Archive - Ever the Outsider

Affordable for Who? The Harlem Housing Crisis Mamdani Needs to Answer For

Will Mamdani help Harlem stay black?

May 29 • Duval Culpepper

6:37

Free Wine and Paul Simon in the streets of Birmingham, Michigan

After meeting an old friend in Royal Oak, I pushed on into the outskirts of the Detroit metro area to discover smoothies and public hedonism.

May 12 • Duval Culpepper

8:16

Royal Oak, an old friend and a password I wasn't supposed to have.

I hadn't seen Christina in years. She showed up anyway.

May 5 • Duval Culpepper

10:02

April 2026

New York was done with me—so I drove to Detroit.

In 2016 I drove across the country running from something. I didn't know what. I still don't. So I went back out.

Apr 29 • Duval Culpepper

11:33

Bougie Black Man Returns Home to Harlem

Gentrification is a mother.

Apr 24 • Duval Culpepper

16:05

I got laid off—here's what they don't want me to say on Linkedin.

AI displacement, invisible labor and the VP who called content design 'text.'

Apr 23 • Duval Culpepper

Cracking Jokes 60 Blocks from Ground Zero

On millennial optimism, F. Scott Fitzgerald and why hope is the most dangerous thing you can choose right now.

Apr 3 • Duval Culpepper

13:09

March 2026

Nobody Owns My Blackness: From Harlem to Bar Mitzvahs

The criticism I get is rarely about the points I’m making.

Mar 18 • Duval Culpepper

18:02

Why Emotional Politics Is Making Everyone Lose

Or why Elder Millennials need to be the adults in the room.

Mar 11 • Duval Culpepper

12:21

Or the death of elder millennial whimsy.

Mar 6 • Duval Culpepper

Mamdani's Looking at the Landlord in the Mirror

Is NYCHA's exclusion from "Rental Ripoff" hearings a performative pretext to something worse?

Mar 4 • Duval Culpepper

Buy a country a drink before we regime change, babe?

Or the Death of Political Storytelling & Conflict Salesmanship

Mar 1 • Duval Culpepper

14:55

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