There are few things that communicate as much and as ambiguously as silence. We read worlds into silence, a communication practice that has been driven to perverse extremes by social media-driven forms of sociality. It seems we are all expected to be simultaneously raging into the void—all the time....

Though I had said this a number of times since late April, when I was announced as the Brewers Association's first-ever Diversity Ambassador, I'd never said it on record. But as a casual conversation with beer writer Kate Bernot wound to a close in mid-May, I let it slip--a declaration that was as h...