A lot of people hear the phrase “spread your risk” and picture a strategy built around caution, retreat, or playing defense. But that is not really what diversification does. It does not remove uncertainty from life, investing, or even everyday money decisions. What it does is make uncertainty survivable. That distinction matters, because the goal is not to avoid every possible setback. The goal is to keep one bad outcome from knocking over everything else.

This idea shows up in more places than the stock market. It is there when a household keeps some cash on hand, contributes to retirement, and still makes room to pay off debt quickly. It is there when a small business serves more than one type of customer. It is there when a worker builds more than one skill instead of betting a career on a single job title staying valuable forever. In all of these cases, spreading risk is less about fear and more about endurance.

That is why diversification is often misunderstood. People think it is the strategy for people who are scared to commit. In reality, it is often the strategy that lets you commit for longer. If all your hopes depend on one income stream, one investment, one client, or one plan working perfectly, you are not bold. You are fragile. Spreading risk gives you enough stability to keep participating even when one piece of the puzzle disappoints you.

Why Total Safety Is Its Own Kind of Risk

There is a hidden downside to trying to avoid risk altogether. When people chase total safety, they often end up exposed to a different problem: missing growth, flexibility, and opportunity. In investing, this can mean holding everything in one “safe” place and watching inflation quietly shrink what that money can do over time. In career choices, it can mean never trying for a better role because the current one feels predictable. In personal finance, it can mean treating every uncertain decision as dangerous, even when some uncertainty is exactly what helps you move forward.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission explains that diversification and asset allocation are tools meant to balance risk and reward, not eliminate one side of the equation entirely. An investor with a longer time horizon may be more comfortable with volatility because time gives those ups and downs room to even out. That same logic applies outside investing too. Time, flexibility, and multiple options often matter more than finding a perfectly safe path. The SEC’s guide to asset allocation, diversification, and rebalancing makes that tradeoff especially clear.

The point is simple. Refusing all risk does not create certainty. It often creates stagnation. And stagnation can be expensive in ways that are easy to miss until years have passed.

A Better Way to Think About Diversification

Instead of thinking of diversification as a shield, it helps to think of it as a suspension system. A car still hits bumps in the road. The suspension just helps absorb the impact so the whole vehicle does not shake apart. Diversification works the same way. Losses still happen. Disruptions still happen. Markets fall. Jobs change. Plans go sideways. But a diversified approach helps any single shock do less damage.

That is exactly why financial educators keep stressing that diversification works across and within categories. FINRA notes that putting all your money into one asset class, or even one security inside that class, creates concentration risk. In other words, you are not really protected just because you made a choice that sounded responsible on the surface. Real protection comes from variety that responds differently to the same event. FINRA’s explanation of asset allocation and diversification breaks this down in a practical way.

This is a useful mindset shift because it moves the conversation away from “How do I avoid every loss?” and toward “How do I avoid being ruined by one loss?” Those are completely different questions. The first one usually leads to paralysis. The second one leads to planning.

Spreading Risk in Real Life, Not Just on Paper

Most people already diversify in ways they do not label that way. A family might keep one partner in a steadier job while the other pursues a business idea. A freelancer may work with several clients so one cancellation does not crush the month. A homeowner may build an emergency fund while also making progress on debt. None of this is glamorous, but it is smart.

The less obvious truth is that diversification often feels boring when it is working. You do not get the thrill of being completely right all at once. You do not get the dramatic story of betting big on one thing and winning fast. What you get instead is resilience. You get room to recover. You get the ability to make your next decision from a position of strength instead of panic.

That can be emotionally frustrating, especially in a culture that celebrates huge swings and instant payoffs. But long term financial health usually has more to do with staying functional than looking impressive. People who can absorb setbacks tend to keep moving. People who cannot absorb setbacks are often forced into reactive choices that make the original problem worse.

What Diversification Really Protects

At its core, diversification protects your ability to continue. That may sound less exciting than protecting returns, but it is arguably more important. A person who stays invested, keeps earning, keeps learning, and keeps adjusting has a far better chance of reaching long term goals than someone who makes one extreme bet and has no margin for error.

This is true with money, but it is also true with attention and energy. If every part of your life is stretched to the limit, one surprise expense or one professional setback can drain everything at once. Spreading risk can mean leaving space in your budget, your schedule, and your expectations. It can mean not relying on a single outcome to validate your whole plan.

That is why the healthiest approach to risk is not denial. It is design. You assume that setbacks will happen at some point, then build a structure that can take a hit without collapsing.

The Goal Is Participation, Not Perfection

The most useful lesson here is that risk is not the enemy. Unmanaged concentration is. When all your resources, plans, or hopes are tied to one outcome, even a small disruption can feel catastrophic. But when risk is spread thoughtfully, uncertainty becomes something you can work with instead of something that controls you.

So no, spreading risk does not mean avoiding risk. It means accepting that risk is part of progress and refusing to let any single threat have too much power over your future. That is a more grounded, more durable way to think about money, growth, and decision making.

In the end, diversification is not about hiding from possibility. It is about staying in the game long enough to benefit from it.

Staff Writer; Harry Jones

Charles Shearer, who was born into slavery in Virginia, and his wife Henrietta opened Shearer Cottage to African American travelers back in 1912. He understood what a safe bed meant when so few doors would open. Dorothy West lived and wrote there. Spike Lee still vacations in Oak Bluffs and has been known to grab his coffee at Mocha Mott’s. That lineage runs deep, and it built a mythology around the place, a sense that you needed a certain pedigree to belong.

