The Rio Stanton Report

Tag: society

“All the Factors”, Until the Subject Is Racism
Many White people love to deny the role that race and racism play in our society. For example, I erroneously posted about White convicted felons making more money than college-educated Black men with no criminal records on my Facebook profile. But I was wrong. It wasn’t necessarily pay that was the issue (even though pay disparities are an issue when looking at the overall populations of White and Black men). Rather, it was who gets contacted more frequently for job interviews. Either way, every factor and excuse in the book was offered instead of an examination or admission of White bias.

Here is the thing: If White convicted felons are contacted more for interviews or potential employment than Black men with no records, based solely on applications and résumés, what is the factor? Studies show that applications and résumés with certain ZIP codes or “Black-sounding” names are rejected at very high rates. You cannot gauge work ethic from someone’s name, especially when the applications show identical work histories. And if someone has to choose between a person who was disciplined enough to never get into any serious trouble with the law and someone with a criminal record, chances are that most people would choose the person with the clean record over the person who served time.

Now, this is not to say that convicted felons (sorry for the language) aren’t deserving of good jobs after paying their debts to society. This is not to say that convicted felons wouldn’t make good employees with strong work ethics. But this is to say that choosing White convicted felons over Black men with no criminal records… for the same jobs, with the same work histories… is troubling. Especially when the comparison between White men with no record and White convicted felons shows a strong preference, by more than double the rate, for White men with no record, while Black men with criminal records have a very hard time getting hired.

How else does one explain this discrepancy?

This has nothing to do with work ethic, white-collar jobs versus blue-collar jobs, choosing liberal arts degrees, or any number of other excuses offered.

What’s worse is that when I presented the study showing this, no one actually read it, and a few dismissed it outright with no real argument about why it should be ignored. There was no argument about methodology. No argument about results. Nothing. There were plenty of racist assumptions. Ironically, those assumptions basically proved the premise of my post and even the conclusion of the study (or studies) used as evidence.

Over 1,000 people responded to it, most of them with childish insults and racist comments. Others were defensive. I can count on one hand the number of people who were actually interested in the study. And when they couldn’t refute the claim I was making, they went silent. No apologies. No further comments.

“You just need someone to blame for your failures!”

I don’t post these things to blame White people for my own personal failures. This is what I keep saying all the time. Despite my focus on racism, I had plenty of opportunities. I had access to a vehicle and reliable public transportation, so I could get a job anywhere in the metropolitan area. I’ve mentioned a few times that my olive (or beige) skin color may have opened doors that were closed to my darker-skinned brothers and sisters and gained me access to places and social circles. This is what privilege looks like. My name is ambiguous, and people don’t know what I am from an application. My ZIP code is in a somewhat affluent and racially diverse part of the city.

So this was never about me. Most of my posts aren’t personal unless I specifically say they are. If I am talking about societal issues, they are usually not about me.

I am not a member of the LGBTQIA community, but I sometimes post about their struggles. I have never served time in prison, but I sometimes post about people who have. I have never lived or worked on a farm, but I post about farmers’ issues. I didn’t grow up on welfare or need it as an adult (except financial aid for college, if you want to count that), but I constantly advocate for people who receive public aid. I am not a woman, but I speak out about rape culture and misogyny. I talk about relationships, and although my marriage failed, it was not due to many of the issues I discuss when talking about relationships.

Like I’ve stated many times before, the motivation for my posts can come from anywhere. I have ADHD, remember. Videos I watch could spark a post. Seeing something happen can spark a post. Hell, a random thought on the porcelain throne while pinching a loaf could spark a post (sorry for the visual). And most of the time, it has nothing to do with my personal life, which I try to keep as private as humanly possible.

For example, posting pictures from Ethiopia on Facebook was unusual because I usually hide my traveling. I don’t like many of the questions.

But I digress.

On White bias and Anti-Black racism

White bias is normal in a country that has made Whiteness the exemplary model for humanity for the last four or five centuries. Mentioning this is not an attack on White people, per se, because they are not the only people mentally infected by this… condition. Truthfully, we all are infected, including Black people. This is how we have all been conditioned to think after 400-plus years of pro-White propaganda and the twin philosophies of White supremacy and Black inferiority. You cannot imagine the number of Black people I’ve had to check personally for spouting anti-Black racist ideas and talking points. There have been plenty of times when I needed to be checked, too. It’s just the way it is.

The Repeating of Charlie-Kirk-Style Crime Statistics Without Adequate Context or Examination of Other Factors for Racist Reasons

But anti-Black racism isn’t imagined. It is real. Even the skewed crime statistics are a product of racism. For example, FBI Table 43 is not about who committed a crime or who was convicted of crimes. It is about who was arrested for certain crimes. What FBI Table 43 proves is not Black criminality but the perception of Black criminality and systemic racism in the criminal justice system. This claim is backed up by the OLL (Online Library of Liberty).

