You are validating someone's life by telling their story. Even if it's a sad one.

Shame is hard to confront. Even if you know it's baseless, it's still hard to come face-to-face with.

Messages hidden in the thickets of a story are the ones that burrow deepest because most of us don't realize that any burrowing is going on at all.

I guess you could say I've written a lot about one thing as a journalist. But I hardly ever saw it as exclusively about race. To my mind, it was more about telling stories of people who existed outside the mainstream's field of vision. Invisible people.

Most of us, when imagining an All-American, wouldn't picture a man who looked like me. Not even I would.

I didn't go into journalism thinking it would solidify my identity. I did it because I needed to make a living, and I was proficient in writing. But in becoming a journalist, I learned about other people who felt like they were on the edges of American mainstream life.