Last February, at a virtual event put on by my alma mater, Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, I listened to four Black journalists from venues like The New York Times and Washington Post share their insight and experiences on the intersection of race and reporting in 2021.
As a white freelancer who focuses primarily on travel writing, if you’d asked me a few years ago, I’d have said this panel wasn’t really relevant to me.
After all, I don’t typically cover politics or policy in my work. But I’ve begun to understand, as have many writers and editors of late (though still not enough), how issues of race permeate every area of journalistic coverage. And that the “race beat” emerging in many major newsrooms—or, to speak more clearly, the junction of race and just about any other subject—should not be relegated to only writers of color. White writers must develop a functional level of race literacy, becoming educated on institutional racism and its insidious, omni-present impacts. Moreover, we have an obligation to use our privilege to shine a spotlight on these issues as they collide with the stories we’re writing.
In his No. 1 bestseller, , author and activist Ibram X. Kendi says, “There is no neutrality in the racism struggle.” To be an antiracist is to be active. To take the initiative to not simply disengage from conversations around systemic prejudice and repression, but to vigorously surface those matters and approach them with the thorough reporting and nuanced, empathetic examination they deserve. Bypassing such discussions is akin to employing a level of editorial color blindness, a kind of deliberately naïve tunnel vision that, in Dr.
