Columbus City Council just approved a $200 million development deal for Steelton Village on South High Street. 455 new apartments, a park, and infrastructure upgrades. Sounds like investment. Sounds like progress. But follow the paper trail. The project is tied to and also looking at funding. That means this project is not just private money. This is public-backed development using tax credits. Now here’s where it matters. These units are aimed at households earning 60% of area median income. In Columbus, that doesn’t mean “low-income Black families.” That often means working-class to moderate-income households, and sometimes people moving into the area, not the people already struggling in it. So what happens next? Property values go up. Land values go up. Taxes go up. Rents go up around it. That’s not theory, that’s the pattern. We’ve seen this before. Investment comes into historically underinvested Black areas, not when residents need it,…

They just introduced to eliminate taxes on capital gains. That means if you make money from stocks, real estate, or selling assets, you pay less or nothing. Sounds good… until you follow the pattern. Let’s be clear. Capital gains is not money from work. It’s money from ownership. And historically, Black people were locked out of ownership. Go back to . Black families were denied loans and pushed into renting. Then the built the white middle class through homeownership, while Black veterans were largely excluded. By the time the passed, the wealth gap was already built. That’s the foundation. Now look at the policy. When you cut taxes on capital gains, you are rewarding people who already have assets. That’s not opinion, that’s math. And according to , the bottom 80% of Ohioans would see up to $42 a year, while the top 1% averages over $6,000. The top takes…

This is why the system keeps winning while Black communities keep losing. They trained people to pick a side like it is sports, red team vs blue team, Democrat vs Republican, and once you pick your color you stop asking questions. You defend your side, you ignore the details, and you vote based on identity instead of impact. That is not an accident, that is design. The illusion works because it is simple, emotional, and constant. It gives people something to belong to, something to argue about, something to feel like they are part of, while the real decisions happen in policy language nobody reads. Most people are not taught how policy works, how a bill is written, how funding is allocated, how outcomes are measured, so they rely on slogans, speeches, and party loyalty. That is not just “uneducated,” that is a system that never intended for…

This is how the system tears Black communities apart and calls it responsibility. is pushing a Balanced Budget Amendment, it sounds clean, it sounds smart, it sounds like discipline, but what it really means is the government is saying we will not spend more than we bring in no matter what. No exceptions, no emergencies, no protection. Now ask yourself when has America ever chosen to protect Black people first. Here is the part they will never say out loud, if the budget must be balanced and they refuse to raise revenue the right way then something has to go. And it is not defense, it is not corporate tax breaks, it is not billionaires, it is the programs people depend on to survive. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, that is not extra money in Black communities, that is rent, that is prescriptions, that is survival. And this is where…