Message from the Associate Editor

Black lives still matter

On Sept 6, 2018, Botham Jean was fatally shot (killed) in his Dallas, Texas apartment by off-duty Dallas police officer Amber Guyger, who mistakenly entered his unit believing it was her own. For this murder, Guyger received a mere 10-year sentence. After serving only seven of those years, she’s now free, out on parole. Civil Rights Attorney Lee Merritt offered his thoughts on that parole, stating: “We are deeply disappointed by the decision to grant parole to Amber Guyger, the former Dallas police officer convicted of murdering Botham Jean. Botham Jean was in his own home, eating ice cream, when his life was taken. He did nothing wrong. He was a son, a brother, a friend, and a man of faith who served his church and his community. He should still be here. Botham’s family and the community strongly opposed this parole. They stood up again and again to ask that the full sentence be served. A 10-year sentence was already a fraction of what was lost. Releasing Ms. Guyger after seven years makes that loss feel even smaller in the eyes of the system. It is not smaller.” Black lives still matter, even as this nation and its institutions move as if they don’t.

Defeating the misinformation monster

According to Michael Bland, executive director of Black Men Vote, Black men between the ages of 18 and 45 are the biggest consumers of misinformation. That means, every place where the bruhs gather becomes a potential breeding ground for actions that block our people from using our voting power to its fullest extent, either not voting or voting for anti-Black candidates based on some dumb “stuff.” Solution one: Listen to Black women. Their track record of seeing through the nonsense and getting to the heart of the matter is unmatched.

Had America and the world listened to Black women, we wouldn’t be on the brink of global collapse right now. Solution two: Brothers must confront misinformation with facts. That’s easier said than done when misinformation is the main currency anti-Black billionaires deal in when they set their social media platforms, cable news networks, etc., to feed us poison. So, brothers with credible info have to make it a point to speak up and speak out more often; hell, all the time, non-stop. Because misinformation is non-stop. Solution three: Don’t share BS on your social media feed. Take two minutes to verify info before posting and swearing it’s the gospel truth.

Stand for Black fathers

With college football cooking, the NFL moving into the second quarter of its season, and the NBA just days away from throwing up the first jump ball of the 2026-27 season, it’s also another season we need to be aware of—Black Father misinformation season. Sportscasters (and their networks) seem almost bound by law to mention “50-‘leven million” times when an athlete grew up with a single mom. Big shout-out to the single moms. But when this narrative is preached like gospel, as if good Black fathers don’t exist, the world believes it, including and especially Blackfolk. What’s crazy is that research conducted by the U.S. government (CDC) has shown that Black fathers are the most active and engaged in their children’s lives than any other fathers. But because this misinformation is preached religiously (especially when watching sports), we accept it as fact—even when we see Black fathers all around us taking care of business, loving, protecting, teaching, and providing for their children. So, the next time you hear a sportscaster bring up the “He/she was raised by a single mother” line as if that fact is critical to that athlete’s ability to make game-changing plays, tell their network, that sportscaster needs to be released on waiver—or at least made to use that same “raised by a single mother” factoid for all the white players it applies to, especially since there are more of them and Black ones.