Despite the success of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), better known as Obamacare, there are still a number of Black men not getting and/or taking advantage of the healthcare options available to them. Grave and serious disparities remain. Dr. Okey Enyia, an expert on healthcare and policy, particularly as the topic relates to Black men, comes to The Offshoot Podcast to explain the disparity. He comes with a plan to increase the rate of Black men taking advantage of healthcare programs like the ACA and he explains the dire need need for Black men to be more proactive when it comes to self health.

Talk to any Black man, of any generation, and he will tell you that he isn't being heard. Throughout most of the 2024 political season, it seemed that everything was being talked about, everything was on the table, except for the issues and concerns of Black men. That changed about six weeks ago. All of a sudden, corporate media and the leading pundits of the networks, started talking about Black men "abandoning" the Democratic party in support of the man atop the Republican party's presidential ticket.

Young Black men were getting most of the attention. The pundits, almost giddy, were and still are eager to talk about a community that so often they portrayed in negative perspective. They were gleeful to talk to young Black male, who clearly wasn't up to par on politics, about the 2024 presidential race. They were happy to showcase a young Black man who was ready to give his thoughts on the Democratic nominee for president. But in practically every snippet, the media hawks missed some things. They didn't have or put things in context. They didn't try to learn what was behind a given opinion. This completely missed who Black men are as a group - as a people who are as diverse in their opinions as they are in their looks.

Yes, there will be some Black men to support the Grand Old Party and its leader, but there are for more Black men who are supporting the Democratic nominee. Corporate media likes to talk about how the support for the Republican party has grown. If so, it's incremental.

On this episode of The Offshoot, I talk with three Black men, and I ask them what is the media missing? What is the real rational that Black men, particularly young Black men, give for supporting and voting for a political party and it's leader despite facts that seems contrary to their lives. What is driving their politics? Those questions get answered, and the answers to those questions are not what mainstream media is publishing.

The war between Israel and Hamas has a lot of people talking and it has an equal, if not greater, amount of people not talking ... at least not publicly. In the Black/African American community, there has been a lot of the later. Why? That's a question no one individual or groups of individuals can answer as if there is a homogeneous Black community in which one persona or consortium can speak for. But, however, there is a deeper issue within the conflict that some Black Americans are speaking to, and on this episode of The Offshoot, Rev. Graylan Hagler of the historic Plymouth Congregational United Church of Christ in Washington, DC is talking.

The war between Israel and Hamas is one that needs the attention of Black/African Americans purely for the fact that there is a humanitarian crisis at hand, said Rev. Hagler. Palestinian children, women, civilians of non-Jewish and non-Muslin faiths, along side people in the Jewish community and Palestinian community, are becoming casualties of the war. Though the war is taking place thousands of miles from any city within the U.S.A., any city with a large Black population, Rev. Hagler, said what is happening in Israel could happen in the States, hence the need to be aware and pay attention to what the war is all about.

Land, said Rev. Hagler, is what the war is all about, and land is a topic most Black Americans can identify with. Additionally, he points to extremism. Even in 2023, there are new stories, particularly coming out of the southern part of the States, in which the land of Black people was taken. Hagler speaks to this and much more on this episode of The Offshoot. He provides a bit of history and he draws a correlation to activities in this country ... particularly the Insurrection of January 6.