AyeDee

I personally don't feel the need to hyphenate anybody's Americanness. Asian, Hispanic, Jamaican, Haitian, Dominican, Black...those descriptions can identify heritage or ethnicity without implying someone is somehow less American. And that's what makes the terminology around descendants of American chattel slavery interesting. Many Black Americans have roots in this country going back centuries, yet “African American” continues to attach us to a continent our ancestors were forcibly removed from generations ago. Brazil has an even larger population descended from the transatlantic slave trade and does use “Afro-Brazilian,” but Brazilian society also commonly uses racial identities that don't require that continental qualifier. So the real question isn't whether “African American” is wrong...many people proudly identify that way. It's why Black Americans whose ethnicity was actually formed here aren't equally understood as simply American unless we choose another identifier.

11 Democrats missed today's vote on the Hegseth impeachment resolution. ELEVEN! The motion to bury it passed by just seven votes. I want to know why each of those members was absent and what Democratic leadership knew beforehand. Voters deserve individual explanations... not some generic statement about accountability. What happened? Here are the the 11 Democrats listed as absent from the Hegseth vote: Julia Brownley - @RepBrownley⁠ Lou Correa - @RepLouCorrea⁠ Laura Gillen - @RepLauraGillen⁠ Steven Horsford - @RepHorsford⁠ Jonathan Jackson - @rep_jackson⁠ Nancy Pelosi - @SpeakerPelosi⁠ Brittany Pettersen - @pettersen4co⁠ Melanie Stansbury - @Rep_Stansbury⁠ Haley Stevens - @RepHaleyStevens⁠ Marilyn Strickland - @RepStricklandWA⁠ Frederica Wilson - @RepWilson⁠