This is an outrage that begs urgent attention, but also a practice with a past.

So this is an outrage that begs urgent attention, but also a practice with a past. It is inextricable from the history of white supremacy. You cannot understand family separation without understanding which families have been separated.

Slavery was family separation.

The forced schooling of Native Americans was family separation.

Internment was family separation.

Mass incarceration is family separation.

And what's happening on the border is family separation.