Long before workers feared losing their jobs to an AI bot army, civil rights leaders feared losing ground in their war on Jim Crow because of the automation of industrialized labor. As historian Nancy MacLean writes in Freedom Is Not Enough: The Opening of the American Workplace, Black activists worried “that just as Reconstruction had been undone in the industrial revolution, so was the civil rights movement in danger of being undone in the automation revolution.”

The fear was far-reaching. You could hear it in Malcolm X warning, “Automation is limiting jobs,” and in Martin Luther King Jr. cautioning, “Automation and cybernetics are edging the Negro and certain poor whites into…permanent uselessness and hopeless impoverishment,” and in Bayard Rustin writing, “Workers have been displaced by automation, rendered economically functionless in modern industrial society.” By the mid-1960s, the freedom movement was seized by a tragic irony which the Urban League described as Black workers “winning the right to get a job at just the time when the job itself is disappearing.”

Yet, of all the civil rights leaders to address this quandary, perhaps no one captured the peril and promise of that moment more than A. Philip Randolph. Standing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, before hundreds of thousands of people at the March on Washington, the longtime labor leader declared, “Yes, we want a Fair Employment Practice Act, but what good will it do if profit-geared automation destroys the jobs of millions of workers, Black and white?

“The sanctity of private property takes second place to the sanctity of the human personality,” Randolph thundered in his practiced baritone. “It falls to the Negro to reassert this proper priority of values because our ancestors were transformed from human personalities into private property. It falls to us to demand new forms of social planning, to create full employment, and to put automation at the service of human needs, not at the service of profits—for we are the worst victims of unemployment.”

In the years after the March on Washington, Randolph’s call to create “new forms of social planning” to address automation and unemployment took the form of the Freedom Budget. Published on Oct. 26, 1966—and championed by Randolph, Rustin and King—the Freedom Budget was an ambitious policy plan to prevent a world in which machines would push people into social dislocation.

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“Nah, I’m good.”

— Black people, to John Brown

William Still was about that abolitionist life.

When Harriet Tubman wanted to rescue her family, she went to Philadelphia to train with the man known as the “Father of the Underground Railroad.” While Tubman helped free about 70 enslaved people, Still personally helped transport at least 649 slaves to freedom. His rescue of Jane Johnson and her two sons from her enslaver, U.S. ambassador to Nicaragua, Col. John Wheeler, sparked an international uproar. Still dedicated his entire life to helping Black people achieve freedom.

So when John Brown went looking for funding, soldiers and weapons for the infamous raid on an armory in Harpers Ferry, Va., it only made sense to ask the most radical abolitionist in America’s most anti-slavery city.

William Still said no.

Fortunately, Brown knew another guy. In January 1858, he went to Rochester, N.Y., to recruit another one of his famous homeboys who had escaped on the Underground Railroad. For weeks, Brown tried to convince his old friend to join the upcoming anti-slavery uprising. After staying with his unenslaved friend for a month, Brown realized that his efforts were futile.

Frederick Douglass had said no.

Brown knew New York abolitionists Henry Highland Garnet and Julia Ward WIlliams had called for a national rebellion, but they weren’t interested in joining the white preacher’s race war. Brooklyn pastor James Gloucester’s wife was one of the richest Black women in America. They gave Brown a few dollars but little else. Radical Chicago pastor John Jones thought the plan was crazy, as did outspoken Rev. J.W. Loguen.

Undeterred, Brown went to St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, to talk to another prominent abolitionist. Unlike Douglass, this new acquaintance didn’t immediately dismiss his plans. When John wrote “He is the most of a man, naturally, that I ever met with,” he wasn’t talking about a man. He was referring to his new friend he tried to recruit on April 7, 1858.

Harriet Tubman didn’t show up at Harpers Ferry, either

John Brown met with the most prominent Black men in Detroit on March 12, 1859 and received more rejections. William Webb, a grocery store owner who used his home as an Underground Railroad station, turned Brown down. Wealthy entrepreneur George DeBaptiste secretly operated on the Underground Railroad, but he thought Brown’s plan was crazy. William and Julia Lambert founded Detroit’s first civil rights organization, the Detroit Colored Vigilant Committee and used their businesses as a stop on the Underground Railroad. But the Lamberts wouldn’t help John Brown, either.

