Color Commentary

This week on Color Commentary, Dr. Cole opens up Office Hours, a new lane on the show where he takes a real situation and works it live using the A.N.D. framework. This one is a composite drawn from more than ten real cases he's seen over the years as a social worker, scholar, organizer, and entrepreneur. A middle school teacher is fighting to keep a brilliant 12-year-old Black boy out of an alternative school, and she has ten days. Frameworks are meaningless if you can't use them on a Tuesday afternoon. This is the framework at work.

Got a situation of your own? Email Dr. Cole at [email protected] with "Office Hours" in the subject line.

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 In 2020, American philanthropy made a lot of noise about supporting Black-led nonprofits. New research from Candid and ABFE just dropped — and it shows that for most Black-led organizations, those promises amounted to a brief surge and a hard landing. The money was temporary. The relationships never formed. The structural gap never closed. And now, with the Trump administration rolling back DEI support across the board, Black-led nonprofits are navigating the most hostile funding environment in recent memory. Dr. Cole breaks down the data — and then gets personal about what it actually means to lead a Black nonprofit in this climate. The article discussed is: Black-led nonprofits didn’t see the lasting funding boosts promised after 2020’s racial reckoning

We'd love to hear from you! Email Charles at [email protected]

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This week on Color Commentary, Dr. Charles Cole is joined by education activist, Brightbeam CEO, and fellow 8 Black Hands host Chris Stewart to break down the Netflix documentary Louis Theroux: Inside the Manosphere. The film — which hit number one on Netflix — takes viewers inside a growing world of online male influencers who profit from messages about masculinity, dominance, and distrust. But Charles and Chris go deeper: What void is the manosphere filling that schools, fathers, and communities have left open? Why are young Black men among those consuming — and sometimes producing — this content? And what do educators and parents actually do about it?

We'd love to hear from you! Email Charles at [email protected]

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This week on Color Commentary, Dr. Cole gets personal. From sleeping in a Tenderloin shelter at nine years old to earning a doctorate, speaking across the country, and helping more than a thousand kids get to college — he traces the origins of an ambition that has driven everything and cost him plenty. This is not a success story. This is an honest reckoning with the most faithful and most dangerous force in his life.

We would love to hear from you. Email Dr. Cole at [email protected].

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Today I want to make an argument. It is one I believe in deeply — both because of the work I do every day and because of the evidence that history gives us when we bother to look. The argument is simple: do not underestimate young people. Do not put a ceiling on what they are capable of creating. Because the next time someone tells you that youth is a limitation, I want you to think about two names. Nasir Jones. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. Let me give you the facts first.
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We’d love to hear from you! Email Charles at [email protected]

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We have two things today. First — the Oscars happened Sunday...and I need to say a few words. Then we're going deep on something I watched this weekend that I haven't been able to stop thinking about. Louis Theroux just dropped a documentary on Netflix called Inside the Manosphere. I watched it. I have thoughts. And I think you need to watch it too — especially if you have a son, a nephew, a little brother, or a student. Let's get into it.
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We’d love to hear from you! Email Charles at [email protected]

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I want to revisit the BAFTA conversation one more time — because the comments have not stopped coming in and there is one more thing I need to say. Then we are going to walk through all ten Best Picture nominees ahead of the Oscars this Sunday — what they are, whether I've seen them, what I actually think. I'll be honest about which ones I've seen, which ones I haven't, and which one I started and had to walk away from. And in the back half of the show, I want to introduce you to something personal. Something I've been building for years that deserves its own moment on this microphone. Let's get into it.

We’d love to hear from you! Email Charles at [email protected]

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Last week we talked about the BAFTAs — Ryan Coogler's historic win, and what Michael B. Jordan and Delroy Lindo had to endure on that stage. Well, this week MBJ went and won the Actor Award — formerly the SAGs — in one of the biggest upsets of the awards season. And the Oscars are twelve days away. We're going to celebrate that. But I also need to address some of the comments from last episode — because some of y'all had me in my feelings. Let's get into it.

We’d love to hear from you! Email Charles at [email protected]

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This week on Color Commentary, Dr. Charles Cole III breaks down the 2026 BAFTAs — Ryan Coogler's historic Best Original Screenplay win for Sinners, what Tourette syndrome and Coprolalia actually are, and why the real story isn't John Davidson. It's what BAFTA and the BBC chose to do — and chose not to do — while Michael B. Jordan and Delroy Lindo were standing on that stage.

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We'd love to hear from you! Email Charles at [email protected]

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Today we’ve got two stories:

• Eulogizing Rev. Jesse Louis Jackson Sr.

• Tyler Perry's Joe's College Road Trip

Let’s get into it.

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We’d love to hear from you! Email Charles at [email protected]

And be sure to check out our merch here!