“You’re more than just a social worker though.”

His words hit me like a Wu-Tang album. They were hard, raw, and uncompromising. I let them dangle in ether, occupying the void between his end of the phone line and mine.

“You know what I mean?” he continued. “You’re a social…

I don’t want to die with my hands up.

I don’t want to die at the hands of those sworn to protect and serve but look away when my life is on the line.

I don’t want to lie face down on the concrete with cuffs on my wrists, hoping…

I’m from Brooklyn, so I quote Jay-Z like pastors quote the Bible.

I truly believe that there’s a Hov line for any occasion; if you can’t think of one, then your knowledge of his catalog isn’t deep enough. But, I don’t have that problem because I love rap. I’m a…

The year is 2020. As usual, the news is on in our home, providing a background ambiance for our daily lives. The reporter, a White woman who is almost in tears, describes the latest developments in the murder of Breonna Taylor.

Murder. I use that word deliberately because seldom is…

“Jayson-Kandace,” look!

“Jayson-Kandace, come!”

“Jayson-Kandace, we miss you.”

My wife and I are a packaged deal, in the eyes of our god-children. We’ve watched them grow up and despite the fact that we are two very different human beings, they refuse to separate us. The boy, a seven-year-old sweetheart, loves…

It doesn’t matter what she was wearing. This story would be true regardless of her attire. I would have missed her if it weren’t for the chorus of hecklers that announced her presence. First came the men, at least 20 years her senior, to the right.

“Sweetness.”

“Beautiful.”

Then, the…

Picture this: a little boy peering through a closed second-story window at the sidewalk below, focusing on the farthest tip of the street that he could see. He wasn’t fixated on the sway of the trees in the autumn breeze, nor the assortment of passenger cars and delivery trucks that…