Something has shifted, though. Scroll through your feed in early August now and you will see a different crowd than the one that dominated those old postcards. Younger travelers. First timers. Folks who put a little aside every check, caught the ferry from Woods Hole, and showed up plain curious about the noise. The phone in everybody’s pocket did that. What used to travel by word of mouth among a certain set now lands on the timeline of whoever happens to be scrolling that night. A cousin posts a plate of oxtail near the harbor, a college friend films the sunrise swimmers, and suddenly the destination feels less like a members only club and more like an invitation.

The African American Film Festival deserves a heap of the credit. Stephanie and Floyd Rance have been at this since 2002, and the thing just keeps outgrowing itself. Its 23rd go, back in 2025, ran nine days, screenings stacked right up against real talk, with Jennifer Hudson, Dwyane Wade, Issa Rae, and Tracee Ellis Ross drifting around town. Stephanie Rance aimed that year’s slate at joy instead of struggle. Sounds small on paper. On the ground it plays different. It tells a young cat from Atlanta or Detroit that the island is no museum of somebody else’s success. The place reads closer to a living room with the door propped open.

Ralph Lauren noticed too. The brand rolled out an entire Oak Bluffs collection last year, borrowing from the crisp style you find at Howard homecoming and along Circuit Avenue. Some folks bristled at a giant label profiting off a heritage it did not build. Sheryl Wesley, who runs HBCU Legacy Week on the island, put it plainly. The campaign only illuminated what her community had been doing there for generations. That friction, between honoring a legacy and packaging it, sits at the center of this whole conversation.

So here is the real question. Is the Vineyard evolving from an exclusive retreat into a destination that ordinary working people can actually claim as their own?

I lean toward yes, with eyes open. The gatekeeping was never only about color. Race shaped the Vineyard’s Black history from the beginning, but class eventually mattered too, especially when it came to who could afford a home on that soil and who had the family roots to feel entitled to the sand. What the newer wave brings is a democratization of the dream. You do not have to own a gingerbread cottage to walk Inkwell Beach at dawn with the Polar Bears, that morning swim circle that has met since 1946. A trust fund is not required to sit at Union Chapel on a Sunday or to catch Illumination Night glowing under the Tabernacle.

The food tells that story as well as anything. Winston and Lisa Christie run Winston’s Kitchen down by the harbor, serving jerk chicken and stew beef in portions that respect a working person’s appetite and wallet. Chef Ting cooks the whole diaspora at Black Joy Kitchen over on Oakland Avenue, plating dishes gathered from dozens of countries. Newton Waite keeps the Caribbean flame burning at his counter off Circuit Avenue, and the brown stew chicken there will make you close your eyes. Barack Obama himself once put in an order at Nancy’s on the harbor, and that same counter will serve the schoolteacher from Baltimore standing right behind him. None of these spots require a pedigree. They ask for an appetite and a little patience in line.

Now I would be lying if I claimed the change comes without tension. Longtime homeowners, the families who kept those cottages through lean decades, sometimes watch the August crowds with a wary eye. They remember when the quiet was the whole point. Prices keep climbing, and there is a genuine fear that the very families who made this place sacred could get priced clean out of it. The Cottagers, that historic circle of women who have owned property there across generations, carry that memory. Their worry is legitimate, and I will not wave it off.

Still, culture only stays alive when it breathes new air. A tradition sealed off from the young eventually becomes a headstone. What I see unfolding in the Bluffs looks more like renewal than invasion. The heritage stays put. Our Heritage Trail still marks the grounds where the ancestors labored and rose. Those old stories keep getting passed along the porches. What is shifting is the guest list, and a longer list is not a betrayal of the past. It stands as proof the past meant something.

My hope is that the newcomers arrive as students, not conquerors. Learn the names before you geotag the beach. Understand that the ease you feel walking those streets was paid for by souls who had precious little ease anywhere else. Tip Winston well. Book a table at Chef Ting’s. Sit with a hard film at the festival and let it work on you.

Just this month the festival hit its 24th run, with more than 60 films across nine days and an audience that continues to expand far beyond the island. That growth is the whole point. Nobody built this island to sit behind glass. It has always worked best as a homecoming, plain and simple, a patch of coast where tired folks could set their bags down and breathe as if they had a right to. Have you ever made the trip yourself, stood on that sand at dawn and felt what the fuss is about? If more of us are finding that water now, if a young brother from the South Side or a young sister from Houston can plant their feet there and know they belong, then the mission is working exactly as the elders intended. That door is open wider now than at any point I can recall. Come correct, and the island will keep you the way it kept the ones who got there first.

Staff Writer; Lee Walker

This brother is a fitness trainer with 12 years of experience, focused on building strength, clarity, and real health within the Black community. Through his writing, Mr. Walker hopes to uplift younger Black men and men in general through honest conversations about fitness, financial pressure, fatherhood, discipline, mental wellness, and the importance of brotherhood.

Have questions? Reach me at LeeW@ThyBlackMan.com

This new version might sound unfair until you listen to Rep. Ro Khanna’s (D-Calif.) pitch for an allegedly onetime, 5% wealth tax on California billionaires, tied to November’s vote on Proposition 40.