Moses Dickson didn’t just turn Brown down; he tried to stop him.

Along with his Knights of Twelve, Dickson was secretly planning a national slave uprising in every Southern state. Despite being sworn to secrecy, Dickson told Brown to go sit down somewhere, assuring him that Black folks were already working on something. But Brown wouldn’t listen.

Convinced that white-on-white violence would end slavery, Brown came up with the whitest plan ever:

Abolitionist Fest.

On May, 5, 1859, the height of the Colored Convention movement, anti-slavery activists from across North America gathered in Chatham County, Ontario for what Brown hoped would be Abolitionist Freaknik. The guests included:

• Mary Ann Shadd Cary: The first Black woman to publish a newspaper in North America

• Martin Delany, a world-renowned doctor who was organizing an effort to purchase land in Africa.

• Eunice Shadd: the first Black woman to graduate from Howard University College of Medicine

• Alfred P. Whipper: a teacher who operated a school for free Blacks.

• William P. Whipper: An Underground Railroad operator who literally wrote the manual for nonviolet resistance

• Isaac Shadd: the journalist who settled escaped slaves in Canada and later served in Congress

When John Brown attacked Harpers Ferry on Oct. 16, 1859, 15 of the 22 raiders were white. Three were his sons. Only three free Black men participated (It goes without saying that Black women were not involved). Still it is interesting that, after crisscrossing the country and pleading his case, Brown couldn’t even find a dozen white people who were down for his cause. Still, what interests me more:

Why was Brown so convinced that Black people were wrong?

As you can see, he consulted with the foremost Black thinkers of his time. Nearly every single one expressed doubt in Brown’s plan. In all fairness, taking down a constitutionally enforced race-based, international system with bullets and a few few sticks of dynamite seems a little bit crazy.

Can you imagine not taking advice from Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, Martin Delaney and the smartest, radical revolutionaries America had to offer? Imagine considering the opinions of the most brilliant, militant Black geniuses who actually survived the most inhuman system the world has ever concocted and concluding:

“Nah, they’re wrong. I’m right. My way is the only way.”

Donald Trump might be the purest, most concentrated example of whiteness in the history of the world, but ask yourself this:

How was John Brown any different?

Thank you, , , , , , and many others for tuning into my live video! Join me for my next live video in the app.

Today’s Reading List

• How to be a Black Ally by Michael Harriot

• Does Ta-Nehisi Hate White People? By Ta-Nehisi Coates

• Black men, white lies and why Stacey Abrams couldn’t turn Georgia blue by Michael Harriot

• A great reverse migration is shifting the balance of power in the U.S., by Theodore R. Johnson.

“By the Wilson administration, White House press conferences had turned into Washington free-for-alls, including hangers-on who competed with one another for attention and for “scoops,” wrote author Stephen Ponder. “The president demanded some sort of self-regulation, which led to the founding of the White House Correspondents’ Association…The regulations also restricted access to the press conferences to accredited reporters, a significant step in the establishment of an organized White House Press Corps.”

This exclusive group required its members to ignore two things:

1. The rules of journalism

2. Black people

To become a member of the WHCA, reporters had to swear that they wouldn’t publish the president’s actual words without his permission. The group also capitulated to Wilson’s racism and excluded Black people. Ponder notes that even after Wilson ended his regular press briefings in June 1915, the all-white, all-male organization “continued to meet as a social group until…”

Wait…what happened?

Why couldn’t the WHCA actually prevent Wilson from ending his press briefings? Did one of the white boys refuse to violate the rules of his profession? Was one of those celebrated journalists more concerned with telling the truth than access and proximity to power? Why did the man who invented the tradition of presidential press conferences end them?

Black people.

In November 1914, William Monroe Trotter, a Black newspaper editor, organized a meeting in the Oval Office between Wilson and a group of Black activists, reporters and truth-tellers about the resegregation of the federal government after Black voters helped him become president. After Wilson whitesplained that his administration only questioned “whether the Afro-American race could do the same things that the white race could do with equal efficiency,” Trotter essentially told the president to stop playing in Black America’s face. But what annoyed Wilson more than anything is that—unlike their white counterparts—the Black reporters reported the truth.

Woodrow Wilson stopped holding press conferences altogether.

