Loitering

I’d love to know. And if you’re willing, I’d love to share your thoughts on an upcoming episode of Loitering.

Just record a voice memo on your phone — any voice recording app you have should work — and email it directly back to me. Please include your name and where you’re located. If you’d rather not reveal your name, that’s fine. AND, if you’re not in the U.S., that’s also ok. But tell us, what does it look like from afar?

Recording voice memos is super easy. In fact, it’s what I did to record this episode. :)

Please forward this note along to your friends and networks who might be interested. I’m not looking for any particular political views, but I am interested in stitching together an aural snapshot of our thoughts at this moment in history, whatever they may be.

Also, if you follow me on social media, you may have seen that I’m currently doing some research for a story I’m developing on self-care. What exactly is the story? Well, that’s what I’m trying to find out! If you’re willing to fill out this simple Google form, I’d super appreciate it.

Thanks so much & be well,

Sonia

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit loitering.substack.com

Heylo,

You may remember from a previous Loitering episode and newsletter that I mentioned an interview with Yashica Dutt, activist and author of Coming Out As Dalit, was en route. Here it is, finally. It’s actually an interview we did last spring — before a US lawsuit alleging caste discrimination was filed against Cisco (and some news on that: The California Department of Fair Employment and Housing is removing the lawsuit from the federal court and refiling it in a state court); before debates around caste also came up with the Netflix show Indian Matchmaking; and before Isabel Wilkerson’s book Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents also released. (And also, before Yashica turned a year older!) It’s incredible how much movement caste is finding in US conversations in just over a year, but it’s still an extraordinarily nuanced issue. This interview with Yashica is one of the most insightful interviews I’ve ever done and digs deep into her personal experience, as well as extrapolates how we can better understand caste and the ways it manifests. If you’re mostly only a reader of Loitering, please also listen! The auditory experience of the interview is quite different. I experimented with scoring a little bit more as well, so let me know what you think.

You can hear and read in the interview that we’re often using “lower” and “upper” to denote caste hierarchies, but — and this is where we can thank conversations that have been happening over the past year — a better and more sensitive way to think about this is “oppressed,” or “stigmatized,” and “elite,” or “privileged” castes.

And a note, this interview is heavy and contains descriptions of suicide, so please take care of yourself. xx

If you or someone you know is in crisis, call the U.S. National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-8255, text TALK to 741741 or visit SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for additional resources.

Sonia Paul  00:11

So just to start out, can you please introduce yourself, your name, your age where you're from what you do. 

Yashica Dutt  00:19

Hi, I'm Yashica Dutt. I am 33 years old. I am originally from New Delhi, India. But I've been living in the city since 2014. I recently wrote a book. It's called Coming Out as Dalit. It is just available in the Indian subcontinent for now. But it's a book about my journey of growing up as an untouchable person, quote, unquote, in India, but hiding the fact that I was a lower caste person, and how that got me a front-row seat to what it means to be hiding your identity in India, especially in the late 90s, in the early to late 90s, 2000s. And then till 2014, till I left. I was a journalist back home in New Delhi, I also try and unpack the issue of caste, as it means to modern-day India and how it has a social and cultural impact on the country. Also, in the book, I've tried to look at the history of the movement and how it has parallels with the civil rights movement and the Black Lives Matter movement in the United States, because this is where I was living. And this is how I was being impacted. And I was thinking about the ideas of how race and cast collide. So a couple of chapters deal with that. But overall, it's the spine of a memoir, but it has nonfiction and historical backgrounds and facts. It's a wide scope book. 

Sonia Paul  01:45

Yeah. I mean, I read it. It's great. Congratulations. You know, I'm glad you like, really preface what the book is about, because I'm going to ask you a lot about that. And, you know, I just want to also clarify, so when you say you live in the city, you live in New York City right now?

Yashica Dutt  02:00

I live in New York City right now. 

Sonia Paul  02:02

Okay. Um, you know, you already answered my second question, which is like, briefly, what is the book about? And I think, you know, just to start off, if you could go back to the moment in your own personal history, where you realized your family's caste background. And what exactly took place to make you realize that your family was a member of the so-called untouchable class, also known as Dalit class? 

Yashica Dutt  02:30

If you ask me to chart a moment in my personal history or childhood, where I realized I was born in an untouchable caste, I don't think I can come up with that, because ever since my earliest memories started forming, I remember growing up with the reality that I was from a lower caste and I had to make up for it, to fit in with the society, with the rest of the caste-based society in India. And the things that I had to do, the measures that I had to take. How I had to be careful about not talking about my caste, how I had to observe how girls in my school — I went to an all-girls school in Rajasthan, which is a state in India — how they behaved and then try and mimic those behaviors. So it was a whole process. And there is a concept of passing in African American culture that I read about. And it felt very similar to that, that you have to adopt the mannerisms and the behaviors of the other culture. And I was very young when my parents told me about how I had to hide my identity and how I had to lie about it if I wanted to not be discriminated. It was just a matter of fact reality. It wasn't something that one day I woke up, and I was being told that I from an untouchable caste. It was just an idea that existed in my reality, like any other idea, like I was five or six or that I lived in a certain place. Similarly, I was lower caste. So it's just permeated in my whole existence. 

Sonia Paul  03:58

I guess I'm just to help us comprehend what it means to be lower caste. What were some of the indicators, in your experience, that were the hallmarks of that caste identity? Like, what were the experiences in your life that were telling you that you were lower caste?

Yashica Dutt  04:20

The experiences in my life were — first of all, I have to preface this by saying that these are just my experiences. There are different kinds of lower caste experiences based on the location of class, and gender, and whether they're in an urban or rural setting, those ideas and experiences change completely. So this is just me and I can just speak for myself. But, what it meant to be lower caste when I was a young person, when I was a child, was that some people in my family, not many generations ago, like maybe even my grandmother, they were, they were involved in the work of manual scavenging, which, for the listeners who don't know, it literally translates to cleaning human excrement. Sometimes bare hands, sometimes with no equipment and often scooping it up and carrying it in wooden baskets on top of your heads. So it was a shameful part of my identity. It was something that my parents told me that we had to overcome that we have to hide that because if other people find out that that's our history — which is frankly, I don't feel any shame about it anymore, because that is not the history that we chose. And there is pride in doing whatever we do and what we were forced to do on the base of our caste. So I have no shame in it anymore. But as a five-year-old, as a six-year-old, that shame was ingrained deeply.  So that was the biggest marker, that first of all — you had to completely lie about who you were, you had to lead a different kind of life, when you were home, and you had to lead a different kind of life in your school or out with friends. And the other thing was that we had a different last name. So for example, my grandfather's last name was Das, D-A-S. And my dad's last name was Dutt. And my last name is Dutt. And I just didn't understand how those two are different because other families in my, my school or my neighborhood, they all shared the same last name, but we just didn't. And it didn't make sense to me. And when I would ask my parents, even as a young kid, they would say that this is just how it is, you will understand it when you grow older. So that sort of told me and the whole production of pretending that you are somebody else, right fro…

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit loitering.substack.com

Hello, friends! This episode of Loitering features an interview with the one and only Vidur Malik. Please listen and follow along below.

