My 2 cents

Table of Contents

1. The Illusion of “Moving On”
2. The Anatomy of Agitation: When Facts Feel Like an Affront
3. The Monolith Trap and the Demand for a Corporate Manager
4. The Institutionalization of the Blind Spot: The War on Memory
5. The Co-Optation of Culture: Confusing Heritage with Hollywood
6. The Anatomy of Silence: Arming the Engaged Supporter
7. Conclusion: The Horizon of Facts
8. Glossary of Key Concepts
9. Bibliography & Data Sources

1. The Illusion of “Moving On”

Every so often, well-meaning readers—both supporters and detractors of My Two Cents—will send me a message asking a variation of the same question:

“Ed, why do we still need to focus so much on Black history? Haven’t we moved past that? For the most part, people understand the contributions. We should be able to just move on.”

It’s a comfortable argument. It paints a picture of an America that has calmly graduated past its racial blind spots, a place where Black excellence is so widely accepted that highlighting it is redundant. But I have a counter-question: If society has truly “moved on,” why does highlighting Black culture still cause so much immediate, visceral panic?

If everyone truly understood and accepted these contributions, a simple post about the depth of Black heritage wouldn’t read like a psychological battlefield.

When I published my recent article, Race vs. Culture: Decoding America’s Blind Spot on Black Heritage, I argued that a profound double standard prevents many Americans from seeing Black heritage as a rich, resilient ethnicity rather than a political grievance. I didn’t have to wait long for data. Within hours, my Facebook comment section transformed into a living laboratory, perfectly illustrating every psychological defense mechanism, media-driven myth, and double standard I had just written about.

The raw agitation of the detractors proved that the work is far from over. But more importantly, the nature of the thread revealed the true reason we cannot “just move on.” We aren’t writing to change the unchangeable minds of internet trolls. We are writing to build an intellectual armory for the people who want to stand up for truth but need the hard data to do it.

2. The Anatomy of Agitation: When Facts Feel Like an Affront

The moment you highlight Black achievement or address historical trauma, a specific segment of America experiences an existential crisis. They look at history through a zero-sum lens: they believe that if one group gets a spotlight, their own history is being dimmed.

Take a commentator on my post named Robb, who countered my article by writing about his family’s European lineage and sarcastically demanding “reprisal money.”

Robb Nordell: “My ancestoral linage is Scotch/Irish. Dutch. Norwegian a Swede. I want a WHOLE month ta Celebrate. O Yaa. An I want a couple hunnert thousand bucks cause those nasty ole British peoples was mean ta me an shootin at me. An an an.”

When I laid out the cold, historical facts—that the British government didn’t spend 250 years legally banning his ancestors from owning property, reading, or keeping their own children, followed by 100 years of legal segregation—Robb immediately pivoted. He left the historical argument entirely and began complaining that “white mountain men explorers” weren’t getting enough credit.

Robb Nordell: “Yaa so all them Nasty Ole white mountain men explorers had nothing to do with settling this country. One a them was my great great great uncle so I want reprisal money. It’s only fair Right”

This is the defensive equalizer mindset. It tries to equate a family history of adventurous exploration with centuries of state-sanctioned human trafficking and systemic wealth stripping. It’s a failure of basic logic driven by a fear of facing the facts of how American wealth was actually built.

Then there is the Navy veteran, Bob, who tried to use a 50-year-old sea story about a Black mechanic making a mistake in 1974 to argue against “raising up American culture.”

Bob Gillette: “BALONEY! I was in the Navy from 74 to 80… Powers that be decided there weren’t enough Negroes in the FTG rating. Reason: Negroes could not pass the minimum requirements. Solution was lower the requirements. When I got to the fleet, I saw a direct result… we had a Negro machinist mate clean the diesel injectors of a standby generator, using crocus cloth guess where all the particulate went… Right into the injectors plugging them when the ship needed the standby generator for power… the same Negro was later promoted to E7 despite these major malfunctions… So much for raising up American culture!”

