(ThyBlackMan.com) I have stood at too many gravesides this year. Every one of them hands me the same lesson, and every time I act surprised to get it. We put things off. The tough talk waits. A kind word stays stuck in the throat. The pictures sit in a drawer, ...
(ThyBlackMan.com) News came out of Quantico this week that Shaquille O’Neal now wears a fresh title, honorary FBI special agent. Director Kash Patel presented him with an honorary badge and plaque at the FBI National Academy graduation on September 17. He stood before a graduating class of 265 law enforcement ...
(ThyBlackMan.com) I have watched a lot of famous Black men learn the hard way that fame arrives with a leash attached. Somebody hands you money and a platform, and buried in the fine print sits an expectation that you will now say the approved thing, at the approved hour, in ...
(ThyBlackMan.com) For all the talk about Black men and rivalry, about crabs in a barrel and one seat at the table, the most important film partnership of the past decade has spent its whole run quietly arguing the opposite case. I came up in a time when we were taught, ...
(ThyBlackMan.com) Every young brother I know has heard the sermon. Buy the house. Stop throwing money away on rent. Build something you can leave behind. For years I preached that same gospel myself, standing in barbershops and cookouts telling nephews and coworkers that a deed was the closest thing to ...
(ThyBlackMan.com) I remember the version of manhood a lot of us were handed coming up. Your daddy provided, and if he stuck around at all you counted yourself lucky. Emotion stayed folded up somewhere behind the ribs. A boy learned early that a real man kept his answers ready and ...
(ThyBlackMan.com) Darius Rucker turned 60, and something in him finally exhaled. The country singer sat down on The Dan Patrick Show recently and said out loud what plenty of us keep buried. Glancing back at his last calendar, he tallied the concerts. 110 of them. Then came a question that ...
(ThyBlackMan.com) Come the eleventh of August, Gary lost power, and for thousands of households the lights still had not flickered back on more than a week down the line. A derecho came barreling through Northwest Indiana that night. Winds got up near 100 miles an hour, and they snapped utility ...