Sonia Paul  00:13

Hello, everyone, welcome to Loitering, the occasional but lovable traveling mini pod I am currently testing in newsletter format. And today I am loitering over outside pho with a very special guest. Can you please introduce yourself?

Vidur Malik  00:30

My name is Victor Malik. I am a associate marriage and family therapist who lives in Hayward.

Sonia   00:36

And also, as you can hear, we are very much outside. We are in outdoor dining at a pho place in the bay. And, yeah, you can hear some children and families around us. But it's also a very special occasion because Vidur and I are catching up. And so, Vidur, the reason we know each other has to do with our time in journalism school together. So can you explain a little bit about your history as a journalist, and how that led you actually into an entirely different line of work?

Vidur   01:08

Yeah. So when I was growing up, I was trying to figure out what I was good at, and what I was passionate about. And I always knew I liked sports. And I always knew I like to write. So I thought, why not combine those two and become a sports writer. And I kind of took that kind of very naive idea through high school and college and worked on my school papers and studied journalism, and went to Columbia where I met you. And at that point, I thought that sports journalism was my calling. And I was just going to do it and not ask any questions about it. But as I got into the field and started working daily, as a journalist, I realized it just was not fulfilling for me. And I didn't feel like I could cut it as a journalist. I didn't think I had the qualities that somebody like you has or other reporters have. 

Sonia   01:47

That's a lie

Vidur   01:47

It's not! Like, I didn't think that — you know, you have to be tenacious, you have to be okay, working unpredictable and long hours. And you have to be okay annoying people and asking questions that will upset people. And that always freaks me out. And I had to psych myself up every time I did an interview, or like, just went out and did reporting. And that was not sustainable. I couldn't do that into my 70s, you know, so I had to do something that I didn't dread doing every day. And I had always enjoyed mentoring and sort of just supporting people who are going through things. And I had done peer mentoring in high school and college. And I really liked the idea of just sitting with somebody, and not necessarily solving their problems, but helping them figure out a solution that works for them. And the more I thought about it, the more I was like, you know, you should be in some sort of counseling or psychology. And so I was living in New York, after finishing Columbia. And I wanted to go back home to California. And I applied to the Santa Clara University School of Counseling Psychology, and I got in, and I haven't looked back, and I work as an associate marriage and family therapist who is working on getting my license.

Sonia   02:50

Okay, that's quite a story. Also, I really want to unwrap more though, like the transferable skills between being a journalist and being a therapist. What do you see as some of the things that maybe you're taking away from actually being in journalism school that journalists themselves might underappreciate?

Vidur   03:11

Well, information gathering for one, knowing when to ask a follow-up question, knowing how to phrase questions to get a lot of information. That's a big one. And then the second one is just writing quickly. As a clinician, anybody will tell you who works in the field, there's a lot of paperwork, and a lot of documentation, and assessments and treatment plans. And often you're doing more paperwork than actual therapy. So being able to write quickly, and write clearly quickly is helpful for me, because I can write a note in a few minutes and kind of distill an hour-long therapy session into a few sentences and feel like I can do that pretty effectively. And journalism helped me a lot with that. 

Sonia   03:48

Wow, did you feel like, self-conscious, though, about making a career switch? Because I think there are a lot of journalists who talk about like, 'oh, what would it be like to leave journalism,' but not even just with journalism, but with any industry — sometimes it's like seen as taboo, or it's just too daunting to actually make that switch. So what were — what were you thinking when you were actually going through this decision?

Vidur   04:11

I only feel self-conscious about it when I talk about it with other journalists. Because I think —

Sonia   04:16

— I hope not me, 

Vidur   04:17

No. Because the worry is — they might think, well, Vidur couldn't cut it in this field. And I kind of think that too. Like, I felt like I was good at journalism, and I got generally good feedback. And I worked hard. But I just knew it wasn't sustainable for me. So I think some of the self-consciousness just comes through when I talk to people who are in the field and are probably gonna do it for a long time. And, you know, sometimes they feel like, oh, I don't measure up to them. But, you know, I work through that. And it doesn't stop me from telling people what I'm doing now. So that's really the only time I get self-conscious about it.

Sonia   04:48

That's so interesting, but like in terms of measuring up, you're actually like doing a really great thing right now. Like, I mean, being a counselor, especially in this era that we're in right now. So can you talk a little bit more about the work you're doing? You're working with high school students, right?

Vidur   05:04

Yeah, I'm a clinician at a high school in the Bay Area. So right now we're doing virtual learning. So logistically, that just presents a challenge in terms of how do you do the work over a computer or over the phone. It's work that has always been done, you know, with two people in the same room, and kind of that, that feedback that you get from being in the same room with somebody that's nonverbal, that you can't quite like quantify. And that kind of doesn't really exist over the phone or over a laptop, but you just find ways to get around it. And I think now more than ever, people just need space to check in about themselves. So even if it's done remotely, or virtually, the space itself is still important.

Sonia   05:45

I mean, I can't imagine — well, I can a little bit because I have some friends who are teachers — but what it's like to be a high school student and learn in a pandemic. Can you talk a bit broadly, like while respecting patient confidentiality, about some of the issues that young people are going through that maybe we might take for granted as adults or working professionals going through our own hurdles?

Vidur   06:07

Yeah. I think that generally, such a big part of school, and education, is just socializing with peers and understanding just how to interact with people your own age, how to have conversations, how to make friends, how to handle conflicts, and resolve them. And that's a lot harder to do when you're not in school every day with your classmates in a class. So I think that social element of school that we all probably took for granted, I know I took for granted, just doesn't exist anymore. The idea of like, being with the same classmates, maybe throughout K through 12, being with the same classmates in the same class every day, that just doesn't exist. So I think that social element is missing. And I think, you know, I wonder what it's like for our students to go through that. I also think that in terms of the education itself, you know, it's a lot easier to get distracted, when you're at your home environment in front of your laptop, as opposed to when you're in school, you kind of know, I'm in school mode, right now, when I can get home, I could play PlayStation or do anything else I do at home. But now, all those…

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit loitering.substack.com

Heylo,

It’s been quite a while since Loitering last dropped… not that some significant loitering hasn’t happened since then. But as we all know, 2020 is the year where hustling doesn’t seem to make as much sense as it once did, given the broader forces, news, and circumstances around us. Life is exhausting! And sometimes, you need to just concentrate on holding the ice cream cone rather than adding more flavors to it (for more insight on that, please see the headline photo, taken in the late summer of 2018, and listen to the latest episode of Loitering with Evan, Adam, and Jesse Adam, featuring special guest co-producer Evan).

Meanwhile, while I did have a wonderful Loitering zoom session with Loitering’s “target audience” — also known as my friend Fonzie, also known as Mr. D :) — earlier this summer, and have an episode with Yashica Dutt, author of the book Coming Out As Dalit, that’s been in the works for a long time, both are TBD for now. Mr. D is an English teacher and Dean of students at a high school in the Bay Area, so our conversation about teaching and learning in the pandemic quickly became antiquated as the news cycle kept moving (we hope to re-Loiter later this fall). And sadly, just as I was going through final edits of my interview with Yashica, my audio file (and its backup files!) corrupted. :( Then I just got wrapped up with work, particularly a story for which I first interviewed Yashica last year.

