/

Rising Up The Power of Narrative in Pursuing Racial Justice

Kolhatkar Sonali
Heftet / 2023 / Engelsk

Produktdetaljer

ISBN
9780872868724
Publisert
2023-08-10
Utgiver
Vendor
City Lights Books
Høyde
127 mm
Bredde
177 mm
Aldersnivå
G, 01
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Heftet
Antall sider
144

Forfatter
Kolhatkar Sonali
Foreword by
Sen Rinku

Biographical note

Sonali Kolhatkar is the host and producer of Rising Up with Sonali, a weekly television and radio program that airs on Free Speech TV and on Pacifica Radio station affiliates around the United States. Winner of numerous awards, including Best TV Anchor and Best National Political Commentary from the LA Press Club, she is currently the Racial Justice editor at Yes! Magazine and a Writing Fellow with the Independent Media Institute. Co-author of Bleeding Afghanistan: Washington, Warlords, and the Propaganda of Silence with Jim Ingalls, Kolhatkar is Co-Director of the Afghan Women's Mission. She resides with her husband and two sons in Pasadena, California. 

Rinku Sen is the Executive Director of the Narrative Initiative, where she helps social justice movements develop the power to move ideas. Formerly the Executive Director of Race Forward and publisher of its award-winning news site Colorlines, Sen is the author of Stir it Up and The Accidental. She is Co-President of the Women’s March and serves on the boards of the Ms. Foundation for Women and the Foundation for National Progress. She resides in New York City.

