The primary races should be very telling to all who care about the way they hope things will go in November and beyond. Dr. Abdul El-Sayed won the Michigan Senate democratic primary. What we know about El-Sayed is that he is very big on getting corporate money out of politics. He is not endorsed and therefore not beholden to the interests of the corporate agenda. His opponent, Haley Stevens, is funded by AIPAC. It’s reported that she spent close to $70 million more than Dr. Abdul El-Sayed did for his campaign. In other words, Michigan did a good thing. Many can recall Abdul El-Sayed saying that he is not a Democratic-Socialist, but he has referred to himself as a Progressive, which means at the very least, he is not interested in the corporate agenda. Michigan voted for the most progressive candidate who is actually about serving people instead of the person who is answering to the demands of genocidal degenerates for her own personal gain.

This is the case for Michigan. The opposite is true for Missouri. Cori Bush just lost her bid for Missouri’s first congressional district to Wesley Bell, a man who is receiving funding from AIPAC. Close to $13 million, in fact.

Those are just two examples. This is the current fight of the democratic primary races. People are seeing in real time that being a Democrat does not mean a candidate has the best interests of the people they are serving.

DO NOT GET IT TWISTED. Even if an AIPAC Democrat is potentially representing you, you should still be voting for that Democrat come November. I understand, it’s not ideal. I understand that voting for someone who’s pro-Israel is not what aligns with your morals. The same is true for me. However, with respect, there are more issues than the ones related to Israel and Palestine. I would be remiss if I didn’t remind people that the reason the country we live in is so shitty is that Republicans are doing everything they can to make life more difficult for those who are not part of the one percent.

Think about it like this. Republicans across the board want to ruin your life. You should never vote for a Republican.

Democratic-Socialists (Zohran Mamdani, Aisha Farooqi, Cori Bush, etc.) are the ones who many deem “radical” and even dangerous by both Republicans and corporate Democrats. These are the people who support Palestine, support taxing the rich, support universal healthcare, support free education, support affordable housing, and numerous other things that actually benefit the people. Democratic - Socialists are along the lines of “we’re past talking and bipartisan resolutions. We’re doing the right thing regardless of if we’re going about it the “right” way because right is right and that’s the only reason anyone should need.” This is who you vote for and should continue to vote for until you can’t.

Moderate- or Corporate-Democrats (Cori Booker, Chuck Schumer, Wesley Bell, Haley Stevens, etc.) are still light years better than Republicans. However, they are not the radical change that many people want to see. They are the ones who “want to do things the right way”. Or they are the ones who are constantly seeking bipartisan resolutions so that “both sides can benefit”. They are the Democrats who still support Israel because of narratives like “Israel has the right to exist.” These are the Democrats who still believe that America can be saved if everyone sets aside their differences, that being “too radical” is bad for the economy and bad for American social order. Unfortunately, these Democrats are still aiming to preserve the power structure that oppresses many Americans and, frankly, citizens across the globe. Moderates don’t want to destroy the system; they just want to make you more comfortable within it, which is still more than you can say about Republicans. These are the Democrats that will sometimes sell you out because they have a particular interest in personally gaining something by going against the good of the people. Again, it’s unfortunate, that much is not being disputed. However, they’re still better than Republicans. The only time you should be voting for a Corporate-Democrat is if there are no Progressive or Democratic-Socialist candidates left. Voting for a Corporate-Democrat is the last option. What you don’t want is to fall into this idea that Moderate-Democrats are just as bad as Republicans. THEY AREN’T. However bad you think moderates are, Republicans are a thousand times worse.

It’s because of Republicans that gas prices are so high. It’s because of Republicans that America might combine its army with Israeli forces. It’s because of Republicans that you can’t afford eggs anymore. It’s because of Republicans that higher education is becoming more unaffordable for middle- and poor-class students and that colleges and universities like my beloved Howard University are losing federal funding.

Democrats, despite their flaws, would not have let things get this bad. When you cast your vote, you should always vote for who is the most progressive.

To sum it up:

Republicans are never progressive. Never vote Republican.

Democratic-Socialists are the most progressive. You should always vote for these candidates FIRST.

Moderate- and Corporate-Democrats are not as progressive as Democratic-Socialists, but are still more progressive than Republicans. You should only vote for these candidates if the only other option is a Republican.

Shift your focus to how Progressives and Democratic-Socialists are being portrayed in the media. Outlets across the nation, even ones that are supposedly more left-leaning. The GOP just said Dr. Abdul El-Sayed’s full name in their press release after his victory in an attempt to “expose” him for having ties to terrorist sympathizers. That’s the tactic of the GOP. They used his name in its full authenticity so the public shivers with fear at the sound of it. After 9/11, the government indoctrinated Americans to be fearful of everything related to Muslims, Arabs, and other related identity markers. They did this to rationalize their own agenda of stealing oil from the Middle East. It was a fear ploy they sold to Americans so they could gain public support for invading Iran and others.

Now, in addition to using his full name, they’re going to falsely claim that Dr. Abdul El-Sayed is in league with terrorists as a way of negatively marketing him as a criminal. They’re going to count on your fear of another 9/11 attack so that they can get their Republican candidate through the door to help them push their own evil white supremacist, terrorist agenda, whether that agenda is perpetuated against Black people here or overseas against the people of Palestine, Sudan, Cuba, DR Congo, and more.

This is a fear tactic. Notice how they also call him “the most radical candidate”. They do this to cling to the American fear that surrounds the Middle East. They are trying to insinuate that he is a terrorist. As Americans, specifically the ones who don’t know any better, we have been conditioned to believe that people of Muslim and other related backgrounds are terrorists. That by voting for them, Americans are inviting the possibility of another 9/11 terrorist attack. This is textbook propaganda.

Trump wasted no time. He called Wayne County (Detroit specifically) “one of the most corrupt voting areas in the United States, if not the World.” The layers to unpack here get a little funny. Firstly, Trump, like many others, is aware that Detroit is one of the largest if not the largest majority Black city in America. So, anyone reading between the lines here understands that he is implying that because there are so many Black people in this area, the election results shouldn’t hold any weight. That Black people who are against him are corrupt and ignorant.

What makes this funny, though, is that Black people in Michigan, to my disappointment, were seemingly more in support of Haley Stevens. This could be false, as the data on this has yet to come out. There is a graphic that has come out that shows Haley Stevens having a majority of the Black vote, but many have called it out, stating it is flawed because the methodology mostly sampled people over the age of 65 in the metro Detroit area.

Now, this was likely due to Stevens trying to claim that Barack Obama endorsed her (he did not). It can also be attributed to the fact that Black people are mistrusting the man who said not to vote for Kamala Harris, even though he reversed his stance later.

It’s not just this, though. They’re calling Dr. Abdul El-Sayed the most radical and he doesn’t even consider himself a Democratic-Socialist. Personally, I’d argue that people who say they are Democratic-Socialists are the most radical.

But take a second to dissect the term radical in this context. Various news outlets will want you to believe that the ideas these “radicals” are presenting are somehow dangerous. What’s dangerous about free healthcare? What’s dangerous about paying people liveable wages? What’s dangerous about free education? What’s dangerous about student-loan debt relief? What’s dangerous about affordable housing?

What’s dangerous is that it threatens the status quo. These billionaires and billionaire corporations want you to believe that the country will descend into anarchy if everyone is allowed to thrive. What’s really going to happen is that they will no longer be allowed to use money as a means of leveraging people to do their dirty work. Money will no longer be such a steep issue that if you don’t have it, you won’t be able to enjoy your life. The wealthy of modern society want you to always rely on them. The wealthy want to be able to dictate who’s able to receive resources based on the public’s loyalty to them. By depriving you of resources, you are forced to either obtain resources illegally or subject yourself to the will of the elite.

If Zohran Mamdani has shown politicians anything, it’s that life is better for everyone when everyone has enough and no single person is hoarding resources. In fact, Zohran Mamdani may be the catalyst that pushes Moderates out of office to make way for a democratic party that stays true to its mission of serving people.

So what happens going forward? You (the public) are going to see media companies do anything and everything they can to try and convince you that Democratic-Socialists are trying to plunge the world into chaos. That Democratic-Socialists are dangerous. Ask yourself, where does the danger actually reside?

You are going to see some left-leaning news outlets come to the defense of Moderate- and Corporate-Democrats. The AIPAC-funded Democrats are going to send messages that basically say “VOTE BLUE NO MATTER WHO”.

Remember how they did that? I agree: vote blue no matter what. However, it remains to be seen if Moderates will echo those messages for the Democrats they deem “radical”.

If they don’t, then the public should understand their motivations for being involved in government, and seek to replace them. I think we are about to see an even larger split in the Democratic Party. One that could end up causing the parties to split into three major factions instead of the two we’ve all grown used to.

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Howard University is facing a financial aid crisis. Many are coming to the internet saying that PWIs never have these problems. That statement is false, but it is a narrative that brings up a continued conversation in the comparison between PWIs and HBCUs. Do we place an unfair standard on HBCUs to be like PWIs? Why do we act like PWIs don’t have their own problems? Does society mean to demonstrate that PWIs are what higher education should strive toward? A lot of people are arguing that conversations surrounding these questions reinforce the idea that HBCUs are making a concentrated effort to assimilate Black people into the white man’s system, highlighting that the purpose of HBCUs is to bring the Black community together through an academic lens so Black people can let go and deconstruct the systems they have lived under for so long.

Tuskegee University recently updated a school policy that says students are not allowed to wear bonnets or durags to class. This sparked conversations about respectability politics. Many are issuing statements that all essentially say “there’s a time and a place for everything.” Others are saying that this is another example of policing everything Black people do, emphasizing that academic environments should not be compared to professional environments. Many feel like Tuskegee is enacting a white supremacist agenda against its students. The same can be said for many HBCUs when policies like this are enforced. Others don’t see the correlation and say that the schools are trying to teach their students to have self-respect. Self-respect is the common reason, yet college students everywhere go to class in pajamas, head wraps, bonnets, slippers, and other lounge wear. Some reject the white supremacist argument entirely, stating that HBCUs should be allowed to have standards without it being rooted in whiteness.

Jay-Z recently held a concert where, in a freestyle, he addressed the criticism he faced for signing an exclusive deal with Target to release his album. People called him a sellout and in response, Jay-Z insinuated he does not care about what working-class and poor people think about him doing what he needs to do to make his money.

Every situation described is seemingly bringing people to similar questions. Do Black people want to be free, or do Black people want to be white? The continued question of why white people are held as the standard for everyone else to follow is the driving force behind these conversations.

