On Sunday 2nd march of 1975 (46 years ago today) the then firebrand legislator for nyandarua North popularly known as J.M kariuki was reported missing.Ten days later his body would be found at the Nairobi city mortuary

WHO KILLED JM KARIUKI? Get your answers in the;
***THREAD***

JM Kariuki, joined the Mau Mau as a young man, and when independent Kenya became a reality, he got into government.His life was reported to have been shrouded in controversy from when he was young and until his death.

While they initially were good friends with Jomo Kenyatta, the two were to fall out eventually after JM questioned the elite chokehold on resources in the form of unbridled annexation of land.

Kariuki's cry to the ruling class in the 70s to limit the vast lands that they held at the expense of the poor endeared him to the local Kenyan, but it was also what turned him into an enemy with the ruling class.

Journalist & historian Martin Meredith,who covered JM murder for the Sunday Times in 1975,described him as "a playboy",not a "particularly admirable character" but gifted with "an unerring popular touch".His criticism of Kenyatta govt just made him earn some powerful enemies.

FYI
1. Esther was a sex slave. She was kidnapped by a foreign ruler who was her King while in exile. In that society & at that time, she was given one night to either “please” the King & be made a bride, become one of his many concubines, or be sent away as “damaged goods”.

2. The “One Night With the King” was not an romantic evening, it was an evening of desperation whereby she had to do all she could to win over the King are have a terrifying and unknown future. She won over the King, & her later fear to speak was wrapped up in this context.

3. When Mordecai warned her that if she didn’t speak God would raise up another, wasn’t Mordecai rebuking her for faithlessness. Esther was Queen, but she was a slave to that position; this wasn’t a Disney movie situation. Her fear of being killed was legit & Mordecai knew this.

4. The story of Esther includes 2 women.

1. A Queen (Vashti) who risked death by refused to be objectified & was ultimately sent away. Her exile made way for another woman.

2. Queen (Esther) who was objectified, but whose circumstances made possible salvation of God’s people.

5. So what was the “such a time as this?”

God in his cosmic wisdom that transcends space & time raised up two strong women who would stand against the violent misogyny of a Pagan world. Thru their courage & insistence to rise above circumstances their moves prevented a genocide.

Being Black and POC in white spaces do not simply form us to individualize our racial identity, not connected to our race while white people stay connected to theirs, but we take on the theological, political, and social commitments of white Christianity which re-enforces it.

Black people and people of color are told to give up their connection, all in the name of "unity" and the "gospel", and see symbols of their culture deeply steeped in whiteness while white Christians rarely give up anything. This is white supremacy. This is white Christianity.

Because of access to whiteness and connection to it, as social capital and meaning, Blacks and people of color become more distant, we learn to devalue our people, and decenter their stories, histories, and knowledge. It erases us. Literally. Erasure. Is that really good news?

Now, these churches appropriate non-white cultural practices and aesthetics while never centering the forms of knowledge, history, or concerns of non-whites. For example, Black culture is in the church but the church is doing nothing to change the world that Black people live.

As many of you know, I was apart of the white evangelical tradition. I have talked about things I learned about being Black in white spaces. Now I want to say some things about what I learned about once being a Black evangelical returning back to the Black church.

A thread.

Spending years in white evangelical churches and schools, specifically from 2012-2018, shapes Black people in more ways than we would like to admit. It shapes us to diminish Blackness, devalue our people’s story, and always test what we have against the white logic and litmus.

This is particular reality for us Black men in that space. White Christians exploit our vulnerabilities, give us the room to speak, while simultaneously subverting and devaluing Black women and their struggles and their grievances. Opportunities abound for us and we take them.

We are invited into the meetings, we are given the mic, we are asked to lead groups on race, the Black church, etc. We are asked though often we actually haven’t read or thought deeply about each. We become a weapon. Profiting and policing/punishing those who get out of line.

All the while, white Christians feel good about themselves and other Black people are left to clean up the mess we’ve made, the ways we’ve made fools of Black folk, and the harmful ways we’ve learned to think, and to preach, and to be around us. It is profoundly depressing.

