Athletes, superheroes, samurai. Later Fred Hampton, Michael Jordan, Assata Shakur, and Malcolm X. As a kid, I honored my heroes by drawing and painting them. Creating art was my favorite pastime and everyone assumed my future lay in being creative.

$1 trillion still represents a monetary figure with its own rarified air, a number just out of the immediate comprehension of many. Nonetheless, it’s a base number that in current times is often bandied about when talking about gross domestic product (GDP) valuations and national debts. And that somewhat otherworldly number can be affixed to something else formidable in its own right – racism in America… 

When I was just 13 years old, I began selling small amounts of marijuana, in response to our family’s desperate circumstances. Only 10 years later, at age 23, I became the youngest African American to own a cannabis retail establishment in the United States. I opened my first Elev8 Cannabis dispensary in Eugene, Oregon, in 2017, and am currently in the process of expanding my footprint to the East Coast and Midwest.

With the devastation of arts industries caused by the coronavirus response, the notion of implementing a UBI has become even more important. In the UK, the Musicians’ Union has called on finance chief Rishi Sundak to implement a UBI, because while a £1.57 billion pound bailout has been pledged to arts industries, most of this funding is going to institutions and venues, not individuals. The Union is concerned that without a UBI, the visual and performing arts will become the purview of those from well-to-do families—a luxury that people of humble means can never afford.

One in five American adults experience a mental illness or mental health condition each year, but wellness assistance is arguably more necessary now than it has been in some time, given anxieties of the pandemic and the nationwide civic unrest that has put longstanding issues of racism, injustice and inequality front and center. Even before the pandemic and unrest came to define American life in 2020, a majority of adults supported mental health assistance options, with a 2018 report from the National Council for Behavioral Health showing six out of 10 Americans were either seeking help for themselves or their loved ones.

From the moment we wake up until we go to sleep, it’s estimated that we are exposed to between 2,000 and 5,000 advertising messages <em>daily</em>. This includes ads we see on TV, hear on the radio, see on billboards, on the Internet, in magazines we pick up while waiting for a doctor’s appointment, on display at stores we frequent, on Facebook and other social media, and in conversations between friends, family and coworkers. Whether this is subliminal or overt selling, the point is, we’re inundated with advertising and messages in multiple forms that seek to influence our decision-making. A huge part of that messaging is to instill the belief that White is right. These advertisements tell us that straight hair is beautiful while curly and coily hair should be “tamed and controlled,” that White skin and features are more beautiful than Black and Brown skin and features, that White people are smarter and more accomplished, that White history is more important and that White lives, not Black lives, are the ones that really matter.

Urban farming isn’t a new concept, but it has experienced a major resurgence in cities. Residents in urban centers throughout the U.S. have reclaimed abandoned spaces and turned them into community gardens. Detroit has been an epicenter of the movement to bring neighbors, organizations and community leaders together to grow and share food.