Shaun King

Shaun King

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I’ve been slow to join this bandwagon until now. Enough evidence exists that conservatives do indeed intend to weaponize and use this information against women, that I think it is advisable to delete these apps from your phone. I’m advising my own daughters to as well.

All I can think about recently is dropping out of my dream college.

I’ve wanted to study film at New York University (NYU) since I was 15. I owned sweatshirts and water bottles with the school logo well before I was ever admitted — when I applied, I did so with little hope of getting in. The school's acceptance rate grows more selective every year as the applicant pool grows wealthier, increasing their access to resources that will prepare them to maintain an upper-middle-class life.

While the university boasts its diversity efforts, stating that a whole 12% of 2023’s admitted students were Black, the number of Black students that end up attending is nearly half that. NYU’s tuition costs have risen over the years, making it almost impossible for anyone other than the kids of the upper class to attend.

Unless you do as I and the majority of my Black NYU friends did, and take out an astronomical amount of loans, this world-class education is inaccessible.

I took out the loans, over $30,000 every single semester, and now all I can do is wonder if it’s better to just drop out. Two of my Black friends, both brilliant and immensely talented, dropped out last year, and a third is taking a gap year that she suspects will become permanent. While NYU is not fully to blame as America faces an exodus of its Black population from predominantly white institutions on many fronts, its majority white faculty, student population, and administration certainly made it harder to stay.


New York University Data
In fact, it's more than just wayward film kids like myself who find that the damaging effects of attending PWI outweigh what the education is worth.

In the medical field, Black students are being blatantly dismissed and harassed out of their residency positions, the final course of study where doctors train in hospitals in the field they’ve chosen to specialize in. This erasure is preventing them from becoming specialized doctors. For most of history, American medicine was openly racist, with Black and Brown bodies being repeatedly abused for experimentation. Since the end of the Civil Rights movement, American medicine has simply taken to being more discreetly racist.

Across all fields, Black medical students are being pushed out at drastically higher rates than white ones. While Black medical students accounted for only 5% of total residents in 2015, they accounted for nearly 20% of those dismissed, according to the 2015 analysis by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education. In the field of surgery, one of the most coveted and highest-earning positions a doctor can pursue, 12% of Black residents were dismissed compared to only 2% of white ones, the same analysis revealed.


Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education
The medical news outlet STAT spoke with a number of Black residents about their experiences in the white male-dominated field as a part of an investigative piece. One woman, Dr. Rosandra Daywalker, is bringing a lawsuit against the school from which she was wrongfully dismissed. In the lawsuit, she describes being “...intimidated in the operating room, denied rotations requested, falsely accused of posing safety issues, subject to faculty members’ hostile comments about Black and Hispanic patients, and retaliated against for raising concerns about how a Black patient was treated”.

While no person should be forced from their dream position, school, or career due to bigotry, I just go to film school, and technically don’t need a degree to make movies. No one will die if I decide to try my hand at it, and am not successful. But to be a doctor requires over a decade of rigorous training, and as the widespread effects of modern medical racism continue to reveal themselves, we are in desperate need of more doctors of color.

I don’t have an answer to any of the issues here. I don’t even know whether or not I will return to school next semester. But it’s important to me that the story of these Black medical students, and Black students all across the country who have worked so hard simply to make it to college, be told.

We are here, in these white-dominated schools, trying to break into white-dominated fields, and they are actively trying to push us out.

We are here, and we are fighting as hard as we can.

Kendi is currently a student at New York University and is the author of multiple award-winning poems, short stories, stage, and screenplays.

Shaun King
@shaunking

My god.

I'm getting word that the new San Francisco District Attorney, who was appointed by the mayor last week, is firing 15 senior staff right now.

Everyone attorney who prosecuted police, investigated wrongful conviction, or supports criminal justice reform is getting fired.

