Rational Black Thought

Send us Fan Mail Nas wrote that for "Cops Shot the Kid." He is not talking about extremism. He is talking about the line every serious person draws, the point past which you stop pretending things are normal. Certain things you cannot abide by. And standing on a side, naming where you stand, is not the same thing as being extreme. Nas uses this line to establish his moral stance against...

Send us Fan Mail Killing a Child is Wrong, even if Commanded by God! We killin' them for freedom 'cause they tortured us for boredom. Killer Mike said that, on the Run the Jewels song "Close Your Eyes (And Count to Fuck)." It is a hard line. And it is a specific one. They tortured us for nothing. For boredom. So what we do back, we do for something. For freedom. That is the log...

Send us Fan Mail For too long, Black political progress has been measured by access. How many Black politicians hold office. How many Black executives sit in boardrooms. How often our concerns show up on the national agenda. Here is the problem with that measure. Access without leverage is participation without control. A seat at the table is not the same as the power to decide what happens at tha...

Send us Fan Mail Intro "And you think your country is a great democracy Well they just killed your priest for helping folks like me And reality will cause your fantasy to die." Black Merda, "Reality" Pause and reflect on that. A country that calls itself a great democracy killed men like Malcolm, Martin, etc., whose only crime was helping people like us. The self-image and the...

Send us Fan Mail As El-P said on the Killer Mike song, "Walking in the Snow." "You helped to fuel the death machine that down the line will kill you too" And he's not talking about some hidden conspiracy. He's naming something we can verify with our own eyes. Every institution Black people walk into was designed before we got there. The rules were already written. The...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to Rational Black Thought, the podcast where we examine politics, religion, culture, and power from a Black, secular, skeptical, and uncompromising perspective. I am your host, the Neo Griot. This week's episode is titled "Racism Is Still Alive, Yellow Tape and Colored Lines," from Kendrick Lamar. The lyric: "Racism is still alive, yellow tape and color...

Send us Fan Mail That's Nas. "Black Zombie." He wasn't talking about horror movies. He was talking about us. Walking talking dead. Breathing, but on autopilot. Alive, but not living. Bodies moving through days somebody else designed. And that middle line — "though we think we're living" — is the dangerous part. We think we're alive. We think we're free....

Send us Fan Mail That's BLK ODYSSY — "BLK Revolution." And before we go anywhere else, I want to sit in those two lines, because they name this whole episode. "No longer complacent with surviving." Read that slow. Complacent — with surviving. We got comfortable just making it. Comfortable being alive but not free. Being employed but not owning. Being seen but not in contro...

Send us Fan Mail Crawling through a systematic maze. And it pains to demise. Pain in our eyes. Strain of drownin', wading into your lies. Degradation so loud that you can't hear the sound of our cries. That's D'Angelo. "The Charade." And it's the title of this episode, because those lines describe more Black political reality than a shelf of civics textbooks. A m...

Send us Fan Mail dead prez opens this episode with a line about being imprisoned without necessarily being locked behind bars, and that idea ended up providing the structure for almost everything we're talking about this week because confinement, at its most sophisticated, is not always physical. Sometimes it is a system you depend upon but do not control, sometimes it is a technology that kn...

Send us Fan Mail Nina Simone opens this one. "And now we got a revolution, 'cause I see the face of things to come." Sit in that line, because it's doing more work than you think. Simone isn't just talking about change. She's talking about seeing. She's talking about the ability to look at the present and recognize what's being built before it's finishe...

Send us Fan Mail I am your host, Neo Griot. This is Rational Black Thought, Episode 295, August 15, 2026. This week's title comes from Nipsey Hussle's "Dedication": "How long should I stay dedicated? How long 'til opportunity meet preparation?" I like that line because there's frustration in it. Not despair. Not quitting. Frustration — the kind you feel when...

Send us Fan Mail I am your host, Neo Griot.  Welcome to Rational Black Thought, a podcast where we discuss news, politics, religion, and culture from a Black, progressive, secular humanist perspective. This week's episode is titled after a lyric by Dame D.O.L.L.A.: Used to call us monkeys and slaves and we overcame. Still, our work is just beginnin'. Protests look like parades. That bar...

