The launch story… and the next level!

Hi folks:

It’s the end of 2020 and I have been charting what I aim to manifest in the world and releasing resentments that could hold me back. Now is the time to clean old wounds and heal; and to be ready to rise.

How I manifested that intention was via our podcast/radio show Our Body Politic, which has featured top political guests, authors and organizers from Sen. Tammy Duckworth to N.K. Jemisin to Dolores Huerta. I hope you’ll go on Apple Podcasts or any podcatcher and sign up to listen.

This isn’t just about audio, or journalism, or even politics. This journey is about the difficulty women of color have accessing resources, and how despite it all we get the job done. …

I’m creator and host of the radio show/podcast Our Body Politic, centering the political and cultural power of Black women and all women of color. And as part of our next show, we want to hear from you what you made and paid in taxes. You can do that by recording a voice memo on your phone, and emailing it to OurBodyPolitic@Protonmail.com. (Voice memos sound a LOT better than voicemails. Here’s some tips on recording voice memos.)

My voice memo would be: “I’m Farai. I live in Brooklyn, New York. I work for a foundation and also do freelance journalism. I earned $126,951. I paid $20,561 in federal taxes.”

By now, many of you have read the New York Times’s longform investigation on President Donald Trump’s tax records and/or their short distillation.

Reflections from a Black Female Journalist on America at the Precipice

Hello friends:

I offered a version of these remarks to a powerful civic group recently. As part of my discourse on America in peril, I explained how hard it has been to be a Black female journalist. This may be the most personal and emotionally vulnerable writing I’ve shared publicly in my life. After all, I wanted to tell other people’s stories, not my own.

Many times I’ve been thwarted in doing my job of telling the truth by managers who either disbelieved my news judgment (see “cherry picking the facts”), permitted me to be harassed/humiliated, or openly stripped me and my team of resources. After I wrote this essay to the group, I had a conversation with prominent trauma studies specialist Jack Saul who said that journalists denied the chance to tell the truth by their newsrooms found it as damaging or more so than the effects of witnessing violence, war, or disaster. …

In 2020, journalism went from rapid economic disruption to a full-blown existential meltdown.

Already wracked by #MeToo scandals, major outlets found themselves failing to meet the political moment sparked by the killing of George Floyd.

These failures of perspective and inclusion don’t just affect communities that have historically been left out of the national debate, but they also have ripple effects for democracy. As I have said before, we cannot have a functioning civil society without racial justice. And we cannot have racial justice without real reform in newsrooms. The old ways of doing journalism simply aren’t working: we need true innovation if we want equity in journalism. …

I’m writing this on Juneteenth. This year I’ve spent a lot of time reflecting on how journalism has often marginalized (not to mention underpaid) reporters of color, women, LGBTQ mediamakers, and whites from poor and working-class backgrounds. The exclusion and bias in our field has materially made us — “us” as in all Americans — less likely to understand our shared destiny. We simply can no longer afford to do this and survive.

Some of you reading this are people like me, people who saw a cluster**** of epic proportions heading for America — a perfect storm of racial animus, increasing authoritarianism, wealth inequality, and lack of government infrastructure. …

“Eleven months ago, at the launch of our campaign in Oakland, I told you all, ‘I am not perfect.’” Kamala Harris chose those careful words as she terminated her race to become the United States’ 46th president. But those of us autopsying her campaign should ask if a Black woman in America could be anything less than perfect, or at least perfectly lucky, to be elected president in the middle of a racialized culture war.

As I watched the inevitable flurry of articles about her exit from the race (and yes, this is another one), two songs popped into my mind. One was “I’m Not Your Superwoman.” No one is, but any Black woman running for president is given an unforgiving path forward. The other was Lizzo’s “Like a Girl.” Woke up feeling like I just might run for president / Even if there ain’t no precedent / Switching up the messagin’ / I’m about to add a little…

Farai Chideya

The coverage of race and xenophobia in American life and politics has often lacked adequate pattern recognition and historical context. I spoke about this in a speech in March, posted below as text and video; and am posting it now, spurred by the recent mass killing in El Paso, Texas. The gunman’s manifesto read that “this attack is a response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas.” We have to understand the history and present implications of weaponized political xenophobia, as reporters and as Americans, if we want to survive this era and build a better future for all. When I gave this speech in March, I reflected on why the media has failed time and again to report on white supremacist extremism, the number one cause of domestic terrorism. …

I’ve never been a mother, but I had a baby once.

I remember his insistent eyes, his gorgeous face, and the tenacious way he gummed my finger while I warmed a bottle of formula. Those joyfully exhausting then incalculably painful days came rushing back when I was reminded by a retailer’s email that it was “my” baby’s birthday. Except that I don’t have one because his mother decided six days after he was born that she wanted to raise her child.

She was well within the 30-day state-imposed legal limit on women changing their minds. On the day two poker-faced adoption agency social workers walked in to reclaim the boy, I wept enough tears to make my body a desert. …