Originally posted on Facebook on Tuesday, May 9, 2023.

As a black community, I believe our first objective should be that which is currently within our power to do and universally that is stopping self harm.

As an example, our family has reached out to Dr. Brian Pugh to train us on financial stewardship and building wealth. His advice?

Before you get into conversations about stocks, forex trading, cryptocurrency or finding investments that earn high interest, he said, stop paying high interest!

While you may not have a lot of extra money to invest right now, you can increase your financial capacity by flushing less of it down the toilet to high interest debt.

In other words, stop self harm.

And, one of the very first places we need to stop self harm, is the relationship between the black man and the black woman.

We need to stop everything that is causing self harm in that area. And #1 for me is to affirm the value of black women and to stop the self harm of premarital sex.

As I've written before,"To guide on a way especially by going in advance" is the definition of leadership.

So, black men, #lead which means #youfirst.

We must commit to not tearing down black women in any way, including through premarital sex.

Let this be the start of a campaign to heal and grow the black community beginning with stopping self harm.

We may not have the capacity to do a lot of what we'd like to do yet, but we can stop doing things that harm ourselves right now, putting us in a better position to build it.

#stopselfharm #black #leadership #heal #grow #youfirst