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(ThyBlackMan.com) “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,” reads the iconic welcome to the world’s oppressed inscribed on the Statue of Liberty. Emma Lazarus, the poet who penned those words, had herself helped Jewish refugees from the anti-Semitic pogroms of Eastern Europe who had fled to our shores in the late 19th century. As America’s 250th birthday approaches, it’s not untimely to consider her […]

(ThyBlackMan.com) There are records made for the party and others made for the hours after, once the house has emptied and there is no longer any reason to perform. Michael Jackson built his legend on the first kind. The moonwalk, the glove, the stadiums that shook on cue. Yet the longer you sit with the second kind, the more you notice something moving beneath the spectacle. Someone speaking quietly to […]

(ThyBlackMan.com) My grandmother kept receipts. Not only the paper kind, though a shoebox of those sat beneath her bed. The ones that counted she kept in memory, in the long private ledger a person compiles after a lifetime of learning whether the world means to deal fairly. The grocer who leaned a thumb onto the scale. The teller who waved her cousin from the loan desk while smiling the whole […]

(ThyBlackMan.com) “The majority claims to see no evidence that race played any role in the Haiti decision. But the evidence is there, plain to see, in the President’s statements, which the majority (and for that matter, his own lawyers) cannot even bear to repeat.”  The President’s allies on the Supreme Court have had to jump through some hoops to justify their decisions supporting his reckless and discriminatory policies. But Justice […]

(ThyBlackMan.com) Every generation hopes to leave the world a little better than it found it. Across African-American communities, this goal has often involved creating opportunities, strengthening neighborhoods, and building environments where future generations can thrive. While discussions about safety frequently focus on crime statistics or physical security, creating safer environments is about much more than preventing harm. It involves fostering trust, encouraging community involvement, providing opportunities, and ensuring that children […]

(ThyBlackMan.com) Plenty of presidents have come and gone in my lifetime. A few earned my vote with pride. A couple I would have crossed the street to avoid. Across all those years one lesson stuck, and I wish more of our young people held it close before they get swept into whatever the season happens to be selling. No man in that White House owns you. Not your hope, not […]

(ThyBlackMan.com) There’s a thing that happens when you get a group of us together in a room. Could be a barbershop, could be a backyard with the grill going, could be somebody’s basement after a long week. The energy is good at first. Laughter, old stories, somebody lying about how fast he used to run back in the day. Then one of us gets quiet. Maybe he opens up a […]

(ThyBlackMan.com) I’ll say the quiet part first. Tyler Perry drives me crazy. He also amazes me. And I gave up a while ago trying to pick one, because watching his stuff feels like arguing with a cousin you love who keeps making the same mistake at every cookout. My auntie had the plays before they were anywhere. Bootleg DVDs, the camera shaking in the back of some theater, the audio […]

(ThyBlackMan.com) When I think about what these two have done, I don’t start with the songs. That feels strange coming from somebody who has loved this music his whole life, but stay with me a second. Music was only ever the front door. What Beyoncé and Jay-Z actually constructed is the whole house behind it. A foundation. A deed. A family that gets to live there long after the radio […]

(ThyBlackMan.com) Growing up, somebody always told me soccer was the sport you picked when you couldn’t hang on the basketball court. Made me laugh every time. The cats I knew who could really go, the ones with touch and vision, were pure athletes. Quick feet, lungs that wouldn’t quit, a mind running three steps ahead of everybody else. I played in high school myself. Never a star, but I held […]