One of my missions in life is to hold a proverbial mirror up to society.
Sometimes people don’t like what I post because they don’t like what they see reflected in it. They recognize an attitude, an assumption, or a behavior they would rather not examine. Suddenly, the problem is the person holding the mirror. The problem is me.
Does that mean I am always right? No.
Does it mean I am perfect? Absolutely not.
I get criticized in my own posts. I also routinely call myself out on my own shit. That part sometimes gets missed by people who are too offended to notice that the criticism includes me.
I live in this society too. I have absorbed its prejudices, made mistakes, and had to confront things about myself that I did not like. And I am still doing that work.
But admitting that a problem exists is the first step toward doing something about it. We cannot fix what we refuse to acknowledge.
And I want something better. For myself. For my children. For the people whose lives are shaped by conditions they did not create and cannot simply wish away.
I want that “more perfect union” we keep talking about. I also want a better world beyond it.
You do not have to like the way I make my points. I know I can be blunt, sarcastic, angry, and confrontational. Sometimes I turn people’s own venom back toward them so they can hear how ugly it sounds when they are on the receiving end.
That approach can land. It can also miss. I am responsible for that. I am responsible for the “strays” caught by individuals and groups who didn’t do anything to me.
But I am tired of watching people show more concern about the tone of a response than the cruelty that provoked it.
They can demean marginalized people all day. The moment someone responds with anger, suddenly we need a discussion about civility.
Where was that concern before somebody answered back?
When I defend Black people, some accuse me of racism. But loving my people and refusing to let them become everybody’s punching bag does not establish hatred of anyone else.
Neither does questioning criticism that has been selectively aimed at us.
A criticism can contain a legitimate concern and still be used to advance a racist agenda. If someone cares about a problem only when it gives them a reason to demean Black people, I am going to question their motives.
That is especially true when they show no interest in solutions.
I also want to be precise about power. There is a difference between an individual’s prejudice and the power of institutions to turn racial prejudice into unequal treatment, exclusion, and deprivation.
That distinction is important. It does not mean my words are incapable of causing harm or that being Black makes everything I say acceptable. It means we should stop pretending that every expression of anger carries the same history, authority, or consequences.
I am responsible for my words. I am also entitled to challenge the systems and narratives that harm my people.
And I am not advocating physical harm against anyone. My goal is to eradicate racism, not give it another direction to travel.
That requires understanding racism beyond its most theatrical forms.
It is not limited to robes and hoods, shouted slurs, or segregated lunch counters. It also includes beliefs about whose intelligence, character, culture, and humanity deserve respect. It includes policies and institutional practices that maintain racial advantages and disadvantages.
A person does not have to announce that they hate Black people to support arrangements that keep Black people disadvantaged.
And a policy does not become harmless simply because the people defending it avoid racist language.
That is why I keep pointing these things out. Recognition should lead to examination. Examination should lead to action.
Take the constant fixation on violence in Black communities.
Black people living in those communities have every reason to care. We lose loved ones. We fear for our children. We want safe streets, and we want the people harming our neighbors held accountable.
But if someone claims to care about that violence, I expect them to care about the conditions surrounding it too.
Trauma. Poverty. Limited opportunities. Inadequate schools. Discrimination. Access to healthcare and mental-health support. The pressures that teach some young men to treat domination, retaliation, and performative toughness as the only ways to establish respect.
These conditions do not excuse a person who hurts someone else. They do matter if we intend to prevent the next person from doing it.
Calling the problem “Black culture” does not explain why it happens. Blaming DNA is racist nonsense. Reducing everything to bad parenting lets the rest of society wash its hands of conditions that families are struggling within.
Parents have responsibilities. Individuals have responsibilities. Institutions and governments have responsibilities too.
I am tired of arguments that recognize only the first two.
We should also examine struggling White communities affected by lost industries, declining opportunity, and neglect. Their suffering deserves attention, and comparing experiences could help us understand what people need.
Instead, some commentators use poor Black neighborhoods as a punching bag while offering very little to poor White people beyond somebody to resent.
How does that help either community?
If you care about people being safe, healthy, and able to build a life, then help address the conditions standing in their way. Stop using one group’s pain to distract another group from its own.
And stop acting as though racism disappeared when the Civil Rights Act passed.
A change in law can be a major victory without erasing the beliefs, habits, and power arrangements that made the law necessary. Those things do not vanish because open discrimination becomes less socially acceptable.
Nor did Barack Obama create racial division by acknowledging the realities facing Black people. Naming a problem is not the same as causing it.
The anger directed at those acknowledgments tells us something about what people expect Black public figures to leave unsaid.
That is part of what I want the mirror to show.
I want us to examine the difference between opposing racism in principle and resisting every uncomfortable conversation about how it operates. Between saying we care about a community and using its problems to humiliate it. Between demanding accountability from individuals and refusing accountability for institutions.
I am willing to have that examination include me.
But I am not going to stop holding up the mirror simply because the reflection pisses somebody off.
I have shared videos of Ku Klux Klan members and other racists explaining what they believe on my Facebook page. What interests me is how familiar some of those beliefs sound once you look past the robes, the slurs, and the willingness to say the quiet part out loud.
The KKK does not represent every American. Nor should one town, one interview, or one group stand in for the whole country.
David Duke wanted to make the KKK more acceptable to theAmerican public by presenting a more polished and white collar image of the group.
But that does not mean the ideas expressed in those videos exist only among people who openly identify as racists.
The belief that Black people are inherently less capable, less civilized, more dangerous, or less deserving can appear in different forms and degrees. Someone can reject the Klan and still accept assumptions that have a great deal in common with its worldview.
That is what I want people to examine.
For generations, racism helped justify conquest, enslavement, colonial exploitation, and exclusion. People dressed those justifications up as science, religion, common sense, and concern for civilization.
The cruelty came with an explanation. The explanation made the cruelty easier to defend.
We still need to pay attention to that process.
Racism can become so familiar that people stop recognizing it unless it appears in its most extreme form. They know a hood and a burning cross when they see them. They know an explicit slur when they hear one.
But a polished commentator making insinuations about Black intelligence, criminality, or belonging? Suddenly, we are supposed to consider whether that person is simply a misunderstood truth-teller.
