I think a lot about the private emotions of black people - what we feel and yet is rarely publicly expressed.

When people think about reparations, they immediately think about people who've been dead for 100 years.

I feel some need to represent where I'm from. But ultimately, I think my only real responsibility is to - as much as possible - interrogate my own truths. This is to say not merely writing what I think is true, but using the writing to turn that alleged truth over and over, to stress-test it, in the aim of producing something readable.

I think riots happen when communities are under pressure for long periods of time. That's not a mistake.

I feel like my job is to look at the world and to report what I see, to write what I see as honestly and directly as I can. I don't want to cut it or make it easy, but be as direct as I can.

When you write, you're inside the project. You can't really think about the reception. It has to be worth it even if no one reads it.