When I pointed out that technical mistakes and bad troubleshooting happen in every engineering department on earth, committed by people of every race, Bob conceded the point—but then immediately doubled down, asking why the majority of bad examples in his memory were Black.

Bob Gillette: “Yes, bad troubleshooting happens in every department in the world committed by people of every race. But why are the majority of the bad troubleshooting examples are done by Negroes?”

That is confirmation bias in its purest form. If you are conditioned to believe a certain group is less capable, your brain will actively log and remember every mistake they make to prove yourself right, while completely ignoring the white colleagues who did the exact same thing. When a white person fails, it’s an individual training issue. When a Black person fails, folks like Bob universalize it to judge an entire culture.

3. The Monolith Trap and the Demand for a Corporate Manager

Perhaps the most exhausting double standard comes from the commentators who treat Black America not as a diverse group of millions of individuals, but as a monolith that must be policed.

Another reader, Eugene, jumped online to declare that Black America is “self-destructing” and “imploding,” pointing to viral internet videos of youth acting out.

Eugene E. Conrad: “I can describe ‘blackness’ in 4 words. No. Child. Left. Behind. Teenage girls twerking at graduation while their mother’s applaud them. Meanwhile they can’t read at the same level as an average 10 year old white kid. Blackness means lack of brain function.”

He then placed the burden directly on my shoulders, telling me that things will only get worse until I and other Black professionals “hold them accountable” and force them to “be different.”

Eugene E. Conrad: “When the accomplishments of an entire race are overshadowed by the colossal failures within that same race, that isn’t cherry picking… Your race is self destructing and it’s not my fault. It’s only gonna get worse as long as YOU don’t hold these YNs accountable and continue to allow them to be face of black america. You want people to view you differently? Be different.”

Think about the staggering intellectual bankruptcy of that demand.

When a working-class white community faces a collapse of social order, an educational crisis, or the ravages of the opioid epidemic, nobody blames “white culture.” Nobody logs onto a white systems engineer’s page and demands that they go “hold their people accountable” for corporate fraud, mass shootings, or the destruction of rural infrastructure. White Americans are always granted the grace of being judged as individuals.

Black America is not a franchise with a corporate manager. We do not have a human resources department. I am an engineer, a professional, and a builder—and I don’t answer for the actions of strangers any more than Eugene answers for the criminals who crashed the global economy in 2008.

When confronted with this reality, Eugene finally lost his temper, hurled the cliché accusation of “delusional victimhood,” and declared:

Eugene E. Conrad: “My guy, you literally are blaming everybody else for not seeing the accomplishments of black people and I’m telling you, in no uncertain terms, that it’s the fault of other black people. You will never agree with that and I do not care. Carry on with your delusional victimhood. I’m done. I’m right, and I’m done.”

There it is. The absolute confirmation of the blind spot. He openly admitted that because some Black people fail, he is justified in ignoring the thousands of Black inventors, scientists, and professionals whose work impacts his life every single day. He was standing in the digital public square debating a Black systems engineer, completely blind to the irony that my very existence invalidated his original, ugly premise that “blackness means a lack of brain function.” When the data shattered his bias, he didn’t adjust his view; he just plugged his ears, screamed “I’m right,” and ran away.

4. The Institutionalization of the Blind Spot: The War on Memory

It would be a comforting mistake to look at the comments from Eugene, Bob, or a particularly vitriolic reader named Brian and dismiss them as just the unhinged rants of internet trolls hiding behind keyboards.

Brian’s comments dropped all pretense, sinking into raw eugenics, historical fabrication, and explicit profanity:

Brian OHara: “What culture. Stealing drugs violence killing raping etc… violence in black people they’re born that way they’re born violent and they’re taught violence… nobody wants to be around you people really you just f***** entertainment for people…”*

But the reality is far more dangerous than one angry man online. The vitriol in my comment section is simply the raw, unpolished version of a massive institutional movement happening across America today.