Rising Up The Power of Narrative in Pursuing Racial Justice

Kolhatkar Sonali
Heftet / 2023 / Engelsk
Kolhatkar Sonali
Heftet / 2023 / Engelsk
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<p></p><p>Praise for <i>Rising Up</i>: </p><p>"Journalist Sonali Kolhatkar knows the importance of storytelling. Even more so, she understands the necessity of controlling the narrative in the media, popular culture and in daily conversations. Now she’s written The Book on how to shift the narrative to bend toward justice."<b>—Karla Strand, <i>Ms. Magazine</i></b><br /></p><p>“<i>Rising Up</i> adds an important dimension to the ongoing debate about racism in the U.S. and gives readers a new awareness of how racial stereotypes thrive in the media.”<b>—Rosemarie Lundgaard,<i> Bust Magazine</i></b><br /></p><p>"In <i>Rising Up</i>, journalist Kolhatkar discusses the history of media created by predominantly white Americans, which has led to misrepresentation and racism. But more important, she introduces us to a new generation of POC voices fighting for racial justice, making the argument that to tell stories is to wield power.”<b><i>—Alta Magazine</i></b><br /></p><p>"Journalist and activist Kolhatkar . . . argues persuasively for the necessity of 'narrative-shifting' in order 'to change public consciousness to the degree necessary for society to achieve justice' . . . A thoughtful prescription for social change."<b><i>—Kirkus Reviews</i></b><br /></p><p>"<i>Rising Up</i> by Sonali Kolhatkar offers a timely exploration of how activists and the general public begin to narrate their personal stories about racism instead of the top-down official history, with the aim of advancing social justice in the United States where white supremacy dictates the thinking of the people in spite of the rise in the population of people of colour."<i>—</i><b>Shelley Walia,<i> The Hindu</i></b></p><p>“Prometheus transferred fire away from gods to mortals, but this book shows that we don’t need a Prometheus. We transfer narrative power from the few to the many—by claiming it and using it—in revolutionary acts that both catalyze the national consciousness and transform material conditions.” <b>—Rinku Sen, Executive Director of Narratives Initiative, and author of <i>The Accidental American: Immigration and Citizenship in the Age of Globalization</i></b><br /></p><p>“For two decades, Sonali Kolhatkar has been a leading voice for truth against the lies of the powerful, unflinchingly exploding prevailing myths that pass as prevailing wisdom. She understands that shifting the narrative is radical anti-racist work, and if you don’t believe it just look at the firing of schoolteachers and journalists for telling the truth about racism, slavery, gender, or Palestine.”<b>—Robin D. G. Kelley, author of <i>Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination</i></b><br /></p><p>"Like her groundbreaking journalism, Sonali Kolhatkar's new book spotlights voices across various news, entertainment, and social-media platforms that exemplify movement building for racial justice through troubling narratives. This book could not come at a better time—let's all read, discuss, and act on it today!"<b>—Kevin Kumashiro, Ph.D., author of <i>Surrendered: Why Progressives are Losing the Biggest Battles in Education</i></b><br /></p><p>"A brilliantly outlined argument for independent media's historic role in humanizing those who have been othered through the society's architectures of power, <i>Rising Up </i>highlights the crucial role of courageous storytelling in combating white supremacy and building a more just world.”<b>—Rupa Marya, co-author of<i> Inflamed: Deep Medicine and the Anatomy of Injustice</i></b><br /></p><p>“Foundational and guiding, Sonali's book gifts us a piercing map of the dangers of illegitimate stories, as well as a guide towards the unrelenting power of truthful ones. This book I had been waiting for, and it is here to make its stay. Read it. Share it. And we shall surely rise.”<b>—Dr. Oriel María Siu, PhD, author of <i>Christopher the Ogre Cologre, It's Over!</i></b></p><p>"Written in the thick of a new phase of reactionary cultural warfare within and beyond the United States, <i>Rising Up</i> provides diagnosis, context, and potential correctives. Contrary to common parlance, Sonali’s work demonstrates that there is no such thing as “the media,” only a disparate ensemble of competing narrative forces that consolidate in corporate news, Hollywood entertainment, independent grassroots journalism, and industrialized social media. Conceptualizing the terrain of storytelling as a dynamic, complex one that is constantly open to new forms of radical, autonomous, collective mobilization, <i>Rising Up</i> is a reinvigorated call for journalism, art, and aesthetics that advance abolitionist, decolonizing, and anti-racist movements."<b>—Dylan Rodríguez, author of <i>White Reconstruction: Domestic Warfare and the Logic of Racial Genocide</i></b><br /></p><p>“Sonali is a well-known radio host on KPFK where she challenges main street media accounts of new stories. In <i>Rising Up</i>, she breaks down how media traditionally presents the POV of privilege. More importantly, she describes how narrative can be reclaimed by BIPOC, minorities and women to create a new, more inclusive, narrative. Her clear, engaging writing makes this a page-turner.”<b>—Karrie Hyatt, Vroman’s Bookstore, Pasadena, CA</b><br /></p><p>Praise for Sonali Kolhatkar: </p><p>"Kolhatkar’s conversations with guests go deep. Even when she's covering topics everyone else is covering—like impeachment—she infuses the discussion with economic, social, and racial justice perspectives that reframe and expand the debate."<b>—John Nichols on the "Top Progressive People and Ideas Shaping the Future," <i>The Nation</i> <i><br /></i></b></p><p></p>

