Cross-posted from Facebook

Tressie McMillan Cottom wrote on Twitter about how she'd benefited from the various federal education programs that Trump wants to cut. The responses are amazing (and her observation, of course, that by cutting these programs the Trump Administration absolutely hopes to target brilliant Black folks like her is dead on).

I can't even begin to write about all the ways in which I've benefited from federal dollars for my education. I mean, I grew up in Wyoming where I had an amazing public education because of the ways in which the state benefits from federal mineral rights payments.

I bet there were a ton of programs that I didn't even realize growing up that I benefited from that received federal dollars -- band, foreign language class, the Wyoming State Reading Council, my school and public libraries...

I know I learned the alphabet from Sesame Street. I learned compassion from Mr. Roger's Neighborhood. I learned science from 3-2-1-Contact. I learned some Spanish from Villa Allegre. Thank you, PBS.

I learn daily to this day from NPR.

As a college student, I was the recipient of a Pell Grant, federal work study, and a Stafford student loan. I paid off all my loans even though the Department of Education turned me over to a collection agency. My tax dollars at work. Thanks, Dept of Ed. I still don't want to see you defunded, even if you fucked me over.

My family has benefited from the free and reduced lunch program, from SNAP, and from WIC. My son attended a Title I school. (And thanks to SSI and Social Security benefits, I was able to barely scrape by as a parent of a young student while my husband was sick and after he died. The Social Security Admin claims they overpaid me, and that I owe them money. My tax dollars at work once again. But I'd never wish that any of us had no social safety net. Only callous assholes say such things. And even worse, those who move to enact it.)