Space constraints prevent us from surveying all that’s wrong with wealth taxes here. But as a reminder, they raise very little income for the government, are an administrative nightmare, could be unconstitutional and create enormous disincentives to build the kind of wealth that creates jobs and funds government services through other taxes in the first place.

A recent dust-up on X between Khanna and entrepreneurs like Mark Cuban exposes the level of economic ignorance that makes U.S. wealth taxes so tempting to politicians. The issue at hand is implementing California’s version when a founder looks like a billionaire on paper without actually having the cash on hand.

This isn’t an obscure problem, particularly for young founders. Imagine you have a great idea and create a startup. Investors put $1 billion into your startup, and its share price rises to give it a $10 billion valuation. You own 20%, so now you’re worth $2 billion! Except that you don’t have $2 billion.

The investors have put their money into the company, not into your checking account. That capital is for hiring engineers, for building factories or data centers, for developing products and expanding the company. It makes your stake impressive on paper, and yet that could theoretically land you a $100 million tax bill without a dollar in your pocket.

Khanna suggests that the founder could sell shares to pay the tax. But that would effectively force an entrepreneur to give up a large portion of his company because a financing round has placed a high valuation on it before it has fulfilled its potential. Besides, shares in young, private companies are typically far less liquid than Apple shares.

This is where a stupid idea gets even stupider. If the founder can’t or won’t sell, he could — or so says Khanna — borrow against the shares. But what bank lends $100 million against illiquid stock in young companies that may or may not succeed?

Not to worry. Khanna has an answer for that too: The loan can be issued by the government. The founder would pledge shares as collateral, have years to repay, and “the state could sell it if he defaults on the loan.”

So, we’ve gone from taxing the billionaire to lending him money and taking his shares if he can’t repay.

There is a delicious irony to all of this. Wealth-tax advocates complain about wealthy people borrowing against appreciated stock rather than selling the stock and realizing the gains that trigger capital-gains taxes. Yet when their wealth tax creates a liquidity problem, their solution is for billionaires to borrow against appreciated stock, only now from Uncle Sam.

Cuban identified an even deeper problem: The new company doesn’t have to fail for this arrangement to become perverse. A founder could spend the next 10 years building an enormously successful company, creating thousands of jobs and paying millions in taxes, while continuing to reinvest rather than cash out. After a decade, his shares might be worth far more than when the loan was made — and he still might not have $100 million in cash to repay the wealth-tax loan.

The reason is that success and liquidity are not the same thing. In Khanna’s government-loan scenario, the government could sell the shares used as collateral not because the company failed but because the founder kept his wealth tied up in the venture. Under this system, the incentive is to cash out instead of growing the business, hiring more people and creating more corporate tax revenue over the long term.

Cuban’s response was profane but insightful: “This is the biggest f—- you in the history of entrepreneurship.” While Khanna points to founders so rich that this situation might not be much of a problem now, they made their business decisions and took lots of financial risks when they weren’t threatened by a wealth tax.

Before Republicans get too indignant, they should look in the mirror. The Trump administration helped destroy the norm against government ownership of American businesses by taking a nearly 10% stake in Intel and pieces of many other companies, including Trilogy Metals and USA Rare Earth.

When your supposedly simple billionaire-tax plan requires that the government lend money to people who are only billionaires on paper, who then use it to pay taxes back to the government, which potentially then becomes a shareholder in their companies, the answer isn’t one more clever fix. The problem is your billionaire tax.

Written by Veronique de Rugy

Official website; http://twitter.com/veroderugy

Why do I keep underestimating the greediness of Trump Inc.? How many times will they have to prove that there are no limits?

On Monday, in an earnings call, Trump Media & Technology Group reported that it had signed up more than 10 customers in the week since the launch of this new product, Truth API, with customers, according to the Washington Post, paying “generally in the range” of $60,000 to $100,000 per month. “We recognize a modest amount of revenue from these agreements today,” interim CEO Kevin McGurn said in the earnings call, adding that it can “grow into a meaningful, durable” driver of growth.

On Wednesday, two media organizations sued Trump, claiming that the API service is unconstitutional because it gives paying customers privileged access to public, market-moving announcements.

“A president selling priority access to news he himself generates for the benefit of a private company he controls is so blatantly corrupt and unconstitutional that it would have been hard to even fathom just a few years ago,” Seth Stern, chief of advocacy at the Freedom of the Press Foundation, one of the organizations that brought suit, said in a statement.

It is definitely blatantly corrupt. I’m not sure how you turn that into a constitutional violation. It is, at best, a novel legal theory of the First Amendment. The argument that moving markets this way is a securities violation seems to be the stronger one, but no one expects the Trump SEC to investigate Trump, even though multiple Democratic legislators have asked them to. And isn’t that just how corruption works?

Trump uses Truth Social as his primary means of communicating with the world. He moves markets, makes announcements about the war, the economy, the budget and politics. Some days, he posts as often as a hundred times. Early access to those posts has value, or people wouldn’t pay for it.

And who makes money from all this? Trump’s family is the primary shareholder in Trump Media & Technology Group. The president’s stake in the company is worth nearly $1 billion, held in a revocable trust managed by his son Donald Trump Jr.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Maryland) launched his own investigation into the product, demanding that Trump Media produce records of communication between company executives and government officials related to the plan; information on the Truth Social accounts available through the API and any customers; and revenue projections, pricing, marketing materials and more.

“This White House-Wall Street-Trump Business feedback loop represents the depraved essence of insider trading,” he wrote to interim CEO McGurn, who defends his product as business-as-usual. Maybe so for businesses; not for presidents.

