However many masks we invent and deploy, in the end, we cannot control what other people see when they look at us. - Saeed Jones

In that way we were both just like each other. We both allowed too deep of a contrast between our interiors and our exteriors. We both clung to self-assured masks that actually allowed us to cause ourselves more unseen harm.

Somewhere between the fact we know and the anxiety we feel is the reality we live. — MAMIE ELIZABETH TILL-MOBLEY

I will say for myself: America, I did the best I could with what I was given.