When San Francisco Mayor @LondonBreed appointed @brookejenkins_sf to be the new DA, they didn’t have to do all of this. They are DESTROYING all reform and firing GOOD people for no reason. It’s gross. I’m furious because these aren’t Republicans but sellout Democrats that are making decisions that will set back meaningful reforms in San Francisco for generations. This is NOT about safety. Not at all.

54 mins ·
🚨 BREAKING: THIS IS AN EXECUTION. Police in San Bernardino, California just shot a young a Black man in the back and killed him. This is a murder. ⁣
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This young brother, Robert Adams, was just 23 years old, and is related to several of my dear friends. He never stood a chance. ⁣
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People on the scene said police LIED and said this was a standoff. ⁣
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This was NOT a standoff. This was a brutal execution.🤬🤬🤬 One officer appears to have shot him at least 9 times in the back. Robert was no threat at all. ⁣
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Police rolled up in an unmarked car. ⁣
With dark tinted windows. ⁣
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Robert had NO IDEA who they were and in an instant police jumped out and murdered him. ⁣
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If not for this video, they would’ve gotten away with this and their lies would’ve been accepted as the truth. ⁣
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Here’s the deal: ⁣@sbcountyda & @sanbernardinocountysheriff & @sanbernardino_pd & @mayorjvaldivia & @robbonta & @agrobbonta // you need to make this right. NOW.

(I don't know how to put the video here but it is likely to be all over the internet soon)

I won’t lie, it’s taken me quite some time to start this piece since I was given the opportunity to write it a few weeks ago. I’m not sure if it’s due to my seemingly incurable necessity to start every piece perfectly; or perhaps because it feels like a bit of a justification for the last 6 or so years of my life. Either way, **** it. Here we are now. (I can curse here, right?)

I figure it would be strange to go on any further without somewhat of an introduction. Like starting a marathon or some other long-ass race without stretching first. (Don’t worry, this won’t be too long. I have a word limit.)

My name is Cole Ezeilo. I am twenty years old. Brown-skinned. Six-foot-three. And I know how to use their, they’re, and there correctly. In other words, I’m a threat to most white people in most spaces around the world.

I emphasize around the world because it’s a hypothesis I’ve somewhat tested.

When I was 14, I made the decision that I no longer wanted to live in the United States of America - the land of the sorta-kinda free, where I was born, and up until then the only place I’d ever lived. I spent the first two years of my life in West Orange, New Jersey – the same state that my mother, brother, and Queen Latifah were born in – but moved to Georgia to be closer to my grandparents and “get away from the cold” as my dad likes to say.


Grandfather Walter Chiles and Cole Ezeilo // New Jersey
Within the nucleus of the four of us created by my parents – along with long-hugging aunties, quick-witted uncles, marvelously mischievous cousins, and the wisest of grandparents – life was pretty smooth growing up. The love was real and truly felt. And the most important ingredient in a child’s development, presence, wasn’t lost on me or my brother. For that, I will always be eternally grateful.

But externally, there was always something missing. Not necessarily a tangible element, but certainly an emotional component– or the lack thereof – which I was incessantly reminded of its absence, usually whenever I began to actually get comfortable.

Safety.

Emotional safety.

Mental safety.

Most blatantly, physical safety.

This may be a baffling concept for many people who have never spent time in America, or for those who have grown up living in one of the many other American realities which only seem to be open for cis-gendered heterosexual non-POC. (If you’re having trouble understanding this concept, think of the Multiverse theory from Marvel movies. There are many USAs.)

When a certain element – or for many individuals, several elements – of your identity seems to be adversarial to the structure you stand on, regardless of whether or not your ancestors built that very structure, it becomes incredibly difficult to live a life without fear.

So for many black boys and girls growing up in the States, it’s so easy for that fear to turn into fiery anger. At society, at the system, and at the world at large.