There should be a law against this. Arguably, there is. The aptly named Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act is a 2012 law that prohibits the president, vice president and members of Congress from using nonpublic information learned through their offices for financial gain. But will anyone at the SEC or the Trump Justice Department ever pursue such a case? Of course not. And they will certainly argue against any private right of action.

The rich are different — and Donald Trump more so than anyone. In Yiddish, we call it chutzpah. In English, it’s just plain greed.

Written by Susan Estrich

Kick, mostly. That world came to him through Deen The Great, and before long the partnership turned the chaos surrounding them into a brand. They called themselves the Krash Out Boyz. Sit with that name a second. They put the meltdown right there in the title, sold it as content, and folks lined up to watch.

Here is what troubles me. Every slurred word, every argument, every time the former champ looked lost on camera, somebody clipped it. Chopped it into fifteen seconds, slapped a caption on top, pushed it into the feed. Millions watched. Folks laughed, shared, then waited for the next one like it was a sitcom with a fresh episode every night.

We have a phrase for all this now. Crashing out. The slang grew out of Black communities, with Louisiana playing an important part in its rise, and rappers helped carry it into the wider culture before social media wrung every last drop out of it. Now everybody says it, and far too often they say it about us.

That is the part few people want to touch. The internet has developed a real appetite for watching Black men fall apart in public. Not just Adrien. Think about how many viral moments feature a brother at his lowest, and how quickly the comments fill with laughing faces and popcorn. The unraveling becomes its own genre. Pain turns into product.

I am not naive about his role here. This is no child. Nobody forced him to sit in front of that camera. The drinking, the loud mouth, the public messes, all of it went out on film, and some of it became profitable. There have been financial troubles, a civil lawsuit containing serious allegations, and feuds spilling from livestreams into real life. In early July, he and Deen even had to be separated during a heated confrontation while wearing matching pink hoodies. You cannot excuse everything a person does just because he is struggling.

But the struggle is not speculation. Broner has publicly discussed problems with alcohol, gambling and his mental health. Back in 2016, friends became so concerned by alarming posts on his social media accounts that police were contacted. Years later, in 2022, he withdrew from a scheduled fight with Omar Figueroa Jr. and openly said he needed to take care of his mental health. That is not internet gossip. That is a man telling the world that something inside him needed attention.

So what does the audience do with that? Mostly nothing. Knowing he has struggled does not slow the clip machine down even a little. If anything, it can make the footage more valuable. Famous and coming undone reads as comedy to some people. Famous, broke and coming undone is an even bigger jackpot. Millions earned across a boxing career eventually gave way to very public financial trouble, and too many people treated the empty pockets like a punchline instead of a warning.

Deen deserves a word too. Give the brother his credit for helping pull Broner into a lane that generated income at a time when the big boxing checks were no longer arriving the way they once did. For a while, streaming looked like one of the smartest moves Adrien had made in years. Somebody handed him another way to stay visible, make money and build something outside the ring.

Trouble is, the same setup that gave Broner another income stream also kept cameras rolling through some of his lowest moments, and those moments repeatedly became the clips that traveled farthest. When the relationship between the two men became strained, Deen arranged for another cameraman so Broner could run his own broadcasts. The partnership split publicly. More clips followed. Even the breakup became part of the show.

I keep circling one thing. Underneath the meme is a person. A human being with a mama, with children, with a body that has absorbed thousands of punches and a mind he has openly admitted has struggled. We know this. The receipts have been sitting in front of us for years. We watch anyway, because watching is easy and caring costs something.

Ryan Garcia, of all people, publicly reached out earlier this year and encouraged Broner to stop drinking and get himself together. Fans typed the same thing underneath video after video. Please stop drinking. Get some help. Some meant it. Plenty of those same people turned around and reposted the newest breakdown because the engagement was too good to leave alone. That contradiction lives in everybody who consumes this kind of content. We say we care while our thumbs hit share.

I came up in a time when a brother falling apart got handled quietly. Family stepped in. The church folks came by. Somebody sat with you. It was not entertainment, and it sure was not a revenue stream. I am not romanticizing those days, because plenty of hurt got buried that should have been spoken about openly. But we have swung so far in the other direction that a person’s collapse can now play out before an audience of strangers who treat every ugly moment like another episode.

And here is where the story gets more interesting. Broner is trying to change the ending. This summer he and Deen launched a 45 day streaming challenge built around sobriety, training, losing weight and preparing for another possible boxing run. Broner has been talking about staying sober, getting his body back and returning to the ring. People inside boxing, including Claressa Shields, have encouraged the effort. Maybe the real test for the audience is what happens now. We were willing to watch every stumble. Are we willing to pay the same attention when the man is trying to stand back up?

Maybe the honest question is no longer simply what is wrong with Adrien. We know a good deal about what has troubled him because he has told us himself. The harder question aims at the rest of us, the ones scrolling, laughing and waiting for tomorrow’s clip. What does it say about us if a Black man’s breakdown earns more attention than his attempt to rebuild?

There is no clean answer here. Broner still has responsibility for what he says, what he does and what he puts in front of a camera. Grace does not mean pretending bad decisions never happened. But accountability and compassion are not enemies. A man can answer for his choices without becoming public property at his lowest moment.

