We are so isolated in our own little worlds, in our own little geographies, that it's pretty hard to understand where someone else is coming from. And so I think that we have to really think about what that means as a country and, frankly, whether this segregation that we have is durable over the long run.

As a culture, working-class white Americans like myself had no heroes. We loved the military but had no George S. Patton figure in the modern army. I doubt my neighbours could even name a high-ranking military officer.

We need to think about how we teach working-class children about not just hard skills, like reading and mathematics, but also soft skills, like conflict resolution and financial management.

People in my hometown voted for President Reagan - for many, like my grandpa, he was their first Republican - because he promised that tax cuts would bring higher wages and new jobs. It seemed he was right, so we voted for the next Republican promising tax cuts and job creation, George W. Bush. He wasn't right.

I did a Coca-Cola commercial when I was about two and a half years old, and then me and my family were extras in a bunch of Westerns. I loved dressing up and stepping into this imaginary world, and it was fun to get outside of my tiny little town with a bunch of movie weirdos.

For me, the Earth had always been a kind of a safe haven, you know, where I could go to work or be in my home or take my kids to school. But I realized it really wasn't that. It really is its own spaceship. And I had always been a space traveler.

My mother had me when she was 15. My father died before I was born. So my mother was a teenage widow, and she used herself as her greatest example so I wouldn't end up in her position.

If you really want to heal our communities, more men to step it up to take care of their children. Safe neighbors happen when fathers and mothers are at home.