To make a long story short, the delays around that story (which, to be clear, is now a different story on the same topic) have very much to do with inequities in our media industry, discussions which inflamed as the Black Lives Matter protests became the largest movement in American history. Twitter has especially become the hotspot for journalists to vent about their struggles, and for a while this summer, it felt like the trauma and frustrations associated with being a journalist or producer of color in American media was surrounding me too much — even as I was also trying to figure out the best way to navigate my own experiences.

So rather than hoping for retweets that might give me a false impression of validation and closure, I opted to make it very clear (once again) in emails and subsequent phone calls to the place where a certain experience of mine did transpire — and man, talk about exhausting. 2020 has been a year of reckoning for everyone. While the media industry seems sincere in trying to circumvent its lack of diversity when it comes to coverage and who is in the position to shape and report such stories, with the way journalism economics is going, it also just feels… late. And, therefore, a more extractive process at times for a person like me. Is the journalism industry going to stop laying off reporters? Will they stop tightening their freelance budgets and instead maybe consider hiring one of these freelancers full-time, or at least offer them the chance to do expensive, deep-dive reporting? Probably not, at least not to those first few questions. It’s difficult to not then sometimes feel like a guinea pig for how XX organization can do better when they want to have these phone calls. The other party’s well-meaning can only mean something when actual action is the result.

And in this environment, some full-time staffers at news organizations have opted to leave their jobs and create their own individual subscription news coverage on this platform you’re reading right now. This is a trend I’ve been following for a while, with both curiosity and trepidation. Most news coverage on this focuses on staffers who are choosing to go independent, rather than independents who have maybe fallen into that model for other reasons. My current feelings on this trend center on observations that the folks Substack is recruiting to be star independents — a sort of “journalism influencer” — are people who, at their media companies beforehand, were the ones who were actually encouraged and validated for their contributions, and given the chance to do the deep reporting for which they became known. So when it comes to “fixing” a crisis in news coverage, there’s still a huge gaping hole about the problems journalists of color have been venting about all along. I am sure there are exceptions to this, and I would love to discuss this further and be proven wrong since I do think Substack is doing something interesting. But these are some of my current thoughts.

That being said, I am not too proud to hold back in asking you, if you are not already a subscriber, to now subscribe. :)

On an entirely different note, we are officially in Libra season, if that means anything to you. While I am not necessarily in the cohort of millennials turning to astrology as the main framework for understanding life, I will admit I look forward to seeing what Susan Miller has in store for me every month and try to imagine how it will or won’t make sense. But this year, I am excited about Libra season mostly because it signifies something else in my house: kombucha.

Let’s backtrack to June, when I saw this email on a local Bay Area listserve I’m on.

OBVIOUSLY, this captured my interest. Jun scoby, ey? I got in touch with the email poster, a man named Marcus. But it turned out I would be far down the list of others who got in touch with him before me. Upon learning about this, I mentioned it was ok, no worries because I’m not that hardcore. Then it turned into this other exchange, where I learned a bit about comparative resilience.

I was a bit overwhelmed at the information and had to explain myself.

Marcus got back to me the very next day. He was excited. He suggested that since kombucha scobies are a bit more resilient — albeit take more time to brew — it might be a better option for someone starting out. So low and behold, some weeks later, I walked over to meet Marcus at a safe social distance and came back with a scoby. He also gave me an entire rundown about how to brew kombucha and was so excellent at it that — with his permission — I am now sharing this presentation with you here.

Marcus and I live in the same neighborhood, and as I walked back with this scoby specimen, a few people eyed it (and me) warily. It really did look disgusting.

Then me, being the tired and busy and burnt out person I am, let the scoby sit for a while instead of brewing up some kombucha right away. It was only thanks to my housemate, who has experience in the kombucha department, that we finally got things going. Here is a brief illustration of what transpired that COVID Friday night.

We wrote a note to ourselves on the ready date.

We will let you know how it turned out.

Some links:

Here’s a story that keeps running through my mind, and a podcast interview with the writer of that story, which I similarly can’t stop thinking about. The podcast interview with the writer, Jiayang Fan, vocalizes the depths of conversations I personally wish we had more of — around what it means to create stories and create the self.

Speaking of seeing the self, Yashica Dutt wrote this review of Isabel Wilkerson’s new book Caste that — especially if you’re interested in caste and the implications of that book — you should read.

The children born on 9/11 are about to vote, which makes you wonder about what it must be like to grow up with your life defined by tragedy (also, Sabrina Toppa pointed out that the focus group didn’t include any Muslim or Arab kids born on 9/11, which would more than likely reveal realities and experiences someone like Paul Krugman also seems oblivious to).

I hope you’re listening to the new iteration of The Cut Podcast.

Today’s news adds to the collective burden so many communities — but particularly Black communities — are facing. These two episodes of The Daily about Breonna Taylor and what transpired the night police killed her are worth listening to. Here’s Part 1, here’s Part 2, and here’s a newsletter about the reporter and producers’ process.

This piece about why we’re not mourning the 200…

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit loitering.substack.com

Hi everyone,

I’m doing Loitering a little differently today. No transcript — what you’ll read here is different from what you will listen to. Hope you’ll do both.

On Friday night, I went to a protest in downtown Oakland. Just a few days prior I had been asking friends how they felt to meet in person while safe social distancing, as a sort of temperature check to see how people were feeling given COVID-19. But by Friday, it was clear that many people’s first big social gathering in the pandemic was going to be a protest. It was for me.

I reached out to a producer at a show on New York Public Radio I sometimes contribute to, The Takeaway, and while I didn’t get a formal commission — they couldn’t predict how the news would play out over the weekend to know what Monday’s show would be — they alerted their executive producer and we agreed to stay in touch. This is what’s called “stringing” in journalism. Without a formal go-ahead, I could have said no, but the gravity of the moment was too big. A friend came over and we went together.

Social distancing in this kind of situation is impossible, as you can see. And it’s not like the people there were oblivious either. “The risk in the minds of many Black and Brown people is worth it,” Cat Brooks and Rebecca Ruiz of the Anti-Police Terror Project said in a statement to The Mercury News about the protests. “It’s a conundrum because we want to live but, also, we want to live.”

I didn’t end up doing any interviews on Friday — there was too much to absorb, too much movement to feel like I could concentrate on that while also taking the necessary pictures to post to social media for this kind of breaking news situation. But beyond that, I also admittedly didn’t have it in me to ask people why they were there. Just as it’s exhausting for black people to constantly have to explain themselves to the world, it’s exhausting to be the journalist on the other end asking them to repeat the trauma of their lives — and for what, the sake of a good sound bite? For what audience? It’s so painfully obvious why they’re there. The crowd that night was mostly younger people of all backgrounds. I didn’t need to ask.