Let me hit you with some issues:
- The FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) program, which collects the statistics used in Table 43, is strictly voluntary, not mandatory, according to FBI.gov.
- Although 87% of law enforcement agencies participate, the vast majority of those agencies are from big cities and their metropolitan areas, which all participate. Many small towns and rural areas don’t participate at all.
- Participation is high in heavily populated areas but lower in more sparsely populated areas.
- Black people are 7.5 times more likely to be wrongly convicted of murder than White people, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. This does not include total arrests.
- The rate and risk of wrongful convictions for Black defendants are even higher when the victim is White.
- Only around 70% of people arrested and charged with murder are convicted of murder.
- Black people are much more likely to be exonerated for most crimes than White people, with the exceptions of child sexual abuse and white-collar crime, for which White people are arrested and convicted more often, according to the Syracuse Law Review. As a matter of fact, over half (53%) of all people exonerated since 1989 were Black.
- Several White people have committed crimes and reported that someone Black committed them, leading to the arrests of Black men before it was determined that someone White—usually the person reporting the crime—had committed the crime and lied. It happened so much that the phrase “Blame a Black Man Syndrome” was coined.
I don’t post all of this to deny that many Black men have a problem with conflict resolution that leads to homicides. Nor am I saying that the Black murder rate isn’t still too high compared to our percentage of the overall population. However, what I am saying is that the crime statistics used to construct racist narratives all over the internet and in White supremacist circles are misinterpreted and grossly exaggerated. Arrests are treated like convictions. Partial numbers are treated like the whole story. Numbers are weaponized without any examination of the factors, other than DNA, contributing to them.

“All The Factors” Except When Being Racist

And this brings me full circle to what I was talking about at the beginning of this post. Various factors were presented as reasons for the disparity in hiring rates between White convicted felons and Black men with no criminal records. Many people rejected the premise and the numbers while saying I had to look at “all of the factors.” However, these same people were more than happy to spout crime statistics without any examination of “all of the factors.”

They are not totally wrong. All factors do need to be looked at. But it is hard to deny the conclusion of a controlled study in which the only real variable was race… or perceived race. There are not too many White men named “Quontavious Davis” from the Riverdale neighborhood of Chicago (the name and place were more than likely not used in the actual study). But “Brayden Braithwaite” from the Mount Greenwood neighborhood of Chicago could have a felony burglary or rape conviction and get a callback for a job over Quontavious, who navigated poverty, ever-present gangs, and various vices found in financially struggling communities with no criminal history other than speeding tickets.

What’s worse (and even more ironic) is that the same people who were pissed off and lambasting me for being an anti-White “bigot” were the same people who either ignored or positively reacted to comments about “chimping out,” skewed racist crime statistics, assumptions that White men with felony convictions had a better work ethic than Black men who overcame the many traps set in “the hood,” and many other racist posts. This actually supports the point I was making. But many of them were “too high on their own supply” to see that.
September 30, 2026
Same Old Politics, Different Welfare Stereotype

Well, well, well. Republicans around the country, especially in Arkansas, are upset that Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ new political ad shows a young White man as a “welfare queen.” They are now turning against her for portraying a White man on welfare. They argue that White people have been discriminated against for decades (who has the “victim mindset” again?) and that the commercial should have shown a woman, particularly a Black woman (or a Black person in general), as the problem welfare recipient.

And part of me agrees that the welfare recipient in the ad was not an accurate portrayal… but not for the racist and sexist reasons they are citing.

The trope of the lazy young gamer is problematic by itself and many of these unemployed gamers are not on welfare. If they are not actively looking for work, they are usually being financially supported by parents, spouses, domestic partners, siblings, or other family members. Plus, most people who game regularly are employed.

As for actual welfare recipients, more White people are on welfare than Black people. This is the part where the racists start talking about per capita. But in this case, per capita doesn’t matter. Most people in Arkansas who are on welfare are White (54%). Only 31% of welfare recipients in Arkansas are Black. This means that the face of welfare in Arkansas should more than likely be White, since more White people are on welfare than Black people by sheer number.

The trope of lazy welfare recipients was popularized in the 1960s after Black people were allowed to participate in those programs. This was also when many conservative Southern politicians from both parties started imposing eligibility rules for welfare that removed men, especially Black men, from the home. Contrary to a popular talking point, it was not President Lyndon Johnson who removed Black men from the home. It was conservative Southern and Midwestern legislatures and governors, most of them Democrats, who started these policies locally and pushed for them to be implemented nationally. These policies were designed to punish Black families for participating in programs originally intended only for White families. Since then, Black people using public housing, housing assistance, food stamps, and other programs we collectively think of as “welfare” have been classified as “lazy” and saddled with other negative stereotypes. This happened despite many of them working low-paying jobs and despite many White families receiving welfare for generations.

White conservatives need the narrative of Black welfare abuse to advance White supremacy and mask their own dependence on government assistance. In their minds, they use assistance because they need it. Black people use it because they supposedly lack morals and diligence. That is what they think. And then they wonder why they are constantly called “racist” and “bigoted.”

They also hate that the commercial didn’t feature a woman. Because, Lord knows, you can feature a man with a chronic disability receiving Social Security benefits while mostly appearing able-bodied, and that disability never seems to bother them except when asked to work. But let’s demonize the woman he had children with while ignoring his failure to provide for them. Behind many women who need welfare is a deadbeat father who doesn’t provide for his children.

This is not to shit on people receiving any form of welfare, including disability benefits. However, we need to stop with the racist and sexist tropes, stereotypes, and narratives around welfare.