Send us Fan Mail I am your host, Neo Griot. Welcome to Episode 293 of Rational Black Thought, the podcast where we examine politics, religion and culture from a Black, progressive, skeptical and unapologetically rational point of view. This week's title comes from Peter Tosh's song "Equal Rights": "Everyone is crying out for peace, yes / None is crying out for justice.&quo...

Send us Fan Mail Power gets talked about a lot and most of the time it is discussed as if it lives in one place. Some people locate it in elections. Others locate it in wealth. Some believe it rests in culture, protest, education, or community organizing. The truth is that power operates as a system. It moves through laws, money, land, media, institutions, and organized people. And Black communiti...

Send us Fan Mail Intro: Welcome to Rational Black Thought, the podcast where we examine politics, religion, culture, and power without superstition, without respectability politics, and without pretending that polite lies become truth because they are repeated on television. I am your host, Michael, your Neo Griot, and this is Episode 291 of Rational Black Thought the Podcast, where we examine pol...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to Rational Black Thought, the podcast where we examine politics, religion, culture, and power without superstition, without respectability politics, and without pretending that polite lies become truth because they are repeated on television. I am your host, Neo Griot. This week's title is "A Lexus or Justice." That is the question in front of us, whether w...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to Rational Black Thought. I am your host, Neo Griot. This is Episode 289, released on July 4, 2026, and the title comes from “Kites” by N.E.R.D., Kendrick Lamar & M.I.A .: “Tuggin’ on a string that’s connected to a dream - Head-bussa, hittin’ nothing, even if I gotta bleed.” That lyric is about commitment. It is about holding onto a vision even when the struggle is ex...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to Rational Black Thought , the podcast where we examine politics, religion, culture, and power from a Black, secular, skeptical, and uncompromising perspective. I am your host, the Neo Griot. This week's episode is titled "Fear Not of Man," from Mos Def. The lyric is simple: "Fear not of men because men must die. Mind over matter and soul before flesh....

Send us Fan Mail Welcome back to Rational Black Thought, the podcast where we challenge the narratives, question the assumptions, and examine the evidence behind the stories shaping our lives. I am your host, Neo Griot. This is Episode 287 and our title is: "Revolutionary curse words. First come, first served. It ain't no lost love. Freedom cost blood." Those lyrics from dead prez c...

Send us Fan Mail I am your host, Neo Griot, and this is Rational Black Thought. This week’s title comes from YG’s “FTP,” and the message is simple: silence is no longer an option. Not when power lies openly. Not when democracy is treated like a technicality. Not when religion is used as cover for grift. Not when Black people are told to stay calm while the machinery of suppression keeps running. S...

Send us Fan Mail I am your host, Neo Griot, and this is Rational Black Thought, the podcast where faith gets cross-examined, power gets analyzed without apology, and foolishness gets dragged into the sunlight where it can no longer pretend to be wisdom. This week’s title comes from Kendrick Lamar’s “HiiiPoWeR,” and the line lands like a warning, not entertainment. “The sky is falling, the wind is...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to Rational Black Thought, the podcast where we examine politics, religion, culture, and society through the lens of critical thinking and Black consciousness. I am your host, Neo Griot. Our title today comes from Queen B’s Freedom, because, if I must, I will break chains all by myself, but I would rather have the assistance of likeminded people. This week's episode i...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to Rational Black Thought, the podcast where we examine politics, religion, culture, and society through the lens of critical thinking and Black consciousness. I am your host, Neo Griot. This week’s episode is inspired by Bob Marley’s anthem of resistance, “Get Up, Stand Up.”  Another stanza in the song is: Most people think great God will come from the sky Take away every...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to Rational Black Thought. I am your host, Neo Griot. This week's title is "Don't Believe the Hype" from Public Enemy — because this episode is about the stories power tells to hide what power is actually doing. The hype tells us redistricting is just a technical process carried out by people with maps, computers, and respectable job titles. The truth i...