"The most powerful thing you can do is stand up for a group that you do not belong to.” These words are written with permanent ink on my whiteboard and seared into my memory. The quote is from Brandon Fleming, founder of the Harvard Diversity Project (now the Veritas Debate Institute), during his address to the United Nations General Assembly. Fleming’s words, inspired by his aggregate life experiences as an educator and public speaker, as well as the Veritas Debate Institute, have had an indelible impact on my life. As a Class of 2023 Veritas Alum, I can confidently say that this is not your typical debate program. Veritas exists to enhance the education of Black and Brown youth and propel them toward economic success with the goal of advancing communities of color and countering racist systems in America via yearlong instruction of philosophy, rhetoric & speech, and political science. The college level curriculum ignited in me a passion for studying government, politics, and philosophy and provided me with the knowledge base to critically examine modern society’s most significant issues. The opportunities presented to us through Veritas included the ability to network with experts in our fields of interest, like the WebMD journalist who gave me valuable insight into potential college and career paths. But more importantly, Veritas encouraged us to be leaders and engage with our community. Through weekend workshops we host for middle and high-school students to help improve their speech and debate skills, I continue to give back to the community by teaching middle and high school students once a month in Metro Atlanta the fundamentals of critical thinking, public speaking, and civic engagement. I have been an alumni leader at several crucial workshops that set up the kids who will apply and be the next scholars in the 2025 Veritas Debate Cohort. My role in this is one of pure leadership, autonomy, and collaboration with my peers. I had to be willing to take the time outside of school and my tight schedule with varsity baseball and mock trial activites to formulate ideas such as splitting kids into groups to do crossfire debates defending the importance of abstract values such as love, justice, power, and knowledge, and teach to kids in the Atlanta area who have no experience with collegiate-level debate and critical thinking on how to conceptualize abstract concepts and bring them down to a level that can be understood and discussed amongst anybody. I extracted data collected by the Atlanta Community Support Project on the infuriatingly disproportionate arrests of Atlanta's homeless population in order to create a task where kids had to imagine a scenario on a stranded island community (Lord-of-the-Flies-esque) and they had to articulate arugments for why a disgruntled castaway should be jailed or given resources for their survival. I used the activity to connect it back to the problem of how this city's justice system is insufficient at handling unhoused people and imparted on them knowledge that they will hopefully use for positive change in their future as potential leaders. Veritas taught me how to take bold but necessary risks to be a leader and galvanized my resolve to take purposeful action. I consider these to be some of the greatest gifts I have ever received and feel compelled to pay it forward. Working with other kids to impart knowledge and skills to them has been such a rewarding experience and I truly hope that I can have the same impact for them that my mentor and instructors had for me.

"I hope you fail." Four words from someone I loved, ahead of the toughest challenge I'd ever faced. At the Veritas Debate Institute, we were mastering impactful openings in our public speaking unit. In a few months, our group of 50 Black and Brown kids would be soaring into uncharted airspace. On our flight from the Dirty South to Bean Town, we would be sharpening the blades of our rhetoric to compete in Harvard’s high-stakes debate camp with the hope of our team winning the tournament. But back in Atlanta, where we gathered every Saturday for class, our educator, Mr. Fleming, reminded us to stay grounded. He shared a video of the N.C. Wesleyan University Commencement where he told the graduating class – young people who just accomplished what most consider the first step to achieving the American Dream – he hoped they failed. This concept was completely antithetical to everything I thought I stood for. As a kid labeled “gifted” by the school system, education and learning were something akin to a race. My father raised me in American sports culture, supporting my growth through Little League and high school baseball to impart values of exercise, teamwork, and sportsmanship. Yet, my competitiveness overshadowed these lessons. It was one reason I gained entry into Veritas, among a handful of kids from hundreds of applicants. Academic elitism drove us to excel, but after failing to win at Harvard, I began to see the value in failure. While I excelled in the classroom, my early baseball skills emerged on the field. Disregarding