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I keep thinking about what Melissa Harris-Perry said in 2016 after the election. “I hear people who are understandably scared asking ‘what am I now supposed to tell my children about America?’ And I ask those people...exactly what the hell have you *been* telling your children?”
It’s just interesting (read: many other adjectives besides interesting) to hear the same people react to events like last week’s saying they longer recognize America. Same people. Every. Single. Time. Like...really? Every time? You *still* don’t recognize this garbage dump?
And it’s not to be smug or cooly detached from patriotism, even though patriotism is stupid. It’s scary for marginalized people that so many people in this country still didn’t get it after Katrina. After Ferguson. After Trump’s victory. After Charlottesville. After last week.
It’s scary because it means not enough people are learning, which means it’s going to continue to go down like this and people are going to be harmed and/or killed.
There’s no excuse to not recognize America. It’s been here long enough and it hasn’t changed much. A good way to start is to change the media and journalism you consume.
Look up the reporters who warned us of events like last week’s. Most of those reporters are Black and Brown. Read/support them. Subscribe/donate to independent outlets where they file stories. Donate directly if they have links in their bios. Stop listening to only white people.
These are the writers, people like @TheTinaVasquez who were reporting on things like family separation at our borders *before* Trump was elected. They are who the Rachel Maddows, the Anderson Coopers and the Chris Hayseseses crib from. They were there first. Support them.
And I spelled it like that because that’s how you pluralize Hayes. Don’t change the subject. That’s all.
Also, to be fair, these people don’t crib stories from independent people of color journalists. Their staff does. Probably interns paid in free untoasted bagels every morning that were leftover from the Lawrence O’Donnell show the night before. But you get the point.
