Writing the story when the story is about you

Beginning in June, I will assume the responsibility of rebooting Durham Voice, a community newspaper founded by Jock Lauterer after the murder of Eve Carson, a student at the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill. Prior to ending circulation, Durham Voice focused on stories in North East Central Durham (NECD) with student journalist from UNC-CH, North Carolina Central University and Durham Technical Community College. The focus of work will expand beyond NECD to include all of Durham with student reporters from local colleges and universities. 

This column is inspired by the work of student journalist at the University of Missouri and the Hussman School of Journalism and Media at UNC-CH.

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Commentary - It’s the moment that changes the way I teach. My students seemed overburdened by the news happening outside the building.

Students couldn’t avoid the mass of news reporters on campus to tell the stories of disillusioned Black students. They were calling for the resignation or termination of University of Missouri System President Tim Wolfe.

Jonathan Butler, a graduate student at the University of Missouri - Columbia, launched a hunger strike to bring attention to racism on the state’s flagship campus.

“Mr. Wolfe had ample opportunity to create policies and reforms that could shift the culture of Mizzou in a positive direction but in each scenario, he failed to do so,” Butler said.

Payton Head, the student body president, shared a personal experience with bigotry and anti-gay sentiments on campus on his Facebook page. He claims unidentified people riding in the back of a pickup truck hurled racial slurs at him.

“For those of you who wonder why I’m always talking about the importance of inclusion and respect, it’s because I’ve experienced moments like this multiple times at THIS university, making me not feel included here," Head posted on September 12, 2015.

My students seemed wearied by the national attention after the football team announced they would not practice or play until Wolfe resigned. The decision would cost the university a $1 million fine if they forfeited their upcoming game against Brigham Young University.

“How do you write the story when you’re the story,” I asked my students.

I waited for an answer from one of the 19 students. My one Black student seemed overwhelmed by activities on campus. The look on her face clarified what I felt. She needed more than a class on journalism writing could offer. I didn’t want her to answer. I cherished an opportunity for white students to speak.

“I don’t want to be here,” a white woman said. “I want to join the protest.”

‘I can’t write this story without bias,” another student said.

The nods spoke to a common view that extended beyond the call of Concerned Student 1950 – the group of Black students seeking the president’s resignation.

I felt something brewing in my belly. After teaching lessons involving finding the story within the story, my students were learning lessons not taught in textbooks. After sharing my personal grappling in writing columns aimed at offering a perspective beyond the views of white men in newsrooms, my students felt the tension.

There’s more to the story than they considered prior to enrolling to learn the craft of journalism.

I taught them to consider the pain in the story. We discussed finding tension in the story within the story – the unknown truth hidden by an inability to see and feel others carrying what words often miss.

We talked about overcoming privilege. I shared the limits of my Christian, heterosexual, male privilege. I shared how being Black impacts how I view the story. We discussed how personal experience is a tool when used to advance the story beyond what each of us take for granted.

Journalists are challenged to bring their humanity to the story. This is the gift of storytelling. It’s what separates humans from the stale presentation of artificial intelligence.

“You are standing in the middle of history,” I told my students. “This moment is a gift to each of you. How will you write this story? Who are the people who need to be heard? What’s missing in how we inform the world regarding the unfolding of this historical moment?”

I shared my experience growing up in Columbia, MO - being the first local Black person to graduate from the school of journalism. I talked about my encounters with race on a campus with an overwhelming white population.

I told my students to leave to join the protest. I challenged them to take time to heal. While pondering what it all means, I told them to find the story within the story, and to begin by accepting this story is about each of them.

They left to write that story.

I left inspired to help students find stories beyond what they couldn’t see.

 

SCAD: another mistake like a walk down memory lane

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COMMENTARY – Supporters of Simplifying for Affordable Development (SCAD) argue it’s an effective tool in reducing housing costs in Durham.

My response, I’m reminded of promises made when 95% of Black Durham residents approved the Urban Renewal bond that dismantled the Hayti District.

It's a familiar tactic used to entice folks willing to bite the apple when hope for the future is tainted by obstacles no one can control. Last I checked, the lure of the forbidden fruit is what Christians and Jews believe led to humanity falling out of God’s favor.

Members of the Durham City Council need to be careful about biting too soon. History teaches many lessons. Durham’s Hayti’s tragic removal is an example of what happens when a few well-intentioned people pitch a promise that requires loads of trust in people positioned to make money.

