The racist implications surrounding ‘boy' run deep—the roots of that word are more akin to ‘servant,’ ‘knave,’ and ‘urchin’ than to our contemporary conception of what a preadolescent child is supposed to be.

There’s a look you get used to receiving, and quickly, if you’re black with tattoos.

  One time in New Orleans, during an annual music festival organized by Essence magazine, a lady flagged me down from her car. I was walking through the French Quarter. The air was sufficiently drenched. In a neighborhood that has been steadil…

I had flown out of my life in one country and into the same life in another.

For the longest time, I didn’t know what a Pride parade was—or that queer folks congregated anywhere, ever. Once I found out, I hit up as many marches as I could.

Certain moments in sports require the company of others—an interweaving of narratives—for you to reach heights unseen.

A good cut is like sex: you could probably find it just about anywhere. But finding someone who can navigate your particular shape—that might take a minute.

In New Orleans, whose mayor has promised to keep it a sanctuary city, I started playing pickup soccer matches with a team of Honduran immigrants.

Since I moved to Louisiana, every few months I’ve met someone who’s spent time in Montrose. It’s this trendy suburb in Houston, the kind the South’s accused of lacking, and the folks who bring it up are usually bemoaning the neighborhood’s …

There’s a brand of New Orleans evening that begins on a whim, dissolves into multiheaded spectacle, and explodes into something else entirely. A few nights ago I was talking politics outside of C___, this chalky bar tucked between the French Quart…