I often refer to the economic conditions we see in our Black community is Black-a-nomics. But that description is truly rooted in Feel-a-nomics: the economy that you can feel.

Feel-a-Nomics gets past the philosophical abstractions you hear about so much on the news that politicians use to paint a rosier picture than the reality you’re facing. Feel-a-Nomics doesn’t care about corporate profits or dividend projections because those earnings don’t trickle down to your wallet. It doesn’t pay any attention to inflated job numbers when we know that it takes at least two of those jobs to earn a living wage.

Feel-a-Nomics is the economy that affects every day of your life.

Foreclosure rates are skyrocketing up 21% for the first half of 2026 and car repossessions were up 43% as of January. That’s Feel-a-Nomics because it’s your home on the chopping block and that’s the car you need to get to and from your job.

Credit card debt is surging as more than half of Americans are forced to rely on credit cards to pay for basic needs like groceries, rent and utilities. Student debt has jumped since the Trump administration reversed course on Biden repayment and forgiveness plans. This unconstitutional war has brought us record high diesel prices and fertilizer costs along with 16 unnecessary American deaths with a Feel-a-Nomics impact of higher prices at the pump and the grocery store as it costs our farmers more not just to grow our food, but to send it to us too.

Consumer confidence is at its lowest level since 2014. The median household income in America is $87,460 but it takes a median income of $150,000 to buy a home. Affordable housing is sitting vacant because folks still can’t afford it particularly with the dramatic cuts to SNAP and Medicaid we saw in Trump’s “Big Ugly Bill.”

The MAGA healthcare cuts are piling on new premiums and high deductibles. High inflation, particularly at the gas pump and the grocery store, is cutting our legs from under us. The value of our dollar is shrinking at every turn and it doesn’t matter anymore if you want to get a second or third job because, according to another piss poor jobs report, the work just isn’t out there.

According to the Federal Reserve, the net worth of Black households is down 25%. That’s our home. That’s our community. Those are our families! That’s Feel-a-Nomics and, here in the Black community, it hurts. So let’s turn that pain into progress.

After gutting the Voting Rights Act and more, President Trump and the MAGA Congress has done everything they can to cripple Black progress and Black communities. They’ve picked our pockets and our bodies to the bone. But there’s something we can do about it.

The economics of voting are undeniable and, try as they might, they can’t keep us out of the voting booth. That’s why we have groups like State Voices, Repairers of the Breach, Common Cause, No Kings and more coming together to drive voter mobilization and participation. That’s why Repairers of the Breach is organizing 1,000 marches to the polls across the South and battleground states like North Carolina where 201,609 voters cast their ballots on Thursday’s first of early voting.

That’s a 46.7% increase in early voting from 2022. That’s huge! But it’s just the start.

We need a generational, Presidential year-type turnout if we’re going to turn this ship around and find the Feel-a-Nomics relief we need in our communities. That means we all have to do our part from the streets to the suites.

We need everyone from the PhDs to folks who don’t have a GED. We need the farmers and forklift drivers, college students to life students, front line workers for everyone who works on the line.

We need everyone.

We’ve all felt the impact of MAGAnomics and Trumpism. We’ve all felt the pain whether it’s that empty feeling looking at bills you just can’t pay no matter what you cut or the cramp in your stomach because you’re skipping meals trying to keep the lights on.

We’ve all felt the pain of these Feel-a-Nomics. But the good news is that we have an opportunity right now to do something about it. We have the opportunity to make a change at the ballot box.

But it’s going to take all of us to make it happen. It’s going to take every shoulder against the wheel to push back on the big money holding us down. It’s going to take all of us but we’ve done it before.

Are you ready to do it again?

By Special to The Post

In partnership with Rise East and the 40×40 Council, Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee held a special 2026 State of the City East Oakland community conversation on Oct. 14.

The purpose of bringing a State of the City address directly to the community was to celebrate East Oakland, highlight the work underway, and look ahead to what neighbors, local businesses, youth, funders, community organizations, and partners can accomplish together.

Held at the Roots Community Health/Parker Elementary School Campus at 7929 Ney Ave., the event was emceed by special guest Mark Curry, Oakland native, comedian, and actor.

Lee shared how Rise East and the 40×40 Council have brought together the knowledge, relationships, and resources of people and organizations committed to East Oakland.

Residents bring lived experience, community organizations bring trusted relationships and philanthropy, and businesses bring resources and opportunity, she said, then turned to the government’s role: public investment, services and policy.

