When we as black men abandon our sons, we create a longing that may be impossible to fill.

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Everywhere I went during CIAA week, folks were talking about it: The uptown crowds seemed smaller this year. Has the Queen City played out as host for the annual event?

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Today I did the unthinkable: I used the new Facebook gadgets to “subscribe” to Panthers quarterback Cam Newton and former New York Times Editor Bill Keller.

“Subscribing” is a new function on Facebook. It allows users to view the Facebook updates of others without actually being their Facebook “friend.” It’s kind of like “following” a person on Twitter.

I call this unthinkable because…well, I don’t usually do that sort of thing.

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Did you ever hear of Eddie and Sylvia Brown, a prominent business couple living in Maryland?

Well, neither had I. But on Friday the Maryland Historical Society named them "Marylanders of the Year."

As a Charlotte-based website, it’s normally not our thing to look halfway up the Eastern Seaboard in search of folks to write about. But I came across the Browns’ story last week and found it simply too inspiring to keep to myself.

Over the last 15 years, the Browns have given more than $22 million to various causes, much of it going to benefit inner-city youths.

It seems Brown knows something about poverty.

Burt Kummerow, left, president of the Maryland Historical Society, is pictured here with C. Sylvia Brown and Eddie C. Brown at a luncheon honoring the Browns as Marylanders of the Year. (Photo: Courtesy of Maryland Historical Society)

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Finally, someone has rushed (well, more like sauntered) to defend the honor of Charlotte, my beloved Queen City.

For a minute I worried that nobody cared that local NAACP President Kojo Nantambu described our town as a “racist bastion,” a place crawling with bigots. It seemed all anyone wanted to talk about was Mr. Nantambu’s call for an economic boycott.

Typical Charlotte.

Never mind that our lady friend has been called a tramp... so long as the guy at the other end of the bar keeps buying her drinks.

On Thursday, Mayor Anthony Foxx waded in.

“I... disagree that Charlotte is a racist community,” he said in a statement released to the media. “By using labels such as racist to characterize our entire city, all of us are implicated, including me, and such a harsh, irrevocable verdict leaves us nowhere to go as a community.”

Well spoken, Mr. Mayor.

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