Do people abuse welfare? Yes. All types of people abuse welfare, including the rich…especially the rich. Elon Musk is one of the biggest “welfare queens” out there, spending much of his time playing video games and reposting Nazi propaganda on X. But no one talks about him or gets angry at him. “But Elon Musk is a ‘job creator!’” So are the Somali daycare owners you are now demonizing based on a deceptively produced and edited video by a conservative, made to make the whole community look bad. Again, you wonder why we think of you as “racist” and “bigoted.”

The point is that all tropes are bad, especially when they are used to demonize the economically downtrodden. Whether it is a Black family, a single White mother, or a young unemployed gamer (of any race), these tropes and stereotypes need to go. We need to stop trying to punish individuals and families for being poor. We need to stop defining and demonizing whole groups of poor people based on the actions of a relative few. We need to stop the exploitation of labor and theft of wages by large corporations that underpay their employees and make them need welfare to live.

This is my problem with Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ campaign commercial. It’s the same old conservative pastime of punching down. With Sanders, the targets are unemployed gamers and all welfare recipients. With her conservative critics, the targets are women and Black people. It all has to stop.

September 29, 2026
Nation-Building Requires Reality, Not Conspiracy Theories

One of the biggest mistakes I see in some corners of the Black community is the tendency to give white people far too much credit.

White people are not omniscient.

They are not omnipotent.

They do not spend centuries carrying out flawless master plans that unfold exactly as intended. History simply doesn’t support that view.

Most governments, corporations, and powerful institutions don’t operate like the cartoonish villains in a Hollywood movie. Their conspiracies (when they exist) are usually messy, short-sighted, reactive, and often exposed much sooner than people imagine. They make mistakes. They fight among themselves. They pursue immediate political or economic gains without fully understanding the long-term consequences of their decisions.

History is full of examples where powerful people achieved one objective only to create entirely new problems they never anticipated.

That doesn’t make oppression any less real. I am certainly not arguing that. Rather, it simply makes the oppressors more human.

Unfortunately, some people have embraced a worldview where every historical event is interpreted as evidence of an elaborate, centuries-long conspiracy that only a handful of self-proclaimed “enlightened” YouTubers can supposedly decode.

I don’t buy it.

Ironically, this kind of thinking can become a form of white supremacy itself.

Why?

Because it assumes that Europeans and their descendants possess almost supernatural intelligence and foresight, and that every outcome in history happened exactly as they intended. It turns them into all-knowing masterminds while reducing everyone else to passive spectators with no agency of their own.

History is far more complicated than that. Empires rise, and empires fall. Wars produce unintended consequences. Economic systems evolve. And, technology changes societies in unexpected ways.

Entire civilizations have been transformed by accidents, disease, environmental changes, and decisions that looked reasonable at the time but produced completely unforeseen results.

The world we live in today wasn’t built from one perfect blueprint. Instead, it emerged from countless successes, failures, conflicts, compromises, and historical accidents.

The same applies to European dominance.

Europeans didn’t become globally dominant because they were biologically smarter than everyone else. Wealth, geography, trade networks, military competition, access to resources, political institutions, and centuries of technological development all contributed to that outcome. And let’s not forget the unfortunate accidental “luck” of wiping out most of the people on two continents with new diseases. The Innovation tends to flourish where societies have the resources, security, and incentives to pursue it.

More importantly, what we choose to believe affects what we choose to do.

If we convince ourselves that every aspect of our current reality was perfectly engineered hundreds of years ago, we risk believing that nothing can be changed. This fatalism has never liberated anyone and saps people of any real empowerment.

This is one reason I have little patience for theories claiming that the countless slave ledgers documenting the forced transportation of Africans across the Atlantic are all fabricated because “they” supposedly want us to believe we’re Africans instead of Native Americans or ancient Israelites.

The historical evidence overwhelmingly points to the fact that Black Americans are primarily descendants of West and West-Central Africans. Accepting that reality doesn’t diminish us. It does the opposite. It connects us to one of the richest, oldest, and most diverse regions in human history.

Instead of spending our energy chasing increasingly elaborate conspiracy theories, we should be asking far more practical questions:

How do we build stronger Black-owned businesses?

How do we create institutions that outlive us?

How do we increase homeownership?

How do we educate our children about African and African American history?

How do we develop economic relationships with countries throughout Africa and the wider African diaspora?

How do we build wealth instead of merely talking about it?

These questions are much more important than hanging on to weird conspiracy theories.

Nation-building is harder than conspiracy-building. It requires discipline instead of speculation, investment instead of internet debates, and cooperation instead of division.

If we truly want liberation, then our greatest challenge isn’t uncovering another secret plot.

Our greatest challenge is building communities that are economically independent, culturally confident, politically organized, and connected to the broader African world.

That’s work worth doing. Everything else is just a distraction.

July 17, 2026
The Diaspora Wars Are a Distraction from Black Liberation

I hate the so-called “Diaspora wars.” I really do.

The more I watch these online battles between Black Americans, Africans, Afro-Caribbeans, and other members of the African diaspora, the more convinced I become that they serve almost no productive purpose. At best, they are fueled by grifters within our own communities who care more about clicks, engagement, and money than they do about Black liberation or Black self-reliance. At worst, they function as a psychological operation that keeps Black people divided while distracting us from the systems that continue to harm all of us.

