Politics & Current Events

We Did Not Always Know What We Were Sitting On I have often thought about what happens when Black neighborhoods that were once dismissed suddenly become some of the most expensive places in a city. Families may have lived there for generations without realizing how valuable that location could eventually become. The houses might have

The Burden of Having to Stay Excellent There are times when being Black in America can feel like being asked to remain excellent while somebody keeps moving the goalposts. We are expected to walk into the room prepared, polished, professional, strategic, calm, and confident no matter what is happening around us. We are told to

When Having Less Costs More The older I get, the more I understand something about poverty that sounds backward until you look closely at how America works. Sometimes having less money actually makes ordinary life cost more. A person with savings can absorb an emergency, while somebody living paycheck to paycheck may have to borrow

When Chaos Starts Feeling Normal I have come to understand that a person can live under pressure for so long that pressure starts feeling normal. Chaos becomes familiar, stress becomes expected, and struggle becomes part of the daily routine. You wake up preparing for trouble before trouble has even shown its face. After enough years

Coming Home Is Not the Same as Being Free One thing people do not always understand is that walking out of prison does not mean prison immediately walks out of you. A man can come home, hug his family, sleep in his own bed, and still feel locked up somewhere inside his mind. I heard

The Warning That Caught My Attention When I first hear somebody say, “Goodbye Zelle, goodbye PayPal, goodbye Venmo,” I understand why the message gets people’s attention. Money is personal, and anything involving the federal government and our bank accounts deserves careful examination. The claim is that FedNow will eventually become the funnel through which practically

The Numbers Made Me Look Twice When I hear somebody say the Latino vote is moving toward an almost even political split, I understand why that gets people’s attention. But before building an argument around those numbers, I have to make sure the numbers themselves are right. George W. Bush did not receive 44 percent