Dear M—
Sorry for not writing sooner. Last month, I put myself through the wringer to compose two pieces—something about cops being bastards, and then a review of a rape survivor’s memoir—so I took respite from the emotional exertion. Not long after that, my blood pressure propelled itself to dizzying new heights, so I took respite from the high-sodium diet. Life as a middle-aged writer. Whadyagonnado.
Anyways, thanks for organizing our recent Zoom call to discuss the creation of a newspaper for and with The Community Hub. I get that Hub members may not be ready to commit to such a labor-intensive project after providing mutual aid through the pandemic. If it’s not the right time or the right project, then that’s okay.
But I also get that you want to move The Hub forward, from filling immediate needs—as The Hub’s newsletter did connecting neighbors with vaccines and state relief funds—to examining the root causes of our community’s problems. I feel the same: endless mutual aid gets food into bellies, needles into arms and money into wallets, but it can also deprive minds of agency and leave people in a state of perpetual harm. Mutual aid is for nothing if it does not galvanize the community to act in its own interest.
To that end, here’s how I plan to commit my writing skills to mutual aid and to mobilizing the community. First, I will relaunch a “know your rights” poster campaign that I developed a few years ago, in expectation of the police department’s intensified use of stop and frisk. That form of police harassment continues to target Black and brown communities disproportionally, and I want our neighbors to be prepared. (I might do a poster campaign regarding the omicron variant of COVID-19 as well, depending on how that story progresses.)
At the same time, I’ll develop a more stringent critique of the media so that our neighbors can better comprehend how it reinforces white supremacy, patriarchy and capitalism—you know, the root causes of our community’s problems. I want people to recognize how the media manipulates stories to maintain the status quo, but I also want people to understand that they have the power and the responsibility to represent themselves in the larger narrative. Everyone is an editor in this leaderful newsroom.
The critique can be a collaborative activity among neighbors, either in person or online, or it may be just me blasting newsletters into the digital void. Specific activities might include a public-health approach to debunking misinformation (or intentional disinformation), or board-game night to illustrate how profit and privilege drive news coverage. I’m throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks, and if our neighbors become more engaged in civics as a result, then cool. If they want to build a community news resource, even cooler.
My evisceration of the media starts after the winter holidays.
In the meantime, I hope you’ll take me up on the offer to report on The Hub’s year-end meeting. As I said during our Zoom call, the article would be an exercise for the eyes of Hub members only and will exclude sensitive information. Once it’s written, you may choose to spread it far and wide or delete it from existence. I only ask for the opportunity to report again for a community, something I haven’t done in awhile.
As always, I welcome your thoughts. Be well and stay safe!
Best wishes,
Jennifer