Rising Up offers a timely exploration of how truthful narratives by and about people of color can be used to advance social justice in the United States. While people of color are fast becoming the majority population in the United States, the perspectives of white America still dominate the vast majority of the media created and consumed every day. Media makers of color, long shut out of the decision-making process, are rising up to advance a set of different narratives, offering stories and perspectives to counter the racism and disinformation that have long dominated America’s political and cultural landscape. In Rising Up, award-winning journalist Sonali Kolhatkar delivers a guide to racial justice narrative-setting. With a focus on shifting perspectives in news media, entertainment, and individual discourse, she highlights the writers, creators, educators, and influencers who are successfully building a culture of affirmation and inclusion. “Sonali Kolhatkar reminds us we are the stories we tell. Our stories can cast a spell of hate, division, and fear, or they can break the powerful grip of racial injustices that have held us since our country’s beginning. With personal and collective wisdom, Kolhatkar guides us in the storytelling that liberates.”—Luis J. Rodriguez, author of Always Running: La Vida Loco/Gang Days in L.A. “Rising Up challenges the reader to not only rethink their assumptions, but to understand the critical importance of the creation of progressive narratives as an instrument in the struggles for human liberation.”—Bill Fletcher, Jr., author of The Man Who Fell From the Sky
Les mer
ANNOTATED CONTENTS PREFACE I introduce myself to readers with a look at my racial, ethnic, and family background, as well as my journalistic ethos, and how my work as a broadcaster and writer is a part of the narrative shifting that furthers racial justice. INTRODUCTION: Driving Like an Asian I share a personal experience where a racist stereotype about Asians directly impacted me. This leads to an explanation of how racist narratives affect people of color in devastating ways. I also define and explain what narratives mean, with examples to illustrate narrative shifting, and how the ultimate goal of racial justice narratives is equity. I also preview each chapter for readers. ONE Faux News Vs. News That’s Fit to Print This first chapter is a critique of how right-wing media and corporate media both serve to preserve and perpetuate racist narratives. I trace the rise of racist media narratives from shock jock Bob Grant to Fox News’s Tucker Carlson. I also analyze how establishment outlets like The New York Times have often tolerated racist coverage, resisting for too long, labels such as “racist” for openly xenophobic leaders like Donald Trump. Since the racial justice protests of 2020, some media outlets have finally begun to apologize for their racist coverage. TWO Independent Media Makers on the Front Lines This chapter illustrates why independent media have often been a countervailing force against establishment media by centering racial justice narratives in our coverage. For example, years before corporate media “discovered” Patrisse Cullors, leader of Black Lives Matter, she was a guest on my show. I also share the story of how independent media led the fight against the dehumanizing term “illegals” to describe undocumented immigrants in news coverage.  I also present a study in contrasts, analyzing an NPR interview of sports writer Howard Bryant’s book versus my own, more nuanced interview with Bryant. Finally, I showcase a podcast that illustrates how racial justice activists are creating their own media. THREE White Hollywood’s Copaganda Television and film play a huge role in shaping race-based narratives. In this chapter I focus on how scripted crime TV shows in particular perpetuate false and racist narratives about police, even casting Black actors to play cops on TV to confer innocence on law enforcement. Such pro-police narratives—dubbed “copaganda”—are the direct consequence of white domination in Hollywood’s writers’ rooms. I also summarize the myriad stereotypes that Hollywood has perpetuated about people of color. FOUR Hollywood’s Changing Hues Filmmakers of color have forced their way into Hollywood and begun changing race-based narratives to great effect in recent years. I showcase one of the earliest such TV shows—Black-ish—and how it paved the way for a host of new shows created by Black and Brown writers and showrunners. In film, pioneering creators like Ave DuVernay and Ryan Coogler, have re-written the rules of how people of color are portrayed. There are pitfalls however, in the form of diverse casting to obscure racist stories, and the appropriation of non-white cultures. Ultimately, Hollywood is changing, thanks in part to campaigns like #OscarsSoWhite. FIVE Social Media and Collective Power I explore the digital phenomenon of Black Twitter and how new technology is enabling people of color like Darnella Frazier in Minneapolis to bypass gatekeepers and tell their own unfiltered stories of racial injustices. I profile figures like #MeToo founder Tarana Burke, TikTok dance creator Jalaiah Harmon, and TV writer Janet Mock, who have used digital technology to assert their truths and shape narratives about Black women. Such technology can also be a useful tool to hold powerful people accountable, and “cancel” the careers of racist hatemongers. But digital platforms are ultimately controlled by elites and are often guilty of algorithmic bias toward racist narratives. SIX Changing Narratives, One Person at a Time There are person-to-person means of narrative shifting that can be extremely powerful. I quote academics like Robin D. G. Kelley, Oriel Mária Siu, and Yohuru Williams who discuss education and Critical Race Theory as means for narrative