At Work
Honesty Is the Best Policy—Especially in Focus Groups
There will always be liars in the focus group, but Fred was never one of them.
What Happens When You’re in the Elevator with the Boss’s Son
It’s happened for the past three days now. A three-day streak definitely qualifies it as A capitalized Thing.
What I Learned from My Father, the Pink-Collar Worker
As a black man in the field of social work, my dad was, as a white female coworker of his once put it, “like a fly in buttermilk.”
When You Have to Quit Your Dream Job to Pursue Your Dream
After I left, everything became clearer, in the way that a breakup can clarify a toxic relationship; put things in sharp relief.
Stitches of Love: Photographing Deceased Neonates
“I take these photographs so she’ll be able to remember the time when she had two heartbeats. Tears bucket down her face.”
Five Rhythms: Dance Class in a Dallas Jail
Dance is about freeing ourselves, finding a secret space inside our bodies that no lock can close.
When Women Approach and Men Receive: Masculinity and Sexual Subjectivity in the Strip Club
When we conflate men’s sexuality with harassment and violence, we don’t ask much of them. Masculinity doesn’t have to be toxic.
Adventures in Coffin Making
“What leads a man to transact with death for his daily bread?”
The World of Transshipment, Where One Glitch Can Lead to Chaos
I couldn’t stop thinking about what I would do if something went wrong. If I made a mistake, my son and I might go back to being homeless.
Working on ‘The Post’ Helped Me Pay Tribute to My Father the Newspaperman
I wish I could tell my dad that I worked to recreate the newsroom. That people still think newspaper stories—and stories about newspapers—are worth telling.