But, Lee intoned, City Hall has a responsibility to help connect those efforts.

“I am committed to listening to residents, working across departments and sectors, and helping open doors to opportunity. We must connect neighborhood priorities to the decisions we make about housing, economic development, safety, health and our young people.

City Hall “must be accountable for the results,” Lee said.  “The measure of success is what families experience: greater stability, more opportunity and a stronger sense that they belong and have a future here.

“Tonight is an opportunity to listen to the leaders doing this work, learn what is making a difference and identify where we can do more together,” the mayor said.

Lee went on to moderate a ‘fireside chat’ on the theme: Building Oakland’s Future Together — From Neighborhood Investment to Community Empowerment with:

• Selena Wilson, CEO, East Oakland Youth Development Center
• Greg Hodge, CEO, Brotherhood of Elders
• Carolyn “CJ” Johnson, CEO,  Black Cultural Zone
• Dr. Noha Aboelata, CEO, Roots Health Center

Mayor Barbara Lee’s media relations department provided this report.

By Kitty Kelly Epstein

I am an academic and a community activist. I take women’s issues, including workplace harassment and discrimination, seriously. I have been following the AC Transit Ward 3 election and have become concerned about what I believe is a serious injustice.

Joel Young is an effective AC Transit director.  He has secured more than $600 million for local bus service and fare affordability. He led the Freedom Bus Project, integrating civil rights history, art and transit. He was presiding over the board of AC transit when it won the 2023 Outstanding Public System Award, and he raised $1 million for the hydrogen fuel cell bus program. These are just a few of his accomplishments.

 I reviewed the allegations of unwanted physical contact and harassment made by AC Transit Director Sarah Syed against Director Joel Young, I believe the events of Sept. 24, 2025, have been characterized in a way that does not accurately reflect what occurred.

That interaction took place during a group photo after celebrating the life of a longtime Board member who passed away. From the video I reviewed, it appears that individuals were consoling one another and exchanging hugs in a public setting surrounded by numerous witnesses.

Young’s interaction with Syed appears consistent with those expressions of sympathy and it appears that Young was attempting to extend a gesture of goodwill toward Syed.

          I am concerned by how this incident has been recently used as a political tool to influence the outcome of the AC Transit Ward 3 election and support Young’s opponent.

Syed and her supporters launched a targeted political campaign, first through the Alameda County Democratic Party and subsequently by organizing a letter from a group of majority-white elected officials who have endorsed Young’s opponent against Young, who is Africa American.   

          Furthermore, this manufactured controversy distracts voters from the critical issues facing AC Transit. The public deserves a substantive debate on service reliability, ridership recovery, passenger and operator safety, financial stability, regional equity, and future transportation infrastructure. The electorate should be evaluating which candidate possesses the judgment, experience, and vision to lead AC Transit forward – not reacting to a distorted personal interaction.   

          Regardless of one’s political views or preferred candidate, allegations of harassment should never be weaponized for electoral purposes. We all know that exaggerated or unsupported accusations can undermine public understanding of, and trust in, efforts to address genuine sexual harassment and violence.

Birmingham, Alabama, is on pace to close 2026 with its fewest homicides in roughly 75 years — a turnaround for a majority-Black city that for decades made national headlines for its murder rate.

Birmingham police counted 34 homicides through Oct. 1, down from 61 at the same point in 2025 and 129 at the same point in 2024, Police Chief Michael Pickett said at the department’s third-quarter briefing. The city’s lowest annual total on record is 44, set in 1951. Just two years ago, Birmingham recorded 152 homicides, its deadliest year.

“I did not think that we would have this much of a reduction but of course that’s always the goal,” Pickett said. He put the drop at 74% compared with 2024 and said the department has cleared 91% of this year’s cases.

“Birmingham is on track for our fewest homicides in 75 years,” Mayor Randall Woodfin wrote on Facebook this month, crediting the officers of the Birmingham Police Department, Pickett, and the city’s community violence intervention workers.

The city’s bet runs on two tracks. On the policing side, Pickett has pointed to the department’s crime reduction plan, enforcement targeting illegal firearms, and cooperation with federal agencies. On the community side, Birmingham has put about $5.4 million in American Rescue Plan money into violence intervention programs: a hospital-based partnership with UAB Hospital, the Jefferson County Department of Health, the Offender Alumni Association, and Violence Intervention and Prevention Partners that places specialists at the bedsides of people wounded by gunfire; a street outreach team run with the Urban League of Alabama; a Group Violence Reduction Strategy with the National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform; and One Hood. With the one-time federal dollars expiring, the city council extended the hospital-linked program through June 2027 with $1.15 million and put $3 million for community violence intervention — a $1.5 million increase — into the city’s fiscal 2027 budget. Whether every program is fully covered once the federal money runs out remains unclear.