I woke up the next two days feeling heavier than I have in a long time, Sunday especially. After spending a good portion of the night scrolling through Twitter and following in real-time the violence and frenzy that escalated, I started Sunday morning biking to the stores nearby that had been broken into and looted, to scope out what had happened. And who was doing that looting? The passive voice is shining at this moment because it’s hard to pinpoint. But also, as Trevor Noah and others have pointed out, spending so much time trying to distinguish between protestors and looters and rioters misses the point: The current social contract is not working.

Later on Sunday, a car caravan protest organized by the Anti-Police Terror Project began at the Port of Oakland, to move throughout the city. The Anti-Police Terror Project has been organizing around police terror since the murder of Oscar Grant in 2009 at Oakland’s Fruitvale BART Station. Its goal is to engage in what they call “radical reform policies” that don’t reinforce the status quo, its co-founder Cat Brooks told me.

By then, I was back in touch with the executive producer at The Takeaway and more motivated to go and interview the protestors (this is where this Loitering interview with Fay and Susan comes from). As some have commented — and this is mostly a critique of national media — many news reports are drowning out the voices of demonstrators. The car caravan, though, attracted thousands of people, including a lot of families, older people, white people and POCs wanting to be present but also wanting to social distance. People were on foot, bike and car, wearing signs on their backs and affixed to their car doors, and listening to the organizers pump up the crowd with music and directions on 88.1 FM — which, according to my friend Wikipedia, seems to be a station owned by El Cerrito High in the Bay Area. Not sure the backstory of how that came into fruition (“I have no idea,” Cat Brooks told me. “I have an amazing team”). But it was a novel form of protest, especially in a pandemic.

You can read more about it in this article by Johana Bhuiyan at the LA Times.

And below are Fay Rohrbach and Susan Schulman, whose interview you can listen to above. Fay is the one in the orange mask.

Also… if you’re alarmed at the level of violence police are escalating against black people, protestors and media workers, good. It is alarming.

What are you going to do with that knowledge? My cousin texted me last night if I knew whether blackout Tuesday meant more people would be protesting. It was the first time I had heard of it, although if you’re on Instagram today, you may be seeing it all over your feeds. A social media protest can often become an empty gesture, especially on a platform like Instagram owned by a company its own workers are criticizing for its inactions on President Trump’s inflammatory comments. But I at least had to be a bit more myopic in considering this black square. Instagram, for me, is a visual diary, a mesh of photos related to work as well as family, friends and moments that take my breath away. Thinking about others like George Floyd whose breaths are taken away for entirely different reasons, the choice is clear: I want to remember this moment in history and what I was doing at this time.

It’s true that too much social media (which I know I’ve been guilty of!) can be fatiguing. Here are a few links of the audio-visual variety that require some sit-down viewing and listening as opposed to skimming:

Listen to The Takeaway’s segment on the pain fueling demonstrations (and hear some Oakland too).

“There’s no right way to protest because that’s what protest is.” And more wisdom from Uncle Trevor. I recommend listening in full.

A brief story on a big issue I reported for Marketplace News.

A look at how the Indian police is trying to rebrand in a pandemic.

I’d love feedback, or just to hear from you, so please feel free to get in touch. And if you know someone you think may like to read or listen to Loitering, please share. Thanks.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit loitering.substack.com

Sonia Paul  00:10

Hello everyone, welcome to Loitering, the occasional but lovable traveling mini pod I am currently testing a newsletter format. And today I am not traveling but loitering on Zoom with a very special guest. Can you please introduce yourself? 

Eva Holland  00:25

Hi, I'm Eva Holland. I'm a freelance writer. I live in the Yukon Territory in northern Canada. And I have my first book just out. It's called Nerve: Adventures in the Science of Fear. 

Sonia   00:35

Great, and so for people are kind of unfamiliar, what is the Yukon? Can you talk about where that is, exactly, and what kind of environment surrounds it? 

Eva   00:45

Sure. So the Yukon is one of three Canadian territories. We fill the northern part of the country. And basically, we're a territory rather than a province, so we have fewer sort of regional powers, like in terms of devolution of powers from the federal government. Provinces have less than American states do, and territories have less than provinces. And we are north of British Columbia and just east of Alaska. So we're kind of a little triangle there next door to Alaska. The Yukon is about the size of California, but with 35,000 people instead of 35 million. So it's pretty empty. It's a sub-Arctic, primarily, the very northernmost part of the territory is north of the Arctic Circle. So it's, you know, forests and mountains and rivers and lakes and bears and caribou and all that good stuff. And it's where the Klondike Gold Rush took place. And we still have a lot of mining here and tourism when there's not a pandemic. It's a pretty cool place. 

Sonia   01:44

Okay, that's really interesting. This is a good segue for a question I had was that you kind of live in the wild, I think. Of course, maybe you might not realize that or other people around you might not realize that, but I think compared to a lot of people who live in cities and more urban environments, you're in a place that is pretty out in the open. And I found it very interesting because I know some people who might think that sort of environment might be a very scary place to live in. And I was curious how you would describe your relationship with your environment and whether or not there's any fear in being in that sort of environment, especially when you consider things like isolation and the availability of different resources. 

Eva   02:29

Yeah, I mean, it's all relative, right? By Yukon standards, Whitehorse, the capital city, quote, unquote, where I live, is the big town right? And we have three Starbucks and kind of have a lot of creature comforts compared to some more remote communities. But on the other hand, like we get grizzly bears coming into town sometimes and moose and stuff, so it is pretty wild. But, I used to find places like this scary when I was younger and was more of a city kid and had less experience. I felt safer in cities, just sort of safety in numbers kind of ways. That isolation can feel really vulnerable. But I have changed my perspective on that, I think. I mean, there's still — your imagination is gonna run wild. There's a reason why tons of horror movies take place in like, a cabin in the woods or something. But as I've gotten to know, this community, I've been here for just over 10 years, my perceptions of what's safe, or I guess my comfort zone in different scenarios, has really changed in that time. And now I feel pretty safe in wilderness settings, and certainly in this community. 

Sonia   03:22

Yeah, so there's safety in a physical environment, but your book is more so about different emotions that you're trying to tackle. And then you have this line that I think is just kind of pretty emblematic of like, your mission with this book, is that it says, "I've sometimes felt as though my life is less a pursuit of happiness, and more an ongoing endless duel with fear." So, can you just expand upon that and what exactly you're trying to talk about here?

Eva   03:50

I, I guess I've — and I know that this squares strangely sometimes for people who follow my writing was sort of my professional persona or some of the stuff I've written about done for work — but I've always felt like a pretty cautious person, pretty risk-averse, scared of lots of things. And particularly since I moved here 10 years ago and have been trying to learn all this wilderness adventure travel stuff, I'm always less experienced than everyone I'm going out and about with, and I'm always the most scared. So I think I really internalized that role of sort of the token scaredy-cat in the group. And there's been a process of sort of coming to terms with that and being like, it's okay to be a beginner, it's okay to learn things. It's okay to be nervous. But, it's also not a fun role to be in, and I was getting tired of the extent to which I felt like fear was hemming me in and making my life smaller, I guess, than I wanted it to be. So I decided that I wanted to change that dynamic. 

Sonia   04:44

And you did so in the form of a book. 

Eva   04:47

Yeah. 

