To everyone so eager to cancel someone for a tattoo they got at age 22, a drunk text, a selfie they took in the middle of a mental health crisis:
Show us your laptop.
Show us your iCloud.
Open your entire digital life to your worst enemy. No context. No filter. No explanation.
You won’t.
You won’t because you know what I know. Any one of us, frozen at our worst moment, photographed in our lowest hour, looks like a monster. Looks like a stranger. Looks like someone who deserves to be cast out.
That is not who we are.
My mom and baby sister were killed in a car accident when I was just a kid. Cancer took my brother Beau, my best friend and my rock. I battled alcoholism. I battled addiction. I chose the coward’s way out more times than I can count.
For years I believed the defining chapters of my life were written by tragedy, loss, and shame.
I no longer believe that.
Pain can shape us. Loss can humble us. Failures can leave scars that never fully fade. But none of them have the authority to define us.
And it sure as hell ain’t the critic that counts.
That authority belongs to us alone-the person in the arena.
Every setback presents a choice. Play the victim, or cut the bullshit and take ownership for who we become next.
Life does not determine our character. It reveals it.
Again and again we are asked the same question. When shit happens, what next?
We are not defined by what happened to us. We are not defined by the worst photo, the worst text, the worst tattoo, the worst night. We are defined by the person we choose to become. And by the courage to choose that person, every single day.
So before you reach for the gavel - show us your laptop.
You won’t.
The whole world saw mine. And I am still here. Still becoming. Still choosing. Still standing.
That is the only definition that matters.
Charlamagne tha God: “The way y’all acting over Bad Bunny is how y’all should be acting over the Epstein List. The Justice Department redacted the names of at least six men who are likely incriminated by their inclusion in the Epstein Files. Why aren’t you outraged about that, Megyn Kelly and Jesse Watters?”
Bad Bunny walked out in a #64 jersey with “OCASIO” on the back.
Not Bad Bunny.
Not Benito.
His real name.
His family name.
Then he grabbed the mic and said:
“My name is Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio. And if today I’m here at the Super Bowl, it’s because I never, never stopped believing in myself.”
In Spanish.
No translation.
Even the jumbotron was in Spanish.
And I watched the whole thing with a translator on.
Because the message was that important to me.
They said he was “un-American.”
They said nobody would understand him.
They said having him perform was “ridiculous.”
And he SHOWED OUT!
He brought out Lady Gaga and Ricky Martin.
He staged a wedding on the field.
He recreated a bodega.
He gave us a whole scene of family and love.
He humanized an entire culture on the world’s biggest stage.
All in his native language.
And he didn’t flinch.
His lyrics were clear messages:
“They want to take the river from me, and the beach too. They want my neighborhood and for my grandma to leave.”
“I should have taken more photos when I had you. Hopefully my loved ones will never move.”
And that last line:
“Ojalá que los míos nunca se muden.”
Hopefully my loved ones will never move.
That’s about families being separated.
Forced to leave.
Displacement.
Yeah, he didn’t chase the mainstream.
He made the mainstream come to him.
He put his family name on his back and told 120 million people exactly who he is.
And I’m here for ALL of it!👏🏽