POLITICS
Tanden’s mean tweets are only part of the story
The Senate recently confirmed Shalanda Young as the deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Young will serve as acting chief of the OMB while President Joe Biden seeks a replacement for his original nominee, Neera Tanden, who withdrew from consideration last month.
Tanden’s nomination failed after Republicans and Joe Manchin, a purported Democrat, voted not to confirm Tanden, ostensibly due to her previous social media comments. If not for Manchin’s no vote, Tanden likely would have managed to squeak through the confirmation process.
Republican Senators pitching a fit over Tanden’s mean tweets is unsurprising, given their…
Thirty years ago, I rolled my eyes at the trope. Now I don’t.
When Eddie Murphy’s rom-com Boomerang premiered in 1992, the critical reception was lukewarm at best, but over time, the film earned its place as an underrated ’90s classic. Arguably one of Murphy’s best films and the launchpad for several now-familiar Black entertainers, from Halle Berry and Tisha Campbell-Martin to John Witherspoon and Chris Rock, the movie portrays a vision of Black culture that was probably over the heads of most movie critics of its day.
One of the film’s most interesting characters is Tyler, the best friend to Marcus, Murphy’s character. Portrayed by Martin Lawrence, Tyler is a Black man…
CULTURE
Why my son’s brush with prison was the closest I’ll ever come to knowing how white privilege feels
Binge-watching is one of my family’s guilty pleasures. A few weeks ago, we powered through Your Honor, a limited series on Showtime starring Bryan Cranston. Without spoiling the plot, Cranston plays a judge whose son is involved in a hit-and-run accident resulting in a fatality. Set in New Orleans, the series explores just how far outside the law he will go to keep his kid out of jail. Cranston uses his power and authority as a judge to illegally manipulate the wheels of justice— including the police and even the jury in a different criminal case.
But there’s a way for Chuck Schumer and Kamala Harris to neutralize the two heterodox senators
I spent my teenage years in Pine Bluff, a sleepy town in south-central Arkansas. Across the street from our house was the Pine Bluff Commercial, the town’s newspaper. Behind the paper’s brick building was a large grassy piece of land that the newspaper owners allowed the neighborhood kids to use for sandlot sporting events.
We always had plenty of players to field two teams, but we never seemed to have enough equipment to go around. Not everyone had a baseball glove, and we didn’t always have a decent baseball for our games.
Fortunately for us, there was Corey, a kid…
Growing up, I thought the institution was an urban legend. The truth was worse.
History is fascinating. It is a work in progress. It evolves. Many times, the history we think we know is but a fable. But every so often, long-hidden history, not to be ignored, reaches out from the depths of obscurity, extending a hand from the distant past to tap us on the shoulder.
This is the story of one of those times.
My three brothers and I spent part of our childhood years in Little Rock, Arkansas. It was the 1960s. …
TRUE STORIES
The one summer job I’ll never forget
After my freshman year at the University of Arkansas, I landed a summer job at an older cousin’s car dealership. It was the 1970s, and my entrepreneurial relative was a big deal.
At the time, Bob Harrison Ford & Lincoln Mercury did well enough to rank 64th in the BE100s — Black Enterprise Magazine’s list of the country’s most successful Black-owned companies.
Since I was a member of the family, I had a place to live rent-free. My cousin had a beautiful home — he even had a swimming pool. …
TRUE STORIES
A brief tale of my first experience with hedge funds.
About a year after 9/11, I had a job interview for a sales-trading position at Burlington Capital, a trading firm in one of the Trump buildings on Wall Street. I’d never heard of them, but since I was relatively new to the City, that didn’t mean much.
I’d moved to New York in late 2000 to reinvent myself after closing the investment firm I’d started five years earlier in Little Rock, Arkansas. …
THIS IS AMERICA
The January 6th attack on the US Capitol was a stark reminder of America’s two systems of justice.
On May 15, 2010, 16-year-old Kalief Browder, a Black teenager from the Bronx section of New York, was arrested on suspicion of stealing a backpack containing $700 in cash, a digital camera, a credit card, a debit card, and an iPod Touch. New York City police did not find the allegedly stolen backpack or the other items in question on Browder during their search.
The alleged victim of the crime subsequently altered their story multiple times, changing the date the crime occurred and even suggesting that the robbery never actually took place. …
TRUMP IMPEACHMENT #2
Chuck Schumer and Senate Democrats could use the 14th Amendment to disqualify Trump from ever holding elected office again
On January 13th of this year, President Donald Trump was impeached for the second time, becoming the first twice-impeached president. The House impeached Trump with a single article: “Incitement of Insurrection.”
House Democrats pushed forward with their plan to remove Trump with only days left in his presidency, approving a resolution urging Vice President Mike Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment to the Constitution to remove Trump with a Cabinet vote. The resolution passed by a 223–205 vote.
Democrats proceeded with their resolution even though Pence, who, after meeting with the President for the first time since the mob attack…
PANDEMIC RELIEF
The President-elect’s economic recovery advisor believes $2,000 checks will screw up the entire economy — and he’s not so sure you should get $600 checks either.
Every once in a while, I’m in the middle of writing my next piece or working on the book I’m allegedly writing when something out of left field stops me cold.
If that ‘something’ is wrong enough, I put aside whatever I’m working on and start rage-writing — very similar to rage-tweeting, it just takes longer. For the last four years, the ‘something out of left field’ that usually gets me going is something President Trump or one of his GOP sycophants said on television.
The last time this phenomenon happened was when Larry Kudlow, the National Economic Council director…
Marlon Weems
Raconteur. Recovering Capitalist. I write about politics, the economy, race, and inequality. Connect with me: https://linktr.ee/thejourneyman
