After the 2016 election I got pretty into Shaun King's activism. It felt like adding my voice to a movement making an impact. I was wrong. A few years back I learned about how he's betrayed black women, used racist tragedy for personal gain, and lied about the money he raises. https://twitter.com/WearYourVoice/status/1266036664918577154

I'd encourage my white followers to read the piece in the last tweet and the pieces it links to. We have no excuse not to listen and believe the people who King harms—often the very people he claims to want to support and amplify.

I continued to follow him on social and learn about activist efforts via his platform for months after the 2016 election. I wish that wasn't true, but it is. I did have a few moments along the way when I realized his framing of certain events and movements just felt wrong...

...like in February 2017, when he wrote these words in a piece about the #raisetheage movement (movement to not automatically try 16-year-olds as adults in criminal proceedings).

As a North Carolinian who regularly feels rage and shame about my state government's human rights failings, I found those words appallingly offensive. North Carolina is like Mississippi now so it's not worth fighting for the minors being tried as adults here? What?

(North Carolina actually passed a Raise the Age initiative that went into effect in 2019. Just an FYI.)

In that moment I realized that Shaun King was committed to the win without being committed to the cause. Because a human rights violation makes no more sense in North Carolina than it does in New York.

Read this piece for a more comprehensive/historical look at the history of King's tendencies to found and abandon organizations and lay claim to fundraising efforts that don't actually connect to his work: https://www.thedailybeast.com/shaun-king-keeps-raising-money-and-questions-about-where-it-goes-3