The White House Correspondents’ Association wouldn’t admit a Black journalist into its ranks until 1951.

Black journalists have always been willing to tell America about itself.

As Martin Luther King Jr. said:

[P]erhaps the greatest contribution of the Negro press is this: it is one major voice of the conscience of our nation. The 205 journals of Negro opinions say every day to the American people “the struggle for democracy is not yet done. America is not yet America.” And this is of vital importance for there are millions of Americans who know American Negroes only through their press.

To the degree that the Negro Press can continue to play this role, its greatest contribution is not to the Negro really, but rather to America which cannot be at peace with itself until all men are free.

On Jan. 16, 2025, as the nation prepared for the inauguration of the 47th president of the United States of America, a group of Black journalists, activists and thinkers gathered at a top-secret location to launch a project they called “ContrabandCamp.”

Just as this publication was intended to be a reflection of the unique voices and perspectives of the Black diaspora, the Day One ContrabandCampers included people whose ancestors were enslaved, immigrants and second-generation Americans. In addition to planning sessions, workshops and a few games of spades, we held an on-the-record dinner party.

Instead of hot takes and uniformed opinions, Blacksplained asks experts, scholars and people who know what they’re talking about to discuss one issue or question.

If you’ve ever wondered what it sounds like when Black people discuss “kitchen table issues,” it sounds like:

• How a Haitian family got to America after a coup d'etat.

• Why being a Supreme Court justice or military hero doesn’t prevent you from being a “DEI hire.”

• Who’d win a Verzuz battle between Luther Vandross and Taylor Swift.

• How raising Black children in America inspired a proposal for a constitutional amendment.

• Which worries Black parents more: school shooters or cops?

You’ll find the answer to these questions and more this week as the attendees at ContrabandCamp’s inaugural Black Folks’ Correspondents’ Dinner Blacksplain…

America.

And one more thing:

It feels like we’re getting a lot of Jay-Z lately.

Or JAŸ-Z. Or Shawn Corey Carter. Whatever you want to call him (or however you want to stylize his name), it feels like there’s been a barrage of Jay-Z coverage, commentary and celebration as of late.

Just yesterday, Puck, citing multiple unnamed sources, broke the news that Jay-Z has reportedly chosen himself to headline Super Bowl LXI at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, Calif., in February. As of now, that information is unconfirmed, but it hasn’t been denied either.

This comes right after 50 Cent went viral for lobbing hate in Jiggaman’s direction, claiming Jay-Z never dominated the musical landscape, though he acknowledged the cultural force that was (and apparently still is) Jay-Z; put a pin in this. Oddly, 50 asked the co-hosts on The Flagrant podcast how Jay was doing during Tupac and Biggie’s run, making him sound like a hater from jump. Jay’s debut album, Reasonable Doubt, didn’t even drop until June 1996, when Tupac and Biggie were both hip-hop’s biggest stars AND at the height of a personal beef that turned into a media shitstorm of coastal proportions.

Meanwhile, I doubt 50 would have had much to say about Nas’ Illmatic, long considered a gold standard of hip-hop and arguably a GOAT album, which didn’t even reach platinum status until 2001—seven years after its 1994 release. I can’t speak for 50 Cent there, and I’m speculating, but I feel pretty good about that speculation.

50 Cent questioning Jay’s musical dominance comes on the heels of Jay’s shows at New York City’s Yankee Stadium, celebrating the 30th anniversary of Reasonable Doubt and the 25th anniversary of The Blueprint. Sure, it’s highly likely that those shows were successful not just because of the music but because nobody wanted to miss a cultural moment happening in New York City with one of hip-hop’s greatest rappers, but I mean, that moment doesn’t happen in the first place without the music mattering over Jay’s decades-long run.

Even now, in real time, HBO is running the JAY-Z in 8 docuseries where Jay and producer Rick Rubin sit down in a Parisian art hall to discuss the lyrics to some of his biggest songs and some of the most obscure, in an attempt to allow viewers into the mentality and thought process of Jay. While I have enjoyed it—I think almost every rapper needs to sit down and do something like this to tell their story their way—the project has drawn criticism as a self-indulgent vanity project. I mean, sure, it is; it is also compelling if you’re a Jay-Z fan who still argues about which album is his best, Reasonable Doubt or The Blueprint—I think it’s the former.

