About Me & This Blog
Despite making a career out of software engineering, I’ve always loved to write. I was working on finishing the first three books of a new kind of fantasy series (I’m halfway through the third book and still planning on publishing the first, second, and third novels around the end of 2020), but I’m taking a slight detour into social and political writing because the rise of Donald Trump and Republicans’ enabling of Trumpism have left my friends and me sad, worried, and disappointed in just about everyone.
I’m gay, black, 6'5", cis male, not religious, from Cincinnati, and a graduate of Columbia University’s Engineering School in 2013.
I enjoy engaging in political discussions with people. However, recently I’ve found myself having the same conversations many times with different people. As someone who consumes more political content than is perhaps healthy — in the form of podcasts and online print media like Vox, NPR, the New York Times, the Atlantic, the Washington Post, and the Hill — I realize now that people in my life turn to me for discussions around politics and black or queer identities, so I’m hoping to use this medium to codify some of my thinking in the hopes of better tracking the evolution of my beliefs over time.
I’m also not writing for a neutral audience. I’m a progressive Democrat writing content for Democrats.
Many on the Left feel everyone on the Right has veered so far off the social and political deep end that they’re a lost cause. I’m sympathetic to these views, but at least at the outset of this endeavor, I want to focus on the ways we all misunderstand and anger each other.
I‘ll try not to accuse or blame any voting blocks. Instead, I’ll try to assume we’re all the victims, instead of the perpetrators, of our most destructive deeply held beliefs and, based on this assumption, search for the real villains.
I’ll try to peel back the onion on some of our toughest, most partisan national dialogues in the hopes of advancing a framework — grounded in good faith and built on listening and empathy — for beginning to heal some of the wounds that divide us. I’ll offer specific techniques we can all use to recognize the many ways Republicans and Democrats, civil rights advocates and racists, snowflakes and trolls, and real, good people just out to enjoy life, do the right thing, and provide for their friends and families, are more similar — more interested in the same goals — than we realize.
I’m always open to feedback, so please don’t hesitate to drop me a line if you’d like to discuss anything I’ve written. I will respond!
