Woodson Book
Let’s start here, shall we?
The fine folks at the Woodson Center, including the man himself, interviewed me last year and invited me to participate in their upcoming publication. It was a privilege and I’m very pleased to announce that the book will be coming out at the end of the summer which is fast approaching. So scrape your pennies together and be prepared.
Not being a journalist nor an educator, I’m very pleased to be a bit more independent of those professional fetters. I think I’m telling it more like it is to a more mature and sophisticated audience. It makes me a bit more impatient, and sometimes more dense. But I’m trying always to share not only what I’m thinking, but how I’m thinking. I’m not instructing, so I take liberties with analogies and such. Ultimately, it’s how to think about facts that matters more than the existence of facts. AIs will show us this in no uncertain terms, although there will be similar legions attempting to say otherwise. The earth is not flat. It always bears repeating, in a unique and human way.
Heterodox Academy Conference
Of course it cuts cuts both ways that I am neither educator nor journalist. Just an American writer. So as I am scheduled to speak here at the HxA Conference in Chicago, there’s that fact to consider.
How does a kid raised to be a Black Nationalist end up an entrepreneur in Business Intelligence? Well, it wasn’t easy, especially considering my expectations of race and those of others. As I speak to the conferees I will try to get folks inside of my head with regard to the conflicts and compromises made about what I presumed to be my strategic direction as a college student.
I think I will sum it up this way: There is a choice between education by Privilege vs education by Trauma. Everybody learns both ways, but the expectations are, that for black Americans, there’s a great deal of trauma to overcome, and society will grant them no privileges. Yet there they are, college students, but not quite individuals. The carrots and sticks are different because of racial reasoning. It’s killing all of us. I should know, it almost killed me. Ha! I’m not going to say that because it never came close. That would be conceding the field to trauma. Do I look or sound traumatized to you? But yeah some of our ethics are crippled by racial reasoning. I leave that to proper scholars to quantify the facts, if there are any proper scholars remaining.
Black Fathers
Coming up is a great podcast I recorded this week hosted by Stephanie Winn. Along were two remarkable men, Jeremiah Wallace and Adam B. Coleman and we spent a healthy amount of time debunking myths, relating compelling stories and discovering different ways to express and overcome the specific challenges of fatherhood. It’s going to move people to tears of compassion, I think. The enemies of compassion play their race games and get published, but.. well, they don’t know us very well, do they?
This will be my third episode with Stephanie who grew up in my hometown just adjacent to my West Adams neighborhood in Baldwin Hills. I love what she’s doing when it comes to matters of mental health. Her integrity is inspiring.
Wise Elders
As many of you know, I have a regular podcast with Wink Twyman in which we cordially and lightheartedly do our avuncular thing. In our latest show, Number 6, out this week is a reflection on what we’re seeing and thinking about what has been transpiring on campus recently. Why should youth listen to us, and what do we hear when we listen to them? I think we’re finding our groove.
In this episode, Wink and Michael delve into the notion of wise elders and the gap between generations, reflecting on past events' impact and current influences on younger generations. They examine the motivations behind youth activism and the societal role of wise elders, exploring constructive versus destructive activism and societal power dynamics. The conversation extends to the influence of social media, diverse ambitions within the Black community, and the lack of dynastic political power. They also discuss the challenges of being a wise elder, including bridging the generation gap and the importance of wisdom, courage, and probity, ultimately concluding with the reminder that wisdom comes with experience.
Thanks again to you, my dedicated subscribers and those of you new to Stoic Observations. Here’s a plug for Human Race Man - that makes Five.
Oops! I accidentally hit the send button. I wasn’t finished. “to come to grip with the feelings I never learned to express growing up stoic.”… I meant to say. In other words, I had to learn to overcome my stoic upbringing. That’s why I don’t accept the terms “stoic” as a healthy human race way of being.
I like the term “human race man.“ I have problems with Stoic. Again, stoic means…https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-three-minute-therapist/202301/a-critique-of-stoicism
Don’t get me wrong, growing up in a stoic household served me extremely well - was absolutely key to my learning to embrace, humanistic values over racial values. Still, I eventually did have to through a long, therapeutic developmental process come to grip with the feelings I never learned to express growing up stoic.