The better story now is not whether Adrien Broner can give the internet another crash out clip. It is whether he can stay sober, keep training, regain some discipline and build something healthier than the spectacle that surrounded him. Maybe he fights again. Maybe boxing never looks the way it once did. Either way, the man was never a punchline.

Give him some grace. Or at least give his recovery as much attention as you gave his collapse. That much ought to be fair.

Staff Writer; Lee Walker

This brother is a fitness trainer with 12 years of experience, focused on building strength, clarity, and real health within the Black community. Through his writing, Mr. Walker hopes to uplift younger Black men and men in general through honest conversations about fitness, financial pressure, fatherhood, discipline, mental wellness, and the importance of brotherhood.

Have questions? Reach me at LeeW@ThyBlackMan.com.

I’ve been watching politicians talk about us for a long time now. Long enough to know the difference between a man who studies the numbers and a man who found a phrase that plays well at a rally. That “Black jobs” line was the second kind. It was built to make a certain crowd nod along, and it was built to make some of our own brothers think somebody finally noticed them. Neither of those things is the same as noticing.

So let me do the thing he never did. Let me put the numbers on the table.

Take the freshest report, the one that dropped this month. On paper it reads like relief. Black joblessness came in at 6.3 percent for July, down from 7.2 percent a year before, nearly a full percentage point lower. You could almost believe somebody fixed something. Then you look underneath the headline. The economy shed 23,000 payroll positions that month, while a separate government survey showed the Black labor force shrinking by roughly 204,000 people. Black employment itself fell by about 123,000, and our labor force participation rate slipped to 61.3 percent. Fewer of us landed in the jobless column partly because fewer of us were participating in the labor market at all. That is not the kind of recovery anybody ought to celebrate without reading the fine print.

Here is the part that ought to keep a grown man up at night. Break the thing out by the men and it gets uglier. Brothers sat at 6.2 percent unemployment in July, but that headline does not tell the whole story either. Nearly half a million fewer Black men over the age of twenty were employed in July than in December of last year. Our slice of who actually has a job has been sliding while the broader picture looks steadier for plenty of other Americans. A couple points here, a half point there. Sounds like nothing until you remember each little tick is somebody’s father, somebody who used to punch a clock and now sits at the kitchen table trying to figure out how to tell his people he got cut.

And a lot of the pressure on those jobs didn’t come from any immigrant. Some of it came from the government he runs.

That’s the piece nobody at those rallies wants to sit with. For generations, federal work was one of the few honest ladders a Black family could climb without somebody kicking it out from under them. The post office. The agencies. Steady wages, a pension, a way into the middle class that didn’t depend on some manager liking the way you talked. Our people built lives on that. Then the new administration came in swinging at the federal workforce, and Black workers had plenty at stake because we have long been represented in federal employment at levels above our share of the civilian labor force. Washington has been cutting federal employment since early 2025, removing positions from one of the sectors our families historically used as a path toward stability. That is not immigration. That is a policy decision made at a desk by the same administration telling us to keep our eyes fixed on the border.

I want to be fair here, because fairness is how you keep your credibility. The trouble facing Black men and work did not start with this president, and any writer who tells you it did is selling you comfort instead of truth. Prime-age Black men have run about eleven percentage points below prime-age white men in employment going back a quarter century, through Democrats and Republicans both. Some quarters, the median full-time Black male worker brought home a little over a thousand dollars a week while the median for white men ran three to four hundred dollars higher. This is old. This is structural. This was here before him and it’ll take more than one election to move it.

But naming an old problem doesn’t excuse a man for making choices that can deepen it and then pointing at strangers.

That’s really the sleight of hand, isn’t it. You take a wound that’s been there for decades, you press your thumb into it, and while we’re wincing you tell us the man responsible is climbing over a fence with a work permit in his hand. Meanwhile some real jobs, the kind with benefits and a future, are being eliminated by the very government you handed him. He counts on us hurting too much to check the receipts.

So check them.

When somebody stands in front of you and says immigrants are taking your work, ask him a simple question. Which job. Name it. Point to the plant, the office, the agency where a brother got walked out and a migrant sat down in his chair the next morning. Research does not support such a simple one-for-one story across the American labor market. Immigration can put pressure on some workers, especially where skills and occupations overlap, and economists still debate how large those effects are. But that is a far more complicated reality than saying immigrants simply came here and took “Black jobs.” What the government’s own numbers clearly show right now is weakening employment and labor force participation among Black workers. That deserves more than a slogan about who supposedly replaced whom.

That’s the real crisis, and it doesn’t fit on a bumper sticker.

This isn’t about telling you how to vote. Grown men make up their own minds, and I’ve got more respect for you than to herd you anywhere. My point is simpler than that. I’m tired of watching us get used as a prop. Tired of a phrase like “Black jobs” getting tossed around by a man who couldn’t give the phrase much meaning when a room full of us asked him to his face. We deserve better than to be somebody’s applause line.

So the next time you hear him say it, don’t just nod. Ask the question that actually matters. If these are our jobs, where did they go. Who cut them. Who profited. And why is the man doing some of the cutting the same one telling us to blame the fellow at the bus stop who looks a little different than we do.

Answer those honestly and you’ll know exactly where you stand. That’s worth more than any speech.

Staff Writer; L.L. McKenna

Politics explained through the lens of justice and equity. Offering perspective that informs, challenges, and empowers.

One can contact this brother at; LLMcKenna@ThyBlackMan.com.