Apparently, racism becomes harder to recognize when the speaker has a studio, a suit, and a respectable vocabulary.
Nick Fuentes is literally a self-professed Nazi (or Nazi sympathizer) who can get away with much of what he says, and was invited to Donald Trump’s mansion for dinner because he isn’t seen in the uniform of White supremacy.
I am tired of the idea that avoiding the N-word automatically makes an argument free of racism.
What is the argument asking us to believe? How is the evidence being used? What context has been left out? Is a problem being examined, or is an entire people being assigned a negative character?
Those questions matter more than whether the speaker remembered to avoid a slur.
Statistics deserve scrutiny too. A number can be accurate while the story built around it is misleading. Selective comparisons, missing context, and sweeping conclusions can turn data into a tool for reinforcing prejudice.
If someone uses a statistic to suggest that Black people are inherently defective, the presence of a number does not make that suggestion objective.
A spreadsheet does not wash racism out of an argument.
Charlie Kirk’s “truth” was nothing more than racism using cherry-picked and out-of-context statistics. These are often quoted on his podcast and while debating undergrad students on college campuses.
One of the things I wanted people to notice in those videos was the date.
When were these people saying these things? When were the incidents happening? How long after the major civil-rights victories were communities still facing intimidation, exclusion, and openly racist hostility?
Too many people talk as though the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 closed the book on racism.
Those laws were extremely important. But passing a law did not instantly change everyone’s beliefs, dismantle every discriminatory practice, or erase the advantages accumulated under the old arrangements.
Some attitudes changed. Some people changed. Others learned to conceal what they believed or express it in language that gave them plausible deniability.
We should recognize progress without pretending that it finished the job.
That is also why I keep returning to the contrast between how Barack Obama and Donald Trump have been judged.
I am not arguing that every criticism of Obama was racist. I criticized him myself. His policies and decisions deserve examination like those of any other president.
But I watched people demand that he be endlessly calm, polished, articulate, restrained, and reassuring—and still treat him as illegitimate, threatening, or fundamentally out of place.
He could meet their stated standards and still fail the test.
Then I watched some of those same people celebrate Trump’s belligerence, insults, and disregard for restraint as signs of strength.
Conduct they would have treated as disqualifying in Obama became proof that Trump was authentic and willing to fight.
Donald Trump can get away with egregious behavior that Obama is not able to get away with. Obama had to mostly remain stoic during his presidency, while Trump can be angry and belligerent.
What changed—the standard, or the person being judged?
That question deserves more than a reflexive accusation that I am “making everything about race.”
I do not need to claim that every measure of the country’s condition was better under Obama to make this point. Presidents should be judged on evidence, and different outcomes require different comparisons.
My concern here is the permission some people grant one leader while demanding constant reassurance from another.
If restraint is essential to presidential character, it should matter when Trump lacks it. If inflammatory rhetoric is dangerous, it should not become admirable simply because the speaker is someone you support.
And if intelligence, preparation, and dignity are the standards, meeting them should count regardless of the president’s race.
Too often, that consistency disappears.
This is why the openly racist videos matter to me. They make certain assumptions easier to hear. Once we recognize those assumptions in their bluntest form, we should be willing to examine where else they appear.
George Lincoln Rockwell was the founder of the American Nazi Party (ANP). He was a very articulate man who attended an Ivy League University (Brown University). Often, he would dress in Nazi uniforms but he would often dress in a suit and speak while smoking his signature pipe. Often, his message wasn’t necessarily antagonistic or violent, but they were exclusionary and racist.
The delivery may be smoother. The speaker may deny any prejudice. The audience may insist that it is all about policy, statistics, or “telling the truth.”
But we still have to examine the substance.
Racism does not need a hood, a slur, or a confession to operate.
And refusing to recognize it until someone supplies all three gives far too many people permission to keep doing it.
I have absolutely no respect for people who spread the racist and transphobic conspiracy theory that Michelle Obama was born male.
None.
This lie has been debunked repeatedly, yet people keep recycling it as though repetition will turn it into evidence. Michelle Obama was born Michelle LaVaughn Robinson. There is no credible evidence for the claim that she was born “Michael” or assigned male at birth.
A picture of Michelle Obama as a baby.
But this is about more than one lie about one woman.
It is about the willingness to treat Black women’s bodies, voices, and appearance as public property. Apparently, anyone with an internet connection gets to inspect them and decide whether they qualify as women.
And some Black men participate in this bullshit when they should know better.
There are few better examples of Black women’s sex and gender being questioned than Brittney Griner. Griner is the subject of some very ugly conspiracy theories and assumptions. Griner is tall, has a deep voice, has no pronounced breasts, and doesn’t conform to traditional gender roles. And all of those things are ok and don’t take away from her womanhood.
Black women get called “masculine” for being tall, strong, outspoken, athletic, angry, or unwilling to make themselves small. A deeper voice becomes suspicious. Short hair becomes suspicious. Muscles become suspicious.
Even confidence becomes suspicious.
Women of other races can possess those same characteristics, but Black women are too often treated as though they have violated some rule of womanhood by possessing them.
Who made that rule? And why are we helping enforce it?
Venus and Serena Williams were attacked for their appearance, their athleticism, and their muscular build.
Think about the scrutiny directed at Venus and Serena Williams. Think about Brittney Griner and Grace Jones. Think about how quickly people turn a Black woman’s strength, stature, or appearance into an accusation.
The details of each woman’s experience differ. But the impulse to inspect, mock, and police Black women’s bodies is familiar as hell.
I hear echoes of Malcolm X’s criticism of the disrespect and lack of protection Black women face. Decades later, we are still watching people turn that disrespect into entertainment.
And the supposed defense of Michelle Obama sometimes falls into the same trap.
People point to her children, her marriage, her clothes, or how feminine she looks, as though the right combination of evidence will finally satisfy the people attacking her.
We should challenge the lie. But we should also challenge the premise.
A woman does not have to give birth, wear dresses, have a particular body shape, or meet somebody’s beauty standard to deserve respect.
Picture of Michelle Obama throughout her young years.
Michelle Obama does not need an exception made for her height or her facial features. There is nothing about those things that needs explaining away.
Nor should defending her require treating transgender women as an insult she must be separated from. The conspiracy is false, and its use of trans identity as a weapon is part of what makes it ugly.