Yet, while many cultures and peoples would recognize this fear and choose to remove themselves from the environment completely, the Afrikan American community makes the choice to fight back, as our ancestors did not too long ago during times of Slavery and their descendants did during times of Jim Crow, and we continue to do during times of political injustice, loose gun laws, the expunging of women’s rights, and the continual ticking time bomb of black incrementalism.

But allow me to pose a question:

For how long do we want our lives to be defined by a fight?

Don’t get me wrong, I understand the reality that for many of us this fight is all we’ve known. Not only is it difficult to conceive of an existence outside of America, but it can also be incredibly scary. You may not know too many people who have left the States for travel, let alone to live elsewhere, and given the circumstances and conditions of your current life it may seem like an impossible reality.

But I think that the last two years of our lives serve as a prime example that realities are far more malleable than we think.

They can bend.

They can fold.

They can even pull a Simone Biles and flip all the way the **** upside down.

But much like Miss Biles, more often than not, we are going to land on our feet.


Cole Ezeilo // Albufeira
So I’d like to ask you, the reader who I’ve just stolen about five minutes from, not to see this and think I’m preaching that you should drop everything and move to Mozambique. (Although I’ve heard it’s really cool over there.) No. I’m simply asking that you take a moment, and ask yourself if you feel holistically content in your existence where you are.

Are you joyful? Do you feel valued? Do you feel safe?

Ultimately, it’s this lack of safety in all forms which inspired my personal departure from the American system many years ago. The discovery of its absence led me to begin searching for other elements of my character in Nigeria, South Africa, and most recently, Spain.

My only question now is, what will your discovery inspire in you?


Cole Ezeilo // Lisbon
Cole Ezeilo is a creative, social entrepreneur currently studying International Relations at IE University in Madrid, Spain. With interests in the power of culture and social justice, he intends to continue learning, exploring, and growing to best position himself as an agent for sustainable social change, specifically for his people.

Shaun King
36 mins ·
Hundreds of micro-factors impact what makes a home safe. A neighborhood. A community. A side of town. An entire city. But NOTHING impacts the safety of a place like the health of its economy. The economy is the single biggest factor impacting public safety in America.
When a home, a block, a neighborhood have true economic security, crime absolutely plummets. And, of course, the inverse is true. Without true, deep economic security, where people earn enough money to make it through the month, to care for all of their needs, and to grow and thrive, where that is missing, the toxic mix of poverty and despair rises.
Nothing would solve drastically reduce crime more than addressing the root economic issues at play that cause it.

How The New Oxford Dictionary of African American English Will Pay Tribute To & Protect the Legacy of Black Americans

Harvard historian and "Finding Your Roots" host Henry Louis Gates Jr. has been named Editor in Chief of the dictionary that is set to document hundreds of years of AAVE.

Kendi King

Henry Louis Gates Jr. speaks at the 2019 Hutchins Center Honors W.E.B. Du Bois Medal Ceremony at Harvard University (Photo by Paul Marotta/Getty Images)
From Ebonics to the modern term AAVE (African American Vernacular English), there have been many names for African American English.

Similar to the way hundreds of other English countries have their own regional variations with a plethora of terms that differ from standard American English, African American English is continually expanding and evolving. Despite the fact that there are hundreds of recognized English dialects, African American English is often looked down upon, deemed incorrect, and unprofessional.

Throughout my American public schooling, my friends and I were constantly being chastised by teachers, both white and of color, about speaking “correctly”. We were warned that in college, our professors wouldn’t take us seriously if we spoke outside a “standard” (by which they meant white) English dialect, that employers would deny us jobs, and banks deny us loans.

So, like most Black people in the U.S., we became expert code switchers, fluent in white and African-American English. Many of my friends also mastered their family’s own native languages (Spanish, Arabic, etc.) and the variations of English that stemmed from them.

I grew up in classrooms full of kids forced to be fluent in multiple languages, ridiculed by teachers who could barely manage one.

