I have some things I need to share, not as a an on-the-ground journalist. But as a lover of Ukraine who has come here for years and is building businesses here and have friends who function like like close family.
Thread.
Everyone in the U.S. is asking me and every other journalist or person who lives here, "Is Russia gonna attack?" or "What is Putin going to do?"
Answer: who the fuck knows. Please stop asking!
If you live in Ukraine, as a native or as a visitor like myself, this is our reality.
As long as Putin is President of Russia and the Russian people are content with him, threat of an attack from Russia will always be a reality. Each time I visit Ukraine, I know Putin can attack. It doesn't stop me from visiting here. If Ukrainians can deal with it, so can I.
Kremlin gets to drink vodka on tanks on Ukrainian soil and mass murder Ukrainians, but the onus is on Kyiv to follow rules the west does nothing to punish Russia for violating?
These are the same folks whose nations economically abuse Haiti then blame it they for being poor.
These shitty takes from western white men wagging their fingers at Ukraine over the Minsk Accord are the very ones that tell BLM activists they are too radical and to find common ground with cops who kills us vis state violence.
It’s the same system.
That Sam Charap piece is patronising as fuck. Such an analysis not only disrespects Ukrainians’ sovereignty, it fails to recognise their humanity.
The Kremlin doesn’t care about rules and the west doesn’t punish Moscow for ignoring them.
The definition of “beat writing” has changed over the years. When I started at a local NPR affiliate covering city council, in ‘07, writing 3 times a week was a lot. Now, young writers are pushing out 3-4 write-arounds/buzzes a day. It’s not real journalism; it’s content milling.
If I were a young writer, I’d prefer to start my job at a legit local newspaper because at least they’d be forced to leave their desks and find stories in their communities instead of searching the web for other people’s work to write around, never developing any real skills.
When I started writing professionally, a beat meant city council, knowing each person, and having to look them in the eye and ask questions. Neither a phone nor a computer screen could protect me against the interview subject looking back at me and pushing back. #realjournalism
When I reflect on Colin Powell's death, I have to think about how American imperialism can use any person to exact it aims. Powell, a principled Black man, was key in propagating the lie that Iraq had WMDs and a threat to the U.S. We have we learned from this?
We should rethink how we as POC are deployed in service of the state. Powell's UN speech was a Black face on American White Supremacy. But it wasn't just Powell's race. He was a real political power in the 1990s.
I'm old enough to remember Bill Clinton fearing a 1996 GOP challenge from Powell. I remember Powell speaking on MTV, which was the cool place to get young folks back in the 1990s and early 2000s, about the need for affirmative action--even when Bush Jr. And Condi Rice disagreed.
People are dragging Acting Boston Mayor Kim Janey about her comments comparing vaccine mandates to freedom papers. She could have worded it better, but I think she makes a lot of good points people are dismissing. My latest: theroot.com/acting-boston-…
In case y'all are wondering: I am fully vaccinated.
I have not really opened up much about vaccines because this is such a divisive subject--especially on Twitter--but NYC, for example, has rampant profiling issues connected to the pandemic that impact Black people.
As I outline in my piece, NYC, which is the 1st city to mandate vaccine proof for indoor activities, has had issues with enforcing mandates on Black and Brown folks while ignoring white residents. Janey isn't wrong about that the inequities, valid points which her critics ignore.