Being transgender is not a disgrace. Lying about someone’s identity to humiliate them is disgraceful.
The people spreading this story often try to demean Barack Obama at the same time. In their telling, supposedly exposing his wife would somehow diminish his manhood.
That tells us something about the prejudices doing the work here. Black womanhood becomes something to ridicule. Black manhood becomes something to undermine. Transgender identity becomes something to sneer at.
And the whole thing gets passed around as a joke.
Isis King is a trans woman who is an actress and a model. One doesn’t have to be born anatomically female to be feminine.
What, exactly, is funny?
The contempt for Black women? The attempt to humiliate a Black family? The idea that somebody’s gender can be determined by studying a photograph and making shit up?
I do not find any of that clever.
You do not have to like Michelle Obama. You do not have to agree with her politics, admire her speeches, buy her books, or defend her husband’s administration.
There are legitimate things to discuss and criticize.
But disagreement does not entitle you to invent a different identity for her or subject her body to some imaginary gender inspection.
And being Black does not make participation in that harassment less anti-Black.
If you are a Black man spreading this lie, ask yourself why you are so eager to help people degrade a Black woman. Ask yourself whose approval you are seeking and what, exactly, you think our community gains from your participation.
The same goes for Black women who join in. Familiarity with this kind of scrutiny should give us more reason to reject it.
Michelle Obama as a child with her brother and her parents.
I am not going to insult somebody’s mother, grandmother, or partner to make that point. Those women do not deserve to have their appearance dragged into this either.
That is the whole damn problem: too many people think a woman’s appearance is fair game whenever they want to win an argument.
It needs to stop.
Black women do not owe you a particular kind of femininity. They do not owe you access to their private lives. And they do not owe you proof that they are women.
Criticize what Michelle Obama actually says and does if you have an argument to make.
But stop spreading this racist, transphobic bullshit and pretending it is political commentary.
Let me explain something again for the liberals who keep confusing progressive politics with a cult of personality.
Ahem.
We do not give a fuck about worshipping politicians. We care about what they do.
If Trump delivered humane, progressive policies that materially improved people’s lives, I would acknowledge those accomplishments. That would not require me to excuse everything else about him.
When Biden was president, I wanted him to succeed. I wanted an administration willing to meet the scale of the problems facing us. Give us the ambition associated with FDR’s New Deal or LBJ’s Great Society (without the devastating and unjust war, of course), and I would have plenty to praise.
But wanting a president to succeed does not mean pretending that everything they do is enough.
And voting for someone does not mean surrendering the right to criticize them.
That was true when I wrote the original version of this post. It is still true now.
I am tired of people treating progressive demands as unreasonable while expecting us to accept political responses that fall short of the conditions we are living through.
Yes, Biden actually said this to a group of wealthy donors behind closed doors. But he governed surprisingly to the left (even by a little) than anyone who has occupied that position since Jimmy Carter, in my opinion.
People cannot afford housing. They struggle to get healthcare. They work themselves into exhaustion and still cannot establish financial security. Racism continues to shape their opportunities and treatment. Environmental threats keep demanding action.
Then we get told to be patient, lower our expectations, and remember how much worse the other side would be.
We know the other side is worse. What the fuck are you going to do about the problems we elected you to address?
That question should not cause this much damn discomfort.
I am not opposed to every smaller improvement. If a policy helps people today, that matters. What I reject is treating incrementalism as the permanent ceiling on what we can demand.
A partial victory should give us something to build on. It should not become an excuse to declare the work finished or tell the people who are still struggling that they are asking for too much.
Too often, “be realistic” means accepting that the people with power will remain comfortable while everyone else adjusts to insecurity.
I do not accept that as a political goal.
And no, Bernie Sanders is not a messiah.
He became important to many of us because he gave national attention to policies and grievances that other politicians dismissed. He spoke about healthcare, wages, education, corporate power, and the lives of people who felt unseen.
That is why we supported him. His appeal came from what he advocated and what he appeared willing to fight for.
My appeal to Bernie Sanders was solely based on policies that Sanders fights for.
Sanders is fallible. He has disappointed people on the left, including me. When he does, he gets criticized too.
The same should apply to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, any other progressive politician, and whoever comes next. Nobody gets to substitute their name or reputation for accountability.
If a politician abandons the commitments that earned our support, we have every right to challenge them. That is political consistency.
I wanted Biden to be a good progressive president. I wanted him to deliver. I wanted the people who voted for him to have something meaningful to show for it.
I also wanted the United States to confront its racism. Wanting that did not require me to pretend we had already achieved it.
The same principle applies to an administration. I can want it to succeed and still refuse to accept inadequate responses to real problems.
People’s lives cannot be managed as though the goal is to keep them just hopeful enough to make it to the next election cycle.
They need relief. They need security. They need power over the conditions shaping their lives.
And they need more than a lecture about how complicated everything is.
I like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC). However, she is not above criticism. She needs to be judged on the policies that she fights for and her voting record, not on her looks, her former job, or slander about her intelligence.
Yes, governing is complicated. There are institutional barriers, hostile courts, narrow majorities, and opponents who will obstruct whatever they can. Those things deserve serious consideration. They really do.
But an explanation should help us understand what happened, what was attempted, and what needs to change. It should not shut down every question about whether leadership could have done more.
I hate excuses that make no logical sense. I hate watching people dodge simple questions about matters they are supposed to understand. I hate the double-speak that turns failure into strategy and criticism into disloyalty.
And I cannot stand the dismissive attitude toward corruption, donor influence, and the conflicts between what politicians promise voters and what they protect once they hold office.
Do not tell me I am being unreasonable for noticing those conflicts.
Policies are important. Policies are important. Policies are very important.
And actions are more important, especially when the country is watching how politicians move.
A platform tells me what you claim to support. Your actions tell me what you are willing to pursue, defend, compromise, or abandon.
That is what I am watching and paying the most attention to.
When Biden was president, many of us criticizing him had voted for him in the general election. We understood the choice before us. We made that choice.
But our votes were not promises to remain silent.
We did not agree to applaud every compromise, excuse every disappointment, or defend the administration against the very people whose needs it was supposed to serve.
We voted to put someone in office. Then we expected them to do the work.