But soon, AAVE will finally gain the academic recognition it deserves, with Harvard-based historian Henry Louis Gates Jr. named as the editor of the new Oxford Dictionary for African American English. The creation of this dictionary, set to release in 2025, not only ensures the legacy of African American language is recorded, but it assigns credit of the creation of pop culture terms to Black people.

“...words that we take for granted today, such as ‘cool’ and ‘crib,’ ‘hokum’ and ‘diss,’ ‘hip’ and ‘hep,’ ‘bad,’ meaning ‘good,’ and ‘dig,’ meaning ‘to understand ’— these are just a tiny fraction of the words that have come into American English from African American speakers … over the last few hundred years.” Gates Jr. said, highlighting the dire need for a record of this language and its’ origins.

Black people in the U.S. have always pushed the current of popular culture and often ridiculed for it before the culture becomes mainstream (ie; rap music, big lips, gold hoop earrings, food with seasoning, jazz music, anything from Rainbow, big butts, weed, rock & roll…the list goes on). Yet it is a rare occasion when Black people are recognized, and even more rare when we are compensated for, being the creators of what the U.S. accepts as popular culture.

The undertaking of this new dictionary is just one step of many needed to unearth and preserve the long-buried history of African Americans and our contributions, both old and new, to the world.

Kendi is currently a student at New York University and is the author of multiple award-winning poems, short stories, stage, and screenplays.

The legendary Bill Russell has passed away today at the age of 88. ⁣
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He’s famous, of course, for earning 11 NBA titles, which will never be matched again. ⁣
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But Bill was so much more than an NBA champion. ⁣
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He was Colin Kaepernick in a different generation. ⁣
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Alongside Muhammad Ali, he was one of the single most outspoken and courageous athletes in all of American history. ⁣
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I’ve included some of my favorite photos of him, in his time, in his prime, beloved by fans, at the March on Washington, and more. ⁣
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We are so used to seeing him as an old man, that we rarely get to see him as we was seen by millions of people generations ago. ⁣
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Bill never stopped speaking out and speaking up and using his influence and set the tone and cleared the way for so many athletes and leaders that followed in his footsteps. ⁣
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I’ll say now what I’ve often said many times before. When our legends pass away, it’s a sign from God that it is now our time to be the legends of today.
(Shaun included some nice photos here, but I can't transfer them here. Too much work)

The Breakdown with Shaun King
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I wouldn't say that I'm shocked that the NFL only suspended him for 6 games, but I am absolutely disgusted. Men have been suspended more than that for having fights on the field.
I believe he did every single thing that the women said he did.
I've spoken to some of these women directly. They are honest, hardworking Black women that were cornered and sexually assaulted by Deshaun. He's a disgusting pervert.

Shaun King

I have to say some things that I’ve worked hard to keep private for the safety and security of my family. But I need you to know this so that you understand why our family not only needs a guard dog at home, but 24/7 security wherever we go.⁣
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White supremacists and people who’ve meant my family harm have now shown up to our last three homes. Multiple times.⁣
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Before you talk about how I should defend myself with guns, New York City won’t even allow me to have a gun. New Jersey doesn’t have stand your ground laws and hardly allows you to even own guns. News outlets have shown our home and exact location online, which then caused a slew of strangers to show up at our home. ⁣
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We’ve had people come up on our front yard. ⁣
And up our backyard, frightening the hell out of my family. ⁣
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We’ve had people file fake police reports against us. Causing the police to show up at our home. ⁣
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We’ve had people file fake child abuse reports against us. Causing child services to harass us for months. ⁣
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I’ve had complete strangers confront me in public because of total fabrications they heard about me online and even had someone put their hands on me over lies they read online. ⁣
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When my daughter almost died when she was hit by a car she needed extra security because people were coming to the hospital to harass us. ⁣
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I’ve had hundreds of death threats - including from police, military snipers, and white supremacist groups. Even when I file cases with the FBI they’ve done nothing, so we stopped even filing them. ⁣
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I’ve received death threats in the mail, in email, and across social media. I report it. Nothing happens.⁣
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A dozen white supremacists and police officers are in prison right now because of my work. Several have recently been released. ⁣
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Police have caused problems with my children at their schools over me. I ******* kid you not. ⁣
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This is what my life has become. ⁣
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I spend more time each day now thinking about how to keep my family safe than I do doing the actually work I’m called to do. ⁣
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So know this, when you see reports about the money it costs to keep me and my family safe, it’s nowhere near enough. Not at all. Not even close.⁣
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-Shaun⁣

