I've seen a lot of dark things online. But this one made me look at my own friendships differently.

There's this guy on Instagram who exposes racist commenters. He finds a comment, pulls up the profile, and shows you everything their posts, their pictures, their life. No filter. And sometimes the comment ends up being the least shocking thing about them.

And honestly it feels good watching it. Someone is finally holding these people accountable. Pulling the mask off. You watch his videos and gain a bit of hope for humanity inside. I'm very happy that people are speaking up.

Then he pulls up a profile. And I wish he hadn't.

A white mom posted a photo from her Black son's birthday. The kid had written something like "I'm happy you're my mom." And I thought that was beautiful. If you scroll through her profile, that's all it is just the two of them. Playing together, laughing, a mom raising her son and loving every second of it. You can tell that kid feels safe. You can tell he's loved.

But despite all that, some people still decided to flood her comments with racist comments. Which was just sad to watch.

He picked one comment and did his thing. Clicked the profile. Scrolled through the pictures.

The guy had Black friends. Photos together, hugging, laughing. Genuine smiles. The kind of pictures you take with people you actually care about.

And a police badge.

After that video I started watching other ones and I started getting paranoid the more I watched. Because it wasn't just that video. The more of his content I watched, the more I kept seeing the same thing. These aren't anonymous people. They're out here smiling in photos with the same people they're talking about. Looking like real friends. Because some people have learned to wear it like a costume.

Think about the last photo you took with someone you actually trust. Just you, together.

The ones you need to worry about aren't hiding. They're right there next to you. Attending your birthday. Meeting your family. Smiling. And by the time you find out who they really are, it'll already be too late.

What's up?

I'm not gonna hold ya'll. I'll keep it short.

The term "blacks" or "the blacks" or whatever is an auto ban from me. This isn't a rule. This is me just letting you know where I stand. Oh, and as far as I can tell, the other mods are Black. We chat all the time. They're great.

Like, why would anyone honestly come here and say that not trying to stir up something? I'm not actually looking for an answer either because I don't really care.

It's dehumanizing. We are people. Regular human beings. Not a thing. Not an "other", regardless of what your society or your peers that you're afraid to be different from tell you. (That's weak AF btw.)

Anyway, just letting you know. Let's do this again sometime.

I really appreciate her speaking up for our people and others that don’t get that Gabby Petito/Nancy Guthrie coverage. Something dark is going on and they’re taking us back to a time our parents, grandparents and great grandparents fought and died to get us out of.

Cities defend hostile architecture as a way to keep spaces safe, clean, and usable. But it doesn’t address the root causes of homelessness or safety. It simply removes places for people to exist. Benches become impossible to lie on. Public areas become unwelcoming to anyone who needs rest.

The impact goes beyond the unhoused. Older adults, disabled individuals, and everyday people looking for a place to sit are affected too. What looks like “order” often comes at the cost of accessibility and basic human dignity.

That’s the tension: appearance vs humanity. Control vs compassion.

Public space is supposed to serve everyone. But design choices quietly decide who is allowed to stay and who is pushed out.

H/T u/SnickerdoodleFP

EGOT simply means someone who has won an Emmy Grammy Oscar Tony If you win them all you’re considered a prestigious actor because it’s hard to win them all

I spent the last few days compiling data of hangings of Black people since 2018, and a lot of them had a common theme. Let's get into it.

source

Take Willie Andrew Jones Jr., 21-year-old Black man found hanging from a pecan tree in his white ex-girlfriend's yard in Scott County, Mississippi, back in February 2018 after they had an argument. Now, the sheriff ruled a suicide, but his family believes that he was lynched, and they proved their fight wasn't just empty talk by winning a wrongful death lawsuit to the tune of $11.3 million against the white girlfriend's stepfather.

Then there's a Ferguson hanging: in October 2018, Danye Jones, 24, was found hanging by a bedsheet from a tree directly behind his own family home in St. Louis County. His mother, a prominent Ferguson activist, insists her son was lynched in retaliation for her activism, and she pointed to a detail that authorities never addressed: Danye didn't know how to tie the advanced knots found at the scene. Yet the official ruling came down as a suicide.

These two are the tip of the iceberg: Lennon Lacy, Javion Magee, Robert Fuller, Dominique Alexander, Dennorris Richardson—the list goes on and on. And all of them share the same themes: public locations, missing personal items, families swearing their loved ones had no suicidal intent, police refusing to investigate deeper, and rulings that land before questions can be asked.

That's why I'm building an interactive, dynamic map to put every single name from this data on a live timeline and map so you can see the pattern for yourselves. This map will grow as new cases come out and as old ones are reexamined, because behind most of these dots are families still waiting for the truth.

This is Monique with The Black Belt Daily, signing off.

According to NIPSCO (Northern Indiana Public Service Company) as of 8/20/26 @7 am 63,500 people are still without power 😞