Enjoy watching the first video-recorded episode of the Unfiltered podcast. If you enjoyed it, please consider becoming a paid subscriber. Your subscription helps keep my Substack authentic, relevant, and grounded in honesty. Share this with your friends and encourage them to enter this space, where we question everything and deconstruct oppressive systems.

So the U.S. just lost to Belgium 4-1. I guess the more accurate term would be we got whooped by Belgium. I told y’all when I did my overview of the USA vs. Paraguay game that as soon as America plays a legit country, we will crumble. We did exactly that. We had all of our weapons. Trump and his cronies had Balogun’s red card suspension overturned. You can argue whether or not he should have gotten a red card to begin with, but we can’t say that we weren’t prepared for this game. The fact is simple: the American men’s soccer team is simply not up to par with the rest of the world. Soccer still isn’t important enough that we are recruiting the best athletes to come play for us.

There was never a real chance for us to beat Belgium. They had their best players on the bench for most of the game. Our “A” team got crucified by their “B” team. A combination of careless mistakes, poor decision-making, and a lack of effort, as if they were expecting the game to come to them. Belgium was not going for any of that.

And if by some miracle America were able to beat Belgium, the next game would’ve been against Spain. Are Americans so disillusioned by our own egos that we thought we had a shot at beating the likes of Spain? There was simply no way.

Take it back to the first goal. The ball gets crossed and an American blocks it. The ball shoots way up into the air. There were at least three American players who could have made an attempt on the ball to try and clear the ball from our own half. No one did. So a Belgian player gets on top of it and delivers a low-driven cross to the back post for another Belgian player to score the first goal. All because no one on the U.S. team was moving with any kind of urgency, alluding to the point made earlier about the American side expecting the game to come to us. America was not hungry. It was reflected in situations like this.

Shout out to Malik Tillman. He leveled the score for America. Of course, it only went downhill from there. Not even 60 seconds later, Belgium hits a cross and it is followed by a header to the same back post that gave them their first goal. The commentator said that teams are always at their most vulnerable right after they score. I’ve never seen a clearer display of that. That’s how I knew America was never going to win that game. There was no regroup. No call to focus. America leveled the score and decided that they could go back to coasting. Nah gang. In big games like this, especially when you’re down and you tie the game, the pressure is on again. Now, it’s your game to lose. The only thing that should have been echoing throughout the team was “lock in.”

That clearly was not the memo, even after Belgium scored their second goal. What happened on the third goal? A long ball gets played and the American goalkeeper comes out of his box to collect it. Then, when he attempts to kick it back down the field, he completely whiffs at it? This is the kind of thing that only happens to the U.S., and it only happens when we play legit teams.

I turned the game off after that. I genuinely could not watch it anymore. Belgium protected the integrity of soccer, which is all I could ask for and why I was not cheering for America. Just imagine for a second if America had won that game. It would present such a bad omen. A country’s government gets involved in overturning the suspension of a player so they might have a shot at doing the impossible. It’s alleged that a red card suspension hasn’t been overturned since 1962. Cristiano Ronaldo got a red card in a World Cup qualifier game, so people are arguing that something similar was done with Folarin Balogun. Regardless, Trump himself got involved, and it isn’t a good look. It’s unclear as to what the ultimate goal behind that move was, since Trump is known to constantly be scheming.

At any rate, I'm glad the U.S. didn’t win. It would have been the wrong way to win. That is not the kind of win that sheds positive light. What we have seen yet again is that American fútbol is not of the same tier as the rest of the world. America requires significant investment on that front. Sure, the sport might be getting more popular in this country, but America has a long way to go before it can begin to compete with the likes of countries that literally view soccer as a sort of divine domain.

Oh, and it’s called fútbol, not soccer. Soccer is the Americanized version. Looks like it’ll be another four years before we have this conversation again. With the way Belgium just put a belt-to-ass on the U.S., the word “soccer” should not be coming out of anyone’s mouth as the correct term for the sport. Say it if you please, but know it’s not the right word.

Thank you for tuning in to the Unfiltered Whistle. If you like to talk sports, please consider becoming a paid subscriber to share your thoughts in the comments. Your subscription helps keep my Substack fueled, unfiltered, and relevant. Share this with your friends and encourage them to join this community. Whether it’s hot takes, overviews, or simply appreciating athletics in its entirety, the Unfiltered Whistle hopes to bring people together through a shared love of sports.

Did y’all last night’s cinema? Argentina vs. Cabo Verde was easily one of the best matches in World Cup and soccer history.

First things first, big shout-out to Cabo Verde. A small collection of islands with a population of around half a million. They played their asses off and put the world on notice. Throughout their run, they were repeatedly doubted and brushed off. They were ranked last among all the teams participating in the World Cup this year. Despite being major underdogs, they clawed their way through the group stage, securing draws in all three of their matches against Spain, Uruguay, and Saudi Arabia.

A special shoutout to Cabo Verde’s goalkeeper, Josimar José Évora Dias, better known as Vozhina. He was the heart and soul of this team. A living example of when preparation meets luck is when one finds the most success. Vozhina played a helluva tournament. A one-man wall and the leader his team looked to. Even after the unfortunate loss, he made sure to remind his teammates to hold their heads high. After all, they overachieved in this tournament and did what many could not have expected. 18 saves. That’s how many times Vozhina was a key difference maker. The 40-year-old goalie left his mark on this tournament. One could only imagine how badly he’s wanted to be here, and it is a shame that they were unable to find a result to keep the dream alive. Still, it was a glorious end, and dealing with powerhouses like Spain, Uruguay, and Argentina would have been difficult for any team.

Spain and Uruguay were especially difficult matches. Everyone expected those games to be 2-0 and 3-0 losses for Cabo Verde. Imagine the shock when the country that is playing in its first-ever World Cup manages to hold each of those World Cup teams to a draw and secure a place in the knockout rounds.

Now we get to the round of 32. They have to face the defending World Cup champions. Argentina and Lionel Messi himself. It was a well-fought game, with Messi opening the scoring but Cabo Verde remaining persistent and eventually finding an equalizer. Drama ensues. Cabo Verde is not about to be punked out of the tournament just because Messi is going against them. You could see the shift in some of the Argentine players. A lot of them were looking to Messi to see if he was going to play the savior yet again.

Personally, I think Cabo Verde did a solid job of containing him. Of course, it’s still Messi, so there’s no stopping him, really. However, Messi is not the one who beat them. Aside from that first goal he scored, Messi’s impact was rather quiet in comparison to other games he’s played in at this World Cup alone. They didn’t let Messi be the one to beat them. By all accounts, I think people can agree that Argentina had to find another gear.

Also, it helps that they got a little assistance from the referee. I am NOT saying the referee was a major contributing factor to this game. However, I do think some calls were afforded to Argentina simply because they are of a higher status compared to Cabo Verde and Messi is FIFA’s golden boy. A couple of those free kicks were only given because Messi happened to be on the receiving end. Argue with ya mama. The second goal Argentina scored was because one of the Cabo Verdean players got pulled down and was unable to recover and make an attempt to block the shot that ultimately gave Argentina their second goal. If the roles are reversed, I think Argentina gets that call.

That’s neither here nor there. Again, Argentina came out on top, but they did not beat Cabo Verde; they survived Cabo Verde. It will be interesting to see how Argentina progresses as the knockout stages continue. Messi is once again playing the hero, but he is 39 years old. Don’t get me wrong, he still has a lot left in the tank, but he can not be the sole go-getter of this team. Someone will have to step up and match him, and I personally haven’t seen that yet.

People should also take note of what it means when it is said that Argentina survived Cabo Verde. The talent gap between favored countries like Argentina, Brazil, and France and underdog countries like Cabo Verde, Senegal, and Ghana is not as wide as people think it is. Such was proven last night. You can argue that Argentina didn’t play its best game, but even so, Cabo Verde was quite literally going blow for blow with the defending champs. Did y’all see that absolute screamer of a goal that Sidny Lopes Cabral put up to tie the game 2-2? That is not something that should just be ignored. Cabo Verde could have played a bit better as well, and who knows? If they played even the slightest bit better, the game would be tied yet again and now we’re going to penalties. At that point, it’s literally anyone’s match.

Where are all the people who were acting like the new expanded World Cup was going to ruin the tournament? Where are the people who were acting like these African countries couldn’t hang with the European and South American teams? Last night’s match just proved that this is what the world has desperately needed. African nations are finally getting a better opportunity in the spotlight, and nine out of ten African teams found their way to the knockout stages. It will only go up from here.

Cabo Verde earned the respect of the world last night. They are winners of the World Cup regardless. Let the record reflect that it took the defending champs and the best player in the world to knock them out. If by some miracle they had pulled out a win, they would have had the greatest Cinderella story of all time. Even though they didn’t pull off the shock of a lifetime, their names are etched in history. No one will ever forget how Cabo Verde put the world on notice in their first-ever World Cup run. Take a bow, Cabo Verde, the world will remember you.

Thank you for tuning in to the Unfiltered Whistle. If you like to talk sports, please consider becoming a paid subscriber to share your thoughts in the comments. Your subscription helps keep my Substack fueled, unfiltered, and relevant. Share this with your friends and encourage them to join this community. Whether it’s hot takes, overviews, or simply appreciating athletics in its entirety, the Unfiltered Whistle hopes to bring people together through its love for sports.

Imagine being adopted by a white family as a toddler. With promises of opportunity and a chance at a good life, you are blissfully unaware that they don’t actually like people who look like you or share your background. Your adopted mom is a Supreme Court Justice. She has tremendous influence over the policies that are enacted in the country you live in. You come from a Haitian background. Your homeland is in turmoil. So a Supreme Court Justice, in an attempt to showcase that she isn’t the racist people accuse her of being, comes in to play the white savior and prove that whiteness has some good aspects. After all, it saved two Black children, so it can’t be that bad, right?

Wrong.

The situation that was just described comes from recent news surrounding the 6-3 Supreme Court decision that ruled the Trump administration can end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haitian and Syrian immigrants. This decision puts around 350,000 Haitians at risk of deportation.

It would be easy to go and ridicule each of the Justices who ruled in favor of this decision. However, one of the more important names here is Justice Amy Coney Barrett.

The reason she is such a big name in this case in particular is that her and her husband adopted two of their seven children from Haiti. A daughter and a son, named Vivian and John Peter. The Washington Post reports that Barrett decided to adopt Vivian in 2005 and John in 2010 after a devastating earthquake.

