ON A BREAK
Who is Shaun King and what happened to his Twitter?
POPULAR civil rights activist Shaun King is known for being vocal on social media regarding popular movements.
The media personality has received backlash in the past
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Who is Shaun King?
has written about civil and human rights for The Intercept and is the co-founder of the Real Justice PAC.
The 41-year-old previously was a senior justice writer for the New York Daily News and was the writer-in-residence at Harvard Law School's Fair Punishment Project.
He also hosts the podcast The Breakdown with Shaun King.
"Leaders like Shaun King help us see how racism is not dead and forgotten, but merely a mutating virus, and one that manifests in different forms in every age," reads his bio at ShaunKing.org.
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"Racism, mass incarceration, policies that criminalize blackness in the twenty-first century - these problems won’t solve themselves.
"And that’s why King’s voice, perspective, and work are so important."
King is a supporter of former presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders and has spoken at the Vermont senator's rallies.
The Kentucky native is married and has five children.
What happened to his Twitter?
King's Twitter account was deactivated on July 17, 2021.
It was believed that he deleted his account for the month, saying: "Deleting my social media (again) for the rest of the month. It's giving me great clarity. See you in August."
Twitter users were sharing screenshots of King's deactivated profile and many were shocked it was no longer accessible.
One person wrote: "Shaun King deactivating his Twitter account was not on my 2021 bingo card."
Another replied: "I’m a little surprised he deactivated."
A third said: "He’ll be back next month. He deactivated his socials for the month."
Has King's race ever been questioned?
King wrote extensively about the controversy in a titled Race, Love, Hate, and Me: A Distinctly American Story.
He was a leading voice for Black Lives Matter when allegations surfaced that he was white.
King wrote that he was "attacked with lies by the conservative media, lies that have been picked up by the traditional media and spread further."
"I have kept silent at the advice of friends and mentors, but I will do so no longer."
He added: "The reports about my race, about my past, and about the pain I’ve endured are all lies."
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King would say that the " and that my actual biological father is a light-skinned black man."
He wrote in the piece: "For my entire life, I have held the cards of my complicated family history very close to my chest.
"I preferred to keep it that way and deeply resent that I have been forced to authenticate so many intimate details of my life to prove who I really am."
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