u/MacroManJr

Wagering just $2 here.

First and foremost: Sub-Saharan Black people deserve better. Period.

Let's also be clear: African- and Caribbean-owned businesses are Black-owned. That's not up for debate, and I support that solidarity wherever it exists.

But let's also be honest about where "Buy Black" came from, and why...

It wasn't some Pan-African slogan looking for a home.

It was foundationally-Black Americans responding to a very specific wound—a people turned into a minority on this U.S. soil, denied the chance to build generational wealth for centuries, with no immigration story to cushion the fall, no second homeland to return to, and no language barrier separating us from the people oppressing us.

We built that framework because nobody else was going to build it for us. Because if Black humanity has a superpower, it's making something out of nothing. But very few people have watched what they created become as globally influential as Black American culture and the movements that came out of it.

"Buy Black" is just the latest example.

So, when the umbrella suddenly expands the moment something we started gains traction—without naming who created it, who fought for it, or who's still paying the price—that isn't solidarity. That's quietly turning someone else's struggle into everyone's victory.

Then, the moment we ask for that history to be acknowledged, we're called exclusionary. Divisive. Too American. Selfish.

We're not trying to keep anybody out. We're trying not to get drowned out, again, at a table we set.

Every framework we've built—Black Power, Black Is Beautiful, Black Excellence, Black Girl Magic, Black Joy, Black Lives Matter, and now Buy Black—gets adopted almost immediately, while the people who created it slowly disappear from the story.

Ask for acknowledgment just once, and suddenly we're the problem.

We're not the problem here. We're the source of the solution. There's a difference.

We're not asking anyone to leave the table. We're asking people to remember who built it.

I didn't want to chance it. Dummy, me.

Don't wait after the game is over to void the leg. Do it immediately. You're holding us back from placing another bet.

They've been hitting these lows lately. Aim even lower.

Someone posted this image on social media with some biting comments.

Lot of us lately have been mad at Jay-Z for a Target-exclusive vinyl variant.

Meanwhile, Tim Cook personally wrote Trump a $1 million check for his inauguration, sat next to him in the Oval Office with a literal gold gift, and got a tariff exemption days later.

Nobody's stopped posting from their iPhone. 🤷🏿‍♂️

I have no gripes at all towards boycotting brands and people who don't align with our well-being. I still don't shop at Target, not that I ever did much, to start.

But, no matter WHO Jay-Z signs with, we don't own that shit.

Not even billion-dollar Jay-Z owns his own shit.

Sit with those two painful facts, for the rest of this opinion post.

Someone almost always owns our options to do deals with. Partly because we don't provide enough of the alternative—we don't even support the ones out trying to be.

🗣️ Boycotts without ownership are just theater. 🗣️

The numbers show why we're mad at the wrong people here:

• We're roughly 13% of the population and 2.7% of employer-owning businesses.

• 96% of Black businesses have no employees at all. One person with a Square reader isn't an alternative to Target.

• Four in ten Black business owners get denied financing outright, versus 18% of white owners.

Until that gap closes, "just don't shop there" is a request with nowhere for the money to go, and few options for a successful Black businessperson to sign with instead.

I'm not telling people not to be mad at Jay. This move is a bit tone-deaf, for sure.

But Jay-Z's not your civil rights leader. He's a business, man. He told you that himself.

He's a businessman in a boycotted store at the worst possible time. That's a fair complaint about judgment, not a betrayal of a movement he never signed up to lead.

If you want a real target for the anger, don't start with stores that dropped "DEI" to appease Trump and other racists. Swing at the people who ruined "DEI," in the first place.

Black Americans weren't even the top beneficiaries of "DEI" policy. What was born by us and for us is no longer lead by or targeted to us.

White women and Latinos got more out of DEI policies and used it freely, then voted for Trump to kill it because these ignorant fools thought "DEI" simply meant "help for Black people."

White women voted for Trump at 52 to 55% in every election since 2016, no surprise there. Latino men swung from 36% Trump support in 2020 to 55% in 2024, after benefiting from infrastructure Black civil rights fights built.

And while that's happening, we're out here buying Gucci bags that keep a French heiress rich, we get excited that Rihanna's Fenty is "ours" when LVMH owns half of it, and we ignore the one time Jay-Z actually tried to build us something to own: TIDAL. It flopped because we didn't support it the way we drink up Spotify.

Meanwhile, in your own households, our own Black Gen-Z kids are dapping up their broccoli-haircut Latino buddies at school as their "niggas" nowadays, going too far with cultural appropriation—same demographic whose dads and uncles voted for Trump to take aim at us as a community. Giving away our culture to people out giving away our future.

But y'all got more words ready for Jay-Z signing with a store to sell his shit? Y'all saying he's giving away the culture to people selling our future?

Miss me with that part, I say.

You mad at a Black man selling his shit with Target? What, was Walmart a better choice? Amazon? Apple? Who? What white-owned business didn't get into bed with Trump? Costco was just about the only one, and they don't sell music exclusives like Target does.

Where can any Black man or woman go to do business that doesn't make him or her a sellout? Few corporations don't have blood on their hands. So, where can a Black businessperson go?

Get it realigned, my people.

I'm not here to defend Jay, per se. I have my own gripes towards him where it's due. But Jay really isn't the point here.

What I'm really saying:

Y'all got more vitriol ready for a successful Black man selling his stuff with yet another grimy white-owned vendor than for the fact our community couldn't get enough Target, Gucci, Nike, and Louis Vuitton, and it doesn't prop up Black-owned businesses enough to give someone like Jay-Z or Rihanna another option to sign with.

That's the move that should actually cost you sleep. We boycott, but we don't buy Black enough.

...We're sellouts, too.

Olivia's been busting everybody's ass, every other night. She scored 28 points with a bunch of threes, last time she faced GSV.

The night I place money on her—even this small wager—and she's a total dud. Not even 3 points and we're reaching halftime.

This is just... 🫠

This should hit, which is why it won't.

Which is why it'll probably lose. 🫠

Three games, five legs, 30% boost applied. Here's how I'm looking at it:

IND Fever -9.5 — Indiana has beaten Chicago six straight times, winning by an average of 23 points. Chicago also just lost Rickea Jackson for the season with an ACL injury. The line is asking Indiana to win by less than half of what they've consistently done in this matchup. Hard not to like the Fever here.

ATL Dream -3.5 + Under 163.5 — Sabrina Ionescu is expected to be out, which takes a major piece out of New York's offense. Atlanta owns one of the league's best scoring defenses, so a slower, lower-scoring game favors both legs. That's exactly the kind of correlation you want in a same-game parlay.

DAL Wings ML + Azzi Fudd Under 16.5 PRA — Dallas comes in at 7-4 against a struggling 4-9 Phoenix team. Fudd is the third option offensively and is averaging around 13.7 PRA on the season, so this line sits a few points above her normal production. If Dallas controls the game, reduced minutes and fewer opportunities make the Under even more attractive.

--

We keep getting close. Let's see if the numbers cash. 🫡

Brotha out here pondering hard. 😰

By all accounts, this SHOULD be a good game for people hitting their baseline.

Fox is the one exception. He'll have to step up today. He's been dragging the team down.

And I say, Wemby has a good offensive night tonight.