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You can call Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy a lot of things, but you can’t call him a punk.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has reportedly tried to kill Zelenskyy at least a dozen times since the full-scale invasion began in 2022. The ruler of one of the world‘s most powerful militaries is using all of its technological might—with help from China and North Korea—to pound Zelenskyy’s country into submission. Putin’s airstrikes kill Ukrainian civilians almost on a daily basis; Russian soldiers rape and pillage in the towns and villages they occupy and attempt to freeze the populace to death.

Still, Ukrainians aren’t pressing Zelenskyy to throw in the towel.

When Russia claimed it had taken control of the frontline battle city of Kupiansk, Zelenskyy pulled up and took selfies, mocking Putin on social media. He basically told Putin to “meet me outside.” Same at the start of the war when Zelenskyy told Western leaders, “I need ammunition—not a ride,” after they offered to help him flee Kyiv as Russian soldiers advanced on the city. And if you think that’s badass, a group of Ukrainian soldiers defending an island on the Black Sea famously said, “Russian warship, go fuck yourself,” after they were told they’d be bombed to death if they didn’t surrender. Ukraine created a stamp to commemorate their defiance and show the world that Ukrainians are literally “about that life.”

These are the people President Donald Trump is trying to pressure into a one-sided deal with Putin.

As someone who has been living in Ukraine since 2009 and has covered the war full time since 2022, I can tell you that Ukrainians are fight-to-the-death type of people who have grown used to sunbathing on the beach during drone attacks, serving coffee to patrons even after their facilities are damaged from airstrikes and pitching tents in their homes to brave freezing temperatures after Russian missile attacks hit a power grid.

Malcolm Nance, an intelligence expert, once told me that Ukrainians are the “white Taliban.”

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On Oct. 9, the blonde white lady who types up Donald Trump’s Truth Social account announced the name of the blonde white lady who would replace the other blonde white lady as the official White House spokesliar.

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“Some of the Negro slaves independently set fire to [a leader’s] house,” The Washington Post reports. “[A]s the fire burnt they all gathered to kill him; and in this way they managed to escape.”

The white people returned to Spain, leaving the self-emancipated Africans behind. But two centuries later, a group of Congolese boys in the hood of South Carolina continued the tradition started by America’s slave revolt. Led by a gangbanger named Jemmy, the 1739 Stono Rebellion shook the entire country and spawned the Negro Act of 1740, which proclaimed “all negroes and Indians… mulattoes or mustizoes…and all their issue and offspring, born or to be born, shall be, and they are hereby declared to be, and remain forever hereafter, absolute slaves.”

Great American thugs include “bandit” and “leader of the late insurrection” Nat Turner; the “slanderous and dirty-minded mulatress” Ida B. Wells; “rapist, pervert thug that wasn’t religious at all,” Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, Fred Hampton, Rosa Parks, Medgar Evers and peaceful civil rights protesters who were dedicated to nonviolence.

Let’s not forget the gangs themselves. Race-based human trafficking was fine, but the anti-slavery movement was controlled by “violent, raving abolitionists.” The gang headquarters known as Emanuel A.M.E. was burned for raising young literate thugs. Lynching was necessary; the anti-lynching movement protected “Black brutes who would attack the womanhood of the South.” The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, the NAACP, the Nation of Islam, the Black Panthers, SNCC, the Universal Negro Improvement Association and even anti-gang organizations were considered dangerous fronts for gangs.

Of course, you knew all that. But can you name any significant Black artist, athlete or teacher who hasn’t been tied to Black thuggery?

W.E.B. Du Bois was a “militant negro leader” who was attacked by the government. Booker T. Washington was much less militant; white people plotted to kill him, too. Paul Robeson was a beloved football player and actor before he became “the most dangerous man in America.” Josephine Baker was a threat. Billie Holiday wrote dangerous songs. Aretha Franklin was down with thugs. So were Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, Sidney Poitier, James Brown, Tupac, Biggie and every single great voice in Black culture.

In America, any Black person who resists oppression automatically becomes a dangerous criminal. There is nothing you can do about it.

And it all began 500 years ago.

So, Happy Thugiversary!