Decide for yourself if you agree with white people adopting Black kids. I do not. Barrett’s decision in this case is the latest example of why I do not subscribe to such.

For starters, the whole situation is so ironic it’s almost funny. How is it that despite Barrett’s personal connections to the Haitian community, she ruled in favor of a decision that reinforces the harmful rhetoric that the Trump Administration has pushed for years?

The reason is that adopting these Haitian children was nothing more than an orchestrated move from the political playbook of whiteness. Barrett is a Trump-appointed judge. She is more than aware of the racist agenda that Trump and his regime have perpetrated against Black people and immigrants. Surely she recalls the smear campaign Trump launched against immigrant communities, right? You know, the one where he falsely claimed that people were “eating cats and dogs” in an attempt to paint the Haitian community as savage and unruly.

Barrett has no empathy for the Haitian community. The fact that she adopted two children from the country does not make her any different than the rest of her white supremacist entourage. Her having Haitian children is calculated. It’s part of what got her a seat in the highest court.

During her confirmation hearings in 2020, she made sure to speak about all of her children. She specifically noted the struggles her Haitian kids endured before they were adopted. She played the role perfectly. The mom who was overcome with emotion for a child who just wanted a better life. A child who pulled on her heartstrings so much she felt she had no choice but to welcome this child as her own.

She plays this role so that whiteness can counteract the documented pattern of terrorism that has plagued the very people she claims she finds joy in helping. Whiteness wants to credit itself for being the savior. Barrett said that when her daughter came from Haiti, she was weak and might never operate within a normal physical capacity, and now she deadlifts as much as the men in their gym.

See how she frames herself here? It’s as if she’s trying to say that she is the reason her daughter has found her strength. Classic white savior complex.

Now, she is one of the main reasons why people who share similar backgrounds to her children will be forced to deal with what comes when they lose humanitarian protections. The irony of her Black kids being the tokens she uses to progress the agenda of whiteness is not lost. Those children are being raised to be the token Black kids.

If those kids ever learn to start asking real questions, it’ll be curious to see how Barrett decides to respond.

“I’m Haitian; should I be deported?”

“How come you don’t like other Haitians?”

“Are Haitians bad people?”

“Why does your friend Donald want to get rid of Haitians so much?”

How does she explain this to her children? She will claim to have some kind of bond with her children’s homeland and its people. So where does Barrett’s indifference to the trajectory of Haitians in this country falter? Being a mother to Black children, she should be very familiar with racism. Yet, this decision denies racism once again. Barrett has co-opted the narratives of Trump and his degenerate fandom with this decision. The references to Haitians being filthy and coming from a “shithole country” are what justify the racist use of the legal system.

Stereotypes such as this are pushed into the Black community all the time. That alone contradicts any claim that this decision is not based on race. Justice Elena Kagan alluded to this in her dissent. These references are oozing with negative racial connotations, so race entered the President’s resolve to remove Haitians from America from the beginning.

The children are likely already brainwashed. So God help us all.

The debate over TPS raises a question of whose humanity deserves to be recognized? Haiti remains plagued by gang violence, political instability, and a myriad of humanitarian crises. This ruling targets a community that is already compromised.

Barrett demonstrates a lesson that many Black people still need to learn. A white person’s proximity to Black people does not make them less racist. A white person’s desire to be in proximity with Black people does not mean they like Black people. A white person can be your wife, your parent, your cousin, your friend, or your child, and it still wouldn’t protect you from the harm, legal or otherwise, that whiteness can decide it wants to commit. A white person’s allegiance to Black people will always be optional. At any moment, that white person can decide they want to align themselves with their privilege. They can retreat to the interests of whiteness whenever it suits them.

Barrett has displayed what happens when whiteness decides it wants to inflict its will regardless of who gets thrown to the fire.

Despite this, whiteness still needs a face to hide behind. Barrett has hidden behind her Black children for years. The claim will be that a person like Barrett is acting in the best interest of American civilization. She could never be racist. How can someone like Barrett be racist when she found it in her heart to adopt two Black children?

Black children who find themselves in predicaments such as this should hopefully have a come-to-Jesus moment. The questions need to be asked. They should inquire about their social standing within American civilization and ridicule the decision that their racist adoptive parents make. This should serve as a reminder to all Black people that seeking proximity to whiteness is not going to be what saves you from the system.

Vivian and John should ask why their parents really adopted them, going as far as inquiring about whether their adoption was a means to serve a larger purpose. Barrett’s true character was on full display. Now, she should hopefully deal with the fallout that comes with denying a group of people basic decency. America was built by Black people. America thrives through the labor of Black people and immigrants alike. This decision doesn’t showcase any shocking reveal about Barrett’s views; it places the spotlight on how whiteness will always be willing to set aside the “nice guy” act in service of oppressing the vulnerable.

Thanks for reading. If this piece moved you or encouraged you to navigate something differently, please consider becoming a paid subscriber. Your subscription helps keep my Substack fueled, unfiltered, and relevant. Paid subscriptions help me put food on the table and help a young individual find his way through the world. Share this with your friends and encourage them to enter this space, where we question everything and deconstruct oppressive systems.

If you watch House of the Dragon, then you know that the Targaryens are vulnerable. If you read the books, then you understand that even more so. You see it time and time again that these blonde-haired fools think they can just do whatever because they happen to be riding one of the scaled sky terrors. Despite the power the dragons bring to their house, they are not invincible. That’s how Meraxes died during Aegon’s Conquest. Meraxes was the second-largest dragon in the world at the time. That didn’t mean she was invincible, and she found out the hard way. The dragons are a great asset, yes, but they are not the be all end all.

Which brings me to my overarching point. Rhaenyra Targaryen’s bastard children, Jacaerys Velaryon (Jace) and Lucerys Velaryon (Luke), were straight dookey buns at riding their dragons. Coupled with the fact that both of their dragons were young and small as well, neither one of them had the experience necessary to take on a battle-like environment.

Did you see how Baela was moving? She was bobbing and weaving all through the battlefield. They were not touching her. Leave it to the Black girls to show you how you should be moving when you ride a damn dragon. Before y’all start, I am perfectly aware that Rhaena was bullshittin’. She did not need to try to take her recently acquired dragon into battle. She was doing too much. She was consumed with ambition. But at least she survived.

Jace… how the hell do you manage to get hit with the same weighted bolt twice? I get it, you and Baela were trying to do the right thing. That’s just careless, though. You should have known, or at least been cognizant of the fact that dragons are not new to the world you are living in. Ahem, folks have means of eliminating aerial threats. They have means of eliminating dragons. This is the arrogance that a lot of the Targaryens carry. Rhaenyra is similar in a sense. I’m glad Jace locked her away because, honestly, I think it would have been a similar situation if she had taken her dragon to battle. Her dragon, Syrax, is not battle-tested either. The show alludes to in the two earlier seasons that while Syrax is very protective of Rhaenyra, she is simply not built for battle.

So here we have Jace and his dragon Vermax. Both of whom are younger than Rhaenyra, both of whom have not even sniffed a battlefield. The only correct decision Jace made in this episode was that Rhaenyra was too valuable to lose. He was right to lock her in her chambers. However, he should not have been so bold as to continue fighting after Vermax first got hit with a weighted bolt. From that point, he should have stayed higher in the sky, burning enemy troops from a safe distance.

That is merely the result of a lack of battle experience and the delusion that he was going to be safe just because he was on the back of a dragon. He was flapping for his life, only to let Vermax drown and then be taken out by arrows. It was pathetic. The last of Rhaenyra’s bastard children have died in their first pressure-filled outing with their dragons.

Speaking of, let me get on the other kid real quick. Because the way this dumb muhfucka Luke got taken out was a masterclass in delusion, stupidity, and simply not being aware.

Luke went out in the first season. After being sent on a mission to secure the allegiance of Lord Borros Baratheon for his mother, he hops off his dragon, Arrax, to deliver a message. It was raining in this scene, but in the distance, lightning flashes and what do we see? We see a big ass dragon named Vhagar, who belongs to his uncle and enemy, Aemond. Vhagar, at this point, is the largest dragon in Westeros. Vhagar is battle-tested and has seen battle plenty of times.

For context, it was Luke who cut out Aemond’s eye when they were kids. Luke did it in self-defense, but Aemond has always held a grudge. Knowing this, as soon as Luke saw Vhagar, he should have taken Arrax and gotten the hell out of there. Instead, he decides to be a hero in an attempt to complete his mission anyway. He confronts Aemond. When he finally decides to leave with the understanding that the allegiance he set out to secure for Rhaenyra is instead aligning with Aemond and his cause, Aemond mounts his dragon and Vhagar ends up eating Luke and Arrax.

Both situations are merely the result of a lack of awareness and battle experience. As well as a crude understanding that just because you have a dragon means you can move through the world with no fear of anything.

I am under the assumption that the reason Jace and Luke lacked real dragon-riding experience is that they simply did not ride their dragons enough. Even in the rare instances the audience did see them fly on their dragons, they were simply used as a means of getting to places quickly. They were not constantly patrolling or using their dragons for smaller-scale battles, as we saw in the first season with the dragon Seasmoke and his rider Laenor.

Jace and Luke were not in the field like a dragon rider should be. I think the reason they weren’t is that they are bastards. Rhaenyra’s illegitimate children. She knew this, Jace and Luke knew this, though they of course denied it to themselves and others. As a mother, she felt like she needed to shelter them from the world’s opinions. It is not their fault how they came into the world. However, she sheltered them to a fault. It seems to me that Jace and Luke were never allowed to stray too far from her. She could never trust how the potential dangers they would have to face because they are bastards. She could never predict how they would handle themselves or how they would go about dealing with various interactions because of their illegitimacy.

I’m sure there are other things, but this is what my theory centers on. The reason Jace and Luke were bad dragon riders was that they lacked the experience necessary. The reason they lacked the experience is that their mother did not want them straying too far from where she felt she could protect them. Some good that did, seeing that they're both dead now…

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There’s a weird trope in society. Specifically, American society. It’s the insistence that Black women should be made to endure constant physical and verbal torment. UFC heavyweight Josh Hokit called former First Lady Michelle Obama a man during a post-fight interview on June 14. He made this statement following his victory over Derrick Lewis at the “UFC Freedom 250” event that was held on the White House South Lawn.

