This one is personal. I’m sharing it here because I know some of y’all will feel this too—maybe too well. I’m not writing him off, but I had to write this down. As a form of grief. As a kind of prayer. As a mirror.
Better (Not) Call Tyrone
(A Eulogy for the Living)
I’ve been in denial.
For a long time, I believed I hadn’t lost somebody I love. A close family member. One of those people you’ve been through thick and thin with. My ride or die. I thought we were still somewhere on the same path, maybe just a few steps apart. I had hope. Hope that he would recover. That whatever this was—this infection—was temporary. I figured if we could just get him around the right voices, if we could break bread, get him back to the table, back to family, back to self—he’d come home.
But the disease had already metastasized. It reached his brain, his heart, and whatever part of the soul produces joy. Black joy. It took that.
For the last few years, I argued that the health benefits of family would cure him. I truly believed that when he escaped his own personal prison and self-imposed exile, he would come back to himself. That after decades under the rule of a woman who dominated him, maybe even cheated on him, and gaslit him into spiritual paralysis—leaving would be his liberation.
It wasn’t.
Because what none of us realized is that when you’ve been stripped bare, emotionally waterboarded, and spiritually starved, you’ll drink from any cup—even poison—if someone tells you it’s holy.
I wanted to believe healing was still possible. But the man I knew died quietly, not all at once but over time—replaced by a version who thinks Trump is somehow good for Black America. Who believes the policies of white nationalism are compatible with the teachings of a Black Messiah. That orange is the new Black. Who has mistaken attention for affirmation and control for care.
You might think my boy, my friend, mi familia was stricken with an aggressive form of cancer. Incurable. Fatal.
It’s not cancer, but it’s just as insidious.
This disease doesn’t have a clear name. But you know it when you see it.
It mostly infects Black men who’ve experienced deep psychological trauma, especially those whose masculinity was tied up in suffering and silence. Those who never healed. Those who found temporary refuge in the arms of whiteness, not realizing they were being fed just enough affection to become addicted to the approval.
The worst cases go metaphorically blind—unable to see the Black man in the mirror as worthy, strong, or whole unless a white man confirms it.
Let’s call it Tim Scott/Byron Donalds-itis.
Symptoms include:
- Gullibility
- Cultish loyalty
- Misogyny cloaked as “traditional values”
- A theology stitched together with nationalism and fear
- A rash that resembles racism but presents as “patriotism”
Trump proudly calls them “his African Americans.” But this ain’t about the paid actors standing behind him at rallies, smiling like they know they’re betraying something. This is deeper. This is the brother you love. The one who once read Malcolm, quoted Baldwin, and wore his Kente with pride.
Now? He’s plugged in.
Fox News, YouTube sermons, MAGA memes on a loop—like church hymns that never stop.
He’s been subjected to coercive persuasion, thought reform, and psychological manipulation. His algorithm doesn’t show him our world anymore. Just theirs. Over and over. Propaganda as prophecy.
Sensory overload.
Isolation.
Paranoia.
And beneath it all, the grief of a man who never got to heal.
Erykah Badu told us to “Call Tyrone” when somebody needed saving from themselves. But who do you call when he needs help?
Because I finally realized—he’s gone.
Not in the physical sense, but in that spiritual kind of way. The way someone leaves while still being alive. The way you show up for a funeral, and the person you knew isn’t in the casket—but they’re not in the body either.
And so, this is my eulogy.
For a man I once loved, once knew, once fought beside.
A man who once knew his worth.
A man who once knew what it meant to be Black and proud.
Rest easy, my brother.
I’ll keep fighting for both of us now.
If this hit home, forward it to someone in your circle who’s been mourning in silence too. Let’s not grieve alone.
