This story was first published in Critical Thinking.
Four years ago this month, many of us came to grips with a politically fractured nation and a shredded democracy as a violent riot engulfed the U.S. Capitol. We feared the threat to burn it all down was in fact, literal.
Four years later and just one week into 2025, the fire is here. All week we’ve watched apocalyptic wildfires consume Southern California. Hundreds of thousands of families were completely unprepared to flee their homes or save their communities amid the most destructive fire in L.A. history.
It might be easy to despair, but it’s an opportunity to reflect more broadly upon how in this destabilized world we must, as much as possible, prepare ourselves and our loved ones for what is to come. It will require seeing with more clarity, maneuvering with nimbleness, and protecting our body and soul.
As The Emancipator approaches our fourth anniversary, I’m thinking about the moments that led me here. The radical idea to reimagine an abolitionist newspaper for these urgent modern times came in the chaotic wake of the 2020 uprisings after the murder of George Floyd and the COVID-19 crisis that disproportionately crushed Black and Brown communities.
Many legacy media outlets were woefully unprepared or simply unwilling to cover racism and inequity thoroughly and with unvarnished honesty. In the summer of 2021, I signed on as founding co-editor in chief of this news startup, with ambitions of meeting the moment by helping people understand how racism impacts us all and what can be done about it. We could help folks prepare for the difficult path ahead by reporting on socioeconomic impacts that hit our households, offering guidance on mental steadfastness, and weaving historic throughlines so that readers understand the importance of learning from the past.
For me, this might manifest as being prepared to give an age-appropriate counter-response to my 6-year-old daughter who told me about a boy in her class who assured her that Donald Trump “used to be a bully, but he’s not anymore.”
For you, it might be navigating a new relationship, speaking up at a school board meeting, revisiting your last conversation with that friend in the “burn-it-all-down-and-start-over” camp, or trying to convince your HR department to change their policies on hiring formerly incarcerated individuals. In fact, we want to hear from you directly about the questions and scenarios you’ve encountered, for a new feature: an advice column on navigating difficult conversations on race and equity in our relationships and workplaces.
As journalists unapologetically covering racism on the eve of a consequential second Trump presidency with dire impacts for marginalized communities, we’re not here to play it safe or bow to an administration that threatens our very existence.
This week we reflected on the four-year-anniversary of the Jan. 6 insurrection. Throughout our history, periods of transformative change are inextricably linked to violent uprisings. Adrian Carasquillo and Contributing Managing Editor Halimah Abdullah analyzed whether the nation’s bloody past is a prologue or if there is a less brutal path forward.
In an upcoming essay for this week, Haitian Times founder and publisher, Garry Pierre-Pierre warns that immigrant communities are preparing on multiple fronts as they brace for the next wave of punitive policies from the Trump administration. Trump has promised mass deportations “the likes of which we’ve never seen before.”
“Yet there are glimmers of resistance,” Pierre-Pierre writes. The fight, as one activist put it, is “not just for Haitians, but for the soul of the nation.”
In recent weeks we’ve also witnessed tech and media executives scramble to prepare to be in the good graces of the new administration by abandoning DEI standards and third-party fact-checking. They are even using AI as digital minstrels to exploit and mimic the ways in which communities of color communicate.
Social media has long ceased to be a space for discovery and connections, but a destination with predatory tendencies and hidden traps. Contributing Senior Editor Frankie Huang spoke to Washington Post columnist Karen Attiah and digital ethics expert Casey Fiesler about Meta’s recent AI digital blackface debacle and social media platforms’ toxic tendencies. Engagement is the lifeblood for companies like Meta and TikTok, and they will get it through stoking anger in their users — sometimes even against their users — as well as mine users for data to potentially better mimic racialized speech and response patterns.
For marginalized people whose safety and well-being are not prioritized in the digital space, they must tread with caution.
Aaron Mak recently wrote about how users can maneuver on social media platforms that are suppressing politically charged discussions on race and identity. Brandon Gates analyzed digital voter suppression tactics, helping our readers understand the differences between misinformation and malinformation, and how to navigate.
Revelatory moments are also revolutionary as Malavika Kannan chronicles in her upcoming story, which takes us into the cinematically lit world of New York City queer nightlife. It’s a safe space where partygoers gather to seek community and dance the night away, and where drag queens and go-go boys shake their moneymakers to raise funds for trans life and Palestine. At her monthly Body Hack party, legendary trans activist Ceyenne Doroshow proclaimed, “2025, get ready. For bitches like me and Body Hack. This is trans woman power.”
It’s an extension of a long, radical tradition where some of society’s most marginalized gather to take care of one another, building community and organizing.
You can expect The Emancipator to continue to contextualize and frame the facts so that you feel prepared this month and beyond.
In Solidarity,
Amber Payne
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