The outrage was palpable. Numerous people responded, calling for him to apologize or for someone to step in and do something. UFC President and CEO Dana White condemned the comment, labeling it nonsense. Despite this, he emphasized his position on free speech and did not officially punish Josh Hokit. Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy also gave critiques, stating it was inappropriate. None of these statements in defense of Michelle Obama should be held with any credence. Especially Dana White’s. He literally runs the UFC. The fact that there is no disciplinary action being brought against Hokit is absurd. Imagine if a New York Knicks player said something about Melania Trump. There would be outrage from everyone in the Trump regime. Adam Silver would suspend that player immediately.

This is not the first time he has called Michelle Obama a man or made racist remarks. It is a pattern of behavior that needs to be addressed. This whole “I don’t do politics” mindset is why Hokit felt so comfortable saying what he said in the first place. Dana White is in a position of power within the UFC. He has the ability to make sure this does not happen. The fact that he refuses to reprimand Josh Hokit showcases where his loyalties lie.

Nothing has come from the White House. Communications director Steven Cheung praised Hokit’s performance but avoided answering directly about the insult that was made.

No surprise there. Why would anyone from the administration that openly talks about how they want to bring slavery back speak out against the most disrespected person in America? Why would they speak out against the comments made against the people whom they think are monkeys?

This post isn’t even about that, though. The question is this. Do these people not have anything better to do than insult Black women?

Think about it. You just came off a UFC win. You would think that that would be a time to celebrate. Relish in the fact that you were victorious in what Trump will claim was one of the biggest events of the year. Instead, you use a moment that was made to highlight your success to yet again call into question Michelle Obama’s womanhood.

There is no math here. She said nothing about you. She said nothing about Trump. She said nothing about the UFC event. She had absolutely no ties to what was happening. Why is she on your mind after winning a fight?

As expected, the MAGAts are running to his defense. Once again, they are trying to justify the spread of racist ideas against Black women by placing it under the blanket of “free speech”. Notice how free speech only gets cited in order for them to try to make it reasonable to be the worst version of humanity. Have these people ever used their 1st amendment rights to be anything other than heinous perpetrators of white supremacy? No, they have not. That’s because they have nothing better to do.

It’s almost as if racism is a fun hobby for them. Something they can play with. Never mind the real repercussions it has had on the Black community and American society as a whole. It’s because in their minds, racism is the only game they can win. As long as you aren’t Black, or aren’t getting treated like a Black person, you win.

But their racism is the primary reason they live so poorly. These people voted for Trump. They voted for racism in the polls, thinking it would coat them in fairy dust while everyone else could only watch them fly away to Neverland. News flash, they are on the same ground as everyone else. Their president eliminated USAID for that UFC event. He defunded cancer research, national parks, the Department of Education, the National Institute of Health, housing and urban development, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and SNAP benefits all so Josh Hokit could have center stage lighting while he called Michelle Obama a man.

Instead of using their time to question and demand good results from their orange peel of a lord and savior, they’d rather waste their time and their “1st amendment rights” attacking a Black woman who has done nothing to them.

The funniest thing is that the main people coming to the rescue of Hokit are the poor white people who have everything to gain from going against Trump. Still, they live under the delusion that their whiteness is all they need to be great in this world. While they’re slumming it up in their trailer parks, real things are happening around them, and for some reason, it’s the Black woman they allocate all their hatred toward.

What happened to all those promises Trump made to them?

They haven’t gotten a wall.

They haven’t gotten Epstein accountability.

They haven’t drained the swamp.

They haven’t gotten new infrastructure.

They haven’t gotten affordable healthcare.

They haven’t gotten lower grocery prices.

They haven’t gotten any help buying a home.

They haven’t eliminated the national debt.

They haven’t even gotten peace.

They got played, and it’s Black women who are receiving the brunt of the hate they hold in their bodies. They are so out of touch with reality, it’s laughable.

Michelle Obama is minding her business. She’s good. She and Barack are the representation of poise, eloquence, intelligence, and grace that whiteness loves to masquerade behind the Trump regime. These people have nothing better to do.

Gas is unaffordable, the job market sucks, they can’t afford food, and they seemingly don’t want war. So, they’ve deduced the best use of their time is to degrade Black women. Are we understanding the lack of brain power these people are demonstrating yet?

Dr. Terence Lester just wrote, “When Malcolm X described the Black woman as “the most disrespected person in America,” he was offering a moral critique of a nation whose professed commitment to freedom, equality, and justice too often failed to extend equally to Black women.”

This country is turning 250 years old. This country is on fire, but Trump and friends thought it appropriate to have a UFC fight on the White House lawn in celebration of the nation’s anniversary. In the midst of it, a Black woman was publicly disrespected. If that doesn’t scream contradiction, then what will?

So, to go back to the original point, do they not have anything better to do? Was disrespecting Black women a part of the celebration? I’m inclined to think so. What better way to showcase the principles on which this country was built than to try to humiliate a Black woman who’s done nothing but offer the quiet strength that many Black women feel forced to emulate anyway?

Truly, what is it about Black women that these MAGAts and racist degenerates feel so threatened by? Why is the response to that threat bringing into question a Black woman’s womanhood? Black women are not toys to be used for your entertainment. Black women do not need to be the lever you pull for a chance at a viral moment. If you hate them so much, then leave them alone. Keep them out of your mind and learn to navigate through life without needing one in any capacity.

Is there really nothing else you can think of to better occupy your time? You could go for a walk, kiss your daughters in the mouth. Inbreed with your nieces and nephews like a damn Targaryen.

There are so many better ways to spend your time. Go do something.

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The final buzzer has sounded. The New York Knicks are your 2026 NBA Champions. All credit to them. Especially from players like Jalen Brunson, OG Anunoby, Karl-Anthony Towns, and of course, the Knicks fans who make it impossible for a team to claim their home stadium. The Knicks, after 53 years, have brought a championship back to New York. The city is lighting up.

Everything that happened in game five of these finals can be said about the rest of the series. If we’re being honest, this series came down to experience, or in the Spurs’ case, the lack thereof.

This Spurs team was young. They accomplished a lot this playoff run. They are a young team. Getting to the finals at this point in their careers is setting them up well in the future. But let’s not ignore the moment. This Spurs team had no real playoff experience going into this postseason. That includes head coach Mitch Johnson. This was his first season as the head coach, and you could tell.

In every game of this series, the Spurs were leading the Knicks by double digits at some point during the game. What that should tell you is that the Spurs were producing well. The problem is that the team could not remain disciplined in their approach. I said this in my game four overview. The Spurs had the tools to be successful. I think their lack of experience led them to believe that just because they had significant leads meant they should be able to do whatever.

Wrong.

No lead is safe in basketball. If a team is going to win a game, it’s not enough to just build a lead. They also have to maintain it. They have to close the game out. This is where experience comes in. The Spurs had no room. Mitch Johnson kept rotating the same guys in the game even if they weren’t producing well. How the hell is De’Aaron Fox allowed to play 37 minutes and go 3-15 in a closeout game? Break that down real quick. The box score says that De’Aaron Fox shot 1-8 from three-point range. That means he went 2-7 in regular attempts. What are we talking about, bro? At what point do you say get him out of the game?

Why did the Spurs keep opting to take jump shots when it was proven the entire series that the best way for them to score was to get downhill and get layups, close-range shots, and draw fouls? That is what the Knicks did. And they were successful.

So I’m curious as to what Mitch Johnson was saying during timeouts and other breaks. Did no one on the coaching staff realize that the continued use of jump shots was ineffective? The Spurs literally shot themselves out of this game and this series.

Mitch Johnson was coaching scared. I’ve seen a few takes on this already. He kept relying on the same people and offered no real shift in his plans when it was obvious things weren’t going right. Whatever loyalty he has to De’Aaron Fox needs to be investigated immediately. There is no way he should have gotten as many minutes as he did. De’Aaron Fox might need that finals MVP trophy the way he was helping the Knicks last night.

Mike Brown had no issue sitting important players like Josh Hart and Mikal Bridges when that’s what the game demanded. So again, I think this comes back to experience. Mike Brown has been here before. He’s got 30 years of coaching experience in the NBA. Mitch Johnson had none before this year, and it was prevalent in how they approached these finals.

The Knicks stayed consistent. That’s the name of the game here. Consistency will almost always beat a strong peak. It’s what the Spurs did. In every game, they peaked. Then they immediately started to fall off. Maybe it was fatigue. However, I’m more inclined to believe it was a lack of discipline from this young Spurs core.

Jalen Brunson put belt to ass on every team he played this playoffs. 13-game win streak. Two playoff sweeps. A gentleman’s sweep in the NBA finals. The reason I’m a little agitated about them winning is because the Pistons were on that New York ass. We beat them every time we played them this season. But due to our own issues and lack of playoff experience, we were not able to give the world the Eastern Conference matchup that should have been broadcast.

“The West is going to sweep the East.”

Right. I might have fallen victim to that narrative once, but I’m telling ya’ll now. The East is on the come-up. The Celtics are not done. The Pistons are not done. Right now it’s the Knicks. The West is not as untouchable as people claim.

The Knicks had an opportunity and have seen a dream realized.

Take a bow, New York. You earned this one.

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VAMOSSSSS

Ya’ll better be watching the World Cup. There’s no way Love Island can be more entertaining.

Paraguay should be lucky that Pochettino didn’t play his starters the entire game. I’m sitting here thinking to myself that the United States could’ve won this at least 6-0 if they didn’t sub Christian Pulisic out at halftime. America was dominating the entire game. I played soccer growing up, so I’ve seen how this looks from both sides. This game was a prime example of what a game can look like when one team is both better prepared and wants it more than the other. However, this was not a “perfect” start to the World Cup as some people are suggesting.

Paraguay hardly looked like they even wanted to come on the field today. They were talking about how Paraguay’s strategy was going to be to restrict the middle. They were in a 4-4-2 formation and were trying to limit the access the U.S. had in the midfield.

That failed. And spectacularly. It also didn’t help that Paraguay scored in their own net so early in the game. That might have been the beginning of the downfall. An own goal is a crazy way to begin the biggest tournament in the world.

If you were watching the game, Paraguay was playing extremely conservatively. They were putting no pressure on America’s back line. America’s outside players were absolutely dog walking the outside defense the entire game. Christian Pulisic was taking his defender 1v1 and was showing up in the midfield to overload the Paraguay players. They were doing whatever they wanted. Paraguay had no answer. They looked deflated and uninterested in playing today. I would encourage people not to take this game with real credence. The U.S. played under no real duress. That’s not going to be the norm if we continue to progress in the tournament.

