When Being “Too Smart” Sounds Like a Problem Something about hearing a nineteen-year-old young man described as “too smart” has never sat quite right with me. When somebody has the intelligence and discipline to reach an elite level, I would normally expect those qualities to be celebrated. Yet intelligence can make certain institutions uncomfortable when
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The Joke That Opens a Bigger Conversation Sometimes somebody tells a joke that sounds ridiculous at first, but underneath the laughter there is a serious historical question worth examining. I heard one joke that said White people must not have been very original because Europeans crossed an entire ocean and then started putting “New” in
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The Question Behind Jasmine Crockett’s Defeat When I looked at Jasmine Crockett’s loss in the 2026 Texas Democratic Senate primary, I understood why some Black voters saw something deeper than one candidate losing an election. Crockett had become nationally known as a fighter who spoke forcefully about immigration, civil rights, Donald Trump, and other issues
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What Credit Really Means The older I get, the more I realize that a lot of people understand how to use credit without fully understanding what credit costs them. Credit is basically an agreement allowing me to use somebody else’s money now and repay it later under certain terms. In many cases, I also have
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The Story Behind the Word “Spirits” I have heard liquor called “spirits” for as long as I can remember, and somebody eventually gave that old word a much darker explanation. The claim was that alcohol is called spirits because drinking allows spiritual beings to enter a person’s body and temporarily take control. That explanation can
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When That Beat Came Through the Speakers There are certain records you hear for the first time and immediately know somebody has brought something different into the room. That is how I think about “Ruff Ryders’ Anthem,” the DMX record produced by a young Kasseem Dean, better known to the world as Swizz Beatz. Swizz
Swizz Beatz: The Young Producer Who Helped Move a Culture Read More »
I Never Saw Safety as an Either-Or Choice When somebody asks whether I support defunding the police, my answer begins with the belief that communities need effective law enforcement. People should be able to walk through their neighborhoods, raise their children, operate businesses, and grow old without constantly worrying about violence. Police officers have an
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Making More Money Does Not Automatically Make You Wealthy One of the biggest money myths I have heard is that the more money somebody earns, the wealthier that person must be. That sounds reasonable until you start looking at how people actually live. Somebody can earn two hundred thousand dollars a year and spend two
What I Have Learned About Money and the Myths We Tell Ourselves Read More »
When the Phone Gets Put Away When I first heard about Kansas moving toward a bell-to-bell restriction on student cellphones, I understood why it immediately got people’s attention. We are talking about young people who have grown up with phones being almost as ordinary as pencils and notebooks. Under this kind of policy, students are
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A Different Kind of Revolution I have lived long enough to watch technology grow from something simple into something that touches almost every part of our lives. I remember when the telephone stayed in the house and the television had only a few channels. Back then, a computer was something most ordinary people never imagined
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