I’m not saying these developers are gold diggers, but I don’t see them hanging with the broke ----. You know the song.

I’m weary of long proposals crafted by developers to radically change how Durham envisions long term development. Durham, like many communities across the nation, is swamped with gentrification - making it impossible for many residents to afford housing. The SCAD proposal offers no protections in securing real affordable housing.

How will the growing number of residents, with limited public affordable housing options, maneuver through the web of planned development if SCAD is approved? Where will residents of Liberty Street Apartments and McDougald Terrace rent now that one is already demolished and the other is slated to be razed within the next two years?

Where is the imagination for housing for the people living in Durham, versus planned housing for people moving to one of the fastest growing communities in America? SCAD isn’t a proposal to repair what aisles Durham the most. It’s a plan to make it easier for developers to maximize profit as land options dwindle.

The answer, according to SCAD proponents, is to build closer, higher and with no parking requirements. That’s not an answer.  It’s a prescription for increased gentrification, poverty and the widening of economic disparities.

Welcome to the vision for Durham. The future home of economically privileged white people and the former home of the Black Wall Street.

When did Progressives become Republicans?

Proponents of SCAD are schooled in a version of supply and demand economic theory taken directly from pages of the Republican Party play book. It’s a theory that roots for varied forms of deregulation with an assumption that the people who make more money will trickle the profits down to the people in need of help.

The promise – if we make it easier for them to make heaps of money after making it easier for them to make profit, everyone wins. Housing prices drop. Why? Because the decrease in cost automatically dribbles down.

Sorry to say it, and excuse my language, but I’ve been taught not to trust the white man with my future interest. By white man, in this context, I mean the people with the power to manipulate systems due to their greed.

In Durham, we’ve been shielded from corporate interest due to the power and influence of progressives elected to guard our communal identity. That has changed.

When did the progressives elected to serve on our city council take on the persona of republicans? How, why and when were Mayor Pro-Tem Mark Anthony Middleton, Jillian Johnson, Javiera Caballero and Leonardo Williams enticed into biting the rhetoric of Republican Party economic ideology?

Do we want to become Washington DC?

The SCAD proposal is simple. Their plan to simplify codes for affordable development (not affordable housing) will reduce housing costs.

How does it work?

It works by making Durham a microcosm of Washington D.C.

Imagine a city with limited parking and increased density. Imagine houses packed close. They are much taller than before. There are more people living in areas with limited greenery. The plan is to make Durham a place where owning a car is a luxury.

There’s a problem with the vision. Durham lacks an infrastructure to protect bikers. Durham public transportation lags far behind cities with the type of high density envisioned in the SCAD proposal.

The Durham City Council is trending in the direction of moving Durham toward becoming a city like Washington DC. Note the massive increase in parking costs. The city council disincentivizes cars without a solid plan to advance both local and regional public transportation.

Are we ready to become Washington DC?

Stop pimping my religion

Attachment H in the 86-page SCAD proposal mentions congregations who participated in a charrette to discuss the potential benefits to faith-based institutions. St. Stephens Episcopal Church, Bethany United Methodist Church, Grey Stone Church, Holy Cross Catholic Church and Duke Chapel participated in the charrette held on December 3, 2022.

Participation is not the same as an endorsement. During a presentation before members of the Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People, supporters of the SCAD proposal hinted that churches did more than participate in a conversation. They suggested these congregation supported changes to codes in hopes of providing mission-based housing.

Having a conversation is not an endorsement. Bob Chapman, a Durham developer who assisted in writing the SCAD proposal, is accused of overstating Habitat for Humanity of Durham’s co-sponsorship of SCAD. According to reports in INDY Week, SCAD enacted an unauthorized agreement through a third party.

“The same third party has been speaking and negotiating on the behalf of Habitat for Humanity of Durham with members of City Council and others,” INDY Week reported in a letter received from members of the Durham Habitat board.

Chapman, and other proponents of SCAD, may be guilty of overstating support of faith-based institutions. This play signifying backing of the good folks at Durham Habitat and local congregations is an unearned endorsement of a plan with significant moral and ethical concerns.

You must do more than infer an endorsement. You must earn that support.

Please, stop pimping my religion.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

SCAD is potentially the worse thing to happen to Black people living in Durham since the freeway shattered the dreams of Black residents and businesses in the Hayti district. Black voters supported that mistake. This time it’s in the hands of a Black majority on the city council and one Brown representative.

If they pass SCAD, shame on them.