Rev. Dr. Baucham dead at 56, Comey at You Fast, Chilling ICE, Europe divides on Palestine; and a Black Replacement?

September 26, AD2025

This week I look at the US Economy, Trump’s Policing of immigration and political opponents, and Moves out of Europe and Turkey in the Middle East

USA

The Black-White Income Gap Narrows for Whom? ADOS (“American Descendants of Slavery”) and FBA (“Foundational Black American”) are lineage-based identities for people whose ancestors endured U.S. chattel slavery; ADOS frames the case mostly in policy terms (eligibility and reparations), while FBA places more weight on a distinct native Black American culture alongside lineage. Supporters see lineage specificity as necessary precision, while critics worry that it can feel exclusionary and turn debates into gatekeeping rather than solutions. There is also concern that Black Americans are being conflated with Africans or dismissed in hiring in favor of immigrants who approach America as a new destination rather than as a homeland that owes them any favors.

The Economist¹ argues that rising Black immigration—especially from Africa—is subtly narrowing the Black–white wage gap in America. It opens with a Kofi Annan anecdote to show that “Black” in the U.S. is not a single experience, then notes that more than a quarter of Black workers are foreign-born or the children of immigrants, with Africans now comprising nearly half of Black immigrants. Of course, The Economist is confused about how Black Americans view the term “Black,” and it is a sign of troubling presumptuousness. Many “black” African immigrants do not see themselves as “Black” Americans. There is no need to impose this identity, and journalistic commentators should be more circumspect about category collapse.

We must work to prevent this becoming another divisive flash point. We do not need a Black replacement theory spreading online.

The headline claim that the Black-White wage gap is shrinking can be true in aggregate and still be misused. If recent African immigrants arrive with higher formal education and tighter professional networks and settle in opportunity-rich neighborhoods, their earnings can lift the overall “Black” average relative to whites. But that tells us more about who migrates and where they land than it does about the unresolved, lineage-specific harms borne by American descendants of slavery.

Some fear the “model minority” bias is a hazard. Celebrating immigrant success is fine; weaponizing it to imply cultural deficiency among native Black Americans is not analysis; it’s a category error. Migration is selective: people who cross oceans are atypical by definition, and those from upper-class, educated backgrounds import their critiques of America—critiques directed toward changes that natives do not desire. Neighborhoods are not equal, and information networks steer families toward better schools and safer ZIP codes. When those factors are in play, the right takeaway is to scale the conditions—school quality, safety, health education—rather than moralize about communities that have faced a century of blocked asset-building and recent decades of bad domestic policy that affect white Americans as well.

The competition from overseas highlights how white resentment politics that target Black Americans close doors to allies who also face competition from abroad—workers who come to the USA without the baggage of generational American policy failures. Bad policy breeds bad habits; this has left many Americans competing uphill against well-prepared, English-speaking arrivals from upper-middle-class backgrounds. Giving in to provoked internal American division allows the Elons of the world to prevent white American workers from collaborating with other Americans to address this through constructive policy that would improve life outcomes for the native-born population.

Visa for $100K? Additionally, the Trump administration’s currently confused policies will not help American competitiveness. A presidential proclamation restricts the entry of new H-1B workers for 12 months (with national-interest exceptions) unless the sponsoring employer pays an extra $100,000 per petition for workers outside the U.S.² Agencies were told to verify payments, consider raising prevailing wages, and reprioritize who gets H-1Bs. By allowing exceptions, the president can do what he likes to do—dish out favors—which will likely undercut the whole policy. Likewise, if workers cannot come to the U.S. and we do not create a pipeline to develop American talent, businesses will just offshore more jobs and go to where the workers are.

Buying Residency? Patriotic Americans see the new “Gold Card” created by the Trump administration as positioning America more like an Eastern regime stereotyped in Bond films. A “Gold Card” that fast-tracks green cards in exchange for seven-figure “gifts” reads like immigration for sale: it privileges cash over merit or need, invites queue-jumping by the already advantaged, and risks laundering reputations or opaque funds behind a philanthropic fig leaf while families facing long waits and high-skilled applicants sit in backlogs. Pay $1–2 million and get into America. It blurs the line between public purpose and private influence by tying life outcomes to the ability to pay, mocking the idea that rules apply equally and that status is earned, not bought. It also misaligns immigration with national needs—importing capital rather than critical skills—while sending a damaging signal that U.S. residency is a luxury good, not a covenant of responsibility, contribution, and allegiance. The structure creates soft spots for elite capture and foreign leverage, especially if corporate “sponsors” can transfer a slot to different individuals, and it distracts from reforms that would better serve the country: investing in Americans.³

ICE freezing the American heart. Let’s be frank: there are apparently many Americans who hate the idea of compassion and empathy, and hate that Americans, by and large, want to be good, compassionate people even though they struggle, as all nations do. That is the divide. Securing lasting political objectives requires character, and the lack of character stains those objectives. The behavior of American immigration police is turning Americans against the enforcement of the law. And it is not hard to see why in this tweet from Pro Publica reporter.

Consequently, polls now reflect the undoing of all the work to build a consensus around being a nation that enforces its borders. Law must be just both in principle and in application to ensure the support of the people, which is the ultimate security of the law. Two-thirds of Americans now support giving illegal aliens a pathway to legal status rather than deportation.⁴ Americans do not like tactics that seem callous, brutal and cruel.

Comey at You Fast. A grand jury in Alexandria indicted the former FBI director on two counts—lying to Congress and obstructing a congressional inquiry—stemming from his 2020 Senate Judiciary testimony about FBI-authorized leaks tied to the Russia case. He says he’s innocent and will surrender; arraignment is set for Oct. 9. The politics are the story. The filing landed days after Trump publicly leaned on the DOJ, then cheered the indictment and teased that “there will be others.”⁵ Who’s next? Legally, expect motions on materiality and selective prosecution. But let’s also admit the other side of the rot. The rank-and-file members of the Democratic Party are fed up; they believe congressional Democrats and Joe Biden effectively outsourced their post–Jan. 6 response to a doomed second impeachment and state cases—New York included—with irregularities of their own. Many Democrats now grumble that Trump arresting Merrick Garland, too, would “serve him right.” Democrats are angry at what they see as a lethargic party. MAGA Republicans, however, call the charging of James Comey his just deserts for a director they view as disloyal to Trump and too soft on Hillary Clinton and other allegedly criminal Democrats. Many Democrats won’t rush to defend Comey either; they still blame him for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 loss.