Blog no sidebar

(ThyBlackMan.com) On the nineteenth of June, on Juneteenth of all days, the doors of the Obama Presidential Center swung open to the public in Jackson Park on the South Side of Chicago. Eight stories. Nineteen acres. A library branch, a basketball court, gardens and a great lawn. Eight hundred and fifty million dollars in construction funded through private donations, though taxpayers also covered substantial infrastructure improvements in and around Jackson […]

(ThyBlackMan.com) People been arguing about who really pushed Michael for going on forty years now, and most of them are looking in the wrong direction. It was not Prince. It was not Madonna moving units, and it was not whoever the radio decided to prop up that season. If you want to understand the heaviest weight that man ever carried, quit staring at his competition. Go pull up his own […]

(ThyBlackMan.com) The Platner fiasco has unleashed something of a brawl in the Democratic Party over how the sexting candidate with a Nazi tattoo came to be their rival to Susan Collins, now in her 5th term as Republican senator from Maine. Bernie Sanders thought his socialists could pass off blue-collar impersonator Graham Platner — a product of the elite Hotchkiss prep school — as a hard-working “oysterman.” Sanders had been […]

(ThyBlackMan.com) Introduction Choosing high-quality premium rose bushes can be a rewarding process for both new and experienced gardeners. Factors such as plant health, variety selection, growing practices, and reliable customer support all play important roles in selecting the right source. April & Ashley focus on carefully selected rose varieties designed to help gardeners create beautiful, lasting outdoor spaces. With attention to quality, presentation, and customer experience, the brand offers options […]

(ThyBlackMan.com) I have a very close family member who has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. So, when famed actor, humanitarian, and political activist Danny Glover courageously announced that he was battling the disease I loudly applauded. I applauded for two good reasons. One, I know firsthand the monumental pain, suffering, and agony that my family member daily suffers. That pain deeply touches me as well as other family members. But it’s […]

(ThyBlackMan.com) There is an old wisdom I inherited from men who worked with their hands and thought with their whole lives, and it went something like this. A house is only as sound as the ground it sits on. I have carried that idea into my later years, and I offer it now because a generation of our Black men has been sold the opposite lesson. Raise the walls, hang […]

(ThyBlackMan.com) This week I am thinking about what it means to go back to school in a country that still rations opportunity. The stores are selling backpacks and dorm décor, but the deeper question is who gets access to education, who must borrow for it, and which institutions continue to carry the burden of Black possibility. The fireworks have dimmed, and the Fourth-of-You-Lie sales are waning. In this country, we […]

(ThyBlackMan.com) The United States nation faces threats that extend beyond the familiar divide between Democrats and Republicans. Increasingly, two ideological movements — one on the far left, one emerging on the populist right — share a willingness to undermine the principles that have long defined the American experiment. On one side stands the Democratic Socialists of America, whose influence within the Democratic Party has grown dramatically. This is no longer […]

(ThyBlackMan.com) There are moments when history reaches across the centuries with startling clarity. Standing in the Palazzo Pubblico in Siena, Italy, and looking at Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s “Allegory of Good and Bad Government,” I had one of those moments. Nearly 700 years old, the series of fresco paintings includes a depiction of a bustling city that illustrates the effects of good government, as well as representations of the decay that results […]

(ThyBlackMan.com) Sit in any barbershop long enough and you will hear a young man’s whole character decided over the hum of the clippers. Russell Wilson got decided in mine years back, and the ruling came down the same every time somebody said his name. Soft. Too polished, too churchy, grinning like the country had never once pressed its knee to his neck. My uncle would wave a hand at the […]