That standard survives Biden’s presidency. It applies to the current administration, to Democratic leadership, and to every future candidate asking for our support.
At the time that this was written (well, rewritten) and published in this Blog, all of the people that you see here are speculated to seek the 2028 Democratic Party nomination for president. There are some that I like. There are some that I don’t like. Race doesn’t matter. Looks don’t matter. Name recognition doesn’t matter to me. What matters are the policies that help American people and end wars. Any one of these people could get my vote if they are advocating for things that align with my personal politics and morals.
You are not owed our devotion. You are accountable for what you do with our votes.
We have to keep holding their feet to the fire. Organize. Ask the questions. Make the demands. Recognize the gains, and keep pushing where the work falls short.
Because if we stop demanding accountability, the people in power have every reason to keep giving us less… and expecting us to thank them for it.
Barack Obama, Bob Marley, and Benjamin Jealous have something in common that often gets overlooked: each had a Black parent and a White parent. Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington also described their fathers as White, although neither knew his father’s identity with certainty.
Yet I have heard people argue that having a White parent disqualifies someone like Obama from being considered Black. I have heard this from both Black and White people, but more often in Black circles, possibly because most of my affiliations are with Black people.
And I have a problem with it.
People who would otherwise recognize Obama as Black suddenly question his Blackness once they learn about his mother. His appearance hasn’t changed. His life hasn’t changed. What changed is their willingness to accept him.
Why does knowing that someone has a non-Black parent suddenly become grounds for pushing them out of the community?
Actress Zendaya Maree Stoermer Coleman is the child of a Black father and a White mother.
I have said this before: race is a social classification, not a set of neatly separated biological categories. The boundaries people draw around it are arbitrary, inconsistent, and shaped by history and power.
But some of us talk about Blackness as though there is a purity test we can administer.
Jermaine Lamarr Cole is the child of two American US Service members of different races. His mother is White, and his father is Black. He was born at a United States military base in Frankfurt, Germany.
This is personal for me. I am the product of generations of Black people who considered themselves part of a separate racial category and largely married within that category. I know that history comes with an ugly legacy of colorism, exclusion, and the infamous “paper bag test.”
That is not a legacy I want us to preserve.
Yet we risk carrying those same ideas forward when we treat our biracial kin as outsiders simply because one parent is of European, Asian, or Indigenous descent.
Raised in the United States, Naomi Osaka’s mother is Japanese and her father is Haitian.
We can recognize differences in our experiences without turning those differences into reasons to deny one another belonging. Colorism is real. The advantages some lighter-skinned people receive are real. Family background, upbringing, and how society perceives us can affect our lives.
We really need to have converstions about these privileges and injustices. But rejecting people’s Blackness does not resolve any of them.
What does that rejection say to biracial people?
Kristen Welker is the daughter of a Black American mother and a father who is an Ashkenazi Jewish American
Some already encounter exclusion in White or other non-Black spaces. Then they enter Black spaces and hear that they don’t belong there either. They are expected to choose a side, prove their loyalty, or downplay part of their family history to make other people comfortable.
Why should someone have to deny a parent to establish a place in a community?
Acknowledging a White mother does not erase a Black father. Acknowledging an Asian father does not erase a Black mother. People should be able to recognize their full heritage without having that recognition used against them.
Being biracial and being Black do not have to be mutually exclusive.
Kamala Harris, the first Black American Vice President, the first Vice President of South Asian (Indian) descent, and the first Woman Vice President, is the daughter of immigrant parents. Her mother was from India, and her father was from Jamaica.
That also does not mean forcing every biracial person to identify exactly the same way. People should have room to describe their own experiences and identities. My objection is to those who insist that a person with a non-Black parent cannot belong to us, regardless of how that person identifies or lives.
I am not interested in replacing one rigid rule with another. I want us to stop treating belonging as something that can be revoked over a family tree.
Many Black people already embrace our biracial kin. This criticism is directed at those who refuse—and especially those who dress that refusal up as protecting Black identity.
Bejamin Jealous was president of the National Association for the Advancment of Color People (NAACP). He is the child of a White father and a biracial mother.
Protecting our people should not require rejecting some of our children.
We have enough to confront without reproducing the same obsession with ancestry and supposed racial purity that has done so much damage to us. Further division will not solve our problems. It will give us more problems to solve.
Our biracial kin should not have to erase part of themselves to be embraced as our own.
People often ask me why I don’t believe many of the conspiracy theories circulating online.
My answer is simple:
What’s the endgame?
In other words, what is the actual objective?
Throughout history, governments, corporations, intelligence agencies, and wealthy interests have absolutely conspired. Watergate happened. COINTELPRO happened. The Tuskegee Syphilis Study happened. The tobacco industry concealed evidence about smoking. Companies have colluded to fix prices. Governments have lied to justify wars.
Real conspiracies exist.
But they usually have understandable motivations.
In my view, nearly every major government or corporate conspiracy can be traced back to one or more of three goals.
First, preserving existing systems of power.
Whether that involves racial hierarchy, patriarchy, religious dominance, authoritarianism, or protecting political institutions, those in power often act to preserve the systems that benefit them.
Second, maximizing profits.
This is probably the biggest motivation of them all.
When you follow the money, countless scandals suddenly make sense. Companies cut corners because it’s cheaper. Industries lobby against regulation because it protects their profits. Politicians accept campaign money or bribes because it benefits them personally or politically.
Greed doesn’t require a master plan.
It only requires incentives.
Third, protecting the status quo by silencing credible threats.
History contains numerous examples of governments and institutions surveilling, discrediting, imprisoning, or otherwise neutralizing people they viewed as dangerous to their interests. The methods vary, but the underlying motivation is remarkably consistent: maintain existing power.
Those three motivations explain far more than most people realize.
They also provide a useful filter for evaluating extraordinary claims.
Take, for example, the claim that unnamed elites are trying to “make the world gay.”
My first question is always the same:
Why?
What is the practical objective?
How would governments, corporations, or powerful institutions materially benefit from such a plan?
Some argue it’s about reducing population growth. But if population reduction were actually the goal, declining birth rates in many developed countries are already being driven by rising housing costs, expensive childcare, economic uncertainty, delayed marriage, and changing social priorities. Those are observable economic and social trends that require no elaborate global conspiracy to explain.
