Sorry. I do love a slightly clickbaity title to draw the audience in, but I hope that different readers have taken something from it.
I think the core demographic of Medium may have changed, which may be why you're not finding it as rewarding being here - but you definitely shouldn't give up. When you began writing - there was a definite push from Medium and their in-house publications to empower the progressive agenda. If you didn't write things that matched the political tone of Medium publications you didn't get curated. I took a year off for pretty much that reason. As a result, you got writers like Marley K and Uzinne Ekoha who secured thousands and thousands of followers for pretty much stating what everyone already thought. It was a form of positive discrimination and the progressive left loved it - but it wasn't translating into growth for Medium.
When they began curating alternative viewpoints and the hemogeny dropped away - it suddenly wasn't as lucrative to write those sorts of stories anymore. They weren't being pushed with quite the same zeal. Marley departed for pastures more lucrative and more centrist voices arrived to open up the discussion and raise questions. Steve QJ came blinking into the Medium spotlight and has built a huge following with a centre ground approach.
Progressive activists, be they race, trans, LGBTQ+, or whatever are finding their work questioned more openly and now it feels like oppression. If you haven't seen it - you'd probably enjoy my spat with James Finn (LGBTQ+ advocate) because although he and I are having the same structural argument you and I repeatedly have, you're divorced from the subject matter. He handles the whole thing very badly because he's 'the goodie' https://medium.com/lucid-nightmare/whack-a-woke-james-finn-special-86d6cb79aa11 - don't panic, you'll never be in the 'whack-a-woke' series.
I think we are caught in a bit of a pause moment. The entire democratic experiment is stuck. We have an empowered right wing causing absolute chaos and the left is debating whether to moderate itself back to the centre, seek the economic justice of socialism, or go down the identity politics route that progressives favour. Biden is fudging it - and I don't think that bodes well. I think if it's fudged for too long, we'll end up in a guerrilla race war between the alt-right and a highly empowered militant progressive left. This is something Steve QJ alluded to in his last article and worries me more than offending writers like Marley K or Rebecca Stevens. Open civil disagreement is better than open civil war.
There are some great BIPOC progressive writers on this site, you are one of them. Eustacious (Charles White) is another. I think you represent a second generation of BIPOC writers on the platform who think engagement and debate is better than being set to broadcast. There's no way I can have the discussions I have with you with Marley or Rebecca, they're either unwilling or incapable. For them, dissent regardless of how it is worded represents oppression, not opportunity for exploration. That doesn't mean they're bad people, but it does mean they're stuck in one mode. You aren't.
That's my way of saying.... please stay. Medium needs to see your work and your work needs to inform the wider Medium conversation.. You may find a bigger audience on Newsbreak or Vocal+ or wherever, but you'd be replicating the creation of an echo chamber rather than affecting genuine change in a wider readership. I think our fight will be ongoing and I'm hoping there are people on both sides who are learning from it. I know jt went onto to regret the way he spoke about you and reconsidered his tone. He still disagrees with your world view but at least he's considered how best to disagree. I'd call that a victory.
Glad you enjoyed the article even after the heart attack. I've had the idea to write it for a while, but I was spurred on by our last interaction to finally put it into a full article. Also, heads up. You'd totally win in a boxing match - I don't even need to have met you to know I'd concede after punch one. :o)
