I read a statistic that deeply affected me: There are almost 40,000 suicides every year in America. I find myself questioning what role, if any, our society plays in helping someone make the choice to end life? 

The suicide rate has tripled for the 15 to 24 age group. This gives me pause. These are the kids I mentor, tutor and lift weights with: I have friends who have children in this increasingly troubled demographic.

I firmly believe the two party system, as it currently exists, lacks the ability and will to structurally better the lives of everyday people. Much of my critique revolves around the grotesque amount of money in politics and the corporate media's failure to accurately report on economic, political, and social events. The democratic component of our republic has been circumvented, and we (as a nation) need an intellectual awakening (or reawakening) to recover it. Since it would be virtually impossible to remove money from politics or make the corporate media do it's job, I'm led to believe a few moderate changes could lead us down the road to a higher political discourse. One of these ideas is to embrace "authentic" black conservatives. The "authentic" is an appropriation of a thesis offered by Chidike Okeem (a writer and conservative commentator). Chidike calls for authentic black conservatives to push back against the "artificial" black conservatives who parrot talking points given to them by the conservative media noise machine.

In theory it would be easy to raise the minimum wage and help millions of people in poverty. There is, however, a consequence that comes with doing this: a small percentage of those who need the most help would be hurt as some jobs would be reduced or eliminated. There's enough Prima facie evidence for us to admit that low wages and depressed living standards are a structural part of our economy. Many industries are dependent on a supply of low skilled and immobile labor. I'm not sure if we can untangle the necessity for human suffering from our economic equation.

If you Google black on black crime you'll be bombarded by statistics detailing inner city violence, pictures of chalk outlines and countless stories about the lives that have been destroyed. What you won't find are many stories chronicling the history of the black bourgeois attacking poorer and less educated blacks. This form of black on black crime is used by reactionaries to validate the criminalization of blacks. The most tasteless form of these attacks are leveled by "elites" who seek to distance themselves from the negative imagery associated with black life. There's a very lucrative conservative media market for blacks willing to denigrate other blacks.