It was sloppy on Paraguay’s part, honestly. They were pretty much playing long balls the entire game. There was no real connection among the team. They struggled to connect more than five passes at a time. Part of me thinks that Paraguay was hoping to intimidate the U.S. because they are a more physical team. There were flare-ups throughout the game where it seemed like Paraguay was trying to use their physicality as a means of scaring the U.S. It didn’t work. But how could it? If your physical attributes are carrying your presence, you’re set up to fail.

I think that was the biggest thing for Paraguay to leave the game understanding. As far as technique and strategy, they were completely outmatched. The only aspect of the game that seemed to be on equal footing was the brute nature of it all.

Now, the U.S. had its flaws in this game too. In the World Cup, there’s no limit on goal differential (goal differential is the difference in how many goals a team wins by in the group stage of a tournament like the World Cup. This becomes important when teams are looking to secure their spots in elimination play).

In the second half, they allowed Paraguay to score after a careless turnover in their own half. That is the pressure that was alluded to earlier. They got too comfortable. They were up 3-0 and switched off. It was a humble reminder that you always have to play until the final whistle. Personally, I hope this also shows Coach Pochettino that the gas must be on at ALL times. Substitutions should not be made until the lead is extremely lopsided. 3-0 in my opinion, is not a large enough lead to sub out your best guys, especially in a tournament of this magnitude.

Not just that, the energy fell off in the second half. Again, I think that’s the result of taking out the starters too early. We struggled to produce offense in the second half. Our forwards were not taking the Paraguay defenders head-on as much. This relieved the pressure. They were able to gather themselves and make smarter decisions because the U.S. was not exerting the same pressure on them.

The U.S. had four shots on goal in the first half and one in the second half. That tells you exactly how good our offense was. It wasn’t a lot. It fell off too dramatically to not notice.

America had 72% possession during the game. So at the very least, they did a good job keeping the ball. Pull up a replay of the game, though. The difference in quality of performance is staggering.

If the U.S. hopes to make a good run in this tournament, they need to understand that this is not a game the team should be too proud of. It was a good start, but we’re one of the home teams. They gave us an easier group stage. And we still have 2 more games to play against Australia and Turkey. I think those games might be even more challenging. This game could very well be a representation of what happens when we idolize American mediocrity.

Until then….

VAMOSSSSS

IT’S WORLD CUP TIME!!!

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If you watch basketball, you know that blown leads are more common than people realize or care to admit. If you are curious as to how blowing large leads in crunch time is possible, it comes down to the lack of discipline it took to even build a large lead in the first place.

Who watched the Knicks come back from a 29-point deficit? Who watched them be down 20 in the fourth quarter and come out to win game four of the NBA finals by one point? I did. You did. A whole bunch of Knicks fans did. A whole bunch of now-deflated Spurs fans did as well.

The question everyone loves to ask is why?

It’s simple to understand. The San Antonio Spurs did not commit to what made them successful in the early parts of the game. If you watched, in the first half, they were constantly driving to the basket. Getting layups, dunks, floaters, and drawing fouls. For a while, they were doing this almost exclusively. As a result, the Knicks were forced to close ranks as a means of stopping inside penetration (pause lol) and eliminating close-range, high-percentage shots. The Spurs had it right from tip-off. Drive to the basket and get high percentage looks. When the Knicks started to close in and emphasize more help defense, naturally, the Spurs began to kick the ball outside and get open looks from three-point range. But it starts with driving to the basket. That’s how they got their lead.

In the second half, they pretty much abandoned this strategy. They relied too much on the three-ball. You might consider the numbers here. The Spurs took 26 three-pointers in the first half (making 14) and 17 three-pointers in the second half (making 3). That’s about 54% from three-point range in the first half and 18% from three-point range in the second half. Make sure you know that before you try the “well they take more threes in the first half” excuse. The looks they were getting from outside the arc were not of the same caliber that they had in the first half.

This could be attributed to numerous things. Maybe it was a coaching issue. Maybe they were tired. Maybe they got too comfortable with the lead they had built. Regardless, the Spurs strayed away from what was working for them and I believe that is the reason they ended up losing.

Everyone is pointing to the various mistakes made at the end of the game. One of the biggest being De’Aaron Fox’s layup attempt at the end of the game when he could have tried to dribble the ball out instead and potentially draw a foul. I agree. But in the broader view of things, that is a drop in the ocean of mistakes the Spurs dealt with last night. They should have simply stuck to what was working.

I don’t think the Knicks were playing better or worse defense in the second half. The game was obviously physical. Emotions were high and people were arguing with the refs.

Okay.

That happens every game, especially in the NBA finals. I’m not going to sit here and act like those things didn’t play a part in the outcome, but the main thing is the main thing. The Spurs did not lose the game because of anything the Knicks suddenly excelled at in the second half. The Spurs lost because they did not continue the habits that made them successful in the first half.

I think that is the main reason teams blow leads like that. That’s also why, as a spectator, a blown lead of that caliber seems so egregious. From a fan perspective, it looked like the Spurs were in control of the game all the way up until the fourth quarter started.

So now the Spurs are down 3-1 in the series and Knicks fans are starting to celebrate. The series isn’t over, though. We’ve seen too many teams come back from down 3-1 to end up winning a series. No lead is safe in the NBA.

Maybe it was part of the script. Maybe it’s all for the sake of good TV. I don’t know how you make a comeback like that look scripted. It seems like the Spurs just stopped playing.

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The recent conversations surrounding the Rick Chow and Karmelo Anthony trials are rooted in a long-standing question America loves to ignore: When is violence okay and who is allowed to commit it?

Let’s break down the two situations first.

Rick Chow and his family believed that 14-year-old Cyrus Carmack-Belton was stealing four water bottles. When Cyrus saw that his presence was deemed threatening, he put the water bottles back and left the store. Rick Chow and his son Andy pursued Cyrus outside of the store, believing that he had stolen water from their store. The investigation ultimately concluded that Cyrus never took anything from the store. They chased Cyrus a distance more than the length of a football field and shot him in the back. Rick Chow was shown on video engaging in another violent altercation with a young Black girl, a week before the situation with Cyrus occurred.

Karmelo Anthony was at a track meet. He was under another school's tent in an attempt to escape the heat and hang out with a student he knew from the school. The student admitted under cross-examination that he and Anthony were cool. Austin Metcalf, a white teenager, approached Anthony and demanded that he leave the tent. The details from here are still being discussed, and therefore, the specifics may be different from what will be summarized here. The prosecution alleged that Anthony was told to leave multiple times. The defense claims that Austin Metcalf and his twin brother attempted to force him to leave. Witnesses for the prosecution say Austin acted alone. Ultimately, the situation turned physical. However, Karmelo issued a warning saying, “Touch me and see what happens.” It should be noted that Austin Metcalf is bigger than Karmelo Anthony, which likely contributed to Karmelo’s need to use a weapon. At the time of the incident, Austin was reportedly at least two inches taller than Karmelo. The defense argues that after the warning was made, Metcalf began to hit and shove Karmelo, which prompted Karmelo to take the pocketknife he had in his backpack and stab Austin, ultimately killing him. The prosecution says Karmelo threw the knife; the defense says he just dropped it. Karmelo Anthony has pleaded not guilty and is arguing self-defense. The prosecution is arguing that Karmelo Anthony intentionally made his way to the opposing school’s tent to provoke them and planned for an altercation to occur.

Part of what is missing from the conversation is the presumed racial entitlement that grants the nonblack parties in these situations to try to enforce their will over Black people. Why is vigilante justice against Black people normalized? It’s because America’s first response to navigating interactions with Black people is to strike first. If you look at Rick Chow, he could have simply called the police. That’s no way to ensure that Cyrus would have been safer, but why does Rick Chow get to act as his own body of authority? He gets to enact vigilante justice.

Now, look at Austin Metcalf. He could have gone to one of the coaches of his school and simply had a conversation. If he wanted Karmelo to leave so bad, why not have someone who actually has authority over the situation to handle it? Nobody is examining why a white teenager felt he was within reason to remove a Black teenager from a space to begin with. As my professor, Dr. Patton wrote in her remarks, if you analyze the white teenager’s presumption of power, you would then be forced to ask, “Who taught this white boy that he had the authority to decide where a Black boy could sit, stand, belong, or exist? We need to ask why “he was told to leave” is being treated like a lawful order instead of a teenage power play backed by racial entitlement.”

I’m not gonna lie, Dr. P cooked with that one.

The reason is simple: this country has a history of allowing nonblack people to inflict their own perceived justice on Black people they believe have wronged them. That’s why Austin Metcalf felt he could put his hands on Karmelo Anthony and why Rick Chow believed he was free to chase and shoot a 14-year-old in the back.

The notion is that against Black people, they have the privilege of violence. Black people don’t. If you look at the Karmelo Anthony trial, you have a great example. The prosecution is harping on the idea that Karmelo was provoking the opposing school. They kept bringing up how he said, “Touch me and see what happens.” Like previously stated, more than anything, it was a warning. Why is it immediately being flagged as criminal intent? He simply said, “Do not touch me.” There’s nothing else to analyze. The racists are salivating at the idea that a Black child’s declaration of bodily autonomy is somehow equal to threatening their existence.

Oftentimes, when these situations are broadcast to the media, people immediately look to make the Black person the subject of hateful or evil intent. They eliminate the racial awareness that allows people like Austin Metcalf and Rick Chow the leeway to exploit their racial standing in a system that does not grant Black people the right to self-preservation.

Malcolm X said it long ago. He never advocated for any kind of hate towards white people. He advocated simply for Black people to defend themselves. The guilt complex of the system is so entrenched in society that when you examine the real conditions of Black people in America, instead of eliminating the causes that created the condition, the system protects itself by deflecting blame onto the Black person. Accusing Black people of being hateful and putting them at fault for the conditions the oppressor has put them in.

For Rick Chow, that’s how you get excuses like he had a gun. For Karmelo Anthony, that’s how you get arguments like he was there to provoke them. They always shift the focus to how the Black person could have done things differently, but seldom mention how, a lot of the time, the Black person was simply existing. Karmelo Anthony was simply sitting under a tent. Why did he have to leave? Why did a white kid who had no authority to tell a Black kid what to do feel that he was correct to demand where a Black kid’s presence could be tolerated? Why was he then allowed to inflict violence on the Black kid with no fear of consequence or immediate repercussions?

On the other hand, why is the Black kid being vilified for his presence under a tent? Why is it wrong for him to use what he felt was necessary self-defense due to the circumstances he found himself under?