Once a theory can’t identify a coherent objective rooted in power, profit, or political advantage, it often shifts toward increasingly fantastical explanations involving supernatural forces, secret societies with limitless power, or shadowy groups pursuing evil simply for the sake of being evil.
That’s usually where I stop taking it seriously.
Real conspiracies are rarely that dramatic.
They’re often surprisingly ordinary.
They’re driven by money.
They’re driven by politics.
They’re driven by fear.
They’re driven by self-interest.
And they’re frequently far sloppier than people imagine.
Consider the devastating earthquakes in Turkey. Investigations pointed to widespread failures in building standards and enforcement. Buildings that should have withstood the shaking collapsed because regulations were ignored or inadequately enforced, while corruption and cost-cutting reportedly played a role in some cases. That’s not evidence of a centuries-long master plan. It’s a reminder that corruption, weak oversight, and the pursuit of profit can produce catastrophic consequences.
Or consider the 2022 infant formula crisis in the United States. The shortage exposed vulnerabilities created by a highly concentrated domestic market, recalls at a major manufacturing facility, and regulatory challenges. The result was a crisis that left parents scrambling to feed their babies. Again, the lesson wasn’t that an all-powerful cabal had engineered the shortage. It was that weak competition, regulatory failures, and economic incentives created a system that was far more fragile than it appeared.
Those explanations may not be as exciting as internet conspiracy theories.
But they’re supported by evidence.
The truth is that reality is often more mundane—and more troubling—than fiction.
Powerful institutions don’t need to be all-knowing masterminds to cause enormous harm.
Sometimes greed is enough.
Sometimes incompetence is enough.
Sometimes protecting power is enough.
Before accepting any conspiracy theory, ask one simple question:
Who benefits?
If you can’t identify a believable answer rooted in power, profit, or preserving the status quo, then skepticism isn’t just reasonable.
One thing that used to really piss me off about the Obama administration (and the Democratic Party as a whole) was the refusal to recognize just how far Republicans were willing to go to gain and keep power.
Democratic leaders kept looking for reasonable partners. They kept talking about compromise, common ground, and reaching across the aisle. Meanwhile, Republicans kept showing them that their commitment to those things lasted only as long as it served their interests.
At some point, believing them becomes a choice.
There is no reasoning your way around people who negotiate in bad faith. There is no meaningful compromise when one side treats every concession as an opportunity to demand more. The Democratic Party needs to stand up and fight tooth and nail for the principles it claims to hold.
But the lessons of the Obama years still don’t seem to have sunk in.
We keep waiting for Republicans to come to their senses, embrace their better angels, or stand by their own words. Then, when they abandon those words, Democratic leaders act disappointed. They seem to think disappointment is going to shame Republicans into changing their behavior.
How many times do we have to watch this?
The fight over the Supreme Court in 2020 made this painfully clear. Some people genuinely counted on a handful of Republican senators to honor the standard their party had used to block Obama’s Supreme Court nominee. They expected consistency from people who had already demonstrated that the rules could change whenever power was at stake.
After the Senate failed to convict Trump in his first impeachment trial, some still believed that those same Republican senators would suddenly put fairness ahead of political advantage.
Why? What had they done to earn that faith?
The Democratic leadership, the corporate media, and far too many liberals keep convincing themselves that this time Republicans will play fairly. This time, institutional norms will hold. This time, someone will discover a conscience.
And when that doesn’t happen, we get another round of solemn speeches about how troubling it all is.
I am tired of being told to admire the restraint of people who keep getting their asses handed to them.
There is a familiar saying about doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Whoever first said it, the point applies here. It is beyond frustrating to watch Democratic leaders repeat an approach that keeps failing, then have their defenders insist that the rest of us simply don’t understand the strategy.
Apparently, they’re always playing three-dimensional chess. Apparently, every defeat is part of some brilliant plan that will reveal itself later.
Meanwhile, the whole thing looks more like Wile E. Coyote chasing the damn Road Runner.
And every time a liberal shows up to explain that my lack of faith is unwarranted, I want to ask: What, exactly, am I supposed to be impressed by?
The speeches? The stern letters? The commitment to looking reasonable while the other side takes what it wants?
I do not need another lecture about patience from someone who confuses having a strategy with defending whatever the leadership happens to do.
Compromise requires people who will honor an agreement. When political leaders repeatedly abandon their own standards for an advantage, trusting them again should require evidence—not another appeal to their supposed decency.
And compromise itself should not be treated as a virtue regardless of what gets surrendered. People’s rights, livelihoods, and futures are on the line. The goal cannot simply be to reach an agreement so everyone in Washington can congratulate themselves for being bipartisan.
The goal should be to deliver something worth fighting for.
Democratic leaders need to stop acting as though Republican approval is necessary to make their demands legitimate. Make the case. Use the power voters gave you. Organize. Give people a reason to show up, stay involved, and believe that their participation matters.
If the party claims to stand for working people, civil rights, and democracy, then it needs to fight like those commitments mean something.
Stop trusting Republicans to become the partners you wish they were. Make your demands, prepare for a real political fight, and rally the damn people behind you.
I have been a fan of Shaquille O’Neal for decades. I bought Shaqs (his shoes)back in the day. I have defended his hip-hop career against people who act like he was a garbage rapper. I even listen to his EDM music. I love seeing him continue to get endorsements and get paid, and I have praised his generosity and down-to-earth persona.
But being a fan does not require me to ignore behavior that disappoints me. And being generous does not make someone immune to criticism.
That is where too many conversations about Black celebrities fall apart. The moment someone criticizes a wealthy, famous Black person, people start counting donations, comparing bank accounts, and asking what the critic has done for the community. Apparently, whoever writes the biggest check gets the final word on Black people and our liberation.
I do not accept that.
Many Black people were angry that Shaquille O’Neal would happily accept an honorary badge from an administration that many of us perceive as hostile and antagonistic towards the overall Black community.
My frustration with Shaq comes from the distance between the man I admire and some of the positions he takes publicly. I can appreciate his generosity and still question his politics. I can celebrate his success and still be disappointed when he lends his voice to narratives that undermine legitimate Black grievances.
Those things can exist at the same time.
