One of the architects of a major framework in youth policy used by government, philanthropy, and nonprofits has less than 500 followers on social media. Another reminder of how many power players and those shaping our discourse have limited visibility.

The discourse often suggests we can’t resent being politically ignored or ridiculed and continue to do the work, organize, and meet people where they are when needed. Nah, we can simultaneously have resentment and keep organizing. People do it all the time. It’s called survival.

Fred Hampton said, “A lot of us read and read and read, but we don’t get any practice.” And that we gotta be okay with making mistakes––as part of practice, of getting politically involved, and trying. “We have to start making mistakes, and you learn through making mistakes.”

When I guest-edited a forum for an academic journal, a contributor, a senior scholar, wrote me, “One of the most supportive experiences in my academic career. You knew we could do it, work and muddle through the typical analytical hoops and structure, and helped us get there.”

Toni Morrison emphasized learning “how to receive tremendous joy from problem solving when the problems to be solved involve the improvement of real lives.” “We really have to learn to love thinking again. Not fretting, not worrying, but thinking… to learn, to change things.”

Victim’s brother doesn’t want execution broadcast. “Does witnessing another person’s death… make our communities safer? Or does it simply give the public another act of violence to watch, this time carried out by the government?” newsweek.com/exclusive-broth…

Many try to write so readers can’t logically disagree with us. But, as W.E.B. Du Bois noted, racists “need something more than the sort of facts that I have set down.” Maybe it’s about researching and writing so well that the only thing left for some people to do is disagree.

We need to have a serious conversation about Morris Chestnut in his late 50s being able to easily do push ups with his feet crossed and smiling the whole time.

I wanna try Standup Desk. I’ve already done open mic at a comedy club. And teaching has prepared me to tell jokes to a room full of people sitting at their desks, trying to avoid eye contact and laughing half-heartedly at my jokes, lol.

Decades ago, Toni Morrison said that as a nation, we don’t prioritize knowing “how to be alone and competent in solitude, how to nurture friendship rather than how to network... how to inhabit the body, not how to reconstruct, decorate, or simply medicate it.”

Maybe it’s just me and what pumps me up, but I’m motivated by Octavia E. Butler saying, “We are trash if we don’t write. We’re good for nothing if those words aren’t down.”

During the strength workout, the instructor said form is more important than ego. I needed that reminder.

Salman Rushdie: “There’s a danger of becoming a wise woman, you sit there and tell the world how it is.” Toni Morrison: “Oh yes, that is the ultimate danger.”

Sometimes our contribution is to stay out of the way. To not project our insecurities or fears on others willing to take political risks we’re not ready to take. To not make it harder for those ready to fight the good fight.

On feminists critiquing her for having a male protagonist, Toni Morrison said, “That was really annoying—to predict where you belong and where your imagination goes and what camp you’re in…I’m told what to do in many areas of my life. But not this one.” Those last two sentences.

As I revise another draft I mutter to myself, “Like James Baldwin said, ‘I’m not a writer. I’m a re-writer.’”