Why is the violence of the white kid being labeled necessary and reasonable and ultimately being dismissed? Why is it not being considered racially backed bullying? Why is the violence of the Black kid being interrogated as though he set out with a plan to cause harm and not the panicked reaction of a kid who thought his life and body were in danger?

There is a racial illness. One that instinctively views Black boys and people as threats. This country has a historic, almost cult-like, inability to understand white boys as violent, dangerous, and frightening despite their continued demonstration of such. White boys can be every bit of entitled, aggressive, spoiled, and reckless, and there is still an immediate attempt to coddle and label them as “misguided” and “boys who just made a mistake.” America has conditioned itself to see Black fear as threatening and to see the innocence in white violence. That is the reason so many people cannot fathom that Karmelo Anthony and Cyrus-Carmack Belton were afraid without first deducing that they themselves were dangerous.

The hypocrisy is attached to every aspect of the white supremacist culture. The existence of Blackness is a violation that must always be regulated. So even if a Black person is minding their own business, society can still decide they are out of place. And if the Black person decided they do not wish to be moved for the comfort of whiteness, the boundary that Blackness sets is viewed as criminal conduct. A Black person’s refusal to allow violence to be inflicted upon them is viewed as violence against the people who hold power within the system.

So while everyone keeps arguing the importance of whether or not the Black people in these situations have weapons, the deeper implications of whiteness tell us it will never matter if Black people are unarmed or not. Being Black is one of the greatest acts of violence that can be committed by a person. Like Issa Rae’s character captured in George Tillman Jr’s The Hate U Give, “It is impossible to be unarmed, when our Blackness is the weapon that they fear.” This is a country that keeps living under the illusion that white violence is not dangerous until somebody Black lives to tell the story about it.

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The only thing anyone should take from the Rick Chow verdict is that Black life has never been regarded with the same value as other groups of people.

The premise for the entire case was that a 14-year-old Black boy was shot in the back over a bottle of water. Rick Chow chased a child down 100 yards and shot him in the back with a .45 caliber gun.

Everyone is talking about a similar situation in 1991. Soon Ja Du, a Korean wife of a convenience store owner, shot and killed 15-year-old Latasha Harlins over a bottle of orange juice.

In both situations, the principle follows similar language. A Black child is deemed a threat through some insane reshaping of the circumstances that somehow justifies the killing. Many people missed this next aspect. In both situations, the Black children were shot in the back of their bodies. All that means is that when they were shot, they were facing away from their killer. In this recent case with Rick Chow, the defense argued a stance that always comes up when talking about the killing of a Black person. That is “I acted in self-defense”. How can one act in self-defense when the one they killed is actively making an effort to get away? In the Soon Ja Du trial, the presiding judge expressed dismissive remarks about how the situation could have been avoided if Latasha had never entered the store. Soon Ja Du was only convicted of voluntary manslaughter. She never received any jail time.

In both cases, the rationale is irrational. The underlying layer of the situations described is how Black children are adultified and it translates into the justice system. The system is working perfectly. It has once again stripped the innocence of a 14-year-old child and has wrapped it around a man with a gun. We saw it in history with George Stinney Jr., and we have seen it with Tamir Rice, Trayvon Martin, and now with Cyrus Carmack-Belton.

“Oh, but he had a gun.” If he did, it should be argued that he needed it. His having a gun makes him no different than the legions of white kids who love to shoot up schools. In fact, it makes him better. Those white kids go on the attack when they commit those atrocities. If Cyrus needed to use a gun, I would argue it more than likely would have been used in ACTUAL self-defense.

Cyrus never used his gun. He never pulled it on the owner’s son like some people were suggesting. That was already proven. The owner and the son were both chasing him out of the store after he had already decided he wasn’t even going to take any bottles of water from the store. The fact that he had a gun is not a cause to take his life.

Where can one find a real justification for the use of deadly force? Cyrus decided to leave an establishment he knew he wasn’t trusted in. That is a common practice of Black people. If you are able, do not give your money and resources to places where you are not welcome or respected. It has already been established that he never took any water. Even if he did, what makes it reasonable to end his life? There is none.

This is the issue I personally have with the media. We give more consideration and empathy to the killers of Black people than we do to the Black victims. Under the system, Black people are guilty until proven innocent, and there’s hardly ever a time when the Black victim did everything right under the eyes of the system that was created to keep them subjugated. The system will create any means to rob the Black victim of his or her innocence. Every time public discourse centers the killing of a Black person, there is a repulsive, clinical analysis of the dead Black person while the nonblack person who pulled the trigger is granted nuance, panic, and human error.

This resonates in numerous areas of society. Thousands of Black women are missing in this country but the narrative always circles back to how they somehow did it to themselves because they are demonized because of what they might be wearing. Recent data still indicate that Black boys are punished more harshly because they are regarded as aggressive and need to be kept under control. It starts when Black people are born. Whiteness is convincing people that instead of examining the bloodthirsty desire to take the life of a Black person, they should instead convince themselves of various reasons that Black life is deserving of being undervalued. It’s contumelious.

Is anyone privy to Timothy Hudson? The 16-year-old is currently facing federal charges for the alleged murder and sexual assault of his 18-year-old stepsister, Anna Kepner. It was recently ruled that he will be allowed to remain at home while he awaits trial. You guessed it, he is white. All of the stories coming out about him show pictures of him as a kid and how he seemed to be such a nice young man once upon a time. It is the same playbook we have seen over and over. The media is trying to make a victim out of an alleged rapist and murderer. If he were Black, you’d hear nothing in mainstream media except about how troubled he was. They would pull any and every record they could to establish some idea about how dangerous he was and how he could have snapped at any time. Maybe the police took him to Burger King. They did that for Dylann Roof after he killed nine Black people in a church.

These are the mechanics of whiteness. If you can be convinced to feel bad for the Asian man responsible for taking the life of a Black child while subsequently being convinced the Black child somehow deserves it, you have not only devalued Black life as a whole. You have become convinced of the idea that Black life is merely a toy to play with and throw away at the whim of those who benefit in whiteness.

There are swarms of police outside Rick Chow’s store. They know exactly how wrong they are and how Black people are coming behind this verdict. The police are being weaponized against Black people yet again for the unjust killing of a child. The police have offered protection to the business interests of this Asian man and his family, but no nonblack person can offer any empathy to the family of Cyrus Carmack-Belton. They have officially victimized the man responsible for killing a child. Chow has played it perfectly and has pulled off the greatest feat a nonwhite person can commit under white supremacy. If anything happens to his store and Black people are responsible, the next story will center on how Black people are violent beings hellbent on revenge. That Rick Chow is an innocent business owner who’s just trying to protect himself and his family. The narrative has already been written and given the stamp of approval by the system. It’s right in your face. The system has allocated resources around preserving the victimhood of someone who took the life of a Black child.

Black life only has a chance at real safety in Black spaces. In the eyes of the state, violence perpetrated against Black bodies is normal. There is no system within this country, or otherwise, that is going to stop Black bodies from hitting the ground. To Black people, Cyrus was a 14-year-old boy. A child. To everyone else, he was the next threat. The next branch of the culture to cut off. They will appraise Rick Chow and what this verdict has continued to let them believe. That Black bodies are still property under the system, to be used and discarded without a second thought.

Accusation is a critical aspect of how the system views Black people. It holds its hand out and lives off the propensity of the Black community, but will never regard the people that keep them secure financially and physically with anything more than contempt. A contempt that comes through the lens of the continued perpetuation of white supremacy.

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We knew this already. It was never about not having enough money. It was the fact that they didn’t want to give it to you. The money was there. The resources were there. The means to get it done were there. They just didn’t want to give it to you.

What this “Anti-Weaponization Fund” should demonstrate is that reparations have always been possible. Again, we (Black people) knew that. January 6th rioters are reportedly about to get some checks cut their way. I would advise everyone who possibly can to get on this slush fund immediately. As soon as it drops, as soon as the portal to apply opens, y’all need to be on it. If this administration can take your taxpayer dollars and put them towards cash payouts for the criminal behavior that killed Capitol police officers, vandalized the Capitol building, and demonstrate that white supremacy is, in fact, the goal of this government, then you should be entitled to some money as well. If the people who broke into the Capitol, threatened the lives of legislators, and assaulted and took the lives of those who protected them, if they are entitled to compensation, anything goes at this point.

Think about it like this. This fund is being created so that the people who ATTACKED the government can receive money for their “grievances”. Black people who have been advocating for reparations for decades have yet to receive a penny. Black people who have been the victims of a continuous government attack have not been given any kind of payment, restitution, or even acknowledgment of the crimes done to us as a people.

Don’t be shocked. This is history repeating itself. It is another homerun of the white supremacist agenda. Honestly, this is only shocking if you are ignorant of the fact that this has happened already. The government paid reparations to white enslavers but never to the enslaved. Gave white European immigrants 160 million acres, but Black people are still waiting on 40 acres and a mule and broke every Treaty and agreement with indigenous people. This same government, with a snap of its fingers, gave the GI Bill and FHA loans to white people but no other group.

During the time of chattel slavery, white people would torture, rape, and inflict their will on Black bodies however they wanted. When those Black bodies were discarded, white slave owners would collect insurance money on the slaves they mutilated and killed.

Is it still a question of whether there’s enough money?

1.8 billion dollars. I, a Black man from Detroit, Michigan, descended from slavery, have to pay taxes to those who openly endorse and participate in my oppression. Those who look like me have to pay reparations to the degenerate, watered-down Neanderthals so that they may continue in their pursuit of racial dominance.

Is it corruption? Absolutely. Not just because part of this slush fund deal is that the IRS is barred from pursuing past tax claims against Trump, his family, and the entire Trump organization. Even more than that, it is a slap in the face. A slap in the face to the people who have fought and died for the rights and freedoms Black people have desperately wanted since setting foot on this soil.

The idea of reparations is meretricious for Black people. Every time it is requested, the government makes it seem extraneous. They prevaricate by claiming reparations are too expensive. That reparations would cause a larger divide in this country. All of the excuses for when it’s Black people, but for white supremacy, they can pull it straight out of their ass.

Reparations are possible. It’s always been possible. You would be a fool to think that there isn’t enough for everyone. Almost every group has gotten reparations for some atrocity committed against them. Jewish people got reparations. Asian people got reparations. White people are about to get reparations again for committing crimes against this country. Yet, Black people have not received a speck of financial fortitude for the crimes committed against us.

