THE WALL

I do not attend wealth conferences for the same reason I do not buy seafood from a gas station: too many things can go wrong after somebody tells you to trust the process. Still, Invest Fest 2026 was too large and too substantial to dismiss. More than 30,000 people came to Atlanta for financial education, celebrity keynotes, 415 vendors and a $250,000 pitch competition. The weekend created opportunity—but it also proved that Black ambition still deserves due diligence.

Atlanta loves Black men as culture, labor and campaign imagery—but not always as business owners asking where the money went. Using the Earn Your Leisure dispute with Mayor Andre Dickens as a starting point, this op-ed examines how liberal administrations celebrate Black identity while young Black men remain politically taken for granted, economically overlooked and increasingly conflicted about whether conservative leadership offers greater mobility.

Mamdani didn’t invent a new political formula. He exposed a vacancy. People are broke, rent is stupid, groceries are disrespectful, and health care still feels like a hostage negotiation. His endorsed candidates winning their primaries wasn’t just a New York progressive moment—it was proof that voters are tired of being told survival is “complicated” by a Democratic Party that never finds fundraising complicated.

I’m voting for Brad Raffensperger on May 19 — not because I became MAGA, but because Georgia’s open primary system gives voters leverage. This race is not about party loyalty. It is about blocking the worst version of Trumpism, protecting election integrity, and thinking past November. Bottoms may still be my general-election move. But in this primary, I’m voting the board.