A bit of insight into making this issue in the midst of a global pandemic and nationwide civil unrest.
The Storytellers Issue Editor’s Note by Lindsey Farrar
What a time. Like so many of you, we began 2020 with high hopes and all of the plans. Among them, a cover with Issa Rae in the spring, and a new product offering designed to delight our readership on a more frequent basis. Little did we know that by the time we shot with Issa in March in LA; we’d find ourselves in the midst of a global pandemic, and mere days away from a nationwide lockdown. Just as we’d all somehow adjusted to this strange, dystopian new reality; the world experienced eight minutes and forty-six seconds of agony that would change the trajectory of history.
Ahmaud Arbery. Breonna Taylor. George Floyd. Names tragically added to an ever-growing list of modern-day lynchings, the relentless terrorism of Black bodies — Black families — with which this country’s citizens have become all too familiar.
Plans, out of the window. Grief, set in deeply. That feeling when your Black husband/son/brother/father/uncle/cousin/friend leaves your sight, and fear looms... The realization that next time it could be you… Magnified. Sharpened.
The back cover of the Storytellers Issue. Photography by Mark Clennon
The need to say something. Do something. If we were a huge corporation, perhaps we would have just published this issue as is, made a note in the margins and hired an agency to craft a heartfelt social media post. But our duty to our reader reaches far beyond the need to put pages in hands on a particular date. What we’re doing here is immortalizing our story. Documenting our history. Striving to deliver what we may not even know that we need. Something that will serve as a time capsule, a tool for healing, for decades to come. In these unprecedented times, that mission trumps all. Divine timing trumps all.
We made the call to pull this issue off the press and make proper space to further contextualize and more directly address some of the conversations that are on our hearts at this time. To pay homage to our fallen brothers and sisters, and those protesting across the country in the name of revolution.
Issa Rae as seen by Deun Ivory for the Storytellers Issue
Likewise, we find that the existing words of Issa Rae, the founders of BLK MKT Vintage in NYC and Mandela Grocery in the Bay ring even truer in this hour. The importance of telling our stories and building our own institutions is further illuminated. The need to see Black love, Black families, Black prosperity...it’s a matter of our collective survival. And we have so much more in store for you.
No rite of passage is achieved without pain. After labor, comes our collective rebirth. We can’t let up now. Victory’s within the mile.