Sonia   04:48

And so, do you think you would have done this had you not written a book? Like, what was the process of doing it as a writer, and how does that relate to you actually doing it. Like what do you have done it any other way?

Eva   05:01

I think I would have done some of it, even if I wasn't writing about it. It did start as a personal project, specifically, the thread of my fear of heights and wanting to overcome my fear of heights was something that I took on as a personal project before I decided to write about it. I don't know if I hadn't had a book contract to fulfill, if I would have stuck to it as persistently or been as willing to put money into things like therapy for trauma or phobias. So I don't know that I would have been as successful as I ultimately was, spoiler alert, in changing some of the dynamics of my relationship with fear if I hadn't been doing the book. And this is part of that, I guess, split persona that I referred to earlier — I've always been more driven when I have to write about something. I'm always more willing to push myself, push my boundaries, do something scary if I have to come up with a story about it and get paid. And so, doing it as a book really meant that I would see it through. I don't know that I would have stuck to it when things got hard otherwise.

Sonia   05:54

How much is it that money has to do with that versus other people just know you're doing it?

Eva Holland  06:00

Hmm, that's a good question. A bit of both, I think. But yeah, the money piece is real. I'm not somebody who spends a lot of money on self-improvement type of stuff. And not that I spent a ton of money on, for instance, the therapy that I did to resolve the trauma from my car accidents, I think I ultimately spent maybe four or $500 on those four sessions. I can't remember, I'd have to check it out. But it wasn't outrageous. Certainly, the value to now no longer be having panic attacks and flashbacks when I'm driving is enormous. But I don't know if I would have invested that money if I didn't see it as sort of a professional investment, rather than a personal one, which is kind of dysfunctional now that I think about it. 

Sonia   06:37

Oh, you tell me, a couple of friends and I are currently going through a book together that is kind of like, a self-improvement type book. And we had to write work views and life views. And it was really interesting to talk about the differences between the two among us — but let's just backtrack for the audience. 

So the fears that you talked about in your book or your fear of heights, you're sort of anxiety around driving cars or getting into car accidents, and then also this fear of loss, with losing your mother. And at one point in your book, I remember you remarking that you didn't even realize that some of these fears were actually fears until you verbalized them. And I was wondering like, what is the role of verbalizing or actualizing something out into the world, in this whole re…

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit loitering.substack.com

Dear Friends,

As we continue to navigate the current pandemic, I figured it might be worth it to release this brief episode with my housemate, a former paramedic (although another author interview is coming soon!). At the end of this newsletter, I’ve also linked to a few stories that might pique your interest at this time.

Wishing you all good health, positive energy, patience and lots of support!

XOXO

Sonia Paul  00:10

Hello, everyone, welcome to Loitering, the occasional but lovable traveling mini pod I am currently testing in newsletter format. And today, I am loitering in the kitchen with a very special guest. Can you please introduce yourself?

Eli Weinburd  00:24

My name is Eli Weinburd. I was formerly a paramedic and currently work for Planned Parenthood.

Sonia   00:31

And he's also my roommate. So Eli, tell me a little bit about your background as a paramedic, especially as it relates to our current circumstances right now with COVID-19.

Eli   00:44

So my background is not super extensive, but I was a paramedic in Minnesota and then I was a paramedic in New Mexico. In terms of how it relates to where we are now — this came up because we heard a siren in the background. After deciding not to work as a paramedic, hearing the sound of sirens had a very significant connotation for me of relief that I was not on the ambulance needing to respond to whatever we were responding to. Now it feels like it's related to COVID. And I could be useful. And that's one of the reasons that I no longer work as a paramedic is because I did not feel useful taking people with chronic conditions to the emergency room.

Sonia   01:31

So, just to backtrack, this was the situation Eli was facing in that many of the people who are calling 911 to get an ambulance to go to the emergency room weren't having like, a sudden crisis. They were suffering from long term conditions that they just hadn't gone to their regular doctor to attend to — right?

Eli 01:50

Yeah. You can't do anything for someone who has been suffering with like, addiction or alcohol abuse for the last 20 years in a 15-minute ride to the hospital. And when you see them week after week, it is discouraging. With the demand and the call for the state, and even in my like, perusal of job websites, the explosion of job openings — the need feels different. And because it feels like there's a need, I feel more open to doing that work.

Sonia   02:24

What do you think about the situation of, you know, healthcare workers being on the front lines? And of course, you feel called to this profession even more so now, but it's also exposing yourself and — you know, we've talked about this, I live with you, the people around you to what you might also be exposed to, what's going on in your mind about that?

Eli 02:48

Yeah, I mean, there's a certain amount of, you know, being young and feeling invulnerable, which I won't deny.

Sonia   02:57

How old are you?

Eli 03:00

25. Thank you very much. But it seems to be an aspect of my own self-identity that if called upon, I would respond. And in this circumstance, we are called upon. And I've already fucked up. Because a few weeks ago, I was experiencing cold and flu-like symptoms, and I went to the grocery store, because I wanted to feel normal. I wanted to feel like I was healthy enough to get out of the house. And I shouldn't have. Now that I'm feeling healthy again, I could work on an ambulance.

Sonia   03:42

And this is just something that I also want to touch on while we're at it — the salary of a paramedic. So, can you talk a little bit about some of the salaries you've known in different situations and what the salary is here, and whether or not that's actually fair, given the kind of work paramedics are doing right now.

Eli   04:02

So, when I was in Minnesota working for the Mayo Clinic, world-renowned health care hospital, they paid me $20 an hour — $20 and 91 cents an hour. I think there are adjustments, obviously. for night shifts where you get a couple more dollars. And then working in Alamo on the Navajo reservation, they paid me $19 and 13 cents or something. There is a job posting with the San Francisco Fire Department that has a pay range between $47 and $61 per hour. The difference is staggering.

That said, like, I can't actually imagine how much it costs to have a family in San Francisco, which would not be my circumstance, obviously. But it definitely matters in terms of the cost of living and what you're getting paid. I've also been offered a paramedic job that paid like $13. And...I mean...it's hard to feel completely dismissive of something that other people don't have. Like, migrant workers who are bunking together and yet are getting paid less than $13, less than minimum wage, even possibly. Their risk is also high because they're getting crowded into — I'm getting sidetracked.

Sonia   05:38

It's ok. So the rates for being a paramedic are pretty shitty.

Eli 05:42

Yes, absolutely. They say EMT-P, EMT paramedic, stands for EMT paid, while EMT-B, EMT basic, stands for EMT broke.

Sonia Paul  05:53

Oh my gosh. Wow.

Eli 05:55

But, we're all broke. EMS, and specifically the profession of being a paramedic, has been attempting to professionalize itself for a number of years now. But, I think ultimately it's a fact where it's still essentially a blue-collar, working-class job, and emergency medical technician is an appropriate label. Because even if there's a push in the education of paramedics, to have them educated in a way that does not make them a technician, that is how they are being paid, and that's who ends up taking the job or sticking with it. And then the people who have the expertise and the knowledge and the commitment to raise that to a level beyond "technician," for lack of a better word, go on to medical school, or transfer into nursing, or do something that pays a living wage.