shifting. I also profile Loretta Ross’s “Calling In” courses that teach people how to reach allies without alienating them, and how social scientists have studied an approach called “deep canvassing” that is extremely effective in changing people’s minds about racism and other social issues. CONCLUSION Rising Up for Our Stories, Our Lives I conclude the book with a personal story of how I was deeply moved during a Black Lives Matter march in 2020 by a powerful vocal protest that gave voice to a yearning for racial justice. The U.S. is in the midst of a messy and profound change as the nation’s demographic shift is yet to be reflected in the halls of power and of narrative-setting industries. I make the case that narrative shifting without movement building is merely public relations and that it must be an intimate part of organizing for racial justice. EPILOGUE I close with a personal understanding of how white supremacy is often based on an irrational fear of losing power as the U.S. heads toward a future where white people are a minority. Ultimately, we can rise to a better (racially just) future, together. RESOURCES A useful list of organizations, campaigns, and media outlets engaged in the work of narrative shifting for racial justice.
Les mer
Co-op available Galleys available Tour info: NY, LA, SFNational radio campaign National print campaign Pursuing excerpts in: BuzzFeed, Yes! Magazine, LitHub and elsewhere Online/social media campaign We’re pursuing nominations for IndieNext and we are open to other bookseller and library promotions that are appropriate for the book.
Les mer
Rising Up offers strategies to confront and counter the narrative-setting efforts of the MAGA Right. Rising Up identifies narrative-setting as the solution to confronting racism, making this a key text in the new narrative social justice movement. Sonali Kolhatkar is an Asian American media maker of color. Her first-person experience and perspective inform the book throughout. “Rising Up” is also the name of the author’s weekly radio and television shows, which is broadcast to 40 million homes nationwide and has select programming syndicated on 177 community cable stations in 40 states. Sonali is an editor at YES! Magazine, which has pledged their full support for the book and its launch. Rinku Sen, the former publisher of Colorlines, contributes the book’s foreword.
Les mer
PREFACE As a journalist, my values—cliché as this may sound—are “to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted.” By definition, journalists are truthtellers called upon to report the truth in the service of the public interest and justice. What ethic could serve the public more than the pursuit of justice for all human beings regardless of race, gender, or class? I’ve been engaged in narrative work via journalism for more than twenty years. Abandoning a job in 2002 working on a satellite telescope at the prestigious California Institute of Technology (Caltech), I set my sights on a path of independent journalism grounded in the pursuit of justice—a path that felt much more meaningful to me than a career in astrophysics. Much as I enjoyed the beauty and challenges of answering grand cosmological questions, journalism is in my blood. My grandfather, the late Shripad Yashwant Kolhatkar—an Indian rebel, freedom fighter, trade unionist, and co-founder of the Communist Party of India (Marxist)—also served as president of the All-India Newspaper Employees Federation. I feel the strength of his legacy even though he passed away before I found my true calling. Here’s how it happened. As an immigrant pre-teen growing up in Dubai, I wrote for a local children’s magazine called Young Times. I interviewed fellow students, wrote stories, and created drawings, but had not yet considered journalism as a potential career. I went on to study physics and astronomy, emigrating to the United States on a foreign student visa at the age of sixteen convinced that I would end up with a long career in science. After graduating, I started working at Caltech, fixated on the grand questions of physical existence on astronomical scales. But around the same time, I grew increasingly cognizant of the injustices in the world around me and of how little progress we had made to solve the grand problems of humanity right here on Earth. I became deeply involved in solidarity work with Afghan feminists and gave public lectures about the U.S. war in Afghanistan. When an opportunity arose to be a regular news broadcaster at the independent community station, KPFK, Pacifica Radio in Los Angeles, I jumped at the chance. Since then, I have spent more than two decades reporting the indignities faced by marginalized communities, covering the contours of their resistances through my television and radio program, Rising Up With Sonali. Today, as the racial justice editor at Yes! Magazine, I also have the privilege of uplifting Black and Brown voices via print and online media. The mission of my labor is to help tell their stories, amplifying the words of work of people of color who are working to create a world based on justice, freedom, equity, love, and community. The late congressman and civil rights icon John Lewis once said, “The movement without storytelling, is like birds without wings.” As a cultural worker grounded in social justice advocacy, I have always seen my journalism as a vehicle for transformative storytelling about people and power. The mere fact that I, an immigrant woman of color, am in the position of being a public story teller, is radical in a world where women of color are constantly excluded from positions of editorial leadership. My liberation is bound up with the liberation of the people whose stories I share. By becoming fluent in each other’s stories, we rise up against racism. Through solidarity, we rise up together.
Les mer

