Uplifting Voices, History, and Future Leaders
I wanted the cover image to be a torch in the darkness, with, on the one hand, Random Lengths a beacon of light lighting the way out of the darkness, and on the other, a place of gathering lights to push back against the darkness.
A couple of weeks before the Nov. 5 general elections, the San Pedro Neighbors for Peace and Justice invited me to speak to nearly two dozen students about my career path as the editor of this semi-monthly newsmagazine. I don’t recall being given any particular direction for commentary, which lasted about 25 mins. The students, mostly in their junior year, and most of whom were not necessarily a part of the student club connected to SPNPJ, were just there to eat lunch and socialize with friends in peace.
Going in, I thought I wanted to talk about media literacy and how to avoid fake news, but instead, I found myself wanting to dispel the sense of dread for the future these young people were having. I admit that I may have been projecting my fears onto them at that moment, but I ended up doing my best to encourage them to take advantage of their youth to see as much of the world for themselves as their freedom will allow in higher education, regardless of their chosen major.
Instead of asking who they hoped would become the next president, I asked that they treat their classmates and next-door neighbors with love and grace regardless of the outcome of the election.
During my conversation with Project Censored editors Mickey Huff and Shealeigh Voitl, Huff discussed the importance of and the imperative of leaders making space for new generations of leaders to step forward and pick up the gauntlet or carry on the torch.
But to do that, we must be mindful of how we do it.
A few weeks after the election, I had a conversation with Project Censored editors Mickey Huff and Shealeigh Voitl about the Junk Food News chapter of their latest release: State of the Free Press 2025. In it, the writers lampoon the seemingly faux feminism of Barbie The Movie against the backdrop of rappers Nikki Minaj and Cardi B’s dual roles of the last election in which control of women’s bodies was on the ballot.
Huff thinks that having more media literacy allows us to address the smut that assaults us every time we open a social media app in a non-finger-wagging way is important. Like, instead of saying throw the whole toolbox out, let’s figure out what we can do with it.
Critiquing the Barbie movie, he recalled being told by some people, “Maybe you should just shut up. The movie wasn’t for you. It’s for other people and maybe they’re getting something out of it.”
Huff described his initial reaction, “I’m like great. But I’m a cranky fucking middle-aged white guy and I’ve already been through this shit and I’ve seen the bad side of it.”
Huff also said he sees the good side of that conversation, explaining that that is why the critique mustn’t come in hierarchical or shaming ways… that the critiques are more didactic and expansive so that there’s open space for different ideas. Huff was specifically concerned that this metric is applied to the voices of younger people.
“They’re not necessarily going to have the 50-odd years that have informed me about these things,” Huff said.
That’s the reason they’re trying to ban TikTok, Huff said…. It’s because that’s where the kids were learning about the genocide in Gaza. Mitt Romney said the quiet part out loud. He said we are going after this because China’s Bytedance owns it and we can’t censor it. Democrats followed suit, the Biden Administration was all behind it until they were like, “We need to use TikTok to get Kamala elected.” Well, you can’t have it both ways.
Huff noted that we’ve lived in a racist murderous culture for a long time. But the 2020 demonstrations were a tipping point leading a lot of young into the social justice movement. We are in this historical moment because they started to pay attention in college and educational circles. Those were all teachable moments. Why is this happening? How could this possibly be happening? Huff stepped into that space as a historian, saying, “Well, here’s why that’s happening. Three and four years later, when those same young people were learning about DEI and institutional racism, they’re like, holy shit. Look at The Palestinians. This is like 45,000 George Floyd’s… on steroids. What did the liberal establishment do? Finger-wagged them… kicked them off-campus… tried to ruin their futures and shame them into oblivion. Hypocritical bullshit.
At the end of 2023, I embarked upon the idea of running a series of profiles of environmental justice heroes. This came about the same time I decided to launch a series of columns documenting the presence and history of Black San Pedrans that began publishing in 2024.
While researching and writing, I had the recurring thought that too many of these stories have been lost to obscurity. The details of battles fought in the opinion pages of newspapers, citizens speaking up at public meetings, and residents showing up in places where the powerful don’t expect them to be and applying pressure so that entities like the port will force the captains of industry to do better by the public whose tide lands are in trust.
The port likes celebrating milestones of certain emissions goals and anniversaries of converting old tank farms into passive-use parkland for the general public. The port, an institution if left to its own devices, would have you believe that progress for the public benefit was just a natural consequence of the port’s good governance and stewardship.
We don’t just tell stories of battles from back in the day to venerate old heroes. We tell those stories to inspire the young to believe they don’t have to wait to become adults to make a difference… to remind residents with respiratory health issues living in the shadow of industry that’s causing it, don’t have to be quieter than a church mouse on a Sunday morning because industry is also providing them a job and a standard of living. We have to tell these stories and retell them as a reminder that power, as the great abolitionist Frederick Douglass once said, “concedes nothing without a demand.”
