This country does not *have* to be this broken. But it will remain so as long as it continues to self soothe with white supremacist mythology instead of reckoning with truth.

Make better choices, America
This is a fundamentally violent and abusive nation
https://t.co/wbbsbfdMny
The commitment to the ahistoricism of of "this is not who we are" is not merely objectionable. It is actively dangerous.

You can't fix something that you refuse to acknowledge is broken.
https://t.co/0DBUp7c9x4
Frederick Douglass, in 1852:
"To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me...?”
https://t.co/wbbsbfdMny
So yes, @JoeBiden, this thread, from an American who hasn't gotten a wink of sleep tonight, is for you.
The health of a society can be measured by the condition of those who hold the least amount of power within it.
The thing that told me, more than any of her speeches, that @HillaryClinton understands this, is her experience working for the Children's Defense Fund and the lasting lessons she took from it.
Now, does that mean she is perfect, or that she hasn't made objectionable decisions?

No. Of course not.

But we never really did have a meaningful discussion of how someone with that sort of formative experience might lead, and how different it is from 1-45.
And yes, part of that is because of a snide undercurrent of sexism that pervades the political media in ways they don't even realize about themselves
I mean, honey, the top dog at CBS News/60 Minutes for decades, was conducting serial abuse—in the workplace!— that was rooted in misogyny https://t.co/PGrYOtPPWJ
To think that that part of Fager was somehow cleanly divided from his role as a newsman is absolutely ludicrous.

And he's simply an example. There was a whole list of Shitty Media Men, remember?

What are the outward ramifications when antipathy to women is simply normalized?
When it's baked into our day-to-day lives in ways we don't bother to examine and called normal?

That antipathy becomes institutionalized, and it shows up in who and what we take seriously, and what we do not.
And we know this country REALLY doesn't taken Black women or our lives seriously.

This is a place that gave a home to a Central Park monument to a man who tortured Black women he owned, without anesthesia, and called it gynecology
https://t.co/IvHhi0nb97
This is very much the country that stole so much from Lucy, Anarcha, and Betsey, plus many more black women *whose names we don't even know*, and did so over and over and over.

And if there is any chance for it to be anything better, it needs to truly understand what that means.

More from For later read

I’ve been frustrated by the tweets I’ve seen of this as a Canadian. Because the facts are being misrepresented.

We’re not under some sort of major persecution. That’s not what this is. A thread. 1/8


This church was fined for breaking health orders in Dec. They continued to break them. So the pastor was arrested and released on conditions of... you guessed it, not breaking health orders. And then they broke the health orders. 2/8

So then he was arrested and told he couldn’t hold church services in person if he was to be released. He refused. He’s still in custody.

Here is my frustration as a Christian in Canada:

1. They were able to gather, with some conditions. They didn’t like those. 3/8

2. He is not actually unable to preach. He is just unable to hold church services because they broke the conditions given by the public health office in Alberta. He says he can’t in good conscience do that, so they are keeping him in jail (because he will break the law). 4/8

3. This is the 1st article of The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms: “guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.” 5/8

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1/ Here’s a list of conversational frameworks I’ve picked up that have been helpful.

Please add your own.

2/ The Magic Question: "What would need to be true for you


3/ On evaluating where someone’s head is at regarding a topic they are being wishy-washy about or delaying.

“Gun to the head—what would you decide now?”

“Fast forward 6 months after your sabbatical--how would you decide: what criteria is most important to you?”

4/ Other Q’s re: decisions:

“Putting aside a list of pros/cons, what’s the *one* reason you’re doing this?” “Why is that the most important reason?”

“What’s end-game here?”

“What does success look like in a world where you pick that path?”

5/ When listening, after empathizing, and wanting to help them make their own decisions without imposing your world view:

“What would the best version of yourself do”?