When I described Shaq as having “coon tendencies,” some conservative White people and non-Black Latinos responded by attacking my name, my skin color, and my Blackness. Others reached for a conveniently selected Malcolm X quote. Very few seemed interested in understanding the criticism itself.
And I think it is hilarious that people who claim to oppose identity politics suddenly become experts on who is Black enough when a Black person says something they do not like.
My criticism is about behavior: Black people reinforcing anti-Black narratives, seeking approval at our community’s expense, or treating proximity to White power as more important than Black self-determination. It is not a declaration that every Black person who disagrees with me is a sellout. It is also not a label I reserve for Republicans.
Many Black activists and other Black people saw Jay Z’s deal with Roger Goodell as a selfish and self-serving move that would create goodwill for the NFL but would not give Colin Kaepernick his job back nor protect players from being punished for speaking out for Black issues.
Democrats get criticized too. Over the years, I have criticized Barack Obama, Jay-Z, Hakeem Jeffries, Jim Clyburn, Kamala Harris, and others. There are plenty of Democrats I do not like or trust. A party affiliation does not purchase immunity from me any more than a donation does.
I see Republicans as more overtly hostile to Black interests, but that does not mean I am obligated to defend every Black Democrat. In a hypothetical election, I would gladly support a better White or other non-Black third-party candidate over two Black candidates whose politics fail my community. The question is whether that person’s values align with mine and whether their policies would bring tangible improvements to our lives.
Many Black artists and athletes are indirectly complicit in the mistreatment of our community when they agree to protect their celebrity and pay and perform for white crowds that are hostile to their overall community. Their responsibility and allegiance to the community take a back seat to potential paychecks and career advancement.
Black skin alone does not establish a commitment to Black people.
That applies to people who terrorize our neighborhoods too. Killers, rapists, muggers, burglars, and robbers are destroying the same communities I want to see liberated. I should not have to attach a paragraph condemning them every time I criticize a celebrity or politician.
Law-abiding Black people do not enjoy losing loved ones. We do not enjoy discovering that somebody stole our catalytic converter and that we have to replace it with money we do not have. We do not enjoy being afraid in our own neighborhoods. The suggestion that we tolerate or celebrate these things is racist as fuck.
Black people are the people most negatively affected by Black criminality. We do not like criminality any more than other communities. Most crimes, violent or otherwise, happen within communities. In fact, many of the draconian laws of the 1990s, which led to mass incarceration of Black men, were requested and supported by many in the Black community at that time. However, there are grassroots efforts by many organizations in the Black community to bring awareness and fight against this criminal element. This is mostly goes ignored by the local and national media.
There is constant work happening in Black communities to prevent violence, support young people, and improve conditions. Much of it happens without cameras, national recognition, or a celebrity’s bank account. People who only drive through these neighborhoods on their way to work often know nothing about that work, yet feel qualified to lecture the people doing it.
This is why the “What have you done?” response annoys me so much. Someone’s unfamiliarity with my work does not mean that work does not exist. I do not owe a stranger my résumé so they can weigh it against a multimillion-dollar check.
I prefer not to brag about my work or post too much about it. I do what I do out of love for my community, not for recognition. However, my service to my community was questioned by those who don’t know me. I am active. Can I be more active? Yes. But there are many things in this collage that I could add because there are no photos of that work.
My work is my work. It is for the love of my community, not my personal glory.
With Shaq, one of the moments that really disappointed me was his appearance on Fox & Friends criticizing Colin Kaepernick’s national anthem protest. Shaq questioned the protest’s timing and method. I remember that appearance because of what the protest represented and where he chose to criticize it.[1]
There is a rule that Black people do not attack other Black people in media that is hostile and antagonistic toward the collective Black community. The way that conservative media, such as Fox News and the Rush Limbaugh Show, normalized and legitimized thinly veiled anti-Black racism should be studied for future generations. Shaq is entitled to his personal opinion, and part of me understands why he feels the way that he does. However, Shaq appearing on Fox and Friends to make it and legitimize their racially biased stances was a cardinal sin for many of us.
I understand that Shaq grew up in a military family. I understand that he may feel a particular reverence for the anthem. But Kaepernick was protesting injustice, and I saw that appearance as another opportunity for a hostile audience to dismiss Black concerns instead of confronting them.
To me, Fox & Friends has repeatedly helped turn legitimate Black criticism of this country into a debate over our behavior, our gratitude, and whether we are showing enough respect. That is a platform I would expect someone with Shaq’s influence to approach with care.
It left me feeling that protecting his public image and business relationships mattered more than standing ten toes down when Black people needed support. That is my criticism of his public choices. I cannot read his mind, and I am not claiming to know everything he does privately.
But I can respond to what he puts in front of the public.
And no, pointing to his philanthropy does not settle that conversation.
Money helps. Those of us who organize and fight these battles appreciate every cent we can get. A donation can feed people, keep a program open, or pay for something a struggling family desperately needs. I am not minimizing that.
What I reject is the assumption that generosity automatically proves a commitment to liberation, or that a wealthy donor has done more than everyone who has sacrificed years of time, effort, and personal resources.
Philanthropic work helps and is appreciated, but they are also done for good public relations and for cameras and recognition. Many people quietly do a lot for the community by donating their time, energy, and limited resources.
Philanthropy can come from compassion. It can also produce favorable publicity, protect a reputation, or serve business interests. Sometimes those motives overlap. The existence of a donation does not tell us everything about the donor’s politics or character.
History gives us plenty of reasons to keep that distinction in mind. In 1914, the Ludlow Massacre killed striking workers and family members in Colorado. Eleven children and two women died after fire swept through the tent colony. The conflict involved the Rockefeller-controlled Colorado Fuel and Iron Company, and the aftermath included efforts to repair John D. Rockefeller Jr.’s public reputation.[2]
The Ludlow Massacre led to the birth of modern public relations.
The lesson I take from that history is that a wealthy person’s public generosity should not make us forget the other ways their power affects people.
I am not equating Shaq with the people responsible for Ludlow. I am also not saying that his donations are a scheme to launder his image. I am explaining why “he gives money away” cannot be the end of every discussion about his public behavior.
I appreciate the money. I still have questions about the politics.