Right now, we are witnessing a coordinated, legal push to remove Black history from public schools, rewrite textbooks, and censor museum exhibitions. This erasure is being executed under a highly manipulative guise: the claim that teaching the full truth of Black American history is somehow “unpatriotic,” divisive, or designed to make white Americans feel guilty.

But let’s look at the logic.

When we celebrate the founding fathers, nobody claims that studying the Revolutionary War is an attack on modern British-Americans. When we build museums to honor the sacrifices of the Greatest Generation in World War II, nobody views it as an affront to German-Americans. We correctly understand that honoring those who built and defended the nation is an act of deep patriotism.

Yet, when we highlight the thousands of Black inventors who pioneered the technology we use every day, or when we archive the architectural, scientific, and legal triumphs of Black Americans, the gatekeepers of this new mythology experience an immediate panic. They view the insertion of Black truth as a subtraction of their own value.

Instead of expanding access to the full, rich tapestry of our shared past, this movement seeks to enforce a fragile, white-washed mythology. They want to sanitize American history until it is nothing more than a bedtime story that protects comfort over facts.

This institutional censorship is the ultimate justification for why My Two Cents and platforms like it are critical. When the state attempts to lock history out of the classroom, independent platforms must become the new classrooms. When museums are pressured to soften the rough edges of truth, we must become the keepers of the archive. We are not just writing articles; we are fighting a rearguard action against a deliberate attempt to enforce cultural amnesia.

5. The Co-Optation of Culture: Confusing Heritage with Hollywood

When detractors aren’t hiding behind viral videos, they lean heavily on mainstream entertainment to justify their bias. Another commenter, Rod, tried to argue that modern hip-hop culture proves that the community is holding itself back by promoting violence and anti-Christian standards.

Rod Weikum: “Your culture should be part of what raises you up. If your culture is holding you back and creating harm to yourself and others, it’s t is time to reevaluate it… I see a subculture in the hip hop Era that through music promotes violence, drugs, and anti Christian moral standards this country is based on… It is not limited to the black culture but seems more prominent to me. I might be out of touch.”

Rod was at least honest enough to admit he was looking at life through a media bubble in Wyoming, which allowed for a deeper conversation about the mechanics of culture versus commerce. Because here is the nuance that folks in a bubble miss: hip-hop is a genuine, brilliant branch of Black American culture. It was born as a grassroots youth movement right here in New York, where kids used poetry, turntables, and dance to speak truth about their daily lives, struggles, and communities.

The destructive shift didn’t happen culturally; it happened corporately.

Massive media conglomerates and record labels—predominantly owned and operated by non-Black executives—realized decades ago that shock value, weaponized negativity, and materialism sold records to a massive, global audience (the majority of whom happen to be suburban white youth). Corporations co-opted a grassroots art form and heavily monetized its most toxic elements because drama drives profit.

What the detractors are watching on their television screens isn’t the heart of Black culture; it’s a corporate-packaged product. Real Black culture isn’t found on a record label’s balance sheet. It is anchored in the exact traditional values Rod claimed were missing: faith, family, deep community charity, and love of neighbor. It is lived out every day in our churches, our historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs), and our neighborhoods. But as long as America confuses what Hollywood monetizes with what a community actually values, the blind spot will remain.

6. The Anatomy of Silence: Arming the Engaged Supporter

This brings me to the most critical realization of this entire experiment, and the real reason My Two Cents exists.

While the Bobs, Eugenes, and Brians of the world were loudly typing out their fury, I noticed another major demographic on my page: the silent observers. I know they are there; the analytics show them clearly. They are the supporters who read the articles, nod along in agreement, and watch these comment-section battles unfold from the sidelines.