Reparations for Black people have been brought up in Congress every year since 1989. Even when it passed the committee in 2021 with democrats controlling the House, Senate, and Presidency, they never brought it to the full House floor vote. So, this is yet another example of how democracy works against Black people. Everything has to be done according to rules and regulations for Black people to receive what they advocate for. Trump and circus can circumvent the entire process. The Department of Justice can just say “type shit” and get the ball rolling on almost two billion dollars for whiteness.

The issue is not the resources or the lack thereof. The issue is that when whiteness wants to get something done, it gets done. No excuses, no justifications, no second guesses. When whiteness operates, it puts its head down and gets to work.

So why can’t Black people experience a similar fortune in their plight? The answer is simple. This government does work in the interests of Black people and it does not want to. They do not prioritize the needs of Black people. We are simply not important to the agenda.

Not enough is the excuse they need to peddle to us to make it seem reasonable. Are we not experiencing the same war in Iran right now? Nearly if not over a billion dollars a day in bombs and foreign aid in the Middle East. Now this.

They always have enough money for their outrageous military budget. The Pentagon gets billions of dollars ever year despite having failed eight consecutive audits since Congress mandated the finacial reviews. What 2pac say? “They have money for war but can’t feed the poor.”

1.8 billion dollars. Not for healthcare. Not to eliminate homelessness. Not for student loan relief. Not to combat food insecurity. Not for better infrastructure. Not to make a single thing better for the average American. Instead, it’s a cash advance for them to potentially repeat January 6th in 2029.

Your oppressor takes the little money you have and uses it to make it your life worse. As a collective, we are funding our own demise.

Here is what you should consider the next time you file your taxes. You are paying into a system that will compensate individuals who were prosecuted for attempting to overthrow the government, just because they were unhappy with the results of an election. They will not, however, use your tax dollars to make your life easier or even sustainable. While gas prices continue to rise, while people remain hungry and homeless, while the national debt grows larger and larger, while healthcare becomes more expensive, while everything taxes are supposed to address, you are paying into a system that rewards and openly endorses the subjugation of those who look like you.

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What do you notice about the recent uptick in the attack on Civil Rights? Republicans are not just trying to take seats for the upcoming midterms. They are not just trying to strip away the voices of Black and brown people quickly. It’s way deeper and much more significant than people realize.

The goal is to take America back to the time when Black people were viewed as property. Three-fifths of a person. The quick turnaround, things like gaining more seats in Congress and discouraging people from voting are all tactics we should never ignore.

What people are missing in this conversation is that Republicans want the supermajority. Two-thirds. If these MAGAts hold a supermajority in Congress, we are talking about virtually irreparable harm to the American people, specifically minority groups.

*A quick lesson for those who may not understand why a two-thirds majority is significant*

A supermajority in the legislative branch is as follows:

• House of Representatives = 290 Representatives

• Senate = 67 Senators

Here is why this is important.

A supermajority in both chambers of Congress can do the following:

• Override a presidential veto

• Remove an impeached official from office

• End filibuster (specific to the Senate)

• Expel other members of Congress

• Propose amendments to the Constitution

Pay attention to that last one especially. The founders of this country wanted to make sure it would take significant effort to put forth legislation that would change the fabric of the white man’s reality. This was not an accident. It was put in place to ensure that the principles on which this country was founded would be enduring and nearly permanent.

As we hopefully learned in middle school, an Amendment virtually changes the structure of the Constitution. Three crucial amendments are the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments. The 13th Amendment abolished slavery except as a means of punishment (that was the loophole they came up with). The 14th Amendment granted citizenship to everyone born or naturalized in the U.S. — including formerly enslaved people. It also granted equal protection under the law. The 15th Amendment banned federal and state governments from denying citizens the right to vote based on race, color, etc.

I bring this up to elucidate one thing. The way to strike down an amendment is to create another one that enforces the amendment you want taken down is no longer enforceable. Do we remember learning about the prohibition era? A lot of our grandparents lived through it. To sum it up, the prohibition era basically banned alcohol. The making and consumption of it. The government passed an amendment into law that marked this. Soon after, Americans were making and consuming alcohol in secret by the masses. So much so, the government passed a new amendment that stripped the prohibition amendments’ power. Technically speaking, the amendment is still active, but there is an amendment on top of it that basically says “sike”.

Do we understand how amendments work? In the situation explained above, it took a supermajority to pass both amendments.

So if we are thinking long-term about what these MAGAts and other bigoted groups of people want. They are after permanence. The gutting of the Voting Rights Act and how a lot of southern states are racing against time to redraw their congressional maps are a part of their assiduous effort to achieve a supermajority.

It is not being hidden either. An Alabama House speaker, Nathaniel Ledbetter, expressed his support for the redistricting efforts and how he hopes “the Supreme Court will overturn Amendment 14.”

He is not the only one, either. Mike Johnson said the Supreme Court decision to gut the Voting Rights Act was “long overdue”.

Thankfully, he was dumb enough to say it out loud. This is the long-term goal and what the MAGAts really mean when they say they want to “make America great again”.

I would argue that Black people are not citizens already (more on this in a later post), but people like Ledbetter want to incinerate the little protections Black people and other minority groups in this country already have.

Notice how they also try to claim the reason for these heinous actions is a means of creating fairness. The claim that America is living in a post-racial society and that using race to make decisions is unconstitutional. All while subsequently diluting the voices of the people who have fought to have an equal voice.

Fairness in the eyes of whiteness has always meant dominance. It was true then, and that’s the basis on which they are operating for their long-term goals. The claim of inequality from racist white people is equality for Black and brown folks. The elimination of fairness for those who are subjugated is the reinstatement of dominance for white people under the guise of racial equity.

Once again, this resonates similarly to white people desperately claiming they are the oppressed group in this country. To try to make any of this seem reasonable, white people have to put themselves under the cloak of victimhood. They are using the language of Civil Rights legislation to extract what little of it remains from the system. All the while, they know exactly what they are doing to maintain and deepen the extension of white power in society.

It was all there in Project 2025. You didn’t even have to read all of it. What we’re seeing in these recent attacks is directly from their playbook. The current attacks are a prelude to something much bigger and much more devastating.

They are trying to legalize putting Black people back in the category of property to be bought and sold on a whim. They are trying to legalize the dominance of white supremacy even more so than it already is. This is a concentrated effort to make whiteness the only political party. Where anything a MAGAt says is equal, fair, and constitutional. While anything that promotes actual liberty and justice for all, regardless of race, gender, sexuality, etc., is condemned and harbored as pernicious.

The MAGAts don’t want to lose the midterms. The midterms are an important stepping stone. The goal is absolute control with no repercussions. Trump has already announced how he is going to begin targeting people whom he deems “terrorists”, which includes people who support transgender rights. That tells you everything you need to know about who he’s targeting. He’s targeting the people who see through his bullshit. It’s all part of the long-term effort. Moving toward a potential dictatorship. Remember how he keeps saying he will be president again in 2028. That is not coming from nowhere. The Trump administration is actively making moves to achieve absolute power and control.

They have control of the government. They are in the perfect position to set things up, and they have. The broader implications of everything being done need to be at the front of everyone’s minds. The midterms are not the only thing at stake.

Thanks for reading. If this piece moved you or encouraged you to navigate something differently, please consider becoming a paid subscriber. Your subscription helps me keep my Substack fueled, unfiltered, and relevant. Paid subscriptions help me pay off my college debt, put food on the table, and help a young individual find his way through the world. Share this with your friends and encourage them to enter this space, where we question everything and deconstruct oppressive systems.

Six people decided that race should not be considered when drawing congressional maps, effectively eliminating the protections designed to give Black people and other marginalized groups a political voice. Six people decided that entire racial groups should not have equal protection to vote, while subsequently saying that the decision reinforces equal protection. For who? This decision is one that will harm marginalized people’s ability to have a say in elections that directly influence their lives. What does that sound like?

It sounds like another example of how people inflict systemic evil.

How do we gauge evil, though? How do we measure it? What criteria should people use when determining if something is evil or not? This is not a conversation that centers solely on a person’s response to evil; it is a conversation that centers on the extent of an individual’s morality. Maybe the evil being witnessed doesn’t affect a certain type of person, but does that make it less evil? Allowing evil to exist in any capacity is an act of evil itself. Maybe it doesn’t do anything to you specifically, but are you okay with it being done to others?

What are you allowing in your life that someone may consider evil? Could it be that you continue to associate with the known racist at your workplace who constantly harasses Black people at your job site? Is it the hanging out with the man who voted against women having their own autonomy because there is some kind of benefit that comes with being his friend? Is it having a white girlfriend or boyfriend whose family holds bigoted values, but it’s okay because they think “you’re one of the good ones”? Is it not speaking up about the overextension of ICE and how they are putting humans in concentration camps? Or is it continuing to support the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington, DC, because, despite the horrors he has committed in his second term, you believe he is “misunderstood” and that we need to just remain patient with him and those who think like him?

We often see examples of purely evil individuals in the content we consume in movies and television. How come it’s difficult to see those patterns in the people we see in real life? Maybe people in real life don’t have special powers. Maybe they can’t force choke someone to death like Darth Vader, but the ideas they hold about themselves and others strike a resemblance. Maybe they can’t build the Death Star, but there are evil people currently trying to build infrastructure that disenfranchises someone’s ability to access the civil liberties and rights that they are entitled to.

So the question is being posed: How do we measure evil?

Take a listen to another episode of the Unfiltered podcast. If you enjoyed it, please consider becoming a paid subscriber. Your subscription helps keep my Substack authentic, relevant, and grounded in honesty. Share this with your friends and encourage them to enter this space, where we question everything and deconstruct oppressive systems.

As the Supreme Court just landed a crucial blow to the Voting Rights Act, the common topic of conversation is surrounding how much race should be considered in various topics. Obviously, right now, we are talking about voting. All you need to understand is that these people are not stupid and that you need to pay attention to the language and context in which that language is being used.

We have a Supreme Court that just ruled in 6-3 decision that Louisiana put too much emphasis on race in drawing its congressional maps. Mind you, this is due to a legal battle in which the lower courts said that the state’s previous map diluted the voting power of Black people in the state. As such, lawmakers put forward a new map that added a second majority Black district, which sought to align with the Voting Rights Act.

Before we continue, let’s remind ourselves what the Voting Rights Act says, how it came about, and why it is important.

First, the Voting Rights Act was signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson. It outlawed discriminatory practices designed to keep Black people and other minority groups from voting after the Civil War. Some of these practices included literacy tests, poll taxes, etc. All with the expressed purpose of keeping Black people from exercising their rights as citizens of the country. During this time, there were also obstacles for Black people that went beyond the previously mentioned tactics. Black people faced harassment, physical violence, intimidation, and more when they attempted to vote. Due to this, Black voter registration was heavily limited, along with political power.

