Some of my friends that are convicted felons are 100% innocent of what they were accused and convicted of. Some of my friends that are convicted felons absolutely did what they were accused of. I don't make fun of people for being convicted felons, and I don't ostracize convicted felons. Instead, I don't let bad people around me. My definition of bad focuses on the choices that a person made in the past, and the choices that they make now. Some of the worst people, will never be felons.

1/N

Way back when I went to idyllic Pomona College, people couldn't understand why I refused to rock with so many of the Porsche driving frat boys, but happily spent time off campus in Pomona, Long Beach, Riverside, Compton, etc.

Why I had very little patience for rich kids playing college drug dealer, but went out of my way to help older students who had gang indictments, knife wounds, and violent felonies on their record, trying to reset their lives and get a liberal arts degree at 34.

2/N

A good rule of thumb to make, is to assume that pretty much every Black person that you know in the United States, knows at least one person that was unfairly convicted of a felony. And every Black man that you know, has had an incident where they were unfairly detained by police, and possibly arrested, and charged.

No, this doesn't make Black people relate to Trump. That's one of the most ignorant things that I hear people say.

But how you talk about felons? Black people hear that.

3/N

@mekkaokereke What really threw me for a loop is when I learned that in the USA voting is not a right, but a privilege - one that can be revoked for all sorts of reasons. But when I took a closer look at American history, I understood why this was the case (it always boils down to racism, doesn't it...).

And I have the firm conviction that voting _should_ be a universal right for all adult citizens in countries which call themselves democracy.

(For the record, here in Germany the only way of losing the right to vote is if you are incapable of understanding the concept of voting - such as, say, dementia or similarly severe mental disability. And that requires a certified medical evaluation - it's extremely rare, and certainly not a useful tool for large-scale voter suppression.)

@juergen_hubert @mekkaokereke It is extra fun when people COUNT incarcerated people for the purposes of determining population/representation, but then they don’t get to vote in those elections. If you were to guess that prisons are disproportionately located in places with voters hostile to the interests of, and from different demographics than, incarcerated people, yeah I’m pretty sure you’d be right