The tragedy is that these conflicts are built on the words and actions of a relatively small number of people. Social media algorithms take the most outrageous opinions from a handful of Black Americans and immigrants, amplify them to millions, and convince us that these fringe voices represent entire communities. Existing mistrust, jealousy, and stereotypes (many of which were created and reinforced by white supremacist systems) do the rest.

The supposed barrage of negative comments and feelings haven’t been my experience. I’ve spent time in the Dominican Republic, and I found most people to be warm and welcoming. I’ve traveled throughout Africa without experiencing the hostility that social media would have you expect. I’ve visited the Caribbean, and while many people understandably assume Americans have endless amounts of money, my interactions have overwhelmingly been positive. More importantly, I don’t stay isolated in luxury resorts. I spend time among everyday people.

Even here in the United States, many of my friends are immigrants. They respect me, and many have expressed that they want to be accepted by Black Americans just as much as Black Americans want to be accepted by them.

That’s a reality you don’t often see reflected online.

Unfortunately, every Black community has people who have internalized anti-Black beliefs. Coons exist in every nationality and every ethnicity. That shouldn’t surprise anyone. After centuries of slavery, colonialism, segregation, imperialism, and the constant message that Black people are somehow inferior, many of us have absorbed those ideas in one form or another. When you’ve been taught for generations that your people contributed nothing to civilization except labor or criminality, some people eventually begin to believe it.

Internalized oppression doesn’t stop at national borders.

If we are serious about Black liberation, I believe the only path forward is Pan-Africanism.

That doesn’t mean pretending our experiences are identical. Black Americans have a unique history rooted in slavery, Jim Crow, and the ongoing struggle for civil rights. Africans have their own histories shaped by colonialism, independence movements, and modern political challenges. Afro-Caribbeans, Afro-Latinos, and other members of the diaspora have their own distinct experiences as well.

Recognizing those differences shouldn’t prevent us from recognizing our shared humanity and our shared struggle.

We are connected not only through ancestry but through centuries of resistance against systems built on white supremacy and the ideology of Black inferiority. Those systems have always benefited when Black people distrust one another more than they distrust the institutions that marginalize all of us.

We shouldn’t allow a handful of loud voices on social media to define our relationships.

Ignore the people whose entire online presence depends on attacking other Black people. Be skeptical of pseudo-intellectuals who use selective history to create division rather than understanding. And let’s stop demonizing foreign-born Black people over hypothetical reparations that have neither been promised nor seriously pursued by either major political party.

I wholeheartedly support the idea and the pursuit of reparations. They can help address historical injustices and repair some of the damage caused by centuries of oppression. But no amount of money can guarantee genuine Black liberation if we remain divided and lack a shared vision for our future.

Liberation requires more than compensation.

It requires education, unity, and a unwavering love and trust of our people as a collective.

One lesson I think we should seriously consider comes from communities that invest heavily in teaching their children history, identity, culture, and collective responsibility outside of traditional public education. One such community are Jewish people. Academic subjects are important, but so is learning who you are, where you come from, and what obligations you have to your community.

We need Afrocentric educational spaces that strengthen our understanding of African civilizations, the global African diaspora, and the interconnected histories of Black people everywhere. Those spaces should include Black Americans, Africans, Afro-Caribbeans, Afro-Latinos, and every other branch of the African family.

The encouraging news is that this work is already happening.

I’ve seen Africans sharing the history of Black Americans with wider audiences. I’ve seen members of the diaspora eager to learn from one another, exchange culture, build businesses together, and strengthen Black institutions. There are far more people interested in unity than social media would have us believe.

Those people deserve more attention than the influencers profiting from division.

Our goal should never be isolation or xenophobia. Black Americans should not view other Black people as competitors or outsiders simply because they were born elsewhere. Likewise, members of the diaspora should recognize the unique history and contributions of Black Americans without relying on stereotypes.

History gives us a better example.

The Civil Rights Movement did not exist in isolation. Black American leaders built relationships with African independence movements, Caribbean intellectuals, and freedom struggles across the globe. Ideas, strategies, and inspiration flowed in both directions because they understood something that many people online seem to have forgotten:

Our liberation has always been connected.

Instead of fighting one another over social media narratives, we should be building institutions, exchanging knowledge, strengthening our communities, and creating the kind of global Black solidarity that those who came before us envisioned.

The diaspora wars may generate clicks but pan-African unity can generate freedom.

We are stronger as a people when we are united.

July 16, 2026
Extreme Sychophancy in the White House (An Invitation to my TikTok)

My name is Mario, and I was hoping you could check out this brief video of me ranting about the level of sychophancy in the Trump White House.

There’s a difference between loyalty and outright sycophancy, and lately, that line has been completely erased in American politics.

In my TikTok video, I briefly break down the level of blind praise and performative loyalty emanating from the Trump White House and how annoyingly unsettling it is.

When public officials seem more focused on flattering one person than serving the public or speaking honestly, it raises serious questions about leadership, accountability, and the health of our political system. The goal is not to provide the American public with accurate information. Instead, the goal is to carry favor with Donald Trump by constantly over-complimenting him.

What stood out to me, and what I highlight in the video, is how normalized this behavior has become. The constant sycophantic praising, followed by unrealistic claims designed more to make Trump seem like a divine solution to every problem facing the United States, doesn’t feel like governance. It feels like something else entirely. And regardless of where you fall politically, that should at least make you and any of us very concerned.