In 1964, movements led by notable leaders like Martin Luther King Jr helped pave the way for what we now have as the Voting Rights Act. The demonstrations were peaceful, but were often met with violence. This brought more attention to the issues being presented. The murder of voting rights activists in Mississippi and the attack on Black people marching in Selma, Alabama, brought national attention and convinced President Johnson and Congress to bring about crucial legislation for Black voters.

Here is some key language of the act pulled straight from Google.

Section 2: Explains a permanent, nationwide prohibition against any voting rule, practice, or procedure that results in the denial or abridgement of the right to vote on account of race or color.

Section 4: Highlights an outlaw of literacy tests and similar devices in specific jurisdictions with a history of discriminatory voting practices.

Section 5: Requires covered jurisdictions with histories of discrimination to obtain federal approval from the Department of Justice or a U.S. District Court before changing voting laws, ensuring changes are not discriminatory.

Why is this so important now? The reason is that the word Black is offending current lawmakers. The language is that the emphasis of race is not Constitutional. This is how they get people. The complicated nature of this is how they capitalize on those who are not informed.

This is another example of people trying to claim “colorblindness” is how we move forward as a society. From that perspective, bringing up race seems to make certain groups more important than others. This is false. Race is the social construct that this country was built on. It is the thing that has kept certain groups of people from progressing. Now, the racists are trying to flip it, because when we center race, we leave out people who should also be represented. The issue with that logic is that when we ignore the topic of race, we ignore centuries of historical context. For the longest time, only white-male land owners were considered citizens. That is the default. This decision is reinforcing the default. When that happens, the Black and brown people who have struggled for rights in this country are left vulnerable. Democracy cannot exist without these protections. The Voting Rights Act was not just about ensuring Black American rights; it was about attempting to make a real democracy out of America. Colorblindness, being the framework of this ruling is a fatal blow to the efforts made to get this act passed.

This means that the language being used to justify why race is not important, in and of itself, is racist. It is not important to the people who control the system, because they control the system. They are the rule. Centering race tries to make everyone the rule. A racist wants you to believe it makes white people the exception, the unrepresented, the second-class citizen, the oppressed individual. In actuality, they are the default, the baseline, the regular. Everyone else who isn’t white is the exception they are trying to get rid of.

Be honest, a truly colorblind system is what everyone should want. That might be ideal, but it is not realistic, especially now. Colorblindness in this sense is literally quieting the voices of marginalized groups. Colorblind jurisprudence invoked in a country with centuries of race-based voter suppression is not helping people not see race. The cause is structural. The solution requires recognizing the structure.

Newsweek says, “Louisiana’s creation of a second Black district went too far in relying on race, raising constitutional questions under the Equal Protection Clause.”

Equal protection is how they are phrasing this. So they struck down section two of the Voting Rights Act, to give equal protection to whom? White people are not victims. Equal does not mean equal. Here, it means dominance. If white supremacy is not dominating, then it must not be equal.

The other aspect of this is the continued conversation surrounding equality vs. equity. Equality means giving everyone the same thing. Equity means giving more to the individual or group so they can operate on equal levels.

If you give every group the same thing, but one group comes in with more advantages, that is not truly equal. In this instance, that’s white people. White people want the same thing for everyone, but they still have more advantages than everyone else. So is it truly equal? No. It is dominance. Let’s not get it confused.

The politicians know this. They now have a green light to rig the system. They can cut out entire communities’ voting power legally. De-centering race is not doing progressive work. It is harmful. It is harmful because at this point, you cannot try to group everyone under the same umbrella and give everyone the same thing. When you do that, you ignore the fact that there are people who do not need to be given anything else. You ignore the fact that there are systems in place that have intentionally halted the political and economic progress of certain groups of people. This decision is the latest example of how white people have made themselves the victims of nonexistent problems. They are not underrepresented. They are not being targeted. This decision reflects that racists will use any means to dominate the system.

Instead of addressing the real issues, they would rather spend time ensuring that giving people real power in their elections is somehow harming the ones who benefit from the system the most. It is textbook disenfranchisement. How convenient that this is just in time for midterms coming up in a few months. It’s diabolical. This is not equal protection; this is not about ensuring fair representation. This is a concentrated effort to keep Black people and others from making decisions about society.

Thanks for reading. If this piece moved you or encouraged you to navigate something differently, please consider becoming a paid subscriber. Your subscription helps keep my Substack fueled, unfiltered, and relevant. Paid subscriptions help me pay off my college debt, put food on the table, and help a young individual find his way through the world. Share this with your friends and encourage them to enter this space, where we question everything and deconstruct oppressive systems.

So Trump just narrowly escaped another assassination attempt. Never mind the fact that the gunman was in an entirely different part of the building. Like most, I am under the belief that this was a staged scene. It resonates as odd that he just hit a record low in his approval rating, and now another attempt on his life was made.

It’s not anything people are not used to. This is how Trump operates. He needs attention, but even more than that, he needs positive attention. Now, a shooting should not be considered positive, but this is one of the only ways Trump can put himself in a positive light. He plays the role of the fragile victim.

Once he has established his victimhood, he then asks the corny questions. “Why me? I am such a great and noble man, why would anyone seek to thrash my life?”

This is the work of a con artist. He is not a person deserving of sympathy. He is someone who has inflicted tremendous harm on the people, both nationally and internationally. His wars, his hateful remarks, his continued deflection of the release of the Epstein files, it’s all a ploy. He is a person who will take any opportunity he can to eliminate bad publicity, despite deserving it.

He is still a criminal and pedophile… so what next?

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I’m not one to agree with a coon, but what Clarence Thomas said is absolutely correct. Progressivism is a threat to America. Not because progressivism is a bad thing, but because this country was not built on the concept.

So when outlets like ABC News report his remarks, they’re only looking to spark outrage, discourse, and rage bait people into posting more think pieces. Look at the title of the article ABC recently posted.

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas blasts progressivism as a threat to America

The nature of this headline is one that draws attention, but also invokes anger. Now, any journalist would tell you part of the job is getting people to engage with the content, but this article, while important, does more than that.

First, what is the opposite of progressivism? A quick Google search will tell you it is regressivism, but it is more commonly associated with conservatism.

That’s it right there. Conservatism is a term we are all aware of. This is the term people coin in reference to the Republican Party, to right-wingers, to racists, and to coons like Clarence Thomas.

When you engage these people in conversation, regressivism is the first thing that should come to your mind. These people don’t want to simply “preserve their way of life.” They want dominance. They want to go back to the time when Black and brown people were in literal chains. They want to experience the chokehold they perpetrated on marginalized communities. A time when Black people would be forced to work from sunrise til sunset without having to pay them a penny. A time when they could force Black women to breed with the men so their labor force would always be replenished. A time when they could assign the desire to be free as a mental illness. A time when they could torture and kill us at their own whim and claim the insurance money from our bodies as a means of procuring their wealth. A time when they could strip us from our families. When they could rape Black women and feed Black babies to alligators, and no one would look at them crazy for it.

That’s what they want to go back to. That’s the foundation America was built on. The idea that America has been a progressive nation is a fallacy. So Clarence Thomas is correct. When he says that the values in the Declaration of Independence have “fallen out of favor”, he is correct. People are angry at what? This can’t be some grand revelation that we’re just now stumbling upon.

NEWSFLASH, Thomas Jefferson did not actually mean all men when he wrote: “all men are created equal.” Mind you, he wrote that while he owned slaves, where is progressivism being demonstrated?

Sure, some people think the ideal America is the one where Black people are told to shut up and follow directions, or otherwise kill them. We know that. Personally, I don’t get how people like Clarence Thomas don’t realize he is the product of progressivism. He is the contradiction he hates.

Without progressivism, Clarence Thomas doesn’t even get the education required to take a whiff at becoming a Supreme Court Justice. Without progressivism, he may have become a statistic. Another Black body to use and disregard at the pleasure of the white man. The mind of a self hating negro is fascinating (more on this in a later post).

Still, Clarence Thomas has been a coon for a long time. This doesn’t come close to the worst things he’s said. So I urge people to save their outrage and take a look at the bigger picture, at the context. America was never progressive. The system was designed for a certain group of people. Clarence Thomas knows this, that’s why in his. remarks, he said that elected officials lack commitment to “the original meaning of the Constitution.”

Dawg… if you’ve ever taken a look at the original copy of the Constitution, the one without the additional amendments that have been added over the years. You will conclude that it is a pro-slavery, pro-racist, pro-sexist, pro-capitalist, pro-colonialist, pro-white supremacist document.

Even with the added amendments, no one finds it peculiar that we literally had to add the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments? Whole time, Clarence Thomas is trying to take away birthright citizenship, which directly falls under the 14th Amendment, by the way.

America is at a crossroads right now. White America specifically. People will see Clarence Thomas’ remarks and feel so offended that he thinks progressivism is what’s ruining American society. These are the people who have not come to terms with the fact that America is not and has never been a great country. These are the people who say things like, “What has happened to the country I love? I’ve never experienced America in this light. Why can’t things go back to the way they used to?” This is partially due to their whiteness shielding them from reality, because now it is clear to many white people that their whiteness is not going to protect them from this administration. Black people have known this since they brought us to this land. This is one of the only times when people, white people especially, have had to confront their reality. Whiteness has kept them delusional.

For many, the only good thing about being white is not being Black. Even other marginalized groups. That’s why they align with whiteness, because “at least I’m not Black.” It’s sinister. This is the manipulation tactic.

“If you can convince the lowest white man that he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.” -Lyndon B. Johnson

The people in this country have been manipulated. Played like a fiddle. Now, there’s a slow awakening, but these same people can’t let go of their desire for whiteness. Until that happens, they’ll continue to express their fake outrage at people like Clarence Thomas, because he’s saying it without saying it. White people, by and large, are pawns in pushing the agenda for the one percent.

Clarence Thomas has called on America to retain its principles. What does that actually mean? It means remaining hateful. It means allowing billionaires to retain their wealth and contribute nothing to help working-class people. It means blaming Black people for why you have to pay taxes. It means letting white people off the hook even though they’ve committed this country’s evils.

But again, if you understand America and seek to cooperate with the structure it operates under, what Clarence Thomas says will resonate with you. I am in agreement with his remarks. I think progressivism is a danger to this country, but that’s because progressivism helps my people. I’m for progressivism; if that means this country burns, I’ll still be able to sleep at night.

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