“Don’t be a tool.” Photo by James Orr on Unsplash I heard that a lot growing up. Maybe you did too. It usually meant something like, don’t be annoying  or don’t ruin the fun . Sometimes it was said to someone who seemed entitled—someone acting like they thought were better than everyone else. I don’t hear the phrase much anymore. But I think about it often. Because now, when I hear the word tool , I think of Audre Lorde’s words: “The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.” I...

I’ve been thinking a lot about how close so many of us are to things we still refuse to see. Photo by Vitaly Gariev on Unsplash We’ve shared meals. We’ve sat on each other’s couches. We’ve celebrated birthdays, graduations, weddings—so many markers of life together. We say we care about one another. And I believe many of us mean it. And still, there are realities shaping my daily life—and the daily lives of many people who aren’t white, or who love people who aren’t white—that I don’t think...

At the start of a new year, I notice my questions shifting. Photo by Buddha Elemental 3D on Unsplash They’re less about what I want to accomplish and more about what I’m already part of—sometimes without choosing, and often without fully seeing it. Less about fixing myself alone. More about how we’re living together, and what our ordinary, everyday lives are helping to create. One question keeps returning—even when I try to set it down: What do division, violence, and “safety” today have to...