The Tapeworm that Starved to Death in RFK's Brain
@imperativelizard.bsky.social
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imperativelizard.bsky.social
umm...
lmacthompson1.bsky.social
I am writing this because it has swiftly become crystal clear to me that many people have no idea what is happening or how this works. Here is a thread for non-academics to put into context what just happened to Dr. Mark Bray, a fellow historian.
Reposted by The Tapeworm that Starved to Death in RFK's Brain
awkword.bsky.social
NEW STUDY

Since I was born, 500 Black neighborhoods have vanished

And 500,000 Black people have been lost

All due to urban revitalization projects

Like the one for LA’s new coliseum — for the Clippers and ‘26 Olympics — that’s destroying Inglewood

@adamlmahoney.bsky.social @capitalb.bsky.social
From Watts to D.C.: How 500 Black Neighborhoods Vanished in 45 Years
America’s gentrified neighborhoods have lost 500,000 Black people, while gaining residents of every other race, a study finds.
capitalbnews.org
imperativelizard.bsky.social
"...this committee sits in a room filled with the portraits of all laureates, and that room is filled with both courage and integrity. So - we base only our decision on the work and the will of Alfred Nobel."
demcast.com
The Nobel committee chair Jørgen Watne Frydnes was asked about the decision not to award the peace prize to Trump, after the American president and his allies made clear they thought he deserved it.

😁
Reposted by The Tapeworm that Starved to Death in RFK's Brain
marc-fischer.bsky.social
What a scene! Everybody in the neighborhood is trying to dig into this squirrel’s plastic bag of snacks.
Reposted by The Tapeworm that Starved to Death in RFK's Brain
slackermom.bsky.social
Was just at a neighborhood school at dismissal. Hundreds of people with whistles surrounding the school and stationed down every block making sure ICE doesn’t snatch anyone. The same is happening at all the schools around here. I love my neighborhood and I love Chicago.
imperativelizard.bsky.social
honestly surprised they called for an ambulance.

not giving props. mild surprise; unimpeded, disgust intact.
Reposted by The Tapeworm that Starved to Death in RFK's Brain
royalpratt.bsky.social
ICE went after rideshare drivers at O’Hare today, according to statement from Illinois Drivers Alliance
imperativelizard.bsky.social
(2 diff things, not insulting those instagram users)
imperativelizard.bsky.social
... it worked for those really ugly pumps on instagram like 6 yrs ago.

it's not NOT working, for whom it is intended to work.
imperativelizard.bsky.social
I mean... sounds like efficiency.

Would prefer to see it in another side.
Reposted by The Tapeworm that Starved to Death in RFK's Brain
marc-fischer.bsky.social
I will probably just start wearing a whistle around my neck every damn day. I don’t want to forget to take one with me and if people ask me why I am wearing it, it will be a good opportunity to talk about how ice is kidnapping people in my neighborhood.
Reposted by The Tapeworm that Starved to Death in RFK's Brain
notyournegro.blacksky.app
Black people have been asking this question for a very long time.
ryanmarino.bsky.social
Do you really have any rights if they are openly saying they will just make up reasons to detain you?
thematthill.bsky.social
Wow. Greg Bovino admits on camera that his agents can detain people if you look scared, change your demeanor, or grip a steering wheel too tight.

As his unmasked agents walk around with large guns to scare you, they may arrest you just for that — even if you're a U.S. citizen.
Reposted by The Tapeworm that Starved to Death in RFK's Brain
mjsdc.bsky.social
Washington Supreme Court Justice Mungia has an extraordinary opinion condemning "the underlying racism and prejudices that are woven into the very fabric" of SCOTUS opinions about Native people.