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<p></p><p>Praise for <i>Rising Up</i>: </p><p>"Journalist Sonali Kolhatkar knows the importance of storytelling. Even more so, she understands the necessity of controlling the narrative in the media, popular culture and in daily conversations. Now she’s written The Book on how to shift the narrative to bend toward justice."<b>—Karla Strand, <i>Ms. Magazine</i></b><br /></p><p>“<i>Rising Up</i> adds an important dimension to the ongoing debate about racism in the U.S. and gives readers a new awareness of how racial stereotypes thrive in the media.”<b>—Rosemarie Lundgaard,<i> Bust Magazine</i></b><br /></p><p>"In <i>Rising Up</i>, journalist Kolhatkar discusses the history of media created by predominantly white Americans, which has led to misrepresentation and racism. But more important, she introduces us to a new generation of POC voices fighting for racial justice, making the argument that to tell stories is to wield power.”<b><i>—Alta Magazine</i></b><br /></p><p>"Journalist and activist Kolhatkar . . . argues persuasively for the necessity of 'narrative-shifting' in order 'to change public consciousness to the degree necessary for society to achieve justice' . . . A thoughtful prescription for social change."<b><i>—Kirkus Reviews</i></b><br /></p><p>"<i>Rising Up</i> by Sonali Kolhatkar offers a timely exploration of how activists and the general public begin to narrate their personal stories about racism instead of the top-down official history, with the aim of advancing social justice in the United States where white supremacy dictates the thinking of the people in spite of the rise in the population of people of colour."<i>—</i><b>Shelley Walia,<i> The Hindu</i></b></p><p>“Prometheus transferred fire away from gods to mortals, but this book shows that we don’t need a Prometheus. We transfer narrative power from the few to the many—by claiming it and using it—in revolutionary acts that both catalyze the national consciousness and transform material conditions.” <b>—Rinku Sen, Executive Director of Narratives Initiative, and author of <i>The Accidental American: Immigration and Citizenship in the Age of Globalization</i></b><br /></p><p>“For two decades, Sonali Kolhatkar has been a leading voice for truth against the lies of the powerful, unflinchingly exploding prevailing myths that pass as prevailing wisdom. She understands that shifting the narrative is radical anti-racist work, and if you don’t believe it just look at the firing of schoolteachers and journalists for telling the truth about racism, slavery, gender, or Palestine.”<b>—Robin D. G. Kelley, author of <i>Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination</i></b><br /></p><p>"Like her groundbreaking journalism, Sonali Kolhatkar's new book spotlights voices across various news, entertainment, and social-media platforms that exemplify movement building for racial justice through troubling narratives. This book could not come at a better time—let's all read, discuss, and act on it today!"<b>—Kevin Kumashiro, Ph.D., author of <i>Surrendered: Why Progressives are Losing the Biggest Battles in Education</i></b><br /></p><p>"A brilliantly outlined argument for independent media's historic role in humanizing those who have been othered through the society's architectures of power, <i>Rising Up </i>highlights the crucial role of courageous storytelling in combating white supremacy and building a more just world.”<b>—Rupa Marya, co-author of<i> Inflamed: Deep Medicine and the Anatomy of Injustice</i></b><br /></p><p>“Foundational and guiding, Sonali's book gifts us a piercing map of the dangers of illegitimate stories, as well as a guide towards the unrelenting power of truthful ones. This book I had been waiting for, and it is here to make its stay. Read it. Share it. And we shall surely rise.”<b>—Dr. Oriel María Siu, PhD, author of <i>Christopher the Ogre Cologre, It's Over!</i></b></p><p>"Written in the thick of a new phase of reactionary cultural warfare within and beyond the United States, <i>Rising Up</i> provides diagnosis, context, and potential correctives. Contrary to common parlance, Sonali’s work demonstrates that there is no such thing as “the media,” only a disparate ensemble of competing narrative forces that consolidate in corporate news, Hollywood entertainment, independent grassroots journalism, and industrialized social media. Conceptualizing the terrain of storytelling as a dynamic, complex one that is constantly open to new forms of radical, autonomous, collective mobilization, <i>Rising Up</i> is a reinvigorated call for journalism, art, and aesthetics that advance abolitionist, decolonizing, and anti-racist movements."<b>—Dylan Rodríguez, author of <i>White Reconstruction: Domestic Warfare and the Logic of Racial Genocide</i></b><br /></p><p>“Sonali is a well-known radio host on KPFK where she challenges main street media accounts of new stories. In <i>Rising Up</i>, she breaks down how media traditionally presents the POV of privilege. More importantly, she describes how narrative can be reclaimed by BIPOC, minorities and women to create a new, more inclusive, narrative. Her clear, engaging writing makes this a page-turner.”<b>—Karrie Hyatt, Vroman’s Bookstore, Pasadena, CA</b><br /></p><p>Praise for Sonali Kolhatkar: </p><p>"Kolhatkar’s conversations with guests go deep. Even when she's covering topics everyone else is covering—like impeachment—she infuses the discussion with economic, social, and racial justice perspectives that reframe and expand the debate."<b>—John Nichols on the "Top Progressive People and Ideas Shaping the Future," <i>The Nation</i> <i><br /></i></b></p><p></p>