The same applies to other Black celebrities, including Stephen A. Smith and Bill Cosby. Too often, money and fame become shields against criticism. People act as though generosity erases every harmful statement, every bad decision, and every legitimate concern.
It does not.
Many conservatives weaponize cherry-picked words of past Black leaders against Black people who fight for justice, fairness, equity, inclusion, and liberation today. Yet, they often miss the context of those weaponized quotes.
This confusion also shows up in the way White conservatives invoke Malcolm X. They love his criticism of White liberals and the Democratic Party, but somehow lose interest when his criticism turns toward White conservatives.
That takes some serious caucasity.
Malcolm’s criticism of liberals came out of his frustration with White political power, manipulation, and promises that did not produce freedom. In his 1963 speech “God’s Judgment of White America,” he compared White conservatives to wolves and White liberals to foxes. The fox’s apparent friendliness did not make it safe, and the wolf’s open hostility did not make it an ally.[3]
Quoting the part about the fox does not turn the wolf into a friend of Black people.
Malcolm’s positions developed over time, and his life deserves more attention than a meme or a clip stripped of context. But Black people thinking for ourselves and deciding our own course remained central to his politics. That is part of what I admire about him.
The most important message from Malcolm X is often ignored by conservatives who quote-mine him. This most important message was Black self-determination and liberation through Black nationalism.
And I take that seriously when dealing with the White left, too.
I do not get my marching orders from White people. Period. Dot.
I have criticized White liberals, progressives, and leftists for racism, for treating Black struggles as opportunities to advance their own agendas, and for assuming they have the right to direct movements they did not build. Being on the left does not exempt anyone from that criticism.
I experienced some of this firsthand in Ferguson in 2014. I remember members of the New Black Panther Party and White anarchists giving conflicting instructions through bullhorns. The Black organizers I heard were urging people to respect the curfew to avoid arrests and bloodshed. The anarchists were urging the crowd to ignore it and confront the police.
What stayed with me was the willingness of outsiders to encourage a confrontation whose consequences would fall on Black people and the surrounding community. From where I stood, one group was thinking about protecting the people in front of them. The other seemed much more interested in confrontation.
Black bodies are not disposable material for someone else’s revolution.
My account of that night does not explain every protest or every person involved. But it explains why I do not automatically trust someone just because they claim to share my politics. Solidarity requires listening, accountability, and respect for the people who have to live with the consequences.
Many leftists use Black issues to wage their own personal revolutions while ignoring the many costs to the Black community. They don’t necessarily have to live with the fallout from fires, looting, and vandalism in predominantly Black communities.
I am a Black leftist because of my own values, experiences, and study. That position does not require permission from the White right or instructions from the White left.
It also does not require me to defend my Blackness every time someone dislikes what I say.
Yes, I am light-skinned. So were Malcolm X, Frederick Douglass, and plenty of other people whose commitment to Black people is difficult to dispute. What, exactly, is attacking my complexion supposed to prove?
My skin color doesn’t make me less Black.
My skin color does not erase my ancestry, my experiences, or my identity. Neither does my name.
My name is Mario. There are plenty of Marios and DeMarios in the Black community. Does a Black man named William become English? Does a Black woman named Natasha become Russian? Was Kobe Bryant Japanese because of his first name?
I am Black. I am Black American. I am not Italian, and my olive complexion is not evidence that I am secretly Mediterranean. My family history includes African, European, and Indian ancestry. I do not need to turn my genealogy into an exhibit every time somebody wants to dodge my argument.
If the criticism is about my position, address my position. My complexion is not a rebuttal.
And disagreement with a celebrity does not automatically mean jealousy. I have had a good life. I am educated. I have not starved. I have great children. I do not need Shaq’s wealth or fame to appreciate my own life.
In fact, part of my affection for Shaq comes from something we have in common: we were both raised by stepfathers who loved us and treated us as their own.
My father was an entrepreneur, a leader, and a pillar in the community where I grew up. He provided a good life for our family, but he also helped people around us. I watched him help pay for funerals when families could not afford to bury their loved ones. I watched him feed hungry children. I watched him clean up our street and alley and make sure we took responsibility for the place where we lived.
I watched him help raise other people’s children. There are people in my community who still thank him for what he did.
I have tried to follow that example the best I can. When Shaq talks about his father, Phil, I recognize something in that relationship. Two children raised by Black men who taught us about responsibility, manhood, and service to the community. That matters to me. I feel the same way about my dad that he does about his, even though we are not the their biological children.
One of the things that drew me to Shaquille O’Neal was his relationship with Phillip Harrison. O’Neal is not biologically related to Harrison, but he considers him his father. To Shaq, Phil is not a stepdad. Phil is his father and is respected and honored as his father. This is something that O’Neal and I have in common. Although our situations may be a little different, we both consider our stepdads our “real” fathers. The love that Shaq has for his dad is good to witness. Phil Harrison’s guidance made Shaq the man he is today and pushed him toward success.
It is one reason my criticism comes with disappointment. There is affection behind it.
I am also not placing myself above the problem I am describing. I have to check my own thoughts, feelings, and assumptions all the time. White supremacy and the idea of Black inferiority are taught throughout this society. Being Black does not automatically protect us from absorbing them.
All of us struggle with White bias and anti-Black thoughts. I am not immune to this way of thinking. We have been conditioned in many ways since birth to see Whiteness more positively than Blackness.
I do not believe any of us should assume we are finished unlearning those lessons. I certainly am not.
That is why I want us to be able to discuss anti-Black behavior without immediately turning the conversation into a defense of someone’s fame, bank account, or party affiliation. If I am reinforcing something harmful to our community, I need to examine it too.
Shaquille O’Neal is a celebrated athlete, entertainer, businessman, and philanthropist. Those accomplishments are real. They do not automatically make him a leader of Black people, or make his judgment on our political struggles more valuable than the judgment of people doing the work every day.
I want us to stop treating celebrity status as a qualification for community leadership. Selling products, winning championships, and becoming wealthy do not necessarily prepare someone to guide a people toward freedom.
Malcolm X’s biting commentary regarding the elevation of celebrities as Black leaders has a lot of truth in it. It is the white power structure that elevated their status, and many of these celebrities don’t want to bite the proverbial hand that feeds them.