The honest caveats: murders are falling across the country, too — crime analyst Jeff Asher projects the lowest U.S. murder rate ever recorded in 2026, after the FBI reported the national homicide rate hit a 75-year low in 2025 — and nobody can prove which piece of Birmingham’s approach drove the drop. One category is moving the wrong way: domestic violence offenses are up 18.3% this year, the chief said. “This is not something the police department can handle alone,” Pickett said of the domestic violence increase.

Two accounting notes readers deserve: the mayor’s latest post says homicides are down 46% from last year, while the police department’s own Oct. 1 numbers work out to about 44% — and a May fact-check by ABC 33/40 found an earlier Woodfin figure slightly overstated. Separately, Bhamwiki counts 38 homicides as of Oct. 1 because it includes police-involved and justified cases; the police count is 34. And the pace math matters: 34 homicides through Oct. 1 projects to roughly 45 for the full year — just above the 1951 record of 44. So “fewest since 1951” is within reach; a new all-time low likely isn’t.

What’s working to make your neighborhood safer? Tell us.

Drafted by News Observed Editorial AI, human reviewed and published.

Based on reporting by Bakersfield News Observer.

A mobilization is unfolding across tribal nations ahead of the November election. Driven by real data and a rising wave of young organizers, Native American voters are challenging systemic barriers to political power.

For generations, Native Americans have been treated as an invisible constituency in public life. Michael Roberts, president and CEO of the First Nations Development Institute, said that misrepresentations about native voters have clouded media narratives over recent years. Following the 2024 presidential election, relying on flawed national exit poll data, media placed some blame on Native Americans for the political shift.

“So while the media was trying to find a brown boogeyman on why Mr. Trump was in office … we had real data to show just the opposite,” noted Roberts.

A First Nations sample of 500 to 1,000 self-identified native voters revealed that 57 percent voted for Kamala Harris.

Roberts said the data showed attitudes reflective of the general public. Native voters are deeply concerned with inflation, the economy, affordability, and housing access. Yet they are also uniquely driven by tribal sovereignty, native languages, and cultural traditions. These cultural issues often drive them to the polls more than everyday pocketbook concerns.

Politically, Native Americans are not a monolith. With 475 tribes spread across 38 states and territories, traditional party lines are difficult to find. Roberts noted that analysts cannot view native voters through a simple black-and-white, Republican-or-Democrat lens.

Despite their potential to swing critical regions like Michigan and Alaska, native communities are largely ignored by major campaigns. First Nations data indicates that 50 percent or more of native voters have never been contacted by election campaigns. And nonprofit groups representing these communities remain severely underfunded.

Systemic barriers compound the neglect. Melissa Rogers, a professor of politics and policy at Claremont Graduate University, said upwards of 50 percent of native populations live within 20 miles of tribal homelands, debunking the myth of a sharp urban-rural Indian divide. Yet sadly, voting costs and distance barriers remain high on tribal lands.

Many reservations are so rural that residents must travel to distant county seats to collect mail or to register and vote. In Nevada, Duck Valley Reservation residents historically faced a 100-mile one-way drive to the Elko County seat just to cast a ballot or register in person.

Rogers noted that academic research shows tribal voting surges when registration and polling places are established directly on tribal lands.

Alternative options like mail-in voting face severe trust issues due to recent political attacks. Additionally, strict voter identification laws disproportionately disenfranchise native voters who often lack traditional physical addresses or state driver’s licenses.

In North Dakota, where the native vote is vital to a current Senate race, the state abruptly disallowed non-traditional addresses and post office boxes. Rogers warned that restrictive ballot deadlines, such as Arizona’s requirement that ballots arrive by election night, threaten to disenfranchise voters on the Navajo Nation due to slow rural mail delivery.

A historical skepticism remains, tied to past trauma. Rogers said federal government workers knocking on doors historically meant taking children, land, and resources from native households. The distrust extends to the census, which has long undercounted reservation populations.

A new crisis unfolds as federal proposals threaten to eliminate the American Indian and Alaska Native racial designations from official counts. Policy and funding decisions rely on these figures. Rogers warned that excluding native counts would devastate federal tribes.
In response, Native Organizers Alliance Executive Director Judith LeBlanc, a citizen of the Caddo Tribe of Oklahoma, said a national survey of 16,000 native people showed a fierce commitment to cultural continuity and essential human services.

