entire world against.
Today, a Russian missile hit the heart of Chernihiv. A square, a university, and a theater. Russia turned an ordinary Saturday into a day of pain and loss. There are casualties. My condolences to everyone who has lost a loved one. All services are working on the site. Rescuers, police, doctors.
I urge the world to stand up to Russian terror. Provide Ukraine with additional tools to safeguard life. For life to win, Russia must lose this war.
Only 4 out of 44 former Trump cabinet members have endorsed him - Meadows, Ric Grenell, Matthew Whitaker, and Russ Vought. The people who know best how he conducted himself as president almost unanimously think he is unfit. https://t.co/y5gsUsIybz
@NikkiHaley Israel is a Fascist apartheid state.
Whenever you disagree with AOC, you know you are wrong.
It was nice to see her respond directly to your idiocy.
“SLAPPs don’t usually win in court, but that’s not what they’re intended to do. Instead, they set out to threaten activists and drain the financial resources of social movements.”
This is how they're trying to silence us.
https://t.co/aiOqIsc96C
19 July 1920 | A Polish Jew, Isaak Hochhauser, was born in Kolanów.
In #Auschwitz from 17 June 1942.
No. 39568
He perished in the camp on 4 August 1942.
The aperture of potential criminal liability faced by Trump and his acolytes continues to widen, write @JoshuaGKolb and Fred Wertheimer. https://t.co/5vtcMM4RXK
@GOP You have no candidates for 2024, you have no ideas or policies and a non trivial number of your membership are either in prison or currently indicted under the espionage act.
Additionally conspiracy to commit sedition charges are pending against your membership.
All facts.