Bliss Collective,

Today is Monday, June 29, 2026. Six months ago, my little brother Deneco died by suicide.

I have not known how to tell you that. There is no clean way to fold the worst thing into a Monday brief. There is no version of this writing that gets it right. So I am going to write it imperfectly, and I am going to write it true, because today melaninblissmedia.com goes live, and I refuse to launch this work without you knowing why I built it.

The first six months of 2026 broke me open. There is no other word. A nightmare I will not name today. An accident. Technology that failed me at the moment I could afford it least. Sleepless nights I will never get back. A founder’s patience tested past every limit I thought I had. The tumult. And in the middle of all of it, the call no sister ever wants to receive about a brother she loves more than her own breathing.

I do not write this for your sympathy. I write it because building Melanin Bliss Media while grieving Deneco is the truest thing I have ever done, and I will not start the public chapter of MB with a lie about a clean origin.

Here is the real beginning.

I did not build Melanin Bliss Media because I sat down and planned an empire. My steps were ordered. That is the only honest way I know how to say it. I happened to be good at this work. Other people saw it before I did.

I am a girl from South Central Los Angeles. By every statistic this country uses to predict what happens to girls like me, I was supposed to be a number on a page. I am not a number on a page. I have spent fifteen years inside American healthcare — in hospital systems whose names you would recognize, and on the payer side at companies whose commercials interrupt your evenings. I sat at tables I was never supposed to be invited to. The doctors saw it. The executives saw it. My friends saw it. My family saw it. People who had no reason to bet on a ghetto girl from South Central bet on me anyway, and that bet is the reason I am writing to you today.

I walked into those rooms looking exactly like myself. Hair done. Nails done. Face beat. I am a Black woman who refuses to perform something I am not for a chair I have already earned. I was usually the only Black person at the table. I brought peace and comfort to people who needed it. I ruffled the feathers of people who needed that too. I did not care about the feather-ruffling. I cared about the work. The people who believed in me were enough. They were more than enough. They are why I am here.

My siblings brag on me. My cousins, young and old, brag on me. That is the version of me my family sees. And what you see is what you get. I live for good food, good music, and good memories. That is also true.

What I knew before this year: the system fails Black people in measurable ways. What I know now: the system failed Deneco, too. And it will keep failing the next Deneco unless someone who has been inside refuses to be quiet about it.

I am that someone. Not because I decided to be. Because my steps were ordered to put me in every one of those rooms, and now I have a tool I did not ask for, and there is work to do.

Melanin Bliss Media exists to do that work.

We publish Health Equity Journalism. We cover the policy, financing, and technology decisions that quietly shape who lives and who dies in this country. We advise hospitals and physician groups on clinical AI deployment, because the next phase of American healthcare is being built right now — often without anyone in the room asking whether it will work for Black patients. We do both under one LLC, with a firewall between them, because the work demands both.

Today, melaninblissmedia.com goes live.

You will find our editorial work there. You will find The Melanin Memo. You will find The Equity Read, our event coverage product. You will find MB Strategy Consulting AI’s advisory practice. You will find a Black woman who refused to shrink even when the year tried to make her.

But you will not find a brand on that website. You will find a blueprint. There is a difference.

I am closing this letter at the close of Black Men’s Mental Health Month for a reason. Black men in this country are dying by suicide at rates the country is not paying attention to. Black men are walking out of clinical encounters with their pain unaddressed and their depression invisible. Black men are being asked to perform stability inside families and workplaces and communities that have never once asked them how they are.

Deneco did all of those things until he could not anymore.

I will not tell you who he was. He was mine, and I am keeping most of him for me. But I will tell you this: he was loved beyond what I could measure, and he should still be here.

I am building Melanin Bliss Media so the next Deneco gets covered before he gets memorialized. So that the policy decisions shaping his care get reported with depth before they become headlines. So that the AI tools deployed in his clinic get tested for fairness before they fail him. So that the hospital system serving his neighborhood gets held accountable before it has to apologize. So that the Black women who love him — mothers, sisters, partners, daughters — are not the only ones in the room asking if he is okay.

This is not about me. It has never been about me.

It is about him. And the next him. And the her too, because Black women are dying alongside Black men and we cannot afford to forget either.

I have spent the last six months learning how to write a sentence that does not end in tears. I am not always successful. But I am here. The work is here. And as of today, the door is open.

Welcome to Melanin Bliss Media. The work begins again today, and you are not watching from outside anymore. You are inside.

Amber K. McClendon

Founder & CEO, Melanin Bliss Media LLC

amber@mbmedia.co · melaninblissmedia.com

Public health, reimagined. Not a brand. A blueprint.

For Deneco.

———

IF YOU ARE STRUGGLING TODAY — or if you love someone who is

You are not alone. Please reach out. The list below is for you. It is also for the people you love, in case you need to hand it to them.

If you cannot make a call yourself, ask one person who loves you to make it with you. If you are someone’s person, do not wait for them to ask. Ask them first.

IN AN IMMEDIATE CRISIS (You or someone with you is in danger right now.)

Call 911

Call or text 988 — the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline (24/7, free, confidential)

Text HOME to 741741 — Crisis Text Line (24/7)

FOR BLACK-AFFIRMING MENTAL HEALTH SUPPORT

Therapy for Black Men · therapyforblackmen.org

The BEAM Collective (Black Emotional and Mental Health Collective) · beam.community

Therapy for Black Girls · therapyforblackgirls.com

Ourselves Black · ourselvesblack.com

AAKOMA Project (mental health for young people of color) · aakomaproject.org

Inclusive Therapists (find culturally affirming care) · inclusivetherapists.com

FOR BROADER MENTAL HEALTH NAVIGATION

NAMI HelpLine · 1-800-950-6264 or text ‘HelpLine’ to 62640

SAMHSA National Helpline · 1-800-662-4357 (24/7, free, confidential)

Psychology Today therapist directory · psychologytoday.com/us/therapists

TALK TO SOMEONE YOU LOVE

Tell one person you trust today. One is enough to start. The person you tell does not need to have the answer. They only need to listen. Hand them this list if you cannot find the words. The phone numbers above will hold the rest.

If you have lost someone to suicide, you are also welcome at any of the resources above. Grief after loss is its own crisis. You do not have to carry it alone.

We are here. We are not going anywhere.

Welcome to Melanin Bliss Media. melaninblissmedia.com