the sport’s adage, “baseball is a game of failure,” I frequently clashed with umpires from middle school to last year. Outbursts of frustration led to ejections and a reputation for my temper. No one recognized it as competitiveness; it was ingrained in me from childhood, a cultural norm. My perspective shifted at Veritas, where self-education on gender identity revealed how I engaged in toxic masculinity. I realized my attitude mirrored systemic racism’s expectations of a young Black male. Transitioning from athlete to scholar, I aimed to elevate my Veritas cohort beyond mere competition at debate camp. Concerned we prioritized the championship over education, I emphasized the value of lectures from knowledgeable professors on gender, race, politics, and debate – topics rarely discussed in my public school. One night at Harvard as we gathered for a team meeting before our big tournament, I channeled the discourse I was taught months before and cautioned everyone about how we were engaging in our experience. My friends cried and cheered; Mr. Fleming hugged me tightly. Despite our efforts and reaching the quarterfinals, victory eluded us. What mattered wasn’t the loss but my reaction. As judges declared the opposing team winners, I briefly hung my head, then smiled to applaud their success. To observers, I appeared disappointed, but internally, it marked growth. Failure and success evolved beyond defeat, becoming milestones of personal understanding. Reflecting on our final debate, I recalled my reaction: a momentary dip of disappointment followed by a half-smile for the victorious team. It wasn’t a reaction of bitterness but of acknowledging a journey – a testament to a lifetime of growth, where failure and success became intertwined in defining my path.

Atlanta rapper Kenny Mason is why I want to change the world. The southern rap rock fusion of ‘U In A Gang // Exxon’ from Kenny Mason gets me hyped for the inevitable collapse of the capitalist status quo, and here is why. Atlanta is a thriving cultural hub with the most prolific history and influence on social justice and activism in the entire country. John Lewis, Hank Aaron, Stacey Abrams, and Ralph Abernathy made positive impacts on the world via their respective mediums, leading me to believe that Atlanta has something in the water that cultivates brilliant minds. Kenny grew up in a rough Atlanta neighborhood, accustomed to violence at an early age and was himself a victim of gun violence. His resiliency produced an amalgamated sound of experimental rock and hip hop that is the culture that propels me toward the major of Culture & Politics. My mom is why I want to change the world. My mom was raised in a poor, Stockton, CA neighborhood that she often points to as a reminder of my class privilege. After bouncing around uninspired waitress jobs, she earned a degree at Georgia State University in her thirties as a first-generation college graduate. Juggling work, motherhood, and studies, she was engaged in social activism and felt compelled to involve me. The vibrant opportunities in Atlanta allowed me to actively participate in protests, chanting and holding signs in the street. As a middle-schooler, I stumbled upon 'We Should All Be Feminists' by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie on my mom's nightstand. This book challenged the toxic narratives surrounding feminism prevalent in my social circles. It initiated a process of unraveling in my brain, deconstructing my thoughts on gender tropes and sexuality. The metaphorical trolley problem encapsulates why I want to change the world. While I could discuss global issues like the state of the Arctic in relation to international politics, nuclear weapons dynamics, and climate change atrocities, getting people to care about distant problems is challenging. Personally, it makes more sense for me to focus on Atlanta's Cop City. My deep connection to Atlanta's culture, combined with my mom's influence on sociopolitical awareness, makes the city's pain my own. The Cop City project threatens to use 381 acres of formerly native land to construct the largest police training facility in the U.S., militarizing the police and endangering communities. Every society has its metaphorical trolley problem: the classic philosophical issue of pulling a lever to kill one person on train tracks to stop the train from hitting five people. Our default is set to killing five people, because we are born into systems of oppression that prevent us from recognizing our shared humanity. Those of us who see global capitalism propagating traditions of imperialism and colonialism protest, volunteer, and organize to minimize our contribution, to flip the switch to kill just one person. I am pursuing an education of how culture interacts with politics to become a person of influence, to raise awareness and inspire others to push back. I aspire to be a leader shaping a future that doesn’t demand anyone to sacrifice themselves on the tracks. I believe that collectively, we can put a stop to the metaphorical train hurtling towards injustice.