Editor’s Note: Thanks again for being part of my community, particularly to those who are paid subscribers. Your sponsorship of this space has allowed me to keep doing my work. I have no plans to move to another platform, so any support, including forwarding this to your friends and family, is always helpful. For you, this one’s a little more personal. Enjoy.

“Don’t go out because you’ll do something you’re gonna regret.”

The year started unpromisingly enough. People in my circle felt the doldrums of what would come from the start. Little did people realize the subtler tone of the second Trump transition (compared to the first one) would strike harder and faster at the country people came to know. While America has always had imperial and colonial aspirations, President Trump the sequel has sought to unveil the niceties of the last few decades. By the second week of his administration, the list of “others” looked less like 2017 and more like 1776. Even more disturbing was the list of “others” who confidently embraced that framework even when no real benefit would ever befall to them.

I felt this even more deeply as I got an urgent phone call from my wife in early February. An outside section of our apartment had just been robbed. The inside portion and all the people in it were safe. By the time the police arrived, she arranged to add extra locks. Our building superintendent helped coordinate next steps. Our landlord did nothing but connect us to the security cameras. The security personnel revealed the “suspects”: two teenagers who looked like the students we served our entire adult lives.

When we took a longer view of the footage, the teenagers paid our outside space a few visits while we were asleep. They smiled at the landlord’s security cameras.

The night of the robbery, I immediately changed our class from in-person to virtual. Suddenly, I was leading an informal security collective within my building, coordinating with the next buildings over including the school and the church, all of whom had similar run-ins with the teens. I set aside some of my passion projects along with their deadlines. I didn’t sleep well for the next few months as we preserved the facade of stability. My closest friends and associates learned of the incident. Even my more radical friends suggested I get my own security camera and I obliged.

In another time, such an incident wouldn’t have shaken me so. But it felt like I and my people were getting robbed on multiple fronts. As a recently certified social scientist and veteran educator, it made me think: “How did we even get here?”

It’s not fair. The three of us – including our son – sat there for hours daily thinking about the choices these young folks made in order for them to feel like coming after us was their only recourse. For every success story I have, I have a few others who didn’t have anyone or anything they could turn to for help. In our neighborhood, food bank lines and churches wrap around the block with elders and young people alike. When we saw them, we first felt anger. But then pity and societal remorse settled in because that’s what educators do. We even considered leaving a note for them to ask politely and we’d arrange for a food pickup instead of the nonsense they engaged in on our block.

Their music and media tells them individualism will pull them out of squalor. The people behind those messages shove the economic ladders from underneath them.

This country has clearly signaled hatred towards people who look like the kids who robbed our hood. Harlem looked super-accessible to their grievances whereas Park Avenue did not. They allegedly fought some elders, some of whom contributed to this neighborhood’s culture for decades. Through the grapevine, I heard their families both depended on their scavenging for food and shelter and disavowed their practices. Young people in the city have found less places to convene and take part in community (yes, some exist, but not enough). Grocery prices rose, and few politicians called out the exploitation of poor people. For too long, the rich would tell people in poverty to have a sense of morals while extracting labor time and again.

At several moments this year, I looked at my personal pain points and asked myself “What am I keeping and what am I throwing away?” I don’t have all the answers. I do have some, though.

After all, I just internalized a lack of safety after spending years restoring it within myself. At times, I found myself acting against my highest self. Who will protect the protector? Who will call the caller? What am I needing from people I interact with daily, whether they call themselves supervisors, friends, or family? At those 2am hours when I would hear the slightest creaks, who else would keep an eye open for me? What does refuge look like in a land that has dedicated itself to revoke its welcome mat?

When one of the suspects appeared on our security camera a few weeks after the initial incident, my wife said “Don’t go out there because you’ll do something you’re going to regret.” I stepped away from the door begrudgingly. But I told myself that I would definitely be outside in other ways.

Rather than wallow in despair, I asked a better question: “How am I contributing to the society I wish to take part in?” I didn’t just meet thousands of people on and offline in 2025. Through EduColor and other organizations, I helped coordinate gatherings of people in mutual care. I fostered community within my classes and invited special guests too, many of whom never get those types of opportunities. Social media helped me reach out to people across time and space to elevate educational equity. The mayoral race took me across the borough and around my neighborhood in hopes of seeing larger changes in the city. As the federal government signaled less empathy and compassion for others, I dug deeper into those values for us and others.

I even got to tell a graduating class of students to take their learning inside so they could be outside. I was learning with them.

This is no “happily ever after.” I’m still my own worst critic, despite the coalitions of haters appearing in my social media and other collectivities. I know 2025 changed us in ways large and small. Powerful people and their followers granted us clarity about ourselves and the communities we wish to build. But also, for those of us who made it to 2026, we have people to free, including ourselves. Young people, including my son, deserve to have adults willing to fight for them and not punt on a better way of being. I do fear that some of us are so entrenched in our silos, we prefer boarded up windows over glass.

But I don’t want to live this way. So I did something about it. But my “doing something about it” doesn’t include harming neighborhoods for a twisted sense of revenge. Even among the indignities I witnessed first and second-hand, I asked my ancestors for something wholly different.

Faith without works is dead. In 2026, I hope our faith guides our works towards a humanity that won’t leave our people behind. We’ll be outside accordingly.