This is Kevin Sheehan of the @NYPost. ⁣
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He has been attacking me and my family. ⁣
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I’m not going to sit idly by anymore.⁣
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His public email address on his Twitter page is:⁣
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[email protected]⁣
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Please email me @ [email protected] where Kevin lives. And where his family lives. ⁣
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Send me photos of his home. ⁣
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Send me photos of him. ⁣
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And his family. ⁣
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That’s what he and the @NYPost have done to my family. ⁣
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So I’m going to return that pain back to him. ⁣

Shaun King
2 mins ·
This is Marz. ⁣
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He’s a trained protective/guard dog. ⁣
A working dog. ⁣
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Raised and trained by the best experts in the country.⁣
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He’s absolutely amazing. He’s special. I love him. ⁣
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We purchased Marz to help protect our family at home because literal white supremacists have been coming to our home, on our property. Some even tried to sneak up our backyard before being spotted. You have no idea the terror that this caused my family. All of this exploded after the @NYPost published our home online. They knew this would happen. ⁣
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With death threats coming to me daily, and literal white supremacists that I caught and helped convict being let out of prison, Marz was purchased to roam our property and roam our home and even protect us on the road. ⁣
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Our organization, @GrassrootsLaw, which covers all of my security costs, helped purchase Marz to protect me at home. Compared to what 24/7 human security costs, Marz was affordable. We made sure that the purchase was legal and compliant before making it. ⁣
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But soon after purchasing Marz, we found that as great as he was, that he was not a perfect fit for our family. And with so many kids and guests in our home, we needed a perfect fit. ⁣
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So I traveled across the country and returned Marz to his owners, who’ve become my personal friends. This was months ago. ⁣
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I don’t regret it even a little bit.⁣
None of it.⁣
At all.⁣
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And my friends and family and followers and donors also understand my security needs and were glad to see we brought Marz into our family. ⁣
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But now, conservative media, which was told in advance that Marz was no longer even with us, decided to pretend that we used donor funds to purchase a show dog. ⁣
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They knew he was a protective dog for our security. Marz is indeed so brilliant that he can be shown, but that was not his role with us. And they knew this and pretended otherwise.⁣
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➡️Moving forward, we won’t be posting what we’ve done for my security or the security of my family online. Just know that we are very safe and secure. ⁣
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Love you all,⁣
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Shaun King
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Here's what I'm learning - people can lie about me on these platforms without any consequences.
They can share where I live without any consequences. They don't get banned. They don't get suspended. Nothing.
And when I push back - and return those same things to them - the exact same things that they caused to happen in my world - returned back to them - they wanna talk about consequences for me.
I truly don't care.
All I know is that the days of causing my family harm without consequence are over. Period. It's too much.

Glad to hear it.

Shaun King
rSoonetspduih

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This needs to be a national story! In the Deep South, voters in Memphis, Tennessee showed up in a MAJOR way to oust conservative DA Amy Weirich for a progressive reformer and civil rights attorney. It's a HUGE deal.
And it wasn't even close. Amy strangely made her campaign about ME, of all people, running ads blasting me, and my support of her opponent, but voters knew better and saw right through it, thankfully.
Here's the thing - when a progressive loses somewhere, it's all over the news. We need them to now keep that same energy for Memphis.
Shout out to the new DA, Steve Mulroy, who ran a great campaign. And shout out to the voters and volunteers in Memphis who made it happen. Proud of you!

