There is a solidarity that black people can find in celebrating the athletic success of our own, especially in sports where our existence is sparse.

To be an Arsenal fan is to convince yourself that you can no longer support a team that disappoints you, only to be drawn back in by the ever-flickering promise of something better.

The beauty of the World Cup is that while thirty-two countries get to cheer for their respective teams, the event also affirms a global pluralism - it is as much a festival of cultural multiplicity as it is a competition featuring some of the best athletes in the world.

Those who support the death penalty are accepting a practice that is both ineffective and fundamentally flawed.

It is easy not to support the death penalty when there is doubt about the culpability of the person sitting in the chair; it is harder to sustain such principles when the crime of the accused is morally indefensible.

The history of racial violence in our country is both omnipresent and unspoken. It is a smog that surrounds us that few will admit is there.

My parents raised me and my siblings in an armor of advice, an ocean of alarm bells so someone wouldn't steal the breath from our lungs, so that they wouldn't make a memory of this skin.

If you only hear one side of the story, at some point, you have to question who the writer is.

Education is a human right - a recognition of dignity that each person should be afforded.

Who has to have a soapbox when all you've ever needed is your voice?

Oppression doesn't disappear just because you decided not to teach us that chapter.

I want to live in a world where my son will not be presumed guilty the moment he is born, where a toy in his hand isn't mistaken for anything other than a toy.

In an effort to create a culture within my classroom where students feel safe sharing the intimacies of their own silences, I have four core principles posted on the board that sits in the front of my class, which every student signs at the beginning of the year: read critically, write consciously, speak clearly, tell your truth.

The death penalty not only takes away the life of the person strapped to the table - it takes away a little bit of the humanity in each of us.

We spend so much time listening to the things people are saying that we rarely pay attention to the things they don't.

When we say that black lives matter, it's not because others don't: it's simply because we must affirm that we are worthy of existing without fear, when so many things tell us we are not.

A cage that allows someone to walk around inside of it is still a cage.

Silence is the residue of fear.

Empathy should not be contingent on our proximity to suffering or the likelihood of it happening to us. Rather, it should stem from a disdain that suffering is happening at all.

We tend to think of racism as this interpersonal verbal or physical abuse, when in truth, that is only one way that racism manifests itself. The reality of contemporary racism is that it while it is ubiquitous, it is often invisible, subsequently making it more difficult to name and identify.

This idea of shared humanity and the connections that we make with one another - that's what, in fact, makes life worth living.

In college, I joined a team Bible study. God's Word brought me peace and a desire for a relationship with Him.

It's always great to be home and play in front of family and friends, especially for a big game.

I have a lot of great memories of playing in Dallas as a kid, and I'm proud to represent Nacogdoches.