Today’s Reading List

• Before 1619: The secret history of the first African Americans by Michael Harriot

• How the Red Summer of 1919 Created Black Gangs by Michael Harriot

• Kings and Pawns: Jackie Robinson and Paul Robeson in America by Howard Bryant

• The Slave Revolt They Don’t Teach You About by Garrison Hayes

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“Learn.”

Let me learn you about one of the most revered minds in all of America. I’m not saying you ain’t got no learnin’, but if you don’t know about the iconic master te…

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Germany has outlawed herself among the nations because she has disregarded the sacred obligations of law and has made lynchers of her armies…

We proudly claim to be the champions of democracy. If we really are, in deed and truth, let us see to it that we do not discredit our own. I say plainly that every American who takes part in the action of a mob or gives it any sort of countenance is no true son of this great democracy, but its betrayer.

– Woodrow Wilson, July 26, 1918

When Wilson issued his “Statement Deploring the Mob Spirit,” he was comparing America’s lynch mobs to German soldiers who committed massacres, rapes and war crimes during World War I (the German soldiers included a young Iron Cross recipient named Adolf Hitler).

Black America was confused.

Everyone knew Wilson didn’t care about Black people. This was the guy who re-segregated the federal government and hosted Klan movie night in the White House. As commander-in-chief of the U.S. military, he hadn’t been concerned with the mobs that targeted Black WWI veterans. When a white mob organized a terror attack on East. St. Louis’ Black residents in 1917, Wilson said nothing. He had been silent on mass racial violence against Black soldiers in Houston, Black shoppers in Chester, Penn. and Black people just attending a “colored fair” in Lexington, Ken.

In the September 1918 issue of The Crisis, NAACP investigator Walter White cleared up the confusion and explained why one of the most racist presidents in history was suddenly interested in stopping white supremacist violence.

The holocaust.

No, not that one.

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The Black Panther Party embodied the phrase “standing on business” long before that expression came into existence. The Panther “business” in question, of course, was the plight of Black people in America. When they declared “All Power to the People!” it was accompanied by a dream clenched tightly inside their raised fists that America could be forced to do right by all of its citizens.

Oct. 15 marks 60 years since the Black Panthers first sauntered onto the scene. Founded by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale, the organization, whose original name was the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, was formed to protect Black residents against rampant police brutality in Oakland, Calif. The 1940 Census logged 8,462 Black people in Oakland—about 3% of the total population. By 1960, that number had exploded to 83,618, making nearly 1 in 5 Oaktown residents Black. Thousands of Black folks had funneled into the Bay, spurred in large part by shipbuilding jobs throughout World War II, accompanied by hopes of escaping the hell of the Jim Crow South.

What folks found instead was that Jim Crow had brothers, uncles and play cousins on the West Coast.

So they weren’t exactly welcomed with open arms.

Despite landmark legislative civil rights wins preceding the Panthers’ formation, Black America remained plagued with poor housing, health and subpar schoolhouses. The Panthers attempted to dress these open wounds armed with a trifecta of no-nos when paired with Black skin—books, guns and direct aid.

This trifecta immediately got the group pegged by J. Edgar Hoover and his FBI as the “greatest threat to the internal security of the country.”

Two years after their debut, the Panthers began to franchise. Dozens of chapters appeared from coast to coast and the midlands between them. From Philly to my hometown of Portland, the Panther Party was amassing people power.

It’s been 60 years since the Panthers first emerged, but the group has remained a fixture of the American consciousness.

How they’re remembered is a different story.

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Imagine putting everything you own of any value (the cash in your pocket, your credit, bank accounts, clothes, real estate, cars, stocks, investments, the money your cousin owes you, your name and even your reputation) in a pile. Now imagine another pile with all your outstanding debts (loans, bills, unpaid credit cards, that $40 you owe your cousin). The piles are inseparable. You can’t have one without the other.

While there are multiple ways to value the piles, all valuation models use a combination of what I call the “Three Ps.”

1. Pieces: The pile is worth the total value of everything in it. If it has $1 million in cash, $500,000 in stock, $500,000 in real estate and $1 million in credit card debt, the pile is worth $1 million.

2. Price: The pile is worth whatever someone is willing to pay for it. For instance, the only reason a hard drive with 50 unreleased Beyoncé recordings is worth more than 50 hours of me singing in the shower is because of what someone would pay for it.

