The greatest reward of this constant interrogation, confrontation with the brutality of my country, is that it has freed me from hosts and myths.

I want to be really, really clear about this. It doesn't mean that everyone or even the majority of people who voted for Donald Trump are racist or white supremacists or anything like that. But what it means is that it's not a mistake that Trump began his campaign with birthersism .

Racism is not merely a simplistic hatred. It is, more often, broad sympathy toward some and broader skepticism toward others.

I think, as a writer, I'm in my own head.

I did not know then that this is what life is - just when you master the geometry of one world, it slips away, and suddenly again, you're swarmed by strange shapes and impossible angles.

Just because you came here in 1880, 1950, whenever, you became an American. You get to celebrate July 4th like every other American. You don't just get the good part. You get the bad part, too. You get all of it.

An America that looks away is ignoring not just the sins of the past but the sins of the present and the certain sins of the future.