Sonia   06:54

So, the other day Governor Newsom, he called upon all medical professionals to rise to the cause. So, there is this website that already exists for healthcare workers to volunteer to be of service, to work in the case of an emergency. So, have you submitted your name up there? What's going on?

Eli 07:14

Yeah. So I filled out the information on the California Health Corps dot gov website. And now I guess I wait to hear back from them. From my understanding, it is a paid position and not a volunteer position, which is important, because at this point, we are still paying rent.

Sonia   07:35

Yeah, this is another thing we were talking about is just — I mean, of course, there is this moral conviction that a lot of people have to serve, especially right now. There's also economic reasons that people need to work. They need to pay what they have to pay including rent, utilities, family supplies. 

What is the invisible aspect of being a paramedic that you think needs to be visibilized right now, even more so, where, paramedics, really, they're on the frontlines of addressing this pandemic right now?

Eli 08:14

A lot of paramedic response, from my experience, is responding to elder care facilities of one kind or another, whether it's nursing homes or assisted living facilities. From what I hear, those are largely on lockdown. I imagine they're still calling. A lot of what they called for were UTIs, urinary tract infections, in their elderly patients. And... I don't know, they're just a lot of variables in that situation and the interaction between emergency response, and what is intended at least to be non-emergent care for the vulnerable elder population in the U.S. Like, if we could take care of them where they're at, it would be great.

Sonia   09:03

Yeah. Well, so this has been a pretty heavy loitering conversation, to say the least. But of course, you know, we're coping. We're still here. Eli's laughing. We're trying to keep our spirits despite everything else that's happening. And, yeah. So, that's all we have for today of Loitering, the occasional but lovable traveling mini pod I am currently tes…

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit loitering.substack.com

Dear Friends,

It’s no doubt these are hectic and stressful times. At the end of the newsletter, I’ve linked to a few resources that may be useful for you and your families and friends as we all work to help curb the spread of COVID-19.

Wishing you all good health, good vibes, patience and lots of support!

XOXO

Sonia Paul  00:10

Yeah, what happened to your leg? 

Sopan Deb  00:12

Oh man, I wish there was a better story behind this but literally I was crossing the street in the Lower East Side and I got trucked by car. I wish there was a better story, like, I was like, saving a baby from getting run over or something, but I think what happened was I didn't realize it was a two-way street. I looked one way, didn't see cars coming, went for it, and then got trucked from the other side.

Sonia   00:32

Trucked from the other side meaning a truck—

Sopan   00:34

No, sorry, a car hit me. A car hit me. If I truck hit me, I don't think I'd be here right now.

Sonia   00:39

Oh my gosh, did you need surgery or anything, what happened?

Sopan 00:42

Yeah, I had surgery the next day. There's like, a rod inside my leg that will always be there. Like a permanent friend. But you know, all things considered, you know, there's no ligament damage or anything. So, it's not so bad.

Sonia   00:53

You seem awfully easygoing, given the severity of what happened.

Sopan 00:58

Well, I'll answer seriously because I know you're sound-checking. I also realized that I come from a huge privilege here because I have a kind of job that allows me to work from home. There's that. Wesley, who's my fiance — Wesley has the kind of job where they let her stay at home for a month and take care of me. And so I had that. I have health insurance. So, like, it could have been a lot worse. I'm also fortunate in the fact I got hit by a car and lived, right? It could have been a lot worse. It's annoying and painful in the meantime, but it could have been a lot worse. That's what I keep telling myself.

Sonia   01:31

Yeah, that's a nice way of framing it.

Sopan 01:34

Yeah, otherwise just gonna be sad all day and no one wants to do that.

Sonia   01:37

Totally. Okay, let's backtrack. Hello, everyone. Welcome to Loitering, the occasional but lovable traveling mini pod I am currently testing in newsletter format. And today, I am loitering over doughnuts with a very special guest. Could you introduce yourself? Who are you and what do you do? What is this job you have that gives you a certain amount of privilege and flexibility?

Sopan   02:00

Yeah, sure. So my name is Sopan Deb. I am a writer for The New York Times where I cover mostly the NBA now, but I also, I recently left the culture beat of the Times. And the culture is like film, TV, television, dance, art, music, and I still contribute to that section. But most of my job is covering basketball now. Then before that, I covered the presidential campaign for CBS. I covered the Trump campaign, I was one five or so campaign embeds that traveled the country with him for a year and a half. And then I'm also a comedian on the side. So, I have a bunch of different balls in the air.

Sonia   02:08

And now okay, so you recently wrote this book called Missed Translations: Meeting the Immigrant Parents Who Raised Me. And we got in touch because I saw that you had posted some excerpts of what you had sent to publishers about why you wrote this book. So can you talk a little bit about the motivations behind this piece of work?

Sopan   02:47

Yeah, absolutely. So the book is about how essentially stand up comedy and covering the Trump campaign pushed me to reconnect with my parents. My parents were arranged to get married. They're both Indian. They're both Bengali. And they had a very bad marriage. And so when we were growing up, I didn't know anything about them. We were more like distant roommates than we were a family. We barely ate together. When we did talk, it was just yelling at each other. So I grew up never getting to know them. I didn't know how they met, I didn't know how many siblings they had, and I didn't really know any of my grandparents. And what that did is it made me want to be white. I grew up in a mostly white suburb of New Jersey called Howell. And I'd go to my friend's houses. And I'd see them eating dinner together and having normal conversations with each other, talking about crushes and talking about therapy and stuff like that, and be like, wow, I don't have that in my house. 

And then, in college, my father after my parents finally got divorced, my father just left the country and moved back to India without telling anybody. Just bounced. Um, and then my mom and I kind of lost touch. And then, as I was turning 30, I realized it had been more than 11 years since I'd seen my father and it had been several years since I'd seen my mother. I didn't even know where they were living at the time. It was time to go find them, and time to go reconnect with them, and actually learn who they are, and what their stories are.  And so I did, and that's what the book tracks. I found out a lot of stuff. There are a lot of plot twists throughout. There's a lot of like, crazy stuff that I found out that was really shocking. But when I started this process, I literally did not know where they were living. I didn't know their ages.

Sonia   04:20

Yeah. So like, when you were growing up, I mean, you mentioned it felt like you were more like distant roommates. But, I felt like in the beginning parts of the book, it did feel like there was a sort of sense of culture or family understanding that they were trying to embark on you. You talk about like, you were a musician, and you used to practice Indian music. So what happened?

Sopan 04:41

Yeah, I don't know if you can relate to this. I'm sure you can on some level. I think a lot of South Asian families, what they do is they put their kid in activities, but it's for the resume. It's not for themselves. It's not like my parents put me into piano lessons because they were excited to nurture my mind. They wanted me to do better on my SAT scores, and, you know, being a musician helps with that, right? So when we were growing up, we had a little bit more of a family culture. It was strained. It got to a point where it was intolerable as I got older. But when I was younger, yeah. You know, my mom put me in piano lessons, karate, baseball, all the regular stuff. But, I always felt like it was more for her than it was for me. And I think that's not necessarily unusual with immigrant children. And then by the time I think I kind of got to middle school, that's when everything kind of started disintegrating to a point where any semblance of family culture we had was no longer in existence.