Rising Up offers a timely exploration of how truthful narratives by and about people of color can be used to advance social justice in the United States. While people of color are fast becoming the majority population in the United States, the perspectives of white America still dominate the vast majority of the media created and consumed every day. Media makers of color, long shut out of the decision-making process, are rising up to advance a set of different narratives, offering stories and perspectives to counter the racism and disinformation that have long dominated America’s political and cultural landscape. In Rising Up, award-winning journalist Sonali Kolhatkar delivers a guide to racial justice narrative-setting. With a focus on shifting perspectives in news media, entertainment, and individual discourse, she highlights the writers, creators, educators, and influencers who are successfully building a culture of affirmation and inclusion. “Sonali Kolhatkar reminds us we are the stories we tell. Our stories can cast a spell of hate, division, and fear, or they can break the powerful grip of racial injustices that have held us since our country’s beginning. With personal and collective wisdom, Kolhatkar guides us in the storytelling that liberates.”—Luis J. Rodriguez, author of Always Running: La Vida Loco/Gang Days in L.A. “Rising Up challenges the reader to not only rethink their assumptions, but to understand the critical importance of the creation of progressive narratives as an instrument in the struggles for human liberation.”—Bill Fletcher, Jr., author of The Man Who Fell From the Sky
Les mer
ANNOTATED CONTENTS PREFACE I introduce myself to readers with a look at my racial, ethnic, and family background, as well as my journalistic ethos, and how my work as a broadcaster and writer is a part of the narrative shifting that furthers racial justice. INTRODUCTION: Driving Like an Asian I share a personal experience where a racist stereotype about Asians directly impacted me. This leads to an explanation of how racist narratives affect people of color in devastating ways. I also define and explain what narratives mean, with examples to illustrate narrative shifting, and how the ultimate goal of racial justice narratives is equity. I also preview each chapter for readers. ONE Faux News Vs. News That’s Fit to Print This first chapter is a critique of how right-wing media and corporate media both serve to preserve and perpetuate racist narratives. I trace the rise of racist media narratives from shock jock Bob Grant to Fox News’s Tucker Carlson. I also analyze how establishment outlets like The New York Times have often tolerated racist coverage, resisting for too long, labels such as “racist” for openly xenophobic leaders like Donald Trump. Since the racial justice protests of 2020, some media outlets have finally begun to apologize for their racist coverage. TWO Independent Media Makers on the Front Lines This chapter illustrates why independent media have often been a countervailing force against establishment media by centering racial justice narratives in our coverage. For example, years before corporate media “discovered” Patrisse Cullors, leader of Black Lives Matter, she was a guest on my show. I also share the story of how independent media led the fight against the dehumanizing term “illegals” to describe undocumented immigrants in news coverage.  I also present a study in contrasts, analyzing an NPR interview of sports writer Howard Bryant’s book versus my own, more nuanced interview with Bryant. Finally, I showcase a podcast that illustrates how racial justice activists are creating their own media. THREE White Hollywood’s Copaganda Television and film play a huge role in shaping race-based narratives. In this chapter I focus on how scripted crime TV shows in particular perpetuate false and racist narratives about police, even casting Black actors to play cops on TV to confer innocence on law enforcement. Such pro-police narratives—dubbed “copaganda”—are the direct consequence of white domination in Hollywood’s writers’ rooms. I also summarize the myriad stereotypes that Hollywood has perpetuated about people of color. FOUR Hollywood’s Changing Hues Filmmakers of color have forced their way into Hollywood and begun changing race-based narratives to great effect in recent years. I showcase one of the earliest such TV shows—Black-ish—and how it paved the way for a host of new shows created by Black and Brown writers and showrunners. In film, pioneering creators like Ave DuVernay and Ryan Coogler, have re-written the rules of how people of color are portrayed. There are pitfalls however, in the form of diverse casting to obscure racist stories, and the appropriation of non-white cultures. Ultimately, Hollywood is changing, thanks in part to campaigns like #OscarsSoWhite. FIVE Social Media and Collective Power I explore the digital phenomenon of Black Twitter and how new technology is enabling people of color like Darnella Frazier in Minneapolis to bypass gatekeepers and tell their own unfiltered stories of racial injustices. I profile figures like #MeToo founder Tarana Burke, TikTok dance creator Jalaiah Harmon, and TV writer Janet Mock, who have used digital technology to assert their truths and shape narratives about Black women. Such technology can also be a useful tool to hold powerful people accountable, and “cancel” the careers of racist hatemongers. But digital platforms are ultimately controlled by elites and are often guilty of algorithmic bias toward racist narratives. SIX Changing Narratives, One Person at a Time There are person-to-person means of narrative shifting that can be extremely powerful. I quote academics like Robin D. G. Kelley, Oriel Mária Siu, and Yohuru Williams who discuss education and Critical Race Theory as means for narrative shifting. I also profile Loretta Ross’s “Calling In” courses