The statute is the Jones Act, passed in 1920 to rebuild and protect the U.S. merchant marine fleet after World War I disrupted American shipping capabilities. It requires that any vessel moving cargo between two American ports must be built in an American shipyard, be American-owned and be at least three-quarters American-crewed. Miss any one of these marks and the shipper is barred from carrying a single barrel of fuel from Houston to Honolulu.

The stated justification for the act is national security. We need American ships and American sailors to fight wars. But 100 years in, it’s hard to repeat this justification with a straight face.

An American-built cargo ship costs $190 million to $250 million to build; the same vessel costs about $30 million from a foreign shipyard. U.S. shipyards now build less than 1% of what China and South Korea do, and roughly 300 U.S. shipyards have closed since the early 1980s. Legislation meant to sustain a merchant fleet has presided over its collapse.

Fewer than 100 oceangoing ships qualify under the Jones Act today, and the American tanker fleet is so thin that moving oil from Texas to the Northeast costs about three times what it would to ship it from Africa. Michael Bloomberg recently called the act “a national sales tax” — except that Washington never sees a dime. Instead, the premium is captured by a few U.S. shipyards and carriers operating relatively free of competition. Economist Thomas Grennes found that consumers lose more than what the statute hands to sailors, shipbuilders and carriers.

In March, the Trump administration suspended the Jones Act for energy and fertilizer shipments. It’s not the first waiver of its kind, but it is the longest in recent history. With the waiver’s expiration looming, the administration just announced a 90-day extension along with stricter terms.

The numbers speak for themselves. The Cato Institute’s Colin Grabow documented that in under five months, Puerto Rico took in more mainland fuel than in any full year since 2015. Shipments to the West Coast, Alaska and Hawaii hit nearly 14 million barrels, about 170% of the recent annual average. Whole trade routes quickly appeared: Gulf Coast fuel to Hawaii, New Jersey jet fuel to California, propane to Puerto Rico.

America’s government-protected fleet seldom served these locales. Remove a prohibition and the market pours resources where they are needed. As Grabow noted, “That’s strong evidence for the longstanding critique that the Jones Act suppresses domestic commerce by preventing economically viable trade between Americans.”

The question then becomes: Why won’t the Jones Act die? The answer, as the oldest story in political economy tells us, is that it benefits a few special interests at the cost of all the rest of us.

The handful of shipyards, carriers and labor unions that profit from the Jones Act defend it vigorously. The average person pays just a few cents more at the pump or the register. It adds up, but not many people trace it to a statute they’re mostly unaware of. One side is lobbying. The other is you, and you’re busy.

The lobby mobilized against a limited waiver as if the republic were under siege. Grabow described a national ad campaign drawing millions of views from an account with just a few hundred subscribers, a 10-state media blitz, a form-letter-writing machine and roughly one op-ed or letter per week, mostly written by people on the industry payroll.

Two influencers who had never mentioned shipping policy, Kaya Jones and Olivia Krolczyk, posted identical lines about “protecting 650,000 Americans” a day apart, and one disclosed a paid partnership. A commissioned study for the Transportation Institute warned, with gross exaggeration, that 100,000 jobs were “at risk.” Fifty-two House Republicans, the speaker among them, bought into the economic illiteracy and urged the White House to let the waiver die.

Such machinery does not stop at persuasion. A few years ago, documents pried from the Maritime Administration revealed that an advisory committee meeting participant suggested, probably half in jest, that every past and present Cato Institute and Mercatus Center scholar (presumably including me) be charged with treason for criticizing the Jones Act. As economist Art Carden observed, that dragnet would have to be enormous, since the critics run from free-market economists to the far-left Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz.

Unfortunately, the Jones Act is representative of much American legislation: a narrow group harvesting a fortune while the costs are spread across hundreds of millions of us. By design, those costs are all but invisible. Whether it’s protectionist sugar quotas, occupational licensing laws or bespoke tariffs for connected companies, you, dear taxpayer and consumer, fund them all.

Ask yourself how many statutes you are paying for right now. It’s more than you think.

Written by Veronique de Rugy

Official website; http://twitter.com/veroderugy

This pattern has repeated itself in community after community for generations, long before social media made these stories visible to a wider audience. A death gets labeled accidental, a shooting gets ruled justified, or a case simply goes cold without anyone facing real consequences. Families who feel the official version does not match what they know, or what evidence suggests, are left searching for another way to hold someone accountable once the traditional channels have gone quiet.

The Legal Path Families Turn to Next

When a criminal investigation closes without charges, or ends in a verdict a family believes was wrong, many people assume there is nothing left to do. That assumption overlooks an entirely separate legal process that operates under different rules and a different standard of proof. Civil court does not require the same level of certainty as a criminal trial, which means a case that fails to produce charges in one system can still move forward in another.

According to Ward and Smith, this is the route that leads many grieving families toward a wrongful death claim, a civil lawsuit built around the argument that someone’s negligence or misconduct caused a loved one’s death, regardless of whether criminal charges were ever filed. Attorneys who handle these cases often explain that a wrongful death claim exists precisely for situations where the criminal system fails to deliver accountability, giving families a separate avenue to establish responsibility and pursue some form of justice. For many, pursuing this path becomes less about money and more about forcing a public acknowledgment that never came the first time around.

