A newsletter about a newsletter

TLDR: I am writing a newsletter now because social media does not net positive for me. Join me Tuesday for a book event on zoom with DC Public Libraries! 

David and Khalil are at the park. And just now, while meditating, my sadness about Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s death sat heavy on my chest. Craving solidarity, and not knowing which friends were awake and available to commiserate, I turned to Twitter to find like-minded mourners. Sure enough, my feed revealed resonant grief, hope, and motivation—but then I found myself, 10 minutes later, down a rabbit hole of disability activist infighting. I paused my reading and, looking around my room, blinking, felt as if I had been teleported back from twitterland to my bedroom. My body felt anxious and tense and my brain felt both sluggish and wired. 

After spending the last week avoiding social media and limiting phone use, it was striking to observe how my body and brain change when I exit myself and enter the world of my phone screen. Thanks to the recently released Netflix documentary, The Social Dilemma, my attempt to avoid social media is now motivated by both my mental health and social justice. (Also, of course, collective mental health does contribute to social equity.)

While, arguably, the documentary does not exhaustively examine the history and impact of social media—and no watchable feature documentary could do that—it does, quite convincingly, drive home the point that the addictive nature of Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook isn’t due to our own motivational or behavioral shortcomings but is, instead, a deliberate feature. More time spent scrolling = more advertisements seen = more revenue for the platforms. These platforms encourage our addiction in ways that are personally and politically dangerous, including disinformation, conspiracy theories, and political siloing. 

I’ve been writing over the past year and I love it. I hope to release a book in the next year or so but, according to most of the advice I’ve been given, I need a social media platform in order to be a viable investment for a publisher. I’ve tried, but I just cannot make myself excited about spending my time and energy in that way. Thankfully, my friend and fellow writer, Erin, suggested that I write a newsletter. Her suggestion felt right in all of the ways that a verified Instagram account felt wrong. So here we are. 

I will be using these newsletters (1-4 each month), instead, to share updates on advocacy work, my writing, our family, what I’m reading, and what I’m thinking. Future newsletters will be far less meta.

So, updates:

Our family has been in Canada for almost 2 months and it feels totally surreal. Most days, either David or I look at the other and say, “Can you believe we live in Canada?!” We have been settling in, finding housing, opening bank accounts, and exploring waterfront parks. 

Sadly, our sweet and geriatric dog, Batman, died a few weeks after we arrived, which hit us all pretty hard, particularly Khalil. Batman’s death, and having to make the choice to euthanize him had me really spinning out about the ethics of dog ownership and exactly how we collectively defend breeding an entire species to meet our (misplaced?) emotional needs and then also dictate and beginning and ending of their lives. Are we all part of a mass delusion and participation in a fundamentally unethical use of resources and life? And then also, almost definitely, we will get a new puppy soon. 

Professionally, since being in Canada, I have had two pieces come out. Natalie Minott and I wrote a conversational essay for Glamour about parenting Black children in The South. Working with Natalie was a dream. I then wrote an essay for Cosmopolitan about our decision to move to Canada, for which I got trolled HARD. Agro emails aside, I was thankful to have the opportunity to interview other families making the same choice for the safety of their Black children. 

Big news! This coming Tuesday, I will be joining Alice Wong at a re-opening event for the Martin Luther King, Jr. Library in Washington, D.C. Join us at 7 pm if you’re free. We are discussing the book that she edited and to which I contributed. 

I hope you are doing as well as possible and that you are finding a way to take care of yourself, despite the pandemic, wildfires, and total political upheaval. Please make sure you are registered to vote. And then make a plan to vote. If you need any help navigating the vote by mail process, let me know. I’m excellent at logistics. 

I don’t think you’d believe that I wrote this if I didn’t end with a Mary Oliver poem, called Moles. This one helps me when I’m feeling particularly discouraged. May we all keep pushing against the whole earth with our stubborn muzzles. 

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Under the leaves, under

The first loose

Levels of earth

They’re there quick

As beetles, blind

As bats, shy

As hares but seen

Less than these

Traveling

Among the pale girders

Of appleroot,

Rockshelf, nests

Of insects and black

Pastures of bulbs

Peppery and packed full

Of the sweetest food:

Spring flowers.

Field after field

You can see the traceries

Of their long

Lonely walks, then

The rains blur

Even this frail hint of them

So excitable,

So plush,

So willing to continue

Generation after generation

Accomplishing nothing

But their brief physical lives

As they live and die,

Pushing and shoving

With their stubborn muzzles against

The whole earth,

Finding it

Delicious.