Today's thread: In regards to Matt Gaetz' "son", let me be clear on this. Adopting, marrying, dating, friending a POC does NOT absolve you of racism. Do we not recall Cindy McCain calling the cops on a brown woman because she thought she was trafficking her own daughter? 1/

Me having a wife or daughter does not absolve me of sexism, I can still be sexist, in fact, I am. I'm a male raised in a patriarchal society that was designed to suppress women, it's still in our constitution, there's no way I can't be sexist, yet I can still be anti-sexist. 2/

So back to Gaetz... Regardless of whether or not this "son" of his is really a son, or like a son, or whatever. It's not his choice to make. This is a vestige of white supremacy to do this whole adoption of kids of color, and it's used to erase our culture. 3/

In chatelle slavery days, we were given our enslavers last name. Does that mean we were sons or daughters to them? No, we were owned by them, they did it to put their stamp on us. They did it to many POC families, and Natives primarily up to 1978 til they passed the ICWA. 4/

That law still needs work, but this is Twitter so I won't go deep into the problems, and I'll let an actual native person explain if they so choose. Speaking of native adoption, for part of my life, my brothers and I thought we were part Choctaw, til we found otherwise. 5/

Turns out our great great grandmother wasn't an adopted Choctaw, but was half white because her mother was raped by her enslaver and they said the child was an adopted native to cover up the rape. Mind you, they did this not to escape a crime, but to avoid embarrassment. 6/

White people were adopting kids like my great great grandmother Rachel Weseley and acting like they were saving them, when it was to satisfy their own sense of ownership. Gaetz' doesn't look at this "son" as a son, he looks at him as a pet. And this shit is rampant. 7/

This doesn't mean that all white people that adopt a kid of color does this, but if Matt Gaetz really thought of this kid as a son, then he wouldn't have hidden this until he needed cover for his fake outrage. He's also an overall shitbag and needs to be punched in the face. 8/

I see white people do this all the time though, like going to Africa to "help" little black kids in poor villages, but not do anything to address the core cause of that poverty. No amount of white saviorism will absolve you from white supremacy unless you confront it head on. 9/

Also, Matt Gaetz looks like the villain's sidekick in every 80's John Cusack movie.