Communities Organizing Around These Cases

Individual families rarely carry this fight entirely on their own. Community organizers, local pastors, and grassroots advocacy groups frequently step in once a case starts drawing attention, helping families navigate unfamiliar legal processes while keeping public pressure on institutions that would otherwise prefer the story to fade. These networks have existed in various forms for decades, built out of necessity in communities that learned early not to expect quick or fair answers from official channels.

Social media has changed how quickly these efforts can gain traction, allowing a single case to reach national attention within days when it might have stayed local a generation ago. That visibility can bring resources, legal support, and renewed scrutiny that a family could never access alone. It can also bring unwanted attention and public speculation that adds new strain to people already dealing with tremendous loss, which is part of why many families describe this period as exhausting in ways that go far beyond grief alone.

The Weight These Cases Carry Across Generations

The impact of an unresolved death rarely stays contained to one household. Children grow up watching parents and grandparents fight for answers that never fully arrive, absorbing lessons about trust, institutions, and justice long before they understand the specifics of what happened. Family gatherings often carry the quiet presence of someone whose case was never truly settled, shaping how younger relatives view the systems meant to protect them.

Older generations frequently draw connections between current cases and ones from decades earlier, recognizing familiar patterns in how investigations unfold and how quickly public attention shifts elsewhere. That historical memory shapes expectations, sometimes toward exhaustion and cynicism, but often toward a determination that someone in the family will keep pushing regardless of how long it takes. This inherited responsibility becomes part of how many families define loyalty and love within their own history.

Why Some Families Choose to Keep Fighting

Not every family pursues additional legal action after an investigation closes, and there is no single right way to respond to this kind of loss. Some feel that continuing to fight would cause more pain than closure, while others feel they owe it to their loved one to exhaust every available option no matter how long it takes or how much it costs emotionally and financially.

For those who do continue, the motivation rarely centers purely on financial compensation. Many describe wanting an official record that acknowledges what actually happened, something that can outlast news cycles and public memory. A ruling in their favor, even years later, often matters less for the money involved and more for the simple fact that someone in a position of authority finally said out loud what the family always believed to be true.

What Accountability Looks Like When the System Falls Short

Accountability rarely arrives the way families originally hoped it would. It often comes slowly, through a civil judgment instead of a criminal conviction, or through policy changes prompted by public pressure rather than a single dramatic courtroom moment. For many families, these smaller, delayed forms of accountability still matter enormously, even if they never fully replace what was lost or erase the years spent fighting for recognition.

What remains consistent across these stories is the refusal to accept silence as the final answer. Families keep showing up at hearings, keep speaking to reporters, and keep pursuing legal avenues long after most people have stopped paying attention, because for them the case never really closed. That persistence, passed down through generations in some families, continues to shape how communities respond when official systems fail to deliver the truth they were owed.

Staff Writer; Patrick Wall

“Folks who lead our party go to swing states like North Carolina and Georgia, but states like Mississippi and Tennessee and Alabama and South Carolina are really neglected and are really forgotten and are really treated as if it is inevitable that we’ll always stay in such systems of what I call apartheid type of politics,” said Jones. The feeling of neglect is negatively adding to what lawmakers are calling a crisis for Black representation.

In March 2023, Jones was thrust into the national spotlight when he joined fellow state Reps.  Justin Pearson and Gloria Johnson to become known as the “Tennessee Three.” The group of legislators supported gun-safety demonstrators in the House chamber after the Covenant School shooting in Nashville. Pearson, who represents the Memphis-area House District 86, recently won the Democratic primary for U.S. House for Tennessee’s 9^th Congressional District.  Pearson has an uphill battle since Tennessee Republicans redrew the congressional map soon after the Louisiana v. Callais Supreme Court decision.

Previously, the 9^th District largely kept Memphis together and was a majority-Black, strongly Democratic district represented by Democrat Steve Cohen. The new map divides Memphis between three districts that extend into more rural, white Republican-leaning areas. Cohen chose not to run under the new configuration. The Tennessee legislature, through means of partisan and racial gerrymandering, took what was a reliable Democratic seat and made it into a Republican-leaning district. The new statewide map is now designed to give the Republicans an electoral advantage in all nine of Tennessee’s U.S. House districts. Going back to Rep. Jones’ point, states like Tennessee cannot be an afterthought to the national Democratic Party. When I think about Rep. Pearson as a candidate running in a Republican district, one person comes to mind: former Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack.

In 1998, Tom Vilsack was elected Iowa’s first Democratic governor in more than 30 years, and was re-elected to a second term in 2002. As governor, he worked with schools, medical providers, businesses, faith-based organizations, and other entities to expand healthcare coverage to more than 90,000 previously uninsured children. He served as Secretary of Agriculture during the Obama administration and again during the Biden administration. He stands out because he came from a rural state and he knew the concerns of rural America. He constantly told Democrats not to ignore rural voters.

As Agriculture Secretary, Vilsack had urged Hillary Clinton’s campaign to shore up rural outreach, multiple sources said. The Clinton campaign didn’t think it needed rural voters, which was seen as a shrinking population that was reliably Republican. The campaign never named a rural council, as Obama did in 2008 and 2012. It also didn’t build a robust rural-dedicated campaign infrastructure. The rural voting bloc turned out to be formidable. “Hillary lost rural America 3 to 1,” said one Democratic insider. “If she had lost rural America 2 to 1, it would have broken differently.” Vilsack’s message and warning to Democrats still stands true today. Pearson and other Democrats need an effective rural strategy that resonates with farmers who are frustrated with tariffs, damaging trade policies, inflation, the impact of the Iran War, and cuts to federal farm programs. U.S. farm debt has reached historic levels.