I am unimpressed by Black obedience and respectability politics. Celebrating Black excellence or Black capitalism does little for me when the celebration ends with a few individuals becoming rich while the conditions facing the rest of our community remain intact.
What I respect is Black liberation and self-sufficiency. I want Black global advancement and autonomy. I want us to build the institutions, knowledge, resources, and collective power to stand on our own and make decisions about our own people.
My dream and my goal for the future is true Black liberation. This is not an anti-White vision. This is a world in which Black people have parity with White and Asian people. Black people building, owning, and deciding our own future. Education, healthcare, food, technology, media—and collective power across the diaspora.
That commitment runs through much of what I admire in Malcolm X and the broader history of Black self-determination. It is why I am an unapologetic Pan-Africanist and a proud Black American. It is why I study Malcolm, Dr. King, and the other giants whose shoulders I stand upon, even when their approaches differed and even if I disagree with each of them on minor details.
My loyalty is to my people and our liberation. No politician, party, celebrity, or donor gets to place themselves above that commitment.
I can love Shaq and still be disappointed in him. I can appreciate his generosity and still expect more from his public choices. I can criticize him without hating him, envying him, or denying the good he has done.
And I should not have to write a whole damn dissertation to explain that.
I’ve realized that White conservatives love Black people who tell them exactly what they want to hear about other Black people. These people get away with saying the shit that their White supporters can’t say without being correctly labeled as racist. So they need Black mouthpieces to label Black people as “EBT Americans,” “ghetto,” and “hood rats,” while conveniently ignoring how many White people receive assistance or engage in the same behaviors they condemn in Black people.
But “redneck” culture and poor White culture are often celebrated in country music and the mainstream, while similar expressions of poor Black culture are treated as subversive and problematic. Apparently, the behavior isn’t always the problem. Sometimes, it’s the color of the people doing it.
Being a Black person who produces anti-Black content online is an easy way to get notoriety and profits very fast. Many conservative White fans laud them as “freethinking” “truth-tellers,” but, these people’s connection to the Black community is permanently marred.
I was watching a video compilation of Black people responding to allegations that Texas Roadhouse employees had posted about spitting in Black patrons’ food. The controversy has prompted calls for a boycott. And sure enough, there was a Black man celebrating the idea of White employees spitting in the food of Black paying customers.
In his Uncle Ruckus-style rant, he called Black patrons the names I mentioned earlier and said Texas Roadhouse should “keep doing what they are doing” to keep Black people out so others could dine in “peace.”
Never mind the chaotic restaurant incidents involving White people. Never mind White people dining and dashing. Never mind all the examples that contradict this racist narrative. Somehow, when a White person acts out, it’s an individual incident. When a Black person acts out, it becomes an indictment of Black people as a whole.
Do you think conservative White people came after this “pick-me” for celebrating racial discrimination and alleged food tampering? No. They co-signed. And then they wonder why we call them racist.
Self-hating Black mouthpieces for White supremacy tell many conservative whites exactly what they want to hear. Many of these Black commentators downplay anti-Black racism in the West while painting White people as the victims of constant discrimination. The irony is that those who claim that marginalized people have a “victim complex” love to cosplay as victims themselves.
I don’t know whether this man believes everything he says or is chasing the attention and money that anti-Black commentary can bring. Either way, the result is the same: Black people are demeaned, and his audience gets a Black voice to validate its prejudices.
Liberal, progressive, and leftist Black people don’t want our dining experiences ruined by people acting out in public, either. But the difference is that many of us separate problematic behavior from race, ethnicity, and even class. And even when we are annoyed by the uncouth behavior of certain patrons, we are not going to celebrate someone tampering with their food based on race and the assumptions that come with it.
I tip well. I also have problems with the history of tipping in the United States and the way employers use it to shift responsibility for paying workers onto customers. Having worked for tips for years, I’m well aware of the stereotype that Black people don’t tip.
However, whether someone tips or not is not an excuse for poor customer service or mistreating anyone who comes into an establishment. An optional tip is a courtesy. It should not take the place of an adequate living wage. And it certainly should not determine whether someone’s food is safe to eat.
But I tip well anyway because I know it is appreciated, because it can lead to better service, and because I want to help people.
Although many of these Black commentators are conservatives… or PRETEND to be conservatives as part of their grift, it is NOT necessarily conservatism that is the issue with these people. Rather, it is the fact that many of these people are almost constantly contrarian and antithetical to issues that the majority of Black people champion.
Black people being anti-Black is never a good thing and should not be rewarded. Yet White conservatives are quick to embrace Black people who demean other Black people while treating White people as the exemplary model for humanity. Wrap it in a flag, call it “patriotism,” and suddenly contempt for your own people becomes a marketable personality.
Many of these commentators wear the backlash from other Black people as a badge of honor. Their White supporters call them “freethinkers” and “truth-tellers” for repeating the same racist talking points those supporters already believed.
What, exactly, is free-thinking about telling an audience everything it wants to hear?
You can criticize Black people. You can criticize public behavior. You can demand accountability. But celebrating racial humiliation and the idea of someone contaminating Black customers’ food is not accountability. It is anti-Blackness, and having a Black person deliver the message does not make it any less racist.
No one is the savior of Black people except Black people. And even then, only a few of us are dedicated to the upliftment and liberation of Black people. This is why we shouldn’t count on other people to rescue or even respect us. This is why, when I see ADOS and FBA fighting other Black folks over imaginary money that we may never get, I shake my head.
Reparations, although owed, will not help us. Black capitalism will not help us collectively. Begging White people will never grant us respect, liberation, and self-determination. What is needed is for Black people to unite. Black people need education (and not just in a few subjects) to become engineers, computer programmers, architects, medical doctors, and much more. Our aspirations cannot all be about being an entrepreneur, getting “the bag,” and living a “soft life.” Ultramaterialism and vulgar displays of wealth do nothing for our people as a whole.
The point is that we have to roll up our own sleeves. We have to clean up our own streets. We have to build and support our own schools. We have to build our own business hubs. We have to discipline our own. We need our own media. This is not about exclusion. This is about empowering ourselves.
This was the message of people like Malcolm X. The same people who love to quote-mine Malcolm X to attack Black liberals, progressives, and leftists conveniently ignore Malcolm X’s overarching message of Black self-determination and liberation.
