Do not text me about how mad you are about Ahmaud Arbery’s murder. Or George Floyd. Or the next one that comes across two days late to your social media feed.

Do not send me a Slack message telling me how sorry you are about the racist thing that is CURRENTLY being said to me on the Zoom meeting we are both in right now.

Do not forward me (and only me) articles detailing the ins and outs of institutionalized racism.

Leave your #BreonnaTaylor out of my LinkedIn comments.

Get out of my DMs about Amy Cooper, the Central Park…

Summer 2014 — There was garbage everywhere. Anticipation weighted the city air grayed by towering buildings of industries past. Bang! People scattered. Police patrolled almost every corner, and their barricades blocked the roads. Parents held onto their children tightly, protecting them from the speeding crowds. It was chaos. It was Detroit.

But this wasn’t the Detroit my Jamaica-born, New York–acculturated father had warned me about — the Detroit that had kept me nestled in my suburban oasis in Ann Arbor as a public health graduate student. No, on this particular day, it was the Detroit Free Press Marathon, and the…

When hiring folks to work in international development, there’s a higher value placed on international travel experience to low-resourced settings and especially to the regions and countries where we work. Why?

In most cases, I STRONGLY believe that this approach is a BIG MISTAKE.

Take a second to think about this: What’s the demographic of folks who get to travel internationally or live or work abroad for long periods of time? Who gets to forego a real salary to spend two years in the Peace Corps? Most likely, these are the people who have the resources and support (financially and…

Last April, I traded in spinal cancer for a spinal cord injury. It’s the type of upgrade you get on something that already sucks — sort of like getting bumped up a class on Spirit Airlines.

Even in the nine months since I’ve had my cane, I’ve experienced firsthand the choices made to erase people with disabilities from public life. This is more than parking spaces, elevators and those automatic door buttons I press on days when I want to feel like I have magical powers. I’m talking about the stuff that happens after overcoming the building entry challenges. There’s…