In February 2026, the American Farm Bureau Federation released a report that substantiated what many farmers and agriculture economists already knew: We are experiencing a new farm crisis. The report found that Chapter 12 family farm bankruptcies surged by 46% in 2025. And let’s not forget there is a growing food crisis due to President Trump’s cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).

According to former Treasury advisor Steve Rattner, who shared data from the USDA showing that participation in SNAP had plunged by 5 million people over the course of Trump’s second term. “Over 5 million low-income Americans–including 1.5 million children–have lost access to food assistance due to Trump’s SNAP cuts last year,” Rattner explained. “Most of the hardest hit states are traditionally Republican, resulting in growing hunger crises in states like Arizona. While Tennessee has created nine congressional districts of Republican domination, this could be a defining moment for Democrats despite the changing electoral landscape.

A significant opportunity now exists in Tennessee’s 9^th Congressional race to start reversing this domination or “apartheid type of politics,” as Rep. Jones described. This could be done by addressing non-partisan, quality -of-life issues like the burgeoning farm debt crisis and food insecurity, which are hitting Republican-held districts hardest. A candidate like Justin Pearson, who is a passionate, eloquent orator and charismatic, can succeed not by being a traditional Democrat, but by proving a young, Black leader can effectively represent the survival interests of white, rural voters who feel equally abandoned.

Written by David W. Marshall

Official website; https://davidwmarshallauthor.com/

One may purchase his book, which is titled; God Bless Our Divided America: Unity, Politics and History from a Biblical Perspective.

How Na Pali Coast Wedding Charters Create Unforgettable Experiences

The Na Pali Coast is renowned for its dramatic landscapes, which include towering cliffs, lush valleys, and cascading waterfalls. These natural wonders provide a stunning backdrop for any wedding ceremony. Couples opting for a Na Pali Coast Wedding Charter can expect to experience this beauty firsthand, as the charter allows access to secluded spots that are otherwise inaccessible. This exclusivity adds a touch of magic, making the ceremony feel like a private haven amidst nature’s grandeur.

Furthermore, many wedding charters offer personalized services that enhance the experience. For instance, Destination Management Companies (DMCs) specialize in organizing seamless wedding events, ensuring every detail is meticulously planned. Whether it’s arranging for a traditional Hawaiian blessing or coordinating with a local musician for live entertainment, these services contribute to the overall enchantment of the day.

Recent analysis from Travel and Leisure confirms that couples who choose such unique locales often report higher satisfaction levels with their wedding experience, highlighting the importance of selecting a venue that resonates with personal preferences.

The Romantic Setting of Na Pali Coast for Your Ceremony

The Na Pali Coast’s natural beauty is complemented by the romantic ambiance it provides, making it an ideal setting for a wedding ceremony. As the sun sets over the Pacific Ocean, it casts a warm glow over the cliffs, creating a picturesque scene that is perfect for exchanging vows. The ambiance is further enhanced by the gentle sound of waves and the scent of tropical flowers, which contribute to an unforgettable atmosphere.

Couples can choose from various ceremony locations along the coast, each offering unique features. Whether it’s a secluded beach or a serene cove, the options abound. This flexibility allows couples to find a spot that perfectly matches their vision for the day.

Moreover, with Ecotourism Certification becoming increasingly important for travelers, choosing a wedding charter that prioritizes sustainable practices ensures that your ceremony is both beautiful and environmentally conscious.

Exploring Customized Wedding Packages on the Water

One of the advantages of booking a Na Pali Coast Wedding Charter is the availability of customized wedding packages. These packages cater to different preferences and budgets, ensuring that every couple can find an option that suits their needs. From intimate elopements to larger gatherings, the packages are designed to offer flexibility and personalization.

For instance, couples can opt for a package that includes a sunset cruise, complete with cocktails and appetizers, which adds a touch of elegance to the celebration. Additionally, many charters offer the option to incorporate local Hawaiian traditions, such as a lei exchange, adding authenticity and cultural richness to the ceremony.

With the increasing trend of Free Independent Traveler (FIT) bookings, these customized packages provide an opportunity for couples to tailor their experience, ensuring that every element of their wedding day is exactly as they envisioned.

Capturing Memorable Moments with Professional Photography Options

Documenting your wedding day is crucial, and the Na Pali Coast offers countless opportunities for stunning photography. Professional photographers familiar with the area can capture the essence of the coast and the beauty of the ceremony. With the cliffs and ocean as a backdrop, every photo becomes a work of art.

Many charters provide photography services as part of their wedding packages, ensuring that couples have access to skilled professionals who understand how to make the most of the setting. These photographers often use drones and other advanced equipment to capture unique angles and perspectives, adding another layer of creativity to the images.

Moreover, a recent survey by The Knot revealed that couples who invest in professional photography for destination weddings report greater satisfaction with their wedding albums, underscoring the value of high-quality documentation.

Conclusion

Booking a Na Pali Coast Wedding Charter offers couples a chance to celebrate their union in one of the most stunning locations in the world. The combination of natural beauty, personalized services, and professional photography ensures a dreamy ceremony that will be cherished forever. For those seeking a unique and breathtaking setting, the Na Pali Coast provides an unforgettable experience that truly encapsulates the romance and magic of a wedding day.

Staff Writer; Craig Marshall