In 2017, I gave a TED talk called "Yes, Read the Comments Section." The argument was simple: disengaging from people you disagree with is its own kind of failure. I believed that then. I still (mostly) believe it now.

Taylor Swift filed trademarks for her own voice. Matthew McConaughey did too — both moves aimed at getting ahead of AI deepfakes. It's a clever legal strategy, and untested in court. But the more interesting question isn't whether it works. It's what happens to everyone who doesn't have the resources to try it.

It is a spectacular failure. It is also, if you've spent any time working in communications or watching how organizations engage with the communities they claim to serve, a deeply familiar one.

The first sign is usually the schedule. Before the event, someone pulls me aside to explain that they had to be careful about how I was described.

There are two kinds of applause. The first is polite. The second is involuntary. The difference is whether the audience heard themselves through you.

Asian Americans at the Supreme Court: A Living History, Case by Case is a free, ongoing resource tracing over 150 years of Supreme Court cases that shaped what it means to be Asian American in this country, and a few cases that shaped that history without an Asian American attached at all.

Everyone sees the opinion. Nobody sees the years of setbacks that made it possible, or what gets permanently altered in the process of winning. This is what the legal record doesn't say.

In late May, Lululemon staged a yoga event on the Great Wall of China — more than 2,000 guests laid out their mats on one of the most recognizable landmarks on earth, in a campaign the company billed as a tribute to Chinese culture. It wasn't.

Nine years after a unanimous Supreme Court ruling reshaped First Amendment law, I'm still reckoning with what winning actually meant — the band that retired, the opera that followed, and why this story was never just mine to keep.

A new film, a band name, a memoir, a documentary. The word "slant" keeps getting reclaimed. What that pattern reveals about language, power, and who gets to decide.

The Supreme Court is about to decide Watson v. Republican National Committee on the narrowest possible grounds. But the question underneath it is constitutional — and we may have been asking it incorrectly for generations. What if voting is a First Amendment right?

The Supreme Court didn't rule that The Slants wasn't offensive. It ruled the government doesn't get to make that call. A plain-language breakdown of what the landmark First Amendment trademark case actually held, what it left open, and why it still matters.

One cuts, one chooses. It's a simple parenting hack that some use to teach children about fairness. Give two kids a cake: the first can cut it however they'd like, but the second gets to choose which piece they take. It's no surprise that children raised with this often learn to cut perfectly equal shares. The rules of the game have a way of shaping behavior.

I’ve let go of more in the past year than I ever have before—possessions, plans, versions of myself that no longer fit.

It doesn’t feel like loss. It feels like space.

Space for whatever comes next.

I just discovered that my podcast that I abandoned four years ago has surpassed a million downloads. I had forgotten my login credentials, let the website die, and hadn't thought about the show in years. When I finally managed to login, I learned that 75% of those downloads came after I walked away.

There's a perceived cost to seeking clarification that keeps us locked in these patterns. Asking "what do you mean by that?" can feel like admitting weakness or, worse, giving ground to the other side. In charged conversations (politics, values, identity), the act of asking for context gets coded as taking a position. We've somehow created a culture where knowing the "right" interpretation is a proxy for being on the "right" team.

But democracies, like baseball teams and investing, do not win on highlights alone. They win through institutional health, rule stability, and sustained participation. Zoning boards and school councils are not exciting, but they determine housing, education, and opportunity. Norms around election integrity or judicial independence do not trend on social media, but once weakened, they are extraordinarily difficult to rebuild. Getting the process right is like getting on base.

If caring only activates when harm reaches our inner circle, the foundation is too fragile. Real justice has to function in grey areas—when no one is obviously evil, when rules appear neutral, when harm is diffused across systems rather than delivered by a single hand. The harder question isn't "Do I feel bad for this person?" but "Would I trust this system if I were the most vulnerable person it touched?"