“I didn't set out to be the first openly gay athlete to play in a major team sport in the United States. But because I am, I'm happy to start the conversation.” —Jason Collins, April 2013
During a wide-ranging interview with “60 Minutes,” Ben Sasse, the former Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse who announced he had stage 4 pancreatic cancer in December, was asked if social media was to blame for the current state of American politics. His response stayed with me. After calling social media a “centerpiece” of our division, Sasse ultimately placed the blame on an old nemesis: segregation.
“I think one of the fundamental mistakes in America is that young people don't know old people,” he told host Scott Pelley. “One of the things that 15- and 17-year-olds need is to have 60 and 80 years in their lives. So I think pure segregation is a fundamental sociological problem in the United States. And social media is like pouring gasoline on that.”
In addition to the separation of generations, Sasse pointed out how the fissures derived from social class can also lead people to “bubble into something that implies that they only live life in their narrow demographic cohort, their identity politics or their market niche.”
That's why pioneers like my friend Jason Collins, who in 2013 became the first openly gay NBA player, are vitally important to society. They break people's bubbles, not by force or coercion, but by having the audacity to exist as a whole person rather than as conveniently selected fragments with smooth edges.
Collins, who died of brain cancer on Tuesday at the age of 47, did not set out to make history. He was looking for community and realized he couldn't find it by hiding.
And when his playing days ended in 2014 (a career that included battling Shaquille O'Neal in the NBA Finals), Collins spent the next decade doing everything he could to foster better understanding in the hopes that the next generation wouldn't have to hide. I was willing to absorb the stares every time I entered a room, endure the whispers when I left, and navigate the awkward conversations that inevitably unfolded in the seconds, minutes, and hours in between.
When Collins came out in April 2013, Gallup found that 45% of Americans believed same-sex marriage should not be legal. Today less than a third of the country feels this way. Research has found that visibility, knowing someone who is gay, is the main reason for cultural change. One cannot help but give credit to Collins, who married her husband Brunson Green in Texas less than a year ago, playing a role in that change.
The word “segregation” is often associated with race. It was May 1896 when the Supreme Court ruled in Plessy v. Ferguson covered up racism under the guise of “separate but equal.” It was a May 2026 Supreme Court ruling that allowed Alabama to use a congressional map that is racially discriminatory. With decisions like that, segregation and race will always be intertwined in America.
However, Sasse pointed out how other forms of segregation have also derailed our ability to fulfill our promise. The lack of diversity you cited can create bubbles that may make us feel safe, but often rob us of the connections we need.
Regardless of wealth, race, age, or any other characteristic that separates us, death has a way of reminding us that we have so much more in common. Every month this year, more than 175,000 Americans (just under 6,000 new cases per day) are expected to hear some version of the news Collins and Sasse received: You have cancer. Tremendous progress has been made over the last century, yet the disease claims 2,000 people every day. This is according to the American Cancer Society, an organization that is almost half as old as the country itself.
And cancer doesn't care who you voted for. You can't hide from it or the mortality it represents. You can move to the suburbs, cherry-pick the news you hear, and ban all books except the dictionary… but there's no escaping this simple truth: life is fragile, and we need each other. Just as 15-year-olds need 60-year-olds in their lives to help them better understand the world, members of majority groups need members of minority groups in their lives, and vice versa.
That's something Collins understood about our collective humanity.
This is what Sasse was referring to when he talked about the fundamental cause of the maddening division that plagues our country.
Technology has connected us, but we barely know each other. Collins said “send me,” and that disposition became part of a broader moral shift in the way Americans treat each other.
Often when we are faced with questions of mortality, the question of legacy soon arises. Legacy, properly understood, is not the name of a street or a gold statue: it is the feeling that people have when you are not there. It's the ripples you created that will touch someone who will never know your name. Collins leaving for good made it easier for those who will come after him many years from now, many of whom folklore will never connect with him again. It also gave those who didn't know anyone in the community a clearer picture of the world we live in.
It was Collins' willingness to break down walls, to bring people together, that defines his legacy.
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