I’m not interested in empty outrage, even though my language is often colorful and could perhaps rub some the wrong way. I’m interested in conversations that prompt people to think a little deeper about what we’re seeing and accepting in our politics and our society. This is true of most of my TikToks.

If that’s the kind of discussion you’re into, check out other videos on my TikTok. I’m going to resume posting more content like this, of me breaking things down, asking uncomfortable questions, and keeping it real.

As with this blog and my social media, I invite you to join the conversation, even if you disagree with me. Just be aware that if you bite (figuratively speaking), I bite back.

This is not much of an exaggeration of how it really is.

April 11, 2026
People Don’t Hate Democratic Policies, They Hate Democratic Cowardice
The Democratic Party is currently under water in the polls. Their approval rating is lower than that of an unhinged and failing Republican President.

One of the biggest lies in American politics right now is the conservative claim that the Democratic Party’s low approval ratings are proof that progressive or left-wing ideas are unpopular.

That is not what is happening.

The Democratic Party’s low approval is not a sweeping public endorsement of conservatism, nor is it some grand rejection of ideas like police reform, clean energy, immigrant dignity, labor rights, racial justice, or social equality. If anything, many of those ideas remain more popular than the politicians and institutions claiming to represent them.

What people are rejecting is how Democrats campaign, govern, and legislate.

That distinction matters.

Many Democratic Voters Do Not Actually Like the Democratic Party

One of the most misunderstood things about American politics is that a huge portion of people who vote Democrat are not loyal Democrats.

Many progressives, leftists, disillusioned liberals, and politically alienated voters do not support the Democratic Party because they believe in it. They support it because there is no other viable alternative under the current two-party system.

That is not enthusiasm. That is containment.

Failure to articulate, fight, and deliever real changes leads to voter apathy.

Many Democratic voters are not politically “at home.” They are politically homeless.

They vote Democrat not because they think the party is transformational, but because the Republican Party has become openly hostile to democracy, labor, immigrants, women, LGBTQ people, Black communities, Muslims, and virtually anyone outside its reactionary coalition.

That means Democratic votes are often votes of defense, not belief.

Democrats Are Not “Too Woke.” They Are Not Woke Enough.

Democrats charging progressives and leftists with seeking perfection is the latest in gaslighting excuses for their failure to champion and deliver for their most vulnerable constituents.

One of the more absurd claims pushed by conservatives (and sometimes even accepted by Democrats themselves)is that the party has become too “woke.”

But that depends entirely on what one means by “woke.”

Being “woke” is being aware, conscious, and alert. It is being ready to face systems of oppression with adequate knoiwledge to navigate through them without being a victim. Black poeople know that our freedom constantly hangs by a thread and enemies are everywhere.

In its original Black political meaning, being woke meant being conscious of danger, power, injustice, and the need to protect one’s people and community. It was never just about representation, branding, or inclusion language.

And that is exactly where Democrats fail.

They are often fluent in the language of diversity, equity, and inclusion while being utterly unwilling to confront the structures that actually produce inequality.

They do not threaten the system. At best, they try to make the status quo look kinder, more polished, and more diverse.

But a more diverse ruling class is not the same thing as justice. It truly doesn’t matter if the foot on our necks belong to a woman, minority, or a member of some other marginalized group, the oppression is still there.

In fact, the tokenism that puts a member of a marginalized community in charge makes the problem worse.

Diversity in positions of power does nothing for marginalized communities as long as the mechanisms of their oppression are still operating and supported by those in power.

The Core Problem: Democrats Campaign Left and Govern Center-Right

This is where much of the anger comes from.

Democrats routinely campaign on bold, popular ideas, such as healthcare reform, abortion protections, criminal justice reform, labor rights, student debt relief, climate action, immigration reform, etc., only to retreat, dilute, abandon, or proceduralize those promises once in office.

There is no joy in Democratic Party victories if the end result is that the people’s basic standard of living either doesn’t improve or worsen.

And when they fail, they almost always have an excuse ready:
- Senate procedure
- “Moderate” Democrats
- institutional norms
- electability concerns
- donor pressure
- political timing
- fear of backlash
At some point, people stop hearing these as obstacles and start hearing them as the pre-scripted permission slips for inaction they often are.

This is one of the main reasons the Democratic Party feels hollow to so many of the very people it depends on.

Democrats Alienate Their Own Coalition

Democrats often actively resist moving to the left. In fact, their solutions to electorial win and losses is to move further to the right.

The Democratic Party survives through a broad coalition, but it often governs as though that coalition is a burden.

Black voters, women, Arab and Muslim communities, immigrants, labor-oriented voters, poor and working-class people, LGBTQ communities, and younger progressives are all expected to show up every election cycle. But when it is time to govern, many of those same groups are sidelined, ignored, triangulated against, or used symbolically rather than materially.

Black voters have long experienced this in the form of tokenism, local “benign” neglect, selective outrage, and empty rhetoric about justice that rarely translates into structural change.

Benign neglect of communities only breeds resentment by many within those communities. If the Democrats want to keep their coalition of diverse voters, they have to fight harder for each and every one of them.

Muslim and Arab communities have seen it through surveillance, Islamophobia, selective empathy, and the treatment of dissenting lawmakers as liabilities.