Sonia   05:34

Yeah. And wanted to get into the beginning of your book, because you — you talk about being at the Big Brown Comedy Hour. 

Sopan   05:42

Yeah!

Sonia   05:43

Yeah! And, okay, so there are a few passages that I thought were really telling and I wanted to like, kind of explore a little bit more sort of the truth that you were getting at. I don't know if you would prefer I read or if you want to read it yourself? Okay. All right. So—

Sopan   05:59

I've read the book, so I know—

Sonia   06:02

I've also read the book, I read it over the holidays. So, you're at this like Big Brown Comedy Hour, you talk about like, being a stand up comic. And you're saying that you know, talking about your family and background. And so you get in here, you say, "But I was handling this crowd someone else's honesty with that joke, telling them what I pictured a stereotypical Christmas with Indian parents to be like." And then you note, "It was a paradox. I had spent much of my life running away from my skin color and culture. And yet the thing I felt most comfortable discussing on stage was my South Asian identity. Talking about any version of the brown experience felt cathartic, whether it was the mangled one of my childhood, or the way I imagined a happy brown kid growing up."

And then on…

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit loitering.substack.com

Sonia Paul  00:10

Hello, everyone, welcome to Loitering, the occasional but lovable traveling mini pod I am currently testing in newsletter format. And today I am loitering at a clowning event** in Berkeley with two very special guests. Can you please introduce yourself?

Hannah Gaffe  00:27

My name is Hannah Gaff.

Joan Howard  00:29

My name is Joan Howard.

Sonia 00:30

And could you tell me what is going on here right now at this event and — I mean, the listeners can't see how you're dressed, but like, what is your presentation right now? 

Joan 00:41

Is there something wrong with how I'm dressed? 

Hannah  00:42

Yeah. What's the uh — is it? 

Joan  00:44

I don't know. I think I look quite nice. 

Hannah  00:45

Well, the title of this event is clown fundraiser, fun — fundraiser and silent auction.

00:56

(Shh. Sorry. Sshh — Be quiet! No. Okay. But I am trying. I'm talking. Okay.) 

Hannah  01:07

And ClownCorps is our organization, and we're holding this event. 

Joan  01:11

It's very heavy. 

Hannah  01:12

It's a heavy event.

Joan  01:13

It's a very heavy event, but we're gonna hold it.

Hannah  01:15

We're holding it with our spirit. 

Sonia  01:17

So what is the heaviness of what's happening right now? Can you elaborate a little bit?

Joan  01:23

That was good that — that was a really good transition. Well, it's a heavy time with the coronavirus, of course, becoming officially labeled a pandemic, and information coming from every which way, and a lot of anxiety and a lot of unknowns. And I, you know, speak for myself when, you know, I also say, it's really hard to live when you don't actually know if you're gonna go to work the next day, or if you're going to suddenly have to stay in your house. I mean, there's just a lot of unknowns. And it's especially scary for people who are at more risk, and it's just I think there's a lot of fear. It's just a lot fear. 

Sonia  02:00

And what is the significance of clowning in this sort of tension? Because I think like, a lot of people don't really think about clowns beyond like, you know, maybe the movie It, or like Circus Circus.

Joan  02:12

Which, I would just like to point out, It is not a clown. It is, in fact, an alien (playing a clown) wearing a specific kind of clown costume.

Hannah  02:20

And in the book, he also wears other costumes. 

Joan  02:23

Yes, he's not just a clown, just to be clear. He's still an alien.

Sonia  02:26

But that has sort of framed our perception of the clown. So what is the kind of frame that you're trying to push forward right now, especially in these times?

Hannah  02:35

So the clown, we believe the clown creates space, holds space, for people to experience what is happening in an open, public way, or in a way between two people. Between many people. And so, as clowns, we open up community space, and we open up direct communication between people, and we create a space in which people feel like they can play and laugh and feel released through laughter.

Joan 02:58

At things that seem unlaughable. Like that has always been the clown's role, like, from sort of day one, the clown shows up and creates a space in which people can laugh at what feels on unlaughable.

Hannah  03:09

Being able to laugh at things that are hard brings resilience.

Sonia  03:14

Yeah, but what about the sort of pushback that, you know, let me just play devil's advocate here. Like, maybe we shouldn't be laughing at something that's truly horrible. What if we're making lighthearted of a situation that really deserves our concentration and the full scrutiny that maybe members of our government aren't giving it, that we also need to offer that in response?

Joan 03:39

I would say that they're not mutually exclusive. And I think that laughter actually allows people to have some relief so that they can have more energy and more resilience to be able to then do the hard work. Because if you stay all of the time in the hard and the heavy, it becomes really difficult to move forward doing the hard work. So the laughter is actually a release. It's a relief. It brings energy. It also in this time where people are isolating for very important and good reasons, we also need to be in human contact of some kind, and we need to feel like a part of a community. And the clown also as a buoyant, connecting spirit offers that space as well. And um, just to be clear, we at this gathering do have the CDC on hand. We called the CDC, the Clown Disinfectant Committee, and they're here in full regalia with sanitizer sprays and tips on social distancing.

Sonia  04:38

You alluded to this earlier that the clown is the space between what we know and what we don't know. Can you elaborate on that?

Joan  04:48

Yeah, so the clown, unlike humans, who think about the future and remember the past, the clown shows up in every moment, is like, "I'm here! What now? Ooh, what's happening now? Oh, happening? What's happening now? Oh, that thing! And they respond very directly to the thing that's happening right in front of them. So it allows for a fresh take and a buoyant perspective on things that get really bogged down by past and future.

Hannah 04:50

And also, to be clear, the clown is very much in the moment experiencing what is happening. So the clown doesn't ignore this big thing that's happening right now, this, this really, you know, anxiety-inducing thing. The clown acknowledges it, and in fact, can be very deeply impacted by it. And in the face of that is still a clown, and still moves through it with failures, celebrating their failures, bouncing off of the hard things, bouncing right back up to the top, and then bringing people that laughter, which brings some resilience, so. 

Joan  05:45

And also reminding us all as humans that we all have resilience and buoyancy, and like, this is the time in which we really need to find and remember our resilience and our buoyancy so we can continue to be humans together, and love one another and find a way to connect, even though we're also having to protect ourselves and take care and find ways to take care of one another's community.

Sonia  06:05

Is there anything else you would like to add? 

Joan  06:08

I think I just want to go back a moment to the "laughing at," because I just want to be clear that clowns don't laugh at. They laugh. They laugh with what's happening, and play. So a clown plays. It's like, they see something. And they find the joy through their naivete and their curiosity and their wonder. And so therefore, they can invite other people to be in that space with them, and also find the wonder and the curiosity and the delight. And the laughter comes from that shared space. Not like, pointing out a thing and making fun of it. Yeah.

Sonia  06:46

And um, where should we look for clowns in our lives if we don't have like, regular events that, you know, we can come to to find these clowns? 

Joan  06:54

Well, you can be a clown in your life. 

Hannah  06:56

In fact, you probably already are.

Joan  06:59

Everyone is a clown. Really.

