LEVEL

I had the distinct pleasure of attending a talk by visionary entrepreneur and economic activist John Hope Bryant, and I left with one resounding takeaway: If Black people are going to close the racial wealth gap, it won’t be through speeches, slogans, or symbolic gestures. It’ll be through ownership and investment. In a country where generational wealth gaps clearly follow the legacy of systemic racism, Bryant is calling for a new kind of revolution.

I’ve heard the term “free and fair elections” thrown about recently, and I’m not sure they’ve ever been a thing. To determine whether America has ever had free and fair elections, we must establish what those elections are. Americans generally define free and fair elections as those in which every eligible voter can cast a ballot without coercion, and all ballots are counted accurately under rules applied equally to everyone. That’s the baseline.

Watching a predominantly female Black league like the WNBA slowly succumb to misogynoir has been nothing short of exhausting. Indeed, in an age in which false narratives are contrived and deployed in real time, watching so many demonize Black women, who are very much still the lifeblood of the WNBA, is actually infuriating. The WNBA is officially at the top of its game. Players are getting more money and endorsements than ever, and there has been a 21% increase in viewership since 2024.

Joan Sebastian Guerrero was 26. He had a wife, a three-year-old daughter in Bluey pajamas, and a work authorization card issued by the same federal government that just shot him dead in a Kia sedan on a street in Biddeford, Maine. He was on his way to a food delivery job at seven in the morning on July 13. He was not the person ICE was looking for. The agents who killed him weren’t wearing body cameras. His daughter saw his body. Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was 52. Construction worker. Father of three.

I remember in my early days with a major marketing corporation, I was more available than anyone. Including on Slack. The early risers on the trampoline firing off musings? I was responding, taking notes and following up the next morning or taking the idea off Slack to email. The late-night parents checking in after kid bedtimes? I was there, filling them in if they had missed anything.

I had the distinct pleasure of attending a talk by visionary entrepreneur and economic activist John Hope Bryant, and I left with one resounding takeaway: If Black people are going to close the racial wealth gap, it won’t be through speeches, slogans, or symbolic gestures. It’ll be through ownership and investment. In a country where generational wealth gaps clearly follow the legacy of systemic racism, Bryant is calling for a new kind of revolution.

Before she was suggested by Donald Trump for appointment as an interim Senator from South Carolina to replace her deceased older brother, Lindsey Graham, I’d never heard of Darline Graham Nordone. Darline Graham’s history is rooted in public‑service work that rarely makes headlines but forms the backbone of state‑level governance. Born nine years after her brother Lindsey Graham, she grew up in Central, South Carolina, in a family that lived behind their parents’ bar and liquor store.

Approximately 7:20 a.m. on July 13, 2026, ICE shot and killed the wrong man in a vehicle stop in Biddleford, Maine. Protesters have flooded Maine communities, including the offices of Republican Senator Susan Collins, whose deciding vote approved an additional $70 billion in funding last month. That funding was supposed to secure additional training and body cams, among other things. The ICE officers involved in the shooting weren’t wearing body cams.

Reconsidering a tradition that protects legacies more than truth. My mother taught me it’s wrong to speak ill of the dead. I honored her wishes following the recent passing of Lindsey Graham, yet I am compelled to stand idly by while others lionize him and propose actions to honor him that even he may not have approved of.

I’m in the armpit of summer so the cookouts smoke a-plenty — three weekends straight of graduations and anniversaries. Love and country and a Knicks championship. I can celebrate more life by just living. I imagine my kin dearly, dollar-winin’ as our days get long and then short again. I see Brooklyn sunrises ruing the feeling that our overall day count also shortened a little. A while ago, I was in Rahway, New Jersey with my girlfriend’s family.