Women have seen it through decades of strategic delay and complacency around abortion rights, only to watch those rights collapse under a reactionary judiciary.

Immigrants and Latinos have seen it through cruelty repackaged as pragmatism.

And progressives have seen it through endless lectures about realism from people who somehow always find the political courage to disappoint the left but never that same courage to seriously confront the right.

The Gaza Crisis Exposed Democratic Hypocrisy

There were calls by many of the political left in 2024 for Democrats to stop supporting the genocide in Gaza and support a ceasefire, These calls were mostly ignored and scoffed at by the Democratic Party leadership.

If there was one issue that crystallized this contradiction for many younger voters, leftists, Muslims, Arab Americans, and anti-imperialists, it was Gaza.

For many people, the Democratic Party’s response to the destruction and mass death in Gaza was not merely disappointing but it was also morally disqualifying.

Many potential Democratic voters could not vote for Democratic candidates alligned with Israel and its lobby in good conscious.

Pro-Palestinian protestors started to express their disappointment with the Democratic Party and vowed to vote against the Democratic Party during the general election.

Instead of responding with honesty, moral clarity, and equal concern for Palestinian humanity, much of the party defaulted to the same old framework: criminalize dissent, sanitize atrocity, and demand loyalty from people expected to ignore what they could plainly see with their own eyes.

That mattered and it sidelined many voters and activists who could have carried the Democrats to victory.

Why?

Because once a party asks people to suspend not just strategy, but conscience, it should not be surprised when those people begin to emotionally detach from it.

Republicans Have an Ideological Core. Democrats Often Seem to Have None.

Democrats struggle to use their power to help the people who elected them. They seem afraid to embrace popular left-wing positions. The Republicans, in contrast, use their power to push their agenda no matter how unpopular it my be. The Democrats appear weak while the Republican seem strong.

Part of the frustration here is comparative.

Republicans, however destructive, reactionary, and dangerous their project may be, often appear more ideologically committed than Democrats. They are willing to fight for what they believe in, even when those beliefs are cruel, anti-democratic, and deeply unpopular.

Democrats, by contrast, often appear to be a party whose primary belief is managing decline politely.

They want stability and not transformation. Procedure and not confrontation. Brand management and not political struggle.

That makes them seem weak, not simply because they lose, but because even when they win, they often act as if they do not know how to wield the power that they have.

This Is Not an Argument for Republicans

Let me be crystal clear about this post lest my words are taken out of context by conservatives using my words to make bad faith arguments: none of this is an endorsement of the Republican Party.

The current Republican Party is more overtly hostile to Black people and other marginalized communities than the Democratic Party is. That is reality.

One of the main reasons why Black voters overwhelmingly vote Democrat is not due to satisfaction or loyalty. Instead, it is because the Republican Party had been openly hostile toward the Black Community for decades. Racist dog-whistle politics may fool some but, Black people can indentify it easily.

Most Black voters, myself included, vote Democrat not because we are enchanted by the party, but because under the present system, it is often the only viable barrier against a more openly reactionary political project.

That is not love.That is only risk management. This is something many Black Republicans, who talk about loyalty to plantations seem to forget.

And Black history gives us every reason to take that risk seriously.

After the electoral victories of many Black people in Wilmington, North Carolina in 1898, an angry White Mob conducted a violent coup of the town in which Black residents were killed or driven away. This was one of the last holdovers of a succesful diverse government after the end of the Recontruction Era 20 years earlier.

The gains won through struggle can be reversed. They can be rolled back. They can be destroyed. Reconstruction taught us that. Wilmington taught us that. The 20th century taught us that. And the present is teaching it again.

The Real Crisis Is Political Homelessness

The deeper issue here is not simply that Democrats are unpopular.

It is that millions of people feel politically stranded.

They are too conscious to be satisfied with Democratic symbolism. too threatened to gamble on Republican barbarism, and too trapped in a two-party duopoly to build immediate alternatives with real electoral power.

That is a recipe for alienation. The largest voting bloc during the 2024 presidential election was eligible voters who chose the proverbial couch over casting any vote and any election.

Constant disappoinment leads to political disengagement.

And unless that changes, Democrats will continue to suffer from a contradiction that conservatives fundamentally do not understand.

This is that people may still vote for Democrats while deeply resenting them.

That is not political strength. Instead, that is political exhaustion.

And unless Democrats become something more than “the only adults in the room,” that exhaustion will continue to define American politics.
April 8, 2026
From Protest to Prosperity: The Generational Divide Between Boomers and Millennials

One of the things that has always puzzled me about the Baby Boomer generation is the contrast between their revolutionary youth and their often conservative attitudes later in life.

The Boomers, along with many members of the Silent Generation, were the people that Generation X grew up admiring. They were the students sitting at segregated lunch counters while mobs attacked them. They were the Freedom Riders. They were marching against the war in Vietnam. Some were even killed during protests, such as the students shot by National Guard troops at Kent State.

They were the generation that gave rise to the Civil Rights Movement, the Black Power Movement, women’s liberation, the American Indian Movement, early gay rights activism, and a broader counterculture that questioned the entire structure of American society.

They were also the generation that gave us revolutionary genres of music, such as classic rock, heavy metal, punk, and hip-hop. Melly Mel was a Boomer who gave us “The Message”, and Chuck D was a Boomer telling us to “Fight The Power”.