Against their wishes, the men that chased, cornered, and lynched Ahmaud Arbery will spend the rest of their lives in Georgia state prisons.
Today, bigoted father and son duo of Gregory and Travis McMichael were denied their pipe dream of getting to serve their hard time in federal prison. It’s not going to happen for them. Instead, after being sentenced today to spend the rest of their lives in prison on federal hate crimes and civil rights charges, the judge announced that they would be remanded back into custody of the Georgia State Prison system - where they belong. In spite of their federal hate crime sentence, their Georgia murder convictions supersede everything else.
This is great news for 3 key reasons.
1. It’s what Ahmaud’s family wants. They murdered Ahmaud in Georgia and should have do their time in Georgia.
2. It’s not what these nasty bigots wanted. Prisons in Georgia are among the worst, most dangerous prisons in the world. Men and women are dying in there week in and week out. I hate the prisons in Georgia. They are inhumane death traps - but mainly for Black folk. And the McMichaels understand this. They know they won’t be safe there, but NOBODY is safe there and they damn sure don’t deserve preferential treatment.
3. Men like this should never get to choose where they serve their time. Period. And that’s basically what they were hoping would happen.
I’m grateful for my dear friend and brother, civil rights attorney Lee Merritt, for working his ass off to make sure it went down like this. It wasn’t easy. The systems and structures of mass incarceration were not designed and created to hold white men accountable. They were built to help give white men power at the expense of Black people. And we basically had to force the system to do something that it was never designed to do.
Thank you all so much for your love and support for the past 2+ years as we gave our heart, soul, and time to hold these men accountable.
Love and appreciate you all.
Shaun King

Hey Instagram - ALL HANDS ON DECK,⁣
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This is Jessica Miles. She is a disabled veteran who has been kicked out her home by the West Los Angeles VA.⁣
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And our team @GrassrootsLaw is partnering with my friend and brother @mrcheckpoint_ to get Jessica back into her home:⁣
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➡️ If you click the link in my bio NOW, you can fill out our SUPER-PETITION which will email dozens of decision makers that can make sure Jessica never spends another night on the street again. ⁣
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Jessica was given no written notice to leave and within hours her tiny home was locked and she was unable to go back in to get her personal belongings and feminine hygiene products. A same day eviction - which is against the law.⁣
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This makes no sense. It’s not just inhumane, it’s illegal.⁣
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And we are going to work as hard as we can to make sure she gets her home back.⁣
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We need EVERYONE to add their name to our super-petition at our 🔗 link in bio RIGHT NOW to get Jessica back into her home.⁣
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Every time someone signs, an email will be sent to over 100 decision-makers who can make a difference here.⁣
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Jessica has been discriminated against for nearly a year for raising concerns for female veteran safety.⁣
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As a Black woman veteran who is registered as 100% disabled by the VA, she is one of the most vulnerable people in the program and she and her daughter have been stuck on a waitlist for the only housing that they qualify for.⁣
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Jessica isn't alone. She is the SECOND Black woman that has been evicted in this manner and what she is going through is similar to what many veterans, especially women, are facing at the West Los Angeles VA.⁣
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The West Los Angeles VA was deeded in 1888 to be a disabled soldiers home to heal and get well with one of the best medical centers in the country.⁣
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But since the 1980s, private interests have built on the land at the expense of veterans being denied services and housing. And we need to put a stop to it.⁣
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Sign our petition to get Jessica back into her home and stay tuned for next steps on supporting veterans in Los Angeles.⁣
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🎥 @mrcheckpoint_
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GREAT NEWS EVERYBODY!⁣
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After our push yesterday for Jessica Miles (scroll back on my page) they gave her her housing back and she is now housed again!! ⁣
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Jessica, as you know, is a disabled veteran that served this country, and never should have been displaced to begin with. ⁣
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Later if you all are up for it, I’ll find some other ways we can help her. ⁣
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Love and appreciate you all.⁣
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Shaun