It's hard for me to view Baltimore outside the context of what Baltimore has always been in my mind: a violent place.

I was born in West Baltimore, lived in a situation in which violence was everywhere.

It meant something to see people who looked like me in comic books. It was this beautiful place that I felt pop culture should look like.

One of the things we tell ourselves as African-Americans is if we work hard, play by the rules, we do start back a little ways, but if we can be twice as good, somehow we can escape history and heritage and legacy.

We are all losers in comparison to Malala Yousafzai. But we are not all geniuses. Like me.

When people think about reparations, they immediately think about people who've been dead for 100 years.