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At our writer’s workshop this September, and going back through Netroots Nations, one of the subjects I remember addressing several times was how difficult it can be to talk about issues that hit close to home. These issues have an emotional weight on us, and when we write about these issues we want someone to write back to us in the comments with support. We want to know that someone is reading what we have just put down in a story and understands it, or asks to know more.
Daily Kos has offered our community and our staff opportunities to talk about truly complex issues and to express how we feel to a community we hope will support us, for readers we know will need our voices. This week on Connect! Unite! Act! I want to talk about some of the difficult subjects, and just a few of the writers here at Daily Kos that I know take on the truly difficult subject matter.
We don’t often think of Daily Kos’ hard-working team of writers, who spend every day working to bring attention to complex stories, to humanize them, and to help us understand why those stories are important.
Some of the issues we deal with seem beyond us. They reflect events in America that we may not personally deal with, or that can seem too far away. If you live in a deep blue state, can you care about the harms and inequalities in flyover country? If you are a straight, white man coming from privilege, can you relate to the discrimination that a teenage non-binary minority person faces? Can you identify with the casual or overt racism that occurs within the justice system? Maybe your family has roots that you can trace back to Confucius, while others find that their family history can’t be tracked beyond an Atlantic slave ship. How can we find the common bonds that allow us to share these stories in a supportive way?
I want to talk about a few of the writers here at Daily Kos, what they bring to the community, and how I know that connecting our community with our writers is the uniting action we need every day.
If you have ever wondered about immigration issues
While the laws and practices of immigration to the U.S. are deliberately complex and difficult to navigate, the discussion about immigration is not as complex as some Republicans want it to be seen. The answer is simple: embrace humanity. Treat people the way they want and deserve to be treated. Faiths that take the Old Testament into their view know this directly:
Islam has a very similar view and long discussions regarding the subject.
The idea goes beyond faith, however. It is about our modern understanding of humanity and acceptance. If you have ever wanted to learn more about this, take a moment to read some of the work Gabe Ortiz does every day. Gabe tells thoughtful, meaningful stories about the living conditions of so many that need to have their voices heard. While we will always be attracted to the “story of the day,” some stories are about the story of a single person’s life, about the life of a family, and what it says about the activism and efforts of the staff here. If you want to learn something and arm yourself with information that makes you a better ally and advocate, take a read.
Marissa Higgins has become one of the go-to writers regarding trans issues, and her work here on Daily Kos should be elevated more often. Many readers of Daily Kos seek to learn more about how to interact with and be better partners to the LGBTQ community. Some of Marissa’s diaries offer not only essential information to be a better ally, but they provide an opportunity in comments to interact and improve understanding. We can work toward being a more accepting community and before commenters throw down negative comments because they don’t want to understand, our community can unite behind a writer like Marissa who shows up every day, heart on her sleeve, to lay out the story of so many who are harmed.
Lauren Floyd has been a joy to read since she joined Daily Kos in 2019. Her activism brings necessary perspective to our coverage of racial inequality and the path toward equity—but best of all, her work showcases her unique voice and writing style. Her use of humor puts a velvet glove on communication to tackle these issues and let us see the silliness of the opposition in such a deft way that I can only say: This is how you share a story on so many levels, with depth and breadth, and the illustrate the future impact of current events.
Aysha Qamar has covered the court hearings so effectively for Daily Kos that you’d feel like you were physically there, sitting in a pew. Not only does she give the community that lens, but she also offers background information and analysis of the arguments put forward in an effective way. The effect is one that provides readers an understanding of the system itself, and how it handles trials that impact the prosecution of crimes that devastate Black communities.
I could have written pages about so many great writers here, and I’m sorry to those I could not reach without writing a book, but I wanted to highlight the fact that every day so many staff writers put their hearts on their sleeves and write about subject matter that can be very difficult to address. Last week, there was a story about a disabilities advocate who died due to the loss of a wheelchair. The story was so devastating to me because of a personal experience with a family member I felt on the verge of being sick. I couldn’t think about it. Every day, writers like those above go in knowing they will need to write about issues to spread understanding, but those issues can be incredibly mentally tasking and offer incredible emotional weight on their shoulders.
We can help each other, our community, and our staff. We can do this by supporting the writing of people who are taking on difficult subjects and being positive in our feedback. If the only thing you have to say to a writer is an attack on them, think about it for a second. Why are you doing it? So you feel better? So you can feel absolved of something you played no role in? Maybe you disagree. Even if you disagree, what is wrong with reading, learning more, and walking on. We have the opportunity to connect with each other and make our actions matter. For community members upset about an issue and worried about why there isn’t enough on any single item and what can happen in the real world, I have a challenge: ask yourself what you have done today? What have you done this week? What have you done this year? Not just online, but in the real world, what work has been done? The challenge we all need is to be better and do more to support each other. That’s how we unite. And for seventeen years that I’ve been here, that has always been my goal and the one that has kept me coming back.
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