3. Potential: The pile is worth how much money it could generate for the owner. Even if I owned the exact same lights, cameras and land used in Madea Meets the Holy Ghost, Tyler Perry Studios would still be worth more than Michael Harriot Films.

And Black culture is the most valuable product on the planet.

In 2025, the music industry made $11.5 billion. Hip hop and R&B accounts for about a third to a quarter of music streaming revenue. “Music of Black origin” accounts for 80% of all music revenue. The Black hair care industry made $3 billion last year. Mark Zuckerberg is wealthy because Black teenagers are overrepresented on social media. Black adults are, too. Before the film industry made $33 billion last year, researchers in 2018 found that movies with at least two Black actors perform better domestically and internationally. Another study showed that Black and Hispanic audiences kept Hollywood afloat in 2020 during the COVID pandemic, which just happened to be the highest-grossing year in the history of the film industry.

It’s a form of wealth.

The individual pieces of Black culture are the most valuable part of the music, fashion, tech, advertising and entertainment industries. Our art is the only reason people are willing to pay Spotify’s and Prime’s price to not own their digital media. The culture multiplies the earning potential of marketing firms, musicians, luxury houses and liquor brands.

Anyway…

In 2020, Tesla made a profit for the first time in the history of the company. If you include the $3 billion in profits from 2025, the company has made $44 billion. The largest shareholder (that Nazi-saluting guy) owns around 28% of the company. Most of the company is owned by investment groups. It sells fewer cars than any American manufacturer.

So how the hell is Elon Musk the richest man in the world?

Today’s Reading List:

• Researcher uses hacked studio data to prove racially diverse casts are more profitable by Molly Callahan and Lia Petronio, Northeastern University

• The true Hollywood story of ‘woke’ mermaids by Michael Harriot

• The Black influence: How Black culture & identity drive the market by Nielsen

• A Letter Not From a Birmingham Jail by Michael Harriot

Thank you, , , , , , and many others for tuning into my live video! Join me for my next live video in the app.

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Get the app

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I’ve memorized entire guest lists for cookouts, kickbacks and afterparties to inform reluctant event-goers of “who all gon’ be there.” I’ve studied census records and performed demographic analyses of n…

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I’m a Democratic shill.

Like most Black people, I have frequently criticized the Republican Party’s anti-Black, Christian nationalist pseudo-patriotic policies. I have voted for Democratic candidates in 99.9% of elections. But in the nuance-free universe of social media, anyone who is not a Republican is considered to be a blindly loyal pri…

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Excerpted from “Strung Up: How White America Learned to Lynch Black Children” by Stacey Patton (Beacon Press, 2026). Reprinted with permission from Beacon Press. The book is available now, and we encourage you to buy from Black-owned and independent bookstores.

It’s July 28, 1908. Greenville, Texas. A crowd of 2,500 white adults and children stand should…

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The family patriarch, Logan Roy, essentially controls mainstream news. He is so powerful that he can literally handpick the president. They take helicopters to private jet ports where chauffeurs in luxury limos drive them around their private islands. They have more money than God. Logan’s children’s great-grandchildren will be wealthier than Jesus ever will.

And they are miserable.

Throughout the show, Logan’s children refer to their father’s throne as “it.” In the final scene of the fourth episode of season two, the turmoil-ravaged heir apparent, Kendall Roy, reveals his anguish to his equally tormented sister (and rival) Siobhan. In a moment of tenderness, Kendall reveals the source of his misery. Despite having all the wealth, power and privilege the world could offer, he confesses that, without “it,” his entire existence would be worthless. Or, as Kendall tearfully explained:

“I don’t know what I would be for.”

I think about that a lot.

As someone who wasn’t born with the inheritance of privilege that whiteness offers, I can’t fathom the heart-wrenching melancholy that would make someone doubt the purpose of their very existence. Questioning the meaning or significance of one’s life is understandable. But before Kendall Roy, I didn’t even know it was possible to want more than everything.

I know Succession is a fictional show with fictional characters. Still, I’ve always thought this scene was the best metaphor for whiteness I have ever seen…

Until yesterday, when I read this comment from a ContrabandCamp reader.

Why should any white or half-white person even try? If they are damned to be white supremacist no matter what - what’s the point? Is segregation better?

I understand it now.

