The View from Somewhere tour and some thoughts on being vulnerable

I have been a ball of anxiety, hope, and sadness — because of that bad president and bleak democratic future, yes, and because I am tired and everyone I know is tired, and because climate catastrophe is coming for us all. And, more selfishly, because this book I wrote is out in the world after two and half years of work.
The book is an analysis of the myth of “objectivity” through the lens of U.S. history, focusing on the many marginalized journalists who have pushed back on, challenged, and changed how we think about “objective” reporting in U.S. journalism. Toni Morrison once said “if there’s a book that you want to read but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.” When I found myself in the spotlight over “objectivity” a few years ago, I wished for this book, and I’m delighted and scared that it’s finally out in the world.
The View from Somewhere is about my particular view of the world of journalism right now in the United States, but it’s not a manifesto — it’s a small intervention, part of a much larger current of social change and resistance that was underway long before I came around and will continue far beyond my contributions.
I am now also beginning to put out episodes of a podcast based on the book, in close collaboration with a producer and friend, Ramona Martinez, and several brilliant editors, Phyllis Fletcher, Carla Murphy, and Hideo Higashibaba.
Each in their own way, these collaborators have pushed me to be more honest, more vulnerable, even more myself as the narrator of this podcast — to uncover the difficult and ambiguous questions that underlie my statements of fact, value, and purpose.
As a white person, I have been taught and told over and over again that my experience is normative and acceptable; on the other hand, as a genderqueer trans person, I’ve experienced the world through an outsider lens for most of my life. My personal interrogations of subjectivity inevitably intersect over and over again with these tensions: the tension of expecting to be treated well (thanks, white privilege) and then being treated poorly, the tension of trans visibility increasing in sync with anti-trans violence in the U.S., the tension of owning and facing privilege and power that I will never fully put down or “work through.” Working on the podcast is an opportunity to delve into complexity through telling stories that don’t attempt to find a single “resolution” or rest on a pat, simple answer.
In the last two years, in addition to birthing these creative projects, I’ve been part of a number of efforts to change journalism and media from the ground up. The most significant of these is the newly founded Press On collective, an effort of southern journalists and activists to support and expand journalism in the service of liberation. We are a multiracial, women-of-color led group deeply inspired by the history of movement journalism in the South, and our efforts include a fellowship for southern movement journalists, a training program that works to interrupt and challenge oppression in newsrooms, and a nascent southern network of liberation-focused journalists. Through Press On, I’ve also joined with Roxana Bendezú at Migrant Roots Media, a Durham-based project that explores the root causes of migration through media and community building; together with independent podcaster Hideo Higashibaba, we put on the first-ever movement podcasting intensive in Durham in September, and are now working to raise funds for an ongoing collaboration to help southern organizers, activists, and members of under-represented communities produce and distribute quality podcasts.
During the workshop in September, I was part of a remarkable conversation with a group of social justice media makers, all southerners from oppressed communities of one kind or another. We talked about the immense power of being a narrator or a storyteller — and how to wield that power ethically and responsibly. We talked about how being self-aware enough to both own our voice and perspective, and make space for others’ voices, is a constant process of introspection and vulnerability.
We talked about how we don’t want our work to be navel-gazing, but we do want it to be probing — to open up the possibility of talking honestly about power in the world by talking honestly about power in ourselves.
If there is one thing I wish for now, looking back on the process of writing the book The View from Somewhere, it’s that I had been more vulnerable — given more of myself to my readers.
I wish I had shared more of my doubts: over whether I was the right person to tell the story, over what was left out, over how the work would be received. I wish I had shared more of my political perspective, acknowledged more of the foundation on which I’ve built my analysis, from my training at the Challenging White Supremacy workshop in San Francisco in the early 2000s, to my long political mentorship with prison abolitionist Mariame Kaba and Project NIA in Chicago, to my precious relationships with chosen family and friends who are diverse, probing, loving, and critical. I was shy and scared after years of working in “objective” media where being my particular real self could get me fired; now that I am more aligned with the purpose and direction of what I am producing creatively, I have so much more of myself to give.
Now, I’m headed out on tour with The View from Somewhere, where I will speak and appear and read, and people will ask me things. People often ask me what I’m arguing for — if “objective” news media is failing us, then what is the answer? And people ask me for a cure for “fake news” — if a third of the people consuming news in the United States are swallowing racist fabrication and bunk from Fox and Breitbart, how does the truth ever win?
But I don’t believe in silver bullets, nor do I believe that I or any other single individual should be the one to “answer” questions that are collective by their very nature. I believe in what James Baldwin once wrote, that we must “expose the question the answer hides.” In other words, I’m embarking on a tour where there will be a Q+A, but I don’t really believe in the A.
Our capitalist culture teaches us to idealize the individual, the “expert,” and the so-called leader. And yet, history teaches us that solutions to collective problems only work when they come from the community — when they come from collective processes that take time, commitment, and a range of skills to pull off. Change does happen, power does shift, but as my collaborator Mia Henry often says in our workshops with Press On, change never happens alone. Every single example of power shifting the world across has emerged from a process involving more than one person.
As I go around the country talking to people, I’m holding onto the idea that connection, collective action, and vulnerability are key to building the power we need to make real change. Call-outs, call-ins, I don’t care what we call it. We need to talk to each other, be real with each other, and build together as often as we can.
I really hope to connect with y’all in Durham, Chicago, New York, L.A., Oakland, Ann Arbor, and beyond. As always, stay in touch!
