WE ARE STAYING ON SUBSTACK

Our “We Are Speaking” Substack: Married couple Keith and Pamela Owens publish totally original articles and podcast episodes 7 days a week on American History and Culture, Government, Education, Writing, Creative Businesses, Science Fiction/Fantasy, and Politics from a Black perspective.

Yes, Substack has a terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad “Nazi Problem.” The response by the owners to “Substackers Against Nazis” was weak and awful. Several Substack writers have decided that because of this, they are leaving this platform, and that is their decision.

In the last couple of weeks, I also looked at alternatives: Ghost, putting “We Are Speaking” on our own business website, and so on. My husband and Substack partner and I discussed our options.

Our decision is to stay, and here is why:

- Substack is overall a great place for individual writers, and the Nazis and extreme-right-wingers are currently a small portion of Substack, but if too many of the rest of us leave, Substack will turn into what Twitter has turned into.

- Our Substack primarily focuses on Black History, Black perspectives, and liberal/progressive politics for our op-eds and podcast, and we read EVERYTHING Professor Heather Cox Richardson and Dr. Rachel Maddow write. But you don’t have to be as liberal and progressive as we are to want to save our Republic and save Substack.

- The First Amendment “Freedom of Speech” means freedom from government retribution, not being free to say whatever you please (especially if it promotes violence) without consequence. Private companies like Substack can do as they please, but that doesn’t mean that the majority of Substack writers have to allow dangerous and incendiary Substacks to flourish.

- Throughout American History, there have always been minority factions that try to turn us against what America is supposed to stand for, and America itself has often fallen short of what America is supposed to stand for.

- But the PEOPLE have fought to weed out (or at least lessen the influence of) the haters, the racists, the fascists, the Nazis, the anti-semites, the white supremacists, and so on, and while those people are still with us, it is up to us to remind them that they are in the minority.

- There’s that famous story of a woman asking Benjamin Franklin a question as he was leaving a meeting of the Continental Congress: “Well sir, what do we have?” Mr. Franklin answered: “A Republic, ma’am, IF WE CAN KEEP IT.” 

- We feel the same way about Substack: The best platform for independent writing IF WE CAN KEEP IT.

- Throughout slavery, Jim Crow, the Chinese Exclusion Acts, the Japanese Internments, and the hatred of and discrimination against anyone not white, male, Christian, and straight, the people fighting for what America is supposed to be outnumbered the people who were trying to change America into what it is not supposed to be.

- Those fighters stayed and kept the pressure on for decades and centuries until the laws and the policies changed. They didn’t leave. (Of course, leaving Substack is much easier than leaving the USA…) 

So we’re staying and will continue to grow our little Substack while simultaneously putting pressure on the owners to change these terrible and inconsistent policies.

That’s it. That’s the Note.