Hannah 07:03

We like to be clowns all the time, not just when we have our red nose on, because of the fact that we interact with the world in a more curious and open way. But you can check out our website, which is found ClownCorps.org. We offer workshops regularly. We really love meeting people and their clowns. And yeah, we're just excited to share some more clown love.

Joan 07:26

I have one more thought. Going back to, you asked what a clown was. And then I was like, "Ah, there's a phone in my face." So we have a teacher named Giovanni Fusetti, who talks about sublime stupidity, and that each one of us has our own unique silliness inside of us. And that a clown is an amplified version. It's a human who's amplified, so that our core and sort of most essential sublime stupidity gets to come out and play. And it's in this space, where we can connect very joyfully and very deeply with one another.

Sonia  08:02

That's so beautiful, thank you. And it is -- it's quite calming to me, in this moment. So, that's all we have for today of Loitering…

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit loitering.substack.com

Sonia  00:11

Hello, everyone, welcome to Loitering, the occasional, but lovable traveling mini pod I am currently testing in newsletter  format. And today I am loitering at Crixa Cakes in Berkeley with a very special guest. Can you please introduce yourself?

Lewis Raven Wallace  00:27

Hi, I'm Lewis Raven Wallace. I am a freelance journalist based in North Carolina and the author of The View From Somewhere: Undoing the Myth of Journalistic Objectivity, which is also out as a podcast called The View From Somewhere.

Sonia  00:40

So the audience of this Loitering mini pod maybe a little bit familiar with who you are, but most people probably aren't. And without going into too many details, briefly, could you talk about what led you to write this book and what happened beforehand, who are you really in a little bit more detail, if that's ok?

Lewis  01:03

Sure. So I was a public radio journalist for about five years. I started out at WBEZ in Chicago, coming out of a long background of community-based activism around trans liberation and prison abolition, and then worked as a daily news reporter first at BEZ where I was trained, then at WYSO, and then finally at a national show called Marketplace, which is a business and economics show.  Right around the inauguration of Donald Trump in early 2017, I wrote a blog post called "Objectivity is dead, and I'm okay with it," that was criticizing the ideal of journalistic objectivity, and calling for journalists to stand up and take a stance against white supremacy and transphobia, and to kind of clarify and define our values in this political moment. After a short dispute with my employer marketplace, I was fired for refusing to take that blog post down. And that whole sort of fiasco of being fired right after Trump became president led to me writing a book, The View From Somewhere, which is all about the history of journalistic objectivity, and how it has been used to gate-keep and deployed against marginalized and oppressed people.

Sonia  02:21

Okay, so that's like a lot. And I'm wondering, you know, reading your book, I also got the sense, though, that this thing called objectivity was something that you've been researching long before that incident happened. And so I was wondering, what were your main goals with writing this book, aside from really like proving that, you know, your blog post was in the right frame of mind. Can you elaborate on that a little bit?

Lewis  02:49

Sure. So when I got fired, I was contacted by a lot of journalists and former journalists, many of them queer and trans people and people of color, women, who said, "Oh, I've been thinking about this stuff, and I have either, you know, been punished in some way or pushed out of journalism or made to feel that I couldn't be a real journalist because I was committed to standing up for my human rights or standing up for my community." And in that moment, I felt pretty sure that there had to be other examples, other stories like mine, but maybe that hadn't been as well-publicized, of journalists kind of standing up in key political moments, and standing up for their communities and then being punished or pushed out.

And I didn't want to talk about my situation in a vacuum. I wanted to really understand sort of, where did this idea of objectivity come from? Why did it become such a fundamental tenet of journalism? Why is it still around when objectivity has really been debunked in a lot of other fields, and this idea of sort of an outside observer is not as important as it might have been, you know, in the middle of the last century? And so, just trying to understand what the history and purpose was of this ideal, and how it was originally intended, and then how it's been used.

Sonia  04:14

In the beginning of the book, you talk about something called the sphere of legitimate controversy. And it really sets the tone for everything else that you write about. And I'm wondering if you could just talk a little bit about what that actually is, like, what is this sphere? What is considered controversial? Who came up with this sphere of controversy?

Lewis  04:36

So the idea of the sphere of legitimate controversy is a really useful way to talk about objectivity in journalism. This professor named Daniel Hallin wrote a book about the coverage of the Vietnam War, where he coined this term. And so he describes it actually as, essentially three concentric circles

Sonia  04:53

Sorry, concentric meaning what?

Lewis  04:55

Circles inside of each other, like Russian dolls, kind of.

So the circle right in the middle is this sphere of consensus. And so that's ideas or concepts that supposedly, quote unquote, everyone can agree on. And that would be things that are presented in mainstream journalism without question, like, "Patriotism is good," or "Prisons are a solution to social ills." You know, that kind of thing. And then the sphere of legitimate controversy is ideas that can be debated in journalism. And then the third sphere outside of that is this fear of deviance. So, concepts, ideas, arguments that can't or shouldn't be talked about. 

So an example that we give in the opening episode of the podcast is — well, there's a few examples. One of them is around women's suffrage. Another one is around slavery. So, currently, in the sphere of consensus is the idea that slavery is bad. Not 150 years ago in the United States, is slavery bad or good was in the sphere of legitimate controversy and being debated. And so a lot of the book looks at how social movements, alternative media, individual reporters based on their experience, push issues from deviance into legitimate controversy, and sometimes into consensus. And that doesn't always move in the direction of progress, right? So something can be a deviant idea, can move into the sphere of legitimate controversy, even if it's a bad idea. Like some of Donald Trump's ideas, you know — "Mexicans are rapists," or "Rape is okay." You know, these are things that we might have thought wouldn't be debated, but now they are being.

Sonia  06:28

So, I'm just going to repeat back to you what I'm hearing and what I read too, just to make sure we're discussing in a way that the audience can really understand. So, in the sphere of legitimate controversy, it's actually kind of like the middle sphere within three different spheres that are within each other. And the sphere of deviance is the outermost ring, the sphere of consensus is the innermost ring. And sometimes, what goes from the outside in is not always what we would call "progress." If these are really, like very deviant ideas that kind of go against human rights and are just like, not true. But sometimes too, the sphere of legitimate controversy — the ideas that would ideally want to be framed in that end up being stuck in this outermost ring where they're considered deviant because they're just coming from such specific perspectives, or maybe what people would call niche perspectives. But of course, niche, as I've been very much thinking lately and discussing with people, it's a word that's used by people in position of power.

Lewis  07:32

Yeah, exactly. So anything that's in the sphere of legitimate controversy can be debated and sort of, quote unquote, both sides journalism. But the reality is that journalists themselves, ourselves, are always shaping that. And so I come at that from the perspective of a transgender person. I came out in the late 90s when the idea of transgender sort of human rights or civil rights was in the sphere of deviance; it wasn't being debated as sort of a legitimate argument. The idea that gender might not be a binary was in the sphere of deviance. You know, it was just men and women and there might be transsexual men and transsexual women as well. But non-binary gender was a sphere of deviance issue. Now that's being debated and people are talking about it.

Sonia  08:18

That's a really great example. I'm wondering because in addition to this word called "objec…

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