Let's tell the truth, even when it's uncomfortable.
Every election cycle, somebody says, "I'm just voting for the lesser of two evils."
And I get where that feeling comes from. Because if we're being honest, there are elected officials who have often frustrated me, too.
They've been too timid when communities needed courage. Too willing to negotiate away priorities that working families depend on. Too focused on playing defense when people needed them to fight. They've missed opportunities. They've disappointed voters. They've earned criticism.
But let's stop pretending that's the same thing as what we're seeing from the opposition.
Every Generation has a Nolan Wells
The death of Nolan Wells sits heavily on my heart because it is painfully familiar. Nolan Wells was a son, a friend, a neighbor, a young Black teenager whose life carried promise. People who knew him have mentioned his warmth, his loyalty, his humor, and the way he showed up for others. His life deserved the fullness of what was likely a trajectory to greatness. His story deserved more than its abrupt end. So, no, I will not move on, and neither should you.
Black August in the Age of Billionaires
Black August is not only about naming harm. It is about building the discipline required to transform it.
It calls us to sharpen our analysis of how wealth moves through Wisconsin. It calls for us to strengthen our organizing. It calls for us to deepen our narrative power, so communities understand who is shaping our conditions and why. It calls on us to reject scarcity mindsets that tell us to expect less, settle for less, or fight over crumbs.
Billionaires Are Killing Us - Part One
Sometimes I dream about becoming wealthy so that I can buy a warehouse and make it a safe place for kids, teens and homeless people. A place where all are welcome, and no one needs a dime to be fed and sheltered. But, at last, I am not greedy enough to become a billionaire. Because to obtain a billion dollars, one has to be complicit in the state of the world.
We Don’t Need More Allies
Allyship is a practice! Allyship is a set of behaviors that must be demonstrated consistently, especially when it’s inconvenient, uncomfortable, or unglamorous.
My preferred term is Equity Broker. Being an Equity Broker means helping to alter the policies and practices everywhere that they are needed, at work, at school, at home, in your neighborhoods, literally everywhere. This means never going off the clock and putting your ally hat away; it is true labor. Equity Brokers understand that there is power in diversity and are prepared to put words to action by giving up their power.
Regurgitation in “Whitespeak” Is Pissing Me Off
The regurgitation of what Black leaders say filtered, softened, repackaged, and repeated back to us in “whitespeak” is pissing me off.
Let me be very clear, I am talking to anyone who has ever paraphrased something a Black person (or any person of color) has said to make it more palatable. Or to make it clearer to a larger audience. That paraphrasing into “whitespeak” is a form of erasure.
The System Isn’t Broken, It’s Working Exactly As Designed
When something keeps breaking, you don’t yell at the worker. You examine the system that produced the failure. You find the waste, the gap, the bottleneck, the harm, and you fix that. If it can’t be fixed, then you create something new.