Why here? Why now?
Beginnings are hard but doing nothing is even harder
From Blogspot to Substack
As many of you know, since I became the first Black Managing Editor in The East Bay Express’ 40-year history and my 2009 publication of The Afrosurreal Manifesto became an internationally recognized catalyst of a movement, I have been under assault by the very forces that are threatening American democracy and the stability of our venerated institutions. My email was hacked. My blog was infiltrated. All of my social media accounts (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.) were inundated with cyber-attacks to such an extent that I had to either shut them down or make them private. I was virtually scrubbed from my internet presence and the networks that I had been building since the late 90s. It’s been a slog, but as I’ve begun to rebuild, I’ve learned a few things.
1. Don’t Call It A Comeback
I’ve been here for years!
Preservation will be one of my goals for this format. Over the last decade, I’ve watched websites that have carried my words topple under the weight of capitalism and consolidation. Articles and essays I wrote for noteworthy organizations, like City Lights Bookstore blog and Gawker, are no longer around, and with the pieces I wrote for them are no longer accessible. This is about to be true for San Francisco Museum of Modern Arts’ Open Space, where I’ve been a columnist in residence since 2017. Even as I intend to continue to write new pieces, I will also be creating an archive of my work and adding exposition on how the pieces came to be and interviewing people who were either involved or were impacted or inspired. I will be linking to the original articles as long as they are available.
2. We All Need An Alternative
In hindsight, it’s difficult to pinpoint when our media and culture was subsumed by mainstream corporate influence. Less than thirty years ago, there were independent bookstores all over the country. There were alternative weekly newspapers like The Village Voice in NYC, New Times in the Midwest, both the SF Weekly and The San Francisco Bay Guardian as well as Oakland’s own East Bay Express, which still exists but struggles to maintain ad revenue and thus stable payment structures for it’s very limited staff. Whether through oversight or hostile takeover, America handed over the means of production of community focused alternatives to big box operations from Barnes & Noble and Amazon to The San Francisco Chronicle or New York Times. This influence has trickled down to even how we are employed, or mostly not, because there is no longer a human element in much of our work, so instead of going to a brick and mortar operation and asking for an application or dropping off a resume, we must apply exclusively online where an AI robot can disqualify us based on keywords and algorithms. It’s becoming increasingly obvious that the current order is both untenable and unsustainable for everyone but the same chosen few that existed before we created these alternatives.
This Substack is also an invitation to my readers to get involved here and begin creating these alternatives again. This is a community project and I am looking or creators and thinkers who wish to push this envelope so we can once again have options outside of the corporate mainstream in what we consume and how we work.
3. What To Expect
As I’m currently unemployed and fiercely seeking work, I plan to post at least twice a week in either a preservation format or new essays on the current state of alternative media, alternative earning and reigniting the alternative mindset. I plan to do this on Mondays and Fridays every week and will send notifications to free subscribers when I post. As this page grows, there will be special offers for paid subscribers like exclusive interviews, access to podcasts and merchandise created by a team of creators promoting reinvigorating the alternative mind-set that enabled us to step away from these limited options before the digital age.
4. Join Me In The Resistance
Subscribe for free or join the paid subscriber list as I grow this channel. It took me 20 years to build the network that was taken from me and I suspect it was because I did it mostly alone. This time, I want to build a community with us, for us and by us.
