(ThyBlackMan.com) There are records made for the party and others made for the hours after, once the house has emptied and there is no longer any reason to perform. Michael Jackson built his legend on the first kind. The moonwalk, the glove, the stadiums that shook on cue. Yet the ...

(ThyBlackMan.com) My grandmother kept receipts. Not only the paper kind, though a shoebox of those sat beneath her bed. The ones that counted she kept in memory, in the long private ledger a person compiles after a lifetime of learning whether the world means to deal fairly. The grocer who ...

(ThyBlackMan.com) “The majority claims to see no evidence that race played any role in the Haiti decision. But the evidence is there, plain to see, in the President’s statements, which the majority (and for that matter, his own lawyers) cannot even bear to repeat.”  The President’s allies on the Supreme ...

(ThyBlackMan.com) Every generation hopes to leave the world a little better than it found it. Across African-American communities, this goal has often involved creating opportunities, strengthening neighborhoods, and building environments where future generations can thrive. While discussions about safety frequently focus on crime statistics or physical security, creating safer environments ...

(ThyBlackMan.com) Plenty of presidents have come and gone in my lifetime. A few earned my vote with pride. A couple I would have crossed the street to avoid. Across all those years one lesson stuck, and I wish more of our young people held it close before they get swept ...

(ThyBlackMan.com) There’s a thing that happens when you get a group of us together in a room. Could be a barbershop, could be a backyard with the grill going, could be somebody’s basement after a long week. The energy is good at first. Laughter, old stories, somebody lying about how ...

(ThyBlackMan.com) I’ll say the quiet part first. Tyler Perry drives me crazy. He also amazes me. And I gave up a while ago trying to pick one, because watching his stuff feels like arguing with a cousin you love who keeps making the same mistake at every cookout. My auntie ...

(ThyBlackMan.com) When I think about what these two have done, I don’t start with the songs. That feels strange coming from somebody who has loved this music his whole life, but stay with me a second. Music was only ever the front door. What Beyoncé and Jay-Z actually constructed is ...

(ThyBlackMan.com) Growing up, somebody always told me soccer was the sport you picked when you couldn’t hang on the basketball court. Made me laugh every time. The cats I knew who could really go, the ones with touch and vision, were pure athletes. Quick feet, lungs that wouldn’t quit, a ...

(ThyBlackMan.com) Closing out this month of celebrating Black Music, I would like to do some sankofa sharing of some essential sensitivities and thoughts about the meaning and magic of Black music. Although we celebrate June as Black Music Month, every day and hour is an open space for making and ...

(ThyBlackMan.com) Yes, Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s socialist picks just knocked off some Democratic incumbents in New York City. They included surprising defeats, especially that of Rep. Adriano Espaillat, chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. Espaillat lost to Darializa Avila Chevalier, whose social media swims with past calls to abolish the police, ...

(ThyBlackMan.com) I have been watching this country choose its leaders for longer than I care to put in print, and if you do that long enough you start to notice the things that nobody says out loud. There is a quiet in American politics, a thing that lives underneath the ...