Of course, not every Boomer was part of those movements. Many supported segregation, the Vietnam War, and conservative politics. But the public image of the generation was shaped by its loudest voices: young people challenging authority and demanding social change.

Somewhere along the way, that spirit changed.

By the 1980s, large portions of the Silent Generation and the Baby Boomers had embraced a very different political outlook. Ronald Reagan’s landslide victory in 1984, in which he won every state except Minnesota, was powered largely by voters from the Greatest Generation, the Silent Generation, and many Boomers who had entered middle age.

To understand this shift, we must first look at the economic environment in which those generations came of age.

The decades following World War II produced one of the most prosperous periods in American history. Beginning in the late 1940s and continuing through the early 1970s, the American middle class experienced a dramatic expansion. Unionized manufacturing jobs were plentiful and often paid wages that allowed a single worker to support an entire family.

For many Americans, especially and particularly white Americans, economic security was relatively attainable.

By the mid-1970s, however, the foundations of that economy were beginning to erode. Deindustrialization affected major cities such as Detroit, Cleveland, Baltimore, and St. Louis particularly hard. Manufacturing jobs disappeared, urban budgets were slashed, and many white families relocated to suburbs that remained economically stable.

While inner cities struggled with job loss, poverty, and rising crime, many suburban communities continued to experience relative prosperity well into the 1980s and 1990s.

This created a divide in perception.

Many Baby Boomers came of age during a period when stable employment and home ownership were still achievable for large segments of the population. Younger generations, by contrast, entered adulthood during a period defined by stagnant wages, rising housing costs, student debt, and declining economic mobility.

As a result, Millennials and younger generations often experience economic conditions acutely differently from how their parents did.

From the perspective of many Boomers, the United States has already achieved enormous social progress. Segregation has been dismantled, women have gained expanded rights and opportunities, and same-sex marriage has been legalized.

From that viewpoint, younger generations may appear overly pessimistic or overly focused on grievances.

However, that perspective sometimes overlooks a crucial reality: the economic landscape has changed dramatically.

Many Millennials and younger adults face rising costs of education, healthcare, and housing while earning wages that have not kept pace with inflation. Buying a home, starting a family, or building long-term financial security has become significantly more difficult than it was for many members of earlier generations.

This creates a generational misunderstanding.

Older generations may view younger people as overly sensitive or insufficiently resilient. Younger generations may view older voters as disconnected from the economic realities they now face.

Both perceptions contain elements of truth and misunderstanding.

The social struggles fought by earlier generations were enormously important and deserve recognition. But social progress alone cannot resolve the economic challenges confronting younger Americans today.

As Martin Luther King Jr. increasingly emphasized in the final years of his life, the struggle for social justice is incomplete without a parallel struggle for economic justice.

Understanding that connection may be one of the most important tasks facing the generations living in America today.

March 12, 2026
The Death of Nuance in the Social Media Era

One of the things that constantly amazes me about social media discourse is the tendency to treat historical figures, as well as contemporary public figures, as if they must be either entirely good or entirely evil.

The moment someone mentions something positive about a controversial figure, it is almost guaranteed that someone will jump into the conversation to remind everyone of that person’s worst actions.

Mention that Henry Ford introduced innovative ideas about wages and working hours, and someone will immediately point out that he was a racist and an antisemite.

Discuss the artistic achievements of a filmmaker, and someone will remind you that the director was a convicted criminal. Mention a political leader’s accomplishments, and someone will respond with a list of that leader’s moral failures.

Now, to be clear, none of that information is wrong. History should not sanitize or hide the harmful actions of powerful people.

But the question is whether those reminders are always necessary in every conversation.

There is a difference between acknowledging wrongdoing and insisting that a person’s flaws invalidate everything else they ever did. Human beings are rarely that simple.

Franklin D. Roosevelt oversaw the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. This was undoubtedly a grave injustice. Yet he was also responsible for the New Deal, which reshaped the American economy and expanded social protections during the Great Depression.

General William Tecumseh Sherman played a decisive role in defeating the Confederacy during the Civil War, even though his campaigns later involved violent acts of genocide against Native Americans.

History is filled with figures whose lives encompass both achievements and moral failures.

The same is true in other fields. A performer like R. Kelly can be both a talented songwriter and someone who committed horrific crimes. Kevin Spacey can be a brilliant actor while also facing serious accusations of abuse.

Recognizing these contradictions does not excuse wrongdoing. It simply acknowledges reality.

The problem is that social media often rewards a much simpler way of thinking. Online discourse often reduces people to heroes or villains, leaving little room for complexity. If someone is morally flawed, the logic goes, then every accomplishment must be dismissed.

But that approach does not lead to a deeper understanding of history or human behavior.

It leads to something much simpler: moral sorting.

The truth is that human beings are capable of doing both admirable and terrible things. Acknowledging that complexity does not weaken moral judgment, it actually strengthens it.

Unfortunately, nuance is rarely rewarded in the age of social media.

And that may be one of the greatest intellectual casualties of the digital era.

March 12, 2026
American History Myths #6: The Myth of “Northern Innocence”

One of the most persistent myths in American history is the idea that legalized segregation and anti-Black racism were primarily Southern problems.