The Birth of the Black Church by @m_a_mcmickle

In 1787 The Constitution, signed in Philadelphia, began with the words, “We the people of the United States.” That phrase, “We the people,” leads us to the second event that occurred in the same city and in the same year. 1/

A group of African American members of St. George Methodist Episcopal Church went to worship. As they entered the sanctuary, they heard the worship leader say, “Let us pray.” As they knelt to pray suddenly an usher told them they couldn't pray on the 1st flr of the sanctuary. 2/

Instead, they would have to get up and go to the “colored gallery” reserved for so-called “colored” attendees.
Led by Richard Allen and Absalom Jones, the worshipers assured the usher that they would proceed to their assigned location as soon as the morning prayer was over.
3/

They reminded the usher that he was creating more of a distraction at that moment than they were. But the usher would not relent. He began to physically pull them from their knees to force them to move. 4/

At that moment, and without any prior coordination or agreement, Allen and Jones and the others with them turned around and walked out of the church. Allen concluded in his autobiography, “They were no more plagued with us.” 5/

The Prophetess
Ida B. Wells was born a slave in 1862 in Holly Springs, Mississippi. Once the war was over,  Ida’s parents took advantage of that Reconstruction “glow-up” by becoming politically active & getting  Ida a quality education.
1/ Repost from: @praymarchact @janettaONI

After the Yellow Fever epidemic took both her parents, Ida became a teacher to provide for her remaining siblings. She attended Rust College and later moved to Memphis with her aunt for help caring for her siblings. 2/

The short efforts of Reconstruction left many ex-Confederates & former slave owners bitter & in need of a scapegoat. And with federal troops no longer around to enforce Emancipation laws, they chose to rule thru terror. This led to one of America’s greatest sins—lynching.  3/

3 of Ida’s friends were lynched by a mob after protecting their business fr jealous white grocers.  She wrote the tragedy “is what opened her eyes to what lynching really was: An excuse to get rid of Negroes who were acquiring wealth & property & thus keep the race down.” 4/

In response, Ida made it her mission to raise awareness about the injustice of lynching.  She wrote pamphlets, columns, & gave lectures around the world. She organized churches & boycotts & challenged racism in the Women’s Suffrage movement while still supporting their goals 5/

A lot of the anger about non-white people voting for a white nationalist is because some people don't understand one inarguable historical truth:

THAT'S EXACTLY HOW YOU BECOME WHITE!

A thread:

First of all, let's all agree that whiteness is some shit people made up. It has no basis in science or even logic.

For instance, for MOST of American history, the Irish weren't considered white and they might be the whitest people on the planet!

Now the Irish WERE NOT slaves, but the English and Scottish considered them "the closest thing to the negro" and "human chimpanzees"

Do you know how far England is from Ireland?

21 miles!

It's like when Brooklyn niggas talk shit about people from Queens.

It was only after the slaves were freed that the Irish moved up on the social ladder. An 1864 Democrat dociment said “There is the strongest reason for believing that the first movement toward amalgamation in this country will take place between Irish and Negroes.”

They were considered athletic, strong and lazy. They could dance, though. Plus, they excelled in boxing.

Does any of this sound familiar?

So how did they become white?

Well, basically, it was because of Gangs.

Sick & Tired of Being Sick & Tired

Fannie Lou Hamer was born in Mississippi in 1917. Her family’s livestock was poisoned by local white farmers because it was profitable. They became sharecroppers & at age 13, she attended school & picked 200-300 lbs of cotton per day. 1/

In 1945 she married & was planning for a family, but her doctor performed a hysterectomy without her consent. This program of forced sterilization of Black women was so common it was called a “Mississippi appendectomy.” Unable to conceive, they would later adopt 2 girls. 2/

At age 45 she attended a SNCC meeting & learned the power of her vote. So Hamer volunteered to register others in the Black community on their rights & how overcome the tools created to disenfranchise them such as registration tests & poll taxes. 3/

Upon hearing that she attempted to register to vote, the white farmer her and her husband worked for fired them both. She rejoiced at the opportunity to be part of the solution.
4/

In 1963, at age 55, Hamer led a voter registration drive. On the way home, she & others were arrested by police then taken to her cell where they forced 2 black inmates to beat her exposed body. She was left w/ a blood clot in her left eye & permanent kidney damage. 5/