Imagine living in a country that was created in your own image. Imagine if the people who controlled the media looked like your daddy and the people on the money looked like your grandfather. Imagine if the people in your house and the worshippers at your church and the people at your Thanksgiving table got to pick the president. Imagine growing up as an heir-apparent to the greatest fortune in the history of the world. Imagine knowing that “it” was possible.

All of it.

Now imagine white supremacy.

Imagine living in a country that was built on labor stolen from 89% of Black people and the stolen land of indigenous people. Imagine a system that took 90% of the land from the hardest-working people in the history of the planet and gave it to you. Imagine a nation where 72.4% of Black children attended underfunded, high-poverty schools. Imagine knowing that Black kids drink contaminated water and breathe unclean air. Imagine a place where Black people were underrepresented in executive positions, politics, mainstream media newsrooms and in the halls of power.

Now imagine a nation filled with people who didn’t do anything about it.

What would you call those people?

Now imagine if, when Black people correctly pointed out who was responsible for these disparities, the nothing-doers were more concerned with being labeled a white supremacist than white supremacy itself.

But I understand why a white person wouldn’t try.

Because they don’t care. Because there is no reason to dismantle a system that benefits them. Because they already have everything. Because you want more. More importantly, because there is a slight possibility that you could someday get “it.”

To answer the question, there is only one reason a white person in America should even try:

Because you are a good person.

Otherwise, I don’t know what white people would be for.

Except more.

This Week’s Reading List

• Americans Don’t Understand Who’s Rich by Owen Zidar and Eric Zwick

• This Ain’t It, Amanda Seales by Michael Harriot

• Writer Michael Harriot Calls Van Jones ‘A Liar’ & Releases Audio Of Jones’ Apology To The Jewish Community by Cassandra Santiago.

• White Water Welfare: Jackson, Baltimore and the other racial wealth gap by Michael Harriot

Thank you, , , , , , and many others for tuning into my live video with ! Join me for my next live video in the app.

Get more from Michael Harriot in the Substack app

Available for iOS and Android

Get the app

Here’s a joke:

Q: What did the Nazi say to the segregationist?

A:

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Seriously. I recently solved a case that had confounded gener…

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I feel like I must start this dispatch with a confession: I have never seen Snowfall. That’s not to say that I didn’t try to watch it—I did. I cannot tell you how many times I tried to watch the first season, but it never clicked for me, which was troubling. It was a show about drugs (I love those—shows about drugs, not the drugs themselves), set in Los Angeles (I love L.A. just like Tupac did, more on this later), and was about the 1980s, which tracks with my childhood. By all accounts, Snowfall should have been a must-watch for me from day one, but it wasn’t, and I’ve struggled with that for years.

Mostly, I struggled because it felt like everyone else seemed to love it. Despite knowing plenty about Franklin Saint and Jerome and Leon and Wanda (and on and on) purely from the conversations I’d seen on social media, Snowfall was a social media darling. It wasn’t Atlanta or Insecure, but it was beloved by many. So, admittedly, when The Drop: A Snowfall Saga was announced, I wasn’t exactly enthralled until I read the description: a story about hip-hop in Los Angeles in the early ’90s. Scrr scrr.

Let’s take a quick detour so that I can tell you a little about me and my upbringing. I have long felt like I should have been from L.A. It is one of my favorite cities. I first set foot in the City of Angels in my early 20s in the early aughts, but I was familiar with the culture and the sound because my 1980s and 1990s listening experiences were largely centered around L.A. While New York City dominated the hip-hop conversations for most of the genre’s early years, my ears were fixated on the West Coast. N.W.A. was my first favorite rap group. DJ Quik has long been one of my favorite artists ever. I listen to Ice Cube’s Death Certificate when I shovel East Coast snow because of how much I hate its powdery, white oppressiveness. Hi-C? Check. MC Eiht? Yep. Above the Law? Of course. Yo-Yo? You can’t play with mine. Snoop, Lil’ Half Dead, RBX and on and on. If there was music coming from the West in the ’90s, I was all in.

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On July 30, 1967, an organized mob of conservative Christians gathered in Charleston, S.C., to hear from one of the most racially divisive religious activists in American history.

Speaking to a standing-room-only crowd, the controversial leader explained that racial disparities were caused by the community’s lack of family values, education…

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