that teach people how to reach allies without alienating them, and how social scientists have studied an approach called “deep canvassing” that is extremely effective in changing people’s minds about racism and other social issues. CONCLUSION Rising Up for Our Stories, Our Lives I conclude the book with a personal story of how I was deeply moved during a Black Lives Matter march in 2020 by a powerful vocal protest that gave voice to a yearning for racial justice. The U.S. is in the midst of a messy and profound change as the nation’s demographic shift is yet to be reflected in the halls of power and of narrative-setting industries. I make the case that narrative shifting without movement building is merely public relations and that it must be an intimate part of organizing for racial justice. EPILOGUE I close with a personal understanding of how white supremacy is often based on an irrational fear of losing power as the U.S. heads toward a future where white people are a minority. Ultimately, we can rise to a better (racially just) future, together. RESOURCES A useful list of organizations, campaigns, and media outlets engaged in the work of narrative shifting for racial justice.
Les mer
Co-op available Galleys available Tour info: NY, LA, SFNational radio campaign National print campaign Pursuing excerpts in: BuzzFeed, Yes! Magazine, LitHub and elsewhere Online/social media campaign We’re pursuing nominations for IndieNext and we are open to other bookseller and library promotions that are appropriate for the book.
Les mer
Rising Up offers strategies to confront and counter the narrative-setting efforts of the MAGA Right. Rising Up identifies narrative-setting as the solution to confronting racism, making this a key text in the new narrative social justice movement. Sonali Kolhatkar is an Asian American media maker of color. Her first-person experience and perspective inform the book throughout. “Rising Up” is also the name of the author’s weekly radio and television shows, which is broadcast to 40 million homes nationwide and has select programming syndicated on 177 community cable stations in 40 states. Sonali is an editor at YES! Magazine, which has pledged their full support for the book and its launch. Rinku Sen, the former publisher of Colorlines, contributes the book’s foreword.
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PREFACE As a journalist, my values—cliché as this may sound—are “to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted.” By definition, journalists are truthtellers called upon to report the truth in the service of the public interest and justice. What ethic could serve the public more than the pursuit of justice for all human beings regardless of race, gender, or class? I’ve been engaged in narrative work via journalism for more than twenty years. Abandoning a job in 2002 working on a satellite telescope at the prestigious California Institute of Technology (Caltech), I set my sights on a path of independent journalism grounded in the pursuit of justice—a path that felt much more meaningful to me than a career in astrophysics. Much as I enjoyed the beauty and challenges of answering grand cosmological questions, journalism is in my blood. My grandfather, the late Shripad Yashwant Kolhatkar—an Indian rebel, freedom fighter, trade unionist, and co-founder of the Communist Party of India (Marxist)—also served as president of the All-India Newspaper Employees Federation. I feel the strength of his legacy even though he passed away before I found my true calling. Here’s how it happened. As an immigrant pre-teen growing up in Dubai, I wrote for a local children’s magazine called Young Times. I interviewed fellow students, wrote stories, and created drawings, but had not yet considered journalism as a potential career. I went on to study physics and astronomy, emigrating to the United States on a foreign student visa at the age of sixteen convinced that I would end up with a long career in science. After graduating, I started working at Caltech, fixated on the grand questions of physical existence on astronomical scales. But around the same time, I grew increasingly cognizant of the injustices in the world around me and of how little progress we had made to solve the grand problems of humanity right here on Earth. I became deeply involved in solidarity work with Afghan feminists and gave public lectures about the U.S. war in Afghanistan. When an opportunity arose to be a regular news broadcaster at the independent community station, KPFK, Pacifica Radio in Los Angeles, I jumped at the chance. Since then, I have spent more than two decades reporting the indignities faced by marginalized communities, covering the contours of their resistances through my television and radio program, Rising Up With Sonali. Today, as the racial justice editor at Yes! Magazine, I also have the privilege of uplifting Black and Brown voices via print and online media. The mission of my labor is to help tell their stories, amplifying the words of work of people of color who are working to create a world based on justice, freedom, equity, love, and community. The late congressman and civil rights icon John Lewis once said, “The movement without storytelling, is like birds without wings.” As a cultural worker grounded in social justice advocacy, I have always seen my journalism as a vehicle for transformative storytelling about people and power. The mere fact that I, an immigrant woman of color, am in the position of being a public story teller, is radical in a world where women of color are constantly excluded from positions of editorial leadership. My liberation is bound up with the liberation of the people whose stories I share. By becoming fluent in each other’s stories, we rise up against racism. Through solidarity, we rise up together.
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Produktdetaljer