It is easy to wonder why more voices don’t join the fray. But as I look closer, I recognize a profound truth: silence is often a deliberate choice, not a lack of conviction.

Many of our supporters are highly informed, deeply educated, and fully equipped—they simply choose not to engage in online debates. And I don’t blame them. Wading into the toxic comments section of a social media post takes an emotional toll, and protecting one’s peace is a perfectly valid boundary. I do not criticize anyone for choosing to remain silent.

But for those who do have the desire to engage—whether online or at the office water cooler—there is often a different barrier: they want to speak up, but they feel they lack the specific historical tools or data to instantly dismantle a double standard.

When a troll drops an unhinged rant filled with fake history or weaponized anecdotes, the average person doesn’t always have the specific Department of Justice statistics memorized to throw back at them. They don’t have the precise timeline of 350 years of legal wealth-stripping right at their fingertips.

That is why this platform exists. We aren’t writing to change the unchangeable minds of internet trolls; you cannot educate someone who is deeply committed to their own ignorance. The true mission of My Two Cents is to serve as an intellectual armory. It is about providing the hard numbers, the historical context, and the unassailable logic so that when our allies choose to stand up for truth in their own daily lives, they are fully armed, confident, and ready.

7. Conclusion: The Horizon of Facts

We are constantly told by a comfortable, passive majority that America is “past this,” and that highlighting Black history is a redundant exercise we should simply “move on” from.

But the sheer, existential panic that explodes in a comment section the moment we celebrate our heritage proves that the mythology of racial hierarchy is still very much alive and well. People do not get this agitated over things they believe are irrelevant; they get agitated because truth threatens the comfortable fictions they use to justify their worldview.

We will be ready to move on from highlighting Black history when highlighting it no longer causes a meltdown on social media. Until then, we will continue to look through the clear lens of data. The facts remain our shield, the history remains our foundation, and arming the truth-tellers remains our work.

Good riddance to the mythology. Welcome to the data.

Glossary of Key Concepts

• Availability Cascade: A self-reinforcing process where a collective belief gains more and more plausibility through its increasing repetition in public discourse (or viral social media algorithms). In short: if an image is loud and repeated constantly, the brain incorrectly assumes it represents the baseline reality.
• Confirmation Bias: The psychological tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms one’s preexisting beliefs or hypotheses while ignoring contradictory evidence.
• Corporate Co-Optation: The process by which a grassroots cultural movement or art form is taken over, redefined, and commercialized by outside corporations to maximize profit, often stripping away its original community-building intent.
• Defensive Equalization: A rhetorical strategy where an individual attempts to minimize or neutralize historical, systemic injustices faced by another group by comparing them to surface-level hardships or unrelated historical milestones within their own lineage.
• Monolith Myth: The reductionist belief that a highly diverse demographic group shares identical thoughts, behaviors, and motivations, and can therefore be held collectively accountable for the actions of individual strangers within that group.

Bibliography & Data Sources

1. U.S. Department of Justice & Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Crime in the United States: Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program. National demographics of offenders, demonstrating individual statistical distribution across all racial groups.
2. National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). The Nation’s Report Card. Longitudinal data controlling for school funding disparities, socioeconomic status, and zip codes, demonstrating that educational outcome gaps are driven by resource distribution rather than inherent ability.
3. National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC). Legislative tracking and curriculum briefs via the African American History Act of 2026 (introduced by Rep. Mfume and Sen. Booker), detailing the preservation of Black historical resources amidst federal and state curriculum restrictions.
4. The Center for Educational Equity. The War on History: Curriculum Restrictions and Civil Rights Scrutiny in K-12 Districts (2025-2026 Update). Documentation regarding the withholding of public school grants and targeted efforts to eliminate advanced racial history curricula across major school districts.
5. George, Nelson. The Death of Rhythm and Blues. New York: Pantheon Books, 1988. (Foundational historical text on the corporate co-optation, consolidation, and monetization of independent Black music genres by major media networks).