How Can Superstars Be Broke? When I first heard that TLC could sell millions of records and still end up broke, something about the story did not make sense to me. This was not some little group struggling to get somebody to play their music. TLC was everywhere during the 1990s. Tionne “T-Boz” Watkins, Lisa
The Chains Changed Their Sound The chains do not always clank anymore, and that may be one of the hardest lessons to recognize in modern America. Sometimes control arrives dressed in contracts, endorsements, public relations, sponsorship agreements, and carefully managed careers. A successful Black athlete can earn more money than generations before him ever imagined,
The Chains Do Not Always Clank: Power, Protest, and the Price of Standing Alone Read More »
A Morning That Should Have Been Ordinary There is something especially disturbing about a serious confrontation beginning over something as ordinary as breakfast. According to the account surrounding an incident at a Tim Hortons in Fort Wayne, Indiana, a 75-year-old woman identified as Anita Grayson entered the restaurant after having a problem with a drive-through
Seeing Value Where Everybody Else Sees Trash When I see a junk-removal truck parked outside somebody’s house, I probably do not immediately think I am looking at a sophisticated business. I see an old mattress. I see a broken television. I see furniture somebody no longer wants. I see boxes that may have been sitting
There Is Money in Other People’s Junk: The Business Behind 1-800-GOT-JUNK? Read More »
A Question America Has Answered Before There is something troubling about hearing America return to a question I thought we had already answered: Which children deserve an education? Public schools have never been perfect, and our history proves that access has never been equally distributed without a struggle. Still, education remains one of the main
Racism Does Not Always Wear the Same Face One of the difficult truths about racism is that it does not always come from the same place. Some people knowingly embrace racist beliefs because those beliefs are exactly what they want to hold. They may have inherited prejudice from their families, communities, or culture and decided
When Racism Comes From Hatred and When It Comes From Ignorance Read More »
There Is Another Side of the Investment World Most of us are introduced to money through the financial doors we can easily see. We learn about savings accounts, certificates of deposit, stocks, bonds, mutual funds, 401(k)s, IRAs, and maybe real estate. Those are legitimate ways to save, invest, and build financial security. The deeper I
The Door Money Opens: How Wealth Creates Access to More Wealth Read More »
The Question Behind Where I Spend My Money There is a question I believe is worth asking whenever I reach into my pocket: Why should I keep giving my money to people who have made it clear they do not respect me? That question becomes even more complicated when race enters the picture. Black Americans
Your Money Is a Vote: Knowing When to Walk Away From Places That Do Not Respect You Read More »
The Lesson Pilots Learn One of the strongest lessons from aviation has very little to do with airplanes and a great deal to do with life. Pilots learn that there are moments when they cannot safely trust what their bodies are telling them. When clouds, fog, darkness, or bad weather remove the visible horizon, the
Trust Your Instruments: When Feelings and Facts Point in Different Directions Read More »
The Messages Can Begin Before We Understand Them A Black child can enter the world before having any idea what race means. Yet society may already have meanings waiting for that child’s skin. Long before the child understands those messages, other people may have already attached assumptions to Blackness. Some of those assumptions have been
When Racism Gets Inside the Mind: Anti-Blackness and the Black Psyche Read More »