When Congress pushed to try to make Big Cyprus into a wilderness area, which would have destroyed 11 traditional villages, burial grounds and medicine collection areas, her organization stood up for the rights of natives.

They also stood up for the rights of nature, and with the help of environmental groups, were able to document and mitigate the damage done by Alligator Alcatraz.

The organization’s surveys are fueling a new urgency among young voters. In Maine, Sage Phillips, co-coordinator of the Wabanaki Policy Youth Initiative, is leading youth to register voters, educate elders, and lobby the state house.

Wabanaki youth are pressuring candidates in gubernatorial, congressional, and local races to amend the 1980 Maine Indian Land Claims Settlement Act, which currently blocks local tribes from accessing beneficial federal laws.

Activists say the movement is about fulfilling an ancestral responsibility to protect sovereignty, lands, and future generations. But, the final hurdle rests on the integrity of the polling places themselves.

Over the last decade, targeted attacks on the voting system have made access significantly harder, Rogers said.

For information regarding local polling place availability, hours of operation, and rules ensuring a secure voting environment, citizens should check with official county election authorities and state election boards.

Ensuring that future elections remain open, equitable, and free of intimidation is critical for all citizens—especially American Indian voters.

The post Ancestral Responsibility: Young Native Voters Fight Political Invisibility appeared first on North Dallas Gazette.

Based on reporting by North Dallas Gazette.

For generations, the Black church has stood strong in our communities through every historical change this country has experienced. During the civil rights movement and in recent times, faith leaders have helped uplift Black sanctuaries to register voters, keep food pantries open for people in need, and sit with families in hospital rooms in their most desperate moments. When our people faced new trials, they could always look to our faith leaders and the church to lean in to help us be included in these transformative changes.

Artificial intelligence is the latest revolutionary change to impact our society, and much like other transformations before us, underserved communities often get left behind.

I was recently featured in a report entitled “Faith, Community & AI” and it found that people send ChatGPT more than 70 million messages a week about religion. Nearly 22 million involve studying sacred texts, and 16 million ask about religious practices and holy days. Our members make up part of those numbers. They bring questions of faith to these tools every day.

Pastors have noticed, and according to a September 2025 Lifeway Research survey of 1,003 Protestant pastors, 42 percent said they use or experiment with AI in ministry. I count myself among them.

I write my sermons by hand, through prayer and study. When I finish a draft, I ask ChatGPT this question: “Where might this sermon become unclear or difficult to follow for someone early in their walk of faith?” It shows me gaps in my preparation, like where I incorrectly assumed everyone would know the context of who the Pharisees were. Then, change comes from my own pen, not the robot. The tool helps me reach the person in the back pew while the message still comes from me.

If I could have my wish, our whole community would take a similar posture. We must use these tools, understand them, and most importantly be present to help shape them if we want to be included in the coming change.

I implore my fellow faith leaders to use these tools. Start now and use them with wisdom. We count on each and every one of you to make sure our communities help write the next chapter of this story. This rapid change is not as unfamiliar as it may sound. My first understanding of AI came from using a calculator for the first time in grade school. We did not call it AI, but it was a tool that helped me work through mathematical equations hours more efficiently.

It starts with training; there is no involvement without understanding. Free AI trainings have begun in our churches and community centers across the nation. Every faith leader should sign up and, when possible, encourage members of your congregations to join you. By learning how to use AI, we can better understand what it can do, make up our own minds about its impact, and have a say in how it shapes our communities.”

Next, we must be at the tables where the builders of these tools make decisions. Presence is the first step toward understanding, and that gap is only bridged through a coordinated effort. How can any tool serve a community well if that community is not part of the conversation? Our traditions, needs, and concerns must be accounted for, and Black faith leaders are already making that happen. OpenAI’s recent Faith report states plainly that AI should never become an arbiter of religious truth. I fully intend to hold the company to its word, and the most effective way I can do that is from inside.

I will close with this––we must diligently protect what only the church can give. A believer in Seoul, Korea quoted in the report warned, “if you pour every struggle into a private chat, your pastor and your friends may never learn you need help.” A chatbot will not sit with a grieving family or pray with you at two in the morning. As we adopt this technology, it is up to us to ensure it keeps people connected to each other and to their church.

Rev. Dr. Adolphus Lacey is senior pastor of Bethany Baptist Church in Brooklyn, New York.