Thread by @VABVOX

I'm one of a few million Americans awake when we should be sleeping because of the pain of #cancer or some other chronic illness.

Adding to our sleeplessness is knowing #healthcare is under threat. We may not be able to afford it due to the #GOP's actions.

It's terrorizing.

My parents were Civil Rights workers. My father was a Freedom Rider. As a small child I was taught the legacy of #MLK.
I watched people invoking MLK on Monday. Not in defense of #votingrights or in outrage over how the #SCOTUS ruled on two pivotal cases on gerrymandering.
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MLK wasn't being invoked for #votingrights but for Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who lies to America every day about policies that could very well kill me & others.

Policies that are hurting millions.

Policies that have kept me a citizen without equal rights in my own country.
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Call this the wakefulness of rage. Of knowing that people with far more privilege than I are exercising it to silence me and people with far less privilege than my own.

To what end?

For what did my parents risk their lives--and their children's--if I were to remain silent?
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All day Monday, each time I came on Twitter, the attacks were fierce. Not just from Trump supporters who've absolutely no reason to be angry since the 2016 election was rigged for them, but from lecturing Democrats preaching a bastardized #MLK of obiesance.

Not today, Satan.
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My parents taught us silence = death. I learned it up close during the 80s & 90s as a gay rights & #AIDS activist. I learned I had to be willing to literally lie down in the streets to get attention for those who could not do it themselves--from AIDS babies to my gay brothers.
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As a reporter, I held little abandoned #AIDS babies at Montefiore Hospital in the Bronx. They clung to me with the deep need of children desperate to be held. It was heartbreaking to leave them.

Those kids at the border, their cries remind me of them, all these years later.

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Maybe because I am so ill, or because this is a bittersweet #Pride or because I still don't understand how so many people claiming to be progressive could vote against me and my family and my black neighbors, I am rageful at these demands for #civility.

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Where were those calls for #civility when the very first assault from Trump was removing the #LGBT rights/services/access pages from the #WhiteHouse website on 1/20/2017--just hours after the Inauguration.

People told me to "calm down," it would go back up. It never has.
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Where were the calls for #civility after the #MuslimBan or #TransBan or evisceration of the #EqualPayAct and #ReproRights and #ACA?

Why no calls for the #GOP to be civil in their increasingly violent rhetoric against group after group?
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Where were the calls for #civility when Trump called black athletes "sons of bitches" and women who were victims of #sexualassault liars?
What about when he implied in a tweet that Sen Gillibrand gave him sex for donations to her campaign?

WHAT ABOUT CIVILITY THEN?
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My list of all the times no one called for #civility is long. And there are names attached: black men shot to death in the streets, kids shot to death at school, girls sexually assaulted on campus but #BetsyDeVos was worried about the futures of rapists.
I have receipts.📜📜

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I want to sleep more than 3hrs a night but Trump & his apologists won't let me.
My rage won't let me.
My fear my wife will be harmed in a #hatecrime perpetrated by the folks who attack me won't let me.
My fear children will die won't let me.
Calls for #civility won't let me.
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I personally think people who deny children the rights to their parents or to #CHIP, people who take away the rights of #LGBT to due process or the rights of black Americans to #vote or the #ReproRights of women deserve to be social pariahs.

THEY HAVE CHOICES WE DO NOT HAVE.
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I do not feel civil toward those actively putting my family at risk.
I do not feel civil toward #racists & #homophobes.
I do not feel civil toward those who wish me dead every day.

I am a very polite person.
But direct action is impolite.
So eff your demands for #civility.
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The days of #civility ended the day the presidency was stolen from #HillaryClinton & American voters & our Congress sat silent and did nothing.
The days of civility ended with the bazillionth NYT piece on Trump voters.
The days of civility ended with the morning tweetstorm.
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You can make false equivalencies and claim #bothsides, but
ONLY ONE SIDE has #BabyJails.
ONLY ONE SIDE is taking away #healthcare #Medicaid and #Medicare.
ONLY ONE SIDE has a #GagRule.
ONLY ONE SIDE bans other humans.

So I refuse #civility.
I choice #justice.
Always.🌿
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