According to this narrative, the South was the land of slavery, Jim Crow, and overt racial hostility, while the North, especially the so-called “liberal North,” was supposedly a place where racial equality flourished, and people lived together in relative harmony.

For decades, this is essentially how American history was taught.

But the reality is far more complicated.

Anti-Black racism was not confined to the South. It existed throughout the United States, including in Northern cities that often presented themselves as progressive and tolerant. While Southern states openly enforced segregation through Jim Crow laws, Northern states frequently relied on other mechanisms to achieve many of the same results.

One of the most powerful tools used to maintain racial segregation in Northern and Western cities was the racial covenant.

Racial covenants were clauses written into property deeds by real estate developers, neighborhood associations, and homeowners. These clauses prohibited the sale or rental of property to certain groups, most commonly Black Americans, but also often including Asian Americans, Jews, and other minorities.

Example of a racial covenant. Note the words “Restricted to the Caucasian Race”

These restrictions were widespread across the country. Entire neighborhoods were built with the explicit condition that homes could not be sold to non-white residents.

The consequences were enormous.

By restricting where Black families could live, racial covenants effectively barred them from access to wealthier neighborhoods, better public schools, and the property values that allowed many white families to accumulate generational wealth through home ownership.

Racial covenants were only one piece of a larger system of discrimination often referred to as racial steering or social steering. Through practices by real estate agents, banks, and government institutions, different racial groups were deliberately directed or confined to specific areas of cities and metropolitan regions.

Although the Supreme Court ruled racially restrictive covenants unenforceable in Shelley v. Kraemer (1948) and the Fair Housing Act of 1968 outlawed many forms of housing discrimination, the patterns created by decades of segregation did not disappear overnight.

Ethel Shelley reads a May 4, 1948, St. Louis Post-Dispatch story about the Supreme Court decision outlawing racial covenants. (Courtesy St. Louis Post-Dispatch)

In many cases, they persisted.

Even today, many American cities remain deeply segregated along racial lines. Schools often reflect the same residential patterns, meaning that educational opportunities can still be shaped by where families are able… or allowed… to live.

Click on the link attached to the word “schools” in the paragraph above for more information on this map.

Understanding this history challenges the comfortable narrative that racism was solely a Southern problem. The structures that created racial inequality in the United States were national in scope, and their effects continue to shape American society today.

The myth of Northern innocence obscures that reality.

March 11, 2026
The Epstein Scandal Is Bigger Than Politics

I have been extremely critical of Donald Trump and the MAGA movement regarding the Epstein case. However, it is important to say something that often gets lost in the political shouting.

This case is bigger than Trump.

It is bigger than Jeffrey Epstein himself.
It is bigger than Bill Clinton, Prince Andrew, or any other powerful individual who may have been connected to Epstein’s network.

And it is bigger than partisan politics.

At its core, the Epstein scandal exposes something much deeper: what happens when money, power, and privilege collide with the worst impulses of human behavior, particularly male behavior.

For decades, we have seen the same pattern repeat itself across politics, entertainment, religion, business, and other powerful institutions. Men with wealth and influence abuse their power to exploit women and girls, while the systems around them protect their reputations.

Victims are often dismissed, discredited, or accused of ulterior motives. Meanwhile, the perpetrators continue to operate with little consequence.

The Epstein case revealed a horrifying scale of abuse. Hundreds of young girls were trafficked and exploited. Some estimates suggest the number of victims could exceed a thousand.

And yet the reaction from many people has been to reduce the scandal to a political weapon.

Supporters of one political figure point to the involvement of another. Loyalists circle the wagons around people they admire. Victims become secondary to political narratives.

This reaction is part of the problem.

Sexual exploitation thrives in environments where powerful people are protected by wealth, influence, and social loyalty. When society treats abuse allegations as partisan ammunition rather than moral failures, accountability becomes almost impossible.

The disturbing reality is that this problem extends far beyond Epstein’s circle.

Reports in recent years have exposed online communities where thousands of men openly discuss drugging, assaulting, and exploiting women. Studies consistently show that sexual violence is far more common than many people want to admit. According to organizations such as the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN), roughly one in six women will experience sexual assault during their lifetime.

These crimes are rarely committed by strangers hiding in dark alleys.

They are often committed by men known to the victim, such as friends, coworkers, acquaintances, partners, and authority figures.

This forces an uncomfortable conversation about male behavior more broadly.

If men are serious about ending sexual violence, the responsibility cannot be placed solely on law enforcement or individual criminals. Men must also examine the attitudes and behaviors that enable these crimes to continue.

That includes learning to accept rejection, understanding the meaning of consent, and rejecting the idea that status, wealth, or influence entitle anyone to another person’s body.

This is not about hating men or rejecting masculinity. This is not about pandering to women for dates or sex. It is about recognizing that power without accountability creates environments where abuse flourishes. This is about accountability and responsibility.

Many of the women harmed by Epstein’s network are now adults living with lifelong trauma. Justice for them should never be reduced to a political talking point.

If this scandal means anything, it should be a reminder that accountability must apply to everyone. Holding criminals accountable should be the goal, no matter how wealthy, powerful, or politically connected they may be.

And for men in particular, it should also be a reminder that respect, consent, and responsibility must define how we treat women.

Anything less allows the cycle to continue.

March 10, 2026