“One night, not long after signing over his inheritance, Nate said something to a customer that I overheard and would never forget. He said that he'd finally realized that he had never been the puppeteer, controlling his own destiny. Instead, he now realized that black people were just puppets on strings. The strings were so long that they reached far above them - so far out of their vision that they never saw or knew who the puppet masters were. He only knew that when they yanked at the strings and said to dance, he had no choice but to dance.”