Rising Up: The Power of Narrative in Pursuing Racial Justice
Rising Up offers a timely exploration of how truthful narratives by and about people of color can be used to advance social justice in the United States.
While people of color are fast becoming the majority population in the United States, the perspectives of white America still dominate the vast majority of the media created and consumed every day. Media makers of color, long shut out of the decision-making process, are rising up to advance a set of different narratives, offering stories and perspectives to counter the racism and disinformation that have long dominated America's political and cultural landscape.
In Rising Up, award-winning journalist Sonali Kolhatkar delivers a guide to racial justice narrative-setting. With a focus on shifting perspectives in news media, entertainment, and individual discourse, she highlights the writers, creators, educators, and influencers who are successfully building a culture of affirmation and inclusion.
"Sonali Kolhatkar reminds us we are the stories we tell. Our stories can cast a spell of hate, division, and fear, or they can break the powerful grip of racial injustices that have held us since our country's beginning. With personal and collective wisdom, Kolhatkar guides us in the storytelling that liberates."--Luis J. Rodriguez, author of Always Running: La Vida Loco/Gang Days in L.A.
"Rising Up challenges the reader to not only rethink their assumptions, but to understand the critical importance of the creation of progressive narratives as an instrument in the struggles for human liberation."--Bill Fletcher, Jr., author of The Man Who Fell From the Sky
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Sonali Kolhatkar is the host and producer of Rising Up with Sonali, a weekly television and radio program that airs on Free Speech TV and on Pacifica Radio station affiliates around the United States. Winner of numerous awards, including Best TV Anchor and Best National Political Commentary from the LA Press Club, she is currently the Racial Justice editor at Yes! Magazine and a Writing Fellow with the Independent Media Institute. Co-author of Bleeding Afghanistan: Washington, Warlords, and the Propaganda of Silence with Jim Ingalls, Kolhatkar is Co-Director of the Afghan Women's Mission. She resides with her husband and two sons in Pasadena, California.
Rinku Sen is the Executive Director of the Narrative Initiative, where she helps social justice movements develop the power to move ideas. Formerly the Executive Director of Race Forward and publisher of its award-winning news site Colorlines, Sen is the author of Stir it Up and The Accidental. She is Co-President of the Women's March and serves on the boards of the Ms. Foundation for Women and the Foundation for National Progress. She resides in New York City.
Praise for Rising Up:
"Journalist Sonali Kolhatkar knows the importance of storytelling. Even more so, she understands the necessity of controlling the narrative in the media, popular culture and in daily conversations. Now she's written The Book on how to shift the narrative to bend toward justice."--Karla Strand, Ms. Magazine
"Rising Up adds an important dimension to the ongoing debate about racism in the U.S. and gives readers a new awareness of how racial stereotypes thrive in the media."--Rosemarie Lundgaard, Bust Magazine
"In Rising Up, journalist Kolhatkar discusses the history of media created by predominantly white Americans, which has led to misrepresentation and racism. But more important, she introduces us to a new generation of POC voices fighting for racial justice, making the argument that to tell stories is to wield power."--Alta Magazine
"Journalist and activist Kolhatkar . . . argues persuasively for the necessity of 'narrative-shifting' in order 'to change public consciousness to the degree necessary for society to achieve justice' . . . A thoughtful prescription for social change."--Kirkus Reviews
"Prometheus transferred fire away from gods to mortals, but this book shows that we don't need a Prometheus. We transfer narrative power from the few to the many--by claiming it and using it--in revolutionary acts that both catalyze the national consciousness and transform material conditions." --Rinku Sen, Executive Director of Narratives Initiative, and author of The Accidental American: Immigration and Citizenship in the Age of Globalization
"For two decades, Sonali Kolhatkar has been a leading voice for truth against the lies of the powerful, unflinchingly exploding prevailing myths that pass as prevailing wisdom. She understands that shifting the narrative is radical anti-racist work, and if you don't believe it just look at the firing of schoolteachers and journalists for telling the truth about racism, slavery, gender, or Palestine."--Robin D. G. Kelley, author of Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination
"Like her groundbreaking journalism, Sonali Kolhatkar's new book spotlights voices across various news, entertainment, and social-media platforms that exemplify movement building for racial justice through troubling narratives. This book could not come at a better time--let's all read, discuss, and act on it today!"--Kevin Kumashiro, Ph.D., author of Surrendered: Why Progressives are Losing the Biggest Battles in Education
"A brilliantly outlined argument for independent media's historic role in humanizing those who have been othered through the society's architectures of power, Rising Up highlights the crucial role of courageous storytelling in combating white supremacy and building a more just world."--Rupa Marya, co-author of Inflamed: Deep Medicine and the Anatomy of Injustice
"Foundational and guiding, Sonali's book gifts us a piercing map of the dangers of illegitimate stories, as well as a guide towards the unrelenting power of truthful ones. This book I had been waiting for, and it is here to make its stay. Read it. Share it. And we shall surely rise."--Dr. Oriel María Siu, PhD, author of Christopher the Ogre Cologre, It's Over!
"Written in the thick of a new phase of reactionary cultural warfare within and beyond the United States, Rising Up provides diagnosis, context, and potential correctives. Contrary to common parlance, Sonali's work demonstrates that there is no such thing as "the media," only a disparate ensemble of competing narrative forces that consolidate in corporate news, Hollywood entertainment, independent grassroots journalism, and industrialized social media. Conceptualizing the terrain of storytelling as a dynamic, complex one that is constantly open to new forms of radical, autonomous, collective mobilization, Rising Up is a reinvigorated call for journalism, art, and aesthetics that advance abolitionist, decolonizing, and anti-racist movements."--Dylan Rodríguez, author of White Reconstruction: Domestic Warfare and the Logic of Racial Genocide
"Sonali is a well-known radio host on KPFK where she challenges main street media accounts of new stories. In Rising Up, she breaks down how media traditionally presents the POV of privilege. More importantly, she describes how narrative can be reclaimed by BIPOC, minorities and women to create a new, more inclusive, narrative. Her clear, engaging writing makes this a page-turner."--Karrie Hyatt, Vroman's Bookstore, Pasadena, CA
Praise for Sonali Kolhatkar:
"Kolhatkar's conversations with guests go deep. Even when she's covering topics everyone else is covering--like impeachment--she infuses the discussion with economic, social, and racial justice perspectives that reframe and expand the debate."--John Nichols on the "Top Progressive People and Ideas Shaping the Future," The Nation
