Can You Build An Architecture Of Oppression Without A Totally Debased Political Class?

medium |  This isn’t the first time Gillum has been accused of poor behavior as a public official; I recall him being subjected to an ethics inquiry after he accepted tickets to the Broadway show Hamilton from an undercover FBI agent. Granted, there’s a hell of a gap between free tickets and whatever this shit with the drugs and escorts is (allegedly), but a pattern emerges: Even when Gillum has a good thing going for him, he may do something that could jeopardy his ambition — ambition he no longer shares just with himself, but with so many others.

That’s why I continue to struggle. Andrew Gillum already knew what it was like to have a target on his back. He knew that his professional prospects, as well as the people in his life — his wife, his children — could all be jeopardized by something like this. I just don’t understand the carelessness — down to the type of people he allegedly was associating with that night.

As bad as I feel bad for him, Black men also need to hold a mirror up to each other when need be. Not to induce shame; not to make them feel lower as we feign being better; simply to say, you need to look at yourself and how you move. You need to see how that shit impacts you.

Yes, as Black men there are a lot of people against us. Yes, there is a conservative media complex designed to take out politicians like you, and the mainstream media has enough suckers in it to magnify whatever those crazy folks on the right dredge up — but why give them material?

People have their secrets; some just keep them better than others. That’s not an endorsement of lying — merely speaking to the point that Andrew Gillum has long been a man of great promise who, like many men of great promise, fell short out of ego. This man was moving like someone who had nothing to lose. I don’t hate this man the way they do. I just hope this man becomes a better one because this has brought pain to people. I understand the factors why, but patterns must be broken. We all should do our part.

Gillum says he has voluntarily entered rehab for what he described as “alcohol abuse” and “depression.” Additionally, he “will be stepping down from all public facing roles for the foreseeable future.”