"We must clearly, loudly, and unequivocally state that was wrong.”
www.courts.wa.gov/opinions/pdf...
MUNGIA, J. (concurring)—I concur with the majority’s opinion.1
 And yet I
dissent. Not from the majority’s opinion, but I dissent from the racism embedded in the
federal case law that applies to this dispute.
FEDERAL INDIAN LAW IS A PRODUCT OF THE RACIST BELIEFS ENDEMIC IN OUR SOCIETY
AND OUR LEGAL SYSTEM
While it is certainly necessary to follow federal case law on issues involving
Native American tribes and their members, at the same time it is important to call out that
the very foundations of those opinions were based on racism and white supremacy. By
doing this, readers of our opinions will have no doubt that the current court disavows, and
condemns, those racist sentiments, beliefs, and statements. Since the founding of our country, the federal government has characterized
Native Americans as “savages”: They were “uncivilized.” They had little claim to the
land upon which they lived. At times, the federal government attempted to eradicate
Native Americans through genocidal policies. At other times, the federal government
employed ethnic cleansing by forcibly removing children from their parents’ homes to
strip them from their culture, their language, and their beings.2
Federal Indian case law arises from those racist underpinnings.
The majority correctly cites to Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, 30 U.S. (5 Pet.) 1, 8
L. Ed. 25 (1831), which is one of the foundational cases involving tribal sovereignty.
That opinion is rife with racist attitudes toward Native Americans. Chief Justice John
Marshall, writing for the majority, describes a tribe’s relationship to the federal
government as one of “ward to his guardian.” Id. at 17. In effect, the opinion presents
tribal members as children, and the federal government as the adult. That theme would
follow in later opinions by the United States Supreme Court—as would the theme of
white supremacy.
Cherokee Nation began with the premise that Native American tribes, once strong
and powerful, were no match for the white race and so found themselves “gradually
sinking beneath our superior policy, our arts and our arms.” Id. at 15. The white man
was considered the teacher, the Native Americans the pupils: Meanwhile they are in a state of pupilage. Their relation to the United
States resembles that of a ward to his guardian.
Id. at 17.
This characterization of superior to inferior, teacher to student, guardian to ward,
was repeated in later United States Supreme Court opinions.
In Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock, 187 U.S. 553, 23 S. Ct. 216, 47 L. Ed. 299 (1903),
often characterized as the “American Indian Dred Scott,”
3
the Court used that rationale to
justify ruling that the United States could break its treaties with Native American tribes.
These Indian tribes are the wards of the nation. They are communities
dependent on the United States. Dependent largely for their daily food.
Dependent for their political rights. . . . From their very weakness and
helplessness . . . there arises the duty of protection, and with it the power.
Id. at 567 (quoting United States v. Kagama, 118 U.S. 375, 383-84, 6 S. Ct. 1109, 30 L.
Ed. 228 (1886)).
Our court also carries the shame of denigrating Native Americans by using that
same characterization: “The Indian was a child, and a dangerous child, of nature, to be
both protected and restrained.” State v. Towessnute, 89 Wash. 478, 482, 154 P. 805
(1916), judgment vacated and opinion repudiated by 197 Wn.2d 574, 486 P.3d 111
(2020).
3 See A Returning to Cherokee Nation, Justice William Johnson’s separate opinion was
less tempered in how he considered the various Native American tribes:
I cannot but think that there are strong reasons for doubting the
applicability of the epithet state, to a people so low in the grade of
organized society as our Indian tribes most generally are.
Cherokee Nation, 30 U.S. at 21. Native Americans were not to be treated as “equals to
equals” but, instead, the United States was the conqueror and Native Americans the
conquered. Id. at 23.
In discussing Native Americans, Justice Johnson employed another racist trope
used by judges both before and after him: Native Americans were uncivilized savages.
[W]e have extended to them the means and inducement to become
agricultural and civilized. . . . Independently of the general influence of
humanity, these people were restless, warlike, and signally cruel.
. . . .
But I think it very clear that the constitution neither speaks of them as states
or foreign states, but as just what they were, Indian tribes . . . which the law
of nations would regard as nothing more than wandering hordes, held
together only by ties of blood and habit, and having neither laws or
government, beyond what is required in a savage state.
Id. at 23, 27-28.
This same characterization was used by Justice Stanley Matthews in Ex parte KanGi-Shun-Ca (otherwise known as Crow Dog), 109 U.S. 556, 3 S. Ct. 396, 27 L. Ed. 1030
(1883). Justice Matthews described Native Americans as leading a savage life.
imperativelizard.bsky.social
YES.

the pt is to live in our humanness - the failures and shames and messy needs and too-much and grief - and in being a dick - and in learning to be honest with it, at peace with it, also allows measure, patience, grace, less dick-being. the opposite of perfection but actual perfection, right?