“When people see me they think I’m a thug. That’s the first thing that comes into their head. The first time you see a little Black boy, you automatically think, ‘He’s going to rob me. He might beat me up. No education.’ They made Black people think that we aren’t anything at all.”

“I think I was about 14 when I realized that racism was very much alive and part of our society. That was very shocking nd very hurtful. I felt like I had been lied to. No one ever told me that it was still a thing. I thought it had all ended in the 60’s or something.”

“Black people will never be accepted in this country. Whoever’s in control, I don’t expect them to do the right thing because they haven’t done the right thing until this point.”

“When I was growing up, I was free of the white gaze. I wasn’t preoccupied with my Blackness. We spent much more time preoccupied with achieving what we wanted to achieve, very specific things. I imagine what white privilege feels like.”

“I worry that the scars and the agonies have so crippled the imagination that it’s going to be years, perhaps generations, before we really come to terms and understand the depth and the legacy that it slavery.”

“I worked at the Four Seasons Baltimore during the unrest, and CNN, Fox, NBC, all of their media stayed at that hotel. And one thing I was struck by was the amount of enthusiasm they had about the opportunity to cover turmoil. And not only was it real turmoil, it was turmoil that was affecting me and my city in a way I had never seen before.”

“I constantly think about race. I’m optimistic that we can turn things around in the city. I’m not convinced that we can. I think some of the gut issues have never been dealt with in the city.”

“When I was 22, I won a scholarship to go to grad school in London. And I remember there was point about a year into my studies when I realized I was no longer looking over my shoulder. I might be out jogging and my default mode was to be very jumpy and edgy. I took a year from being away from my country and my city before I realized that I’d been shaking my entire life.”

“And here we all are, all trying to figure it out. And wanting to figure it out. And not exactly knowing how to do it except to like rage and listen and talk about it — to the point that it’s almost too much.”

“When white people see me, they really don’t know what’s in my heart. I have a lot to offer as far as to let you know what’s going on in a Black person’s mind. If you wanted to sit down one-to-one with me, I will actually tell you what’s going on from my point of view as a Black man.”