Wishing both my deceased father AND my memory of him a Happy Father’s Day. He’s been gone for 20 years, but the record of him I keep in my mind and heart has beautifully shapeshifted over time to comfort and console me. His memory has become its own being, with its own plot arc. I used to be afraid of this. Over time, the memories of the people we love turn into caricatures we constantly tweak and enhance and build up and tear down. Is allowing this to happen dis-honoring the dead? I think not. It’s something better. It lives and loves and breathes.

My understanding of what journalism is supposed to be was totally transformed when I realized most of the rules of the practice weren’t made for people like me. The business model, the ethical framework, the priorities and no-go zones. They were all created for a very specific and privileged portion of the population — NOT the entire population

More editors should be killing more pitches! Sometimes your little essay is just bad!!! I say this as the author of more than a few bad essays in my day!!!

A yr & a 1/2 ago during the worst of the pandemic I put all my stuff in storage, left DTLA & moved to Texas. After 6 months there I drove across the country, working remotely the whole time. Signed another lease this week and finally have my stuff back. I’ve missed my mannequin! The backstory. When I first moved to DTLA i walked pst a very strange clothing store having an “everything must go - store closing” sale. I walked in and asked, jokingly, “Even the mannequin?!” After a slight pause, they said, “Sure, why not?” So I bought it. (40 bucks)

My jaw dropped to the floor as soon as I read the headline. And remained there while I read the entire piece. My jaw is still on the floor. thecut.com/2021/04/a-q-an… I mean. Y’all!!

Spike Lee’s children just spoke at the Golden Globes. Their father’s latest film isn’t up for any Globes tonight. There is so much wrong with this show tonight.

All these candidates talking about what they’d do for Black people but what I really want to ask is if they’d ever send their children to a majority black public school if they were zoned for one. Democrats/Liberals use the cover of Trump’s rhetoric on race to cover up the ways they, through many everyday routines and big life decisions, exacerbate and perpetuate systemic racism.

Last week, two public radio listeners publicly criticized the sound and style of one of my colleagues. She is Black. And a woman. The tenor of the critique, from two men, was basically, "I'm all for new voices, BUT..." In the same week, the New York Times posted a truly bananas job posting for a Nairobi Bureau Chief that painted Africa as some type of colonialist wet dream. Here. Read it for yourself. It's still up: nytimes.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/INYT/job/Nairo…

HI! @BernieSanders is running for president (again), and as a former campaign reporter embedded with his 2016 run for a very long time, I have a lot of thoughts. Let's begin? The 1 thing 2 have 2 know about Bernie, or remember about Bernie, is that he is not a Democrat. He wasn't in 2016. He is not running as one now. This tension animated the Democratic primary until THE very end. Remember the walkout? (My story: npr.org/2016/07/26/487…

Tell me your Weirdest eating/drinking habit you had as a kid!
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I’ll go first: When I was like 8 years old, I used to carry a little bottle of apple cider vinegar around wherever I went, taking a swig every now and then like a lush w/his flask. As a child, my brother would eat sticks of butter out of the fridge, under cover of night. We were strange.

1/ 8 yrs ago, after completing a yr-long entry-level fellowship @NPR, I was offered a temp position to stay on. I reminded myself that my rent & student loan payments didn’t temp & then I quit. I came back in a full-time role after a year working elsewhere washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/styl… 2/ I can’t tell you the number of qualified, intelligent, talented journalists I’ve seen leave NPR because they couldn’t afford temp life. Many of these journalists are women and people of color. @npr is worse off without them.

1/ I've been thinking a lot about what might happen to young Black boys and girls in schools where teachers carry firearms. Hear me out. 2/ The data is clear. Black students are just treated DIFFERENTLY than white students. They are suspended at some 3 or 4 times the rates of other kids.
brookings.edu/blog/brown-cen…

1/ If your story abt "low black voter turnout" in states like Alabama doesn't include a discussion of laws that typically diminish black turnout in states like Alabama, it is incomplete, and most likely deceptive. 2/ If your story about "the evangelical vote" in states like Alabama doesn't make the distinction between white evangelical/Christian voters and evangelical/Christian voters of color, it is incomplete, and most likely deceptive.

1/ I've been thinking about this a lot the last few weeks, and I can't let it go. Dear everyone: Stop letting your bosses tell you the company is really "like a family." It's not, and that kind of talk is often used to manipulate employees, especially younger employees. 2/ Watch when bosses use this language. Do they talk of the company as "family" when they're trying to extract more work out of you for less pay? When they're asking you to stop whistle-blowing or protect a higher-up who is doing bad things?