ISBN
9780872868724
Publisert
2023-08-10
Utgiver
Vendor
City Lights Books
Høyde
127 mm
Bredde
177 mm
Aldersnivå
G, 01
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Heftet
Antall sider
144

Forfatter
Kolhatkar Sonali
Foreword by
Sen Rinku

Biographical note

Sonali Kolhatkar is the host and producer of Rising Up with Sonali, a weekly television and radio program that airs on Free Speech TV and on Pacifica Radio station affiliates around the United States. Winner of numerous awards, including Best TV Anchor and Best National Political Commentary from the LA Press Club, she is currently the Racial Justice editor at Yes! Magazine and a Writing Fellow with the Independent Media Institute. Co-author of Bleeding Afghanistan: Washington, Warlords, and the Propaganda of Silence with Jim Ingalls, Kolhatkar is Co-Director of the Afghan Women's Mission. She resides with her husband and two sons in Pasadena, California. 

Rinku Sen is the Executive Director of the Narrative Initiative, where she helps social justice movements develop the power to move ideas. Formerly the Executive Director of Race Forward and publisher of its award-winning news site Colorlines, Sen is the author of Stir it Up and The Accidental. She is Co-President of the Women’s March and serves on the boards of the Ms. Foundation for Women and the Foundation for National Progress. She resides in New York City.

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