Give me my brother. You can keep your friends.

As a teenager I felt misunderstood. I felt confused. Somewhere in that confusion was me. The me I was destined to become.

I brought Grand Rapids with me to Newaygo. I brought difference. I was used to a fluid concept of harmony. I was used to diversity. Homogenous harmony has walls. As a fourteen-year-old boy in Newaygo, I felt those walls.

A line between white and black had been drawn in my life. I straddled that line with an ache I had no name for. An ache I now understand as identity crisis.

Accountability is the only real beginning to change.

Cars slowed down as they passed. White drivers with white passengers. White parents with white children, watching. Not seeing, I imagine, three innocent black boys being harassed by racist police officers. Seeing three black criminals being brought to justice. Young minds being shaped into wrong thinking. Generational ignorance being reinforced through misconstrued observation.

If you ask Denny, he will tell you: "I'm a patriot. I love my country." A country that doesn't love him back. Doesn't love him black. A patriot. Let that register. A black patriot. In a country that won't acknowledge that Black Lives Matter.