Friends,
Happy Holidays and New Year. This will be my final newsletter of 2025. I will pick it back up next month, which will officially be the release year for my book, From Presence to Power. I’ll share more in the coming months!
A quick and very exciting update: This week, we launched Freedom Table on NewsOne — a new monthly conversation series where I sit down with organizers, journalists, and culture-makers for the kind of inside-the-family conversations Black communities need right now. At a moment when corruption has become policy and cruelty passes for governance, Freedom Table is about naming who’s failing us, lifting up who’s fighting for us, and grappling seriously with how we build power and protect democracy.
Our first conversation, dropping on New Year’s Eve, brings together Josie Duffy Rice, Franklin Leonard, Kendrick Sampson, and Eric Deggans for a family conversation about crime TV. We dig into what the data tells us about how these shows shape public perception, why they remain wildly popular and profitable for Hollywood, and what it means for our work in other areas where cultural representation, storytelling, and profiteering converge.
As we move into a new year, I want to share some thoughts about vision, and what it demands of us.
A familiar question is circulating in my head, and I’d be willing to bet it’s circling in many of yours, too. This is the classic end-of-year pastime, as we mull the past and imagine what comes next - the conversation being held at dinner tables, in group chats, in board rooms, and inside our own heads:
What is our vision for the future?
New years often brings personal reflection. This is the time where most everyone is imagining a personal vision of the future. But many of you on this list are doing work that asks you to be architects and builders of a broader vision, too. Which means you may be asking bigger questions:
What is our vision for the world? What is our vision for our communities, our cities, our country?
What kind of world are we actually building? And Who is shaping it if we don’t?
That question matters deeply for progressives right now. Reactionary forces are loud, organized, and relentlessly focused on power. We spend a lot of time playing defense, or focusing our energy on articulating what we’re against, rather than what we’re for.
But that won’t be enough. We need a vision. And that vision can’t just be about nebulous hope and vibes. A real vision has structure, discipline, and dimension.
From my perspective, a vision that can actually move people - one that can actually win - needs four S’s.
First: it needs a story.
Every effective vision tells a story, and every story needs a hero and a villain. That doesn’t mean we’re selling a cartoonishly simple narrative. Rather, it means moral clarity.
Right now, people are being crushed by systems they did not design and cannot escape on their own. They know something is wrong. What they often don’t hear clearly is who is responsible, and who has their back.
If we don’t tell that story, someone else will. And when they do, they’ll point the blame downward or sideways instead of upward. They’ll blame immigrants, Black people, the poor, trans people. They’ll turn neighbors into enemies while corporations, billionaires, and political operatives amass power and capital, while quietly rigging the rules.
Our movement is rich with heroes: parents fighting for their kids, workers organizing for dignity, communities defending their right to exist. And, or course, there are villains: institutions and interests that profit from scarcity and suffering.
A story gives us the tools to ensure leaders and institutions are accountable to those heroes - to us – not just to the powerful.
We have to be able to articulate the story of our vision clearly. A vision without the clarity of a story leaves people disoriented. A vision with it gives people something to stand inside.
Second: it has to be specific.
At the risk of stating the obvious, we must be able to actually see our vision. A vision gives people something to work towards, and inspires them to fight for the world we want to see. Abstraction is the enemy of inspiration. It is the enemy of urgency.
When we talk about the policies, practices, and leadership we want to see in the future, we can’t hide behind jargon or vague language. We have to be clear about the dangers we currently see, and our vision for the future. If cuts to Medicaid mean children’s hospitals closing, then we should say that, plainly and repeatedly. If deregulation means poisoned water, higher rent, or longer emergency room waits, we need to connect the dots in real terms.
As I often say, people don’t experience policies, they experience life. They experience pain and relief. They know the feeling of trying to find a doctor for their child, or hoping that their paycheck lasts them till the end of the month. They know what safety feels like because of their experience, not because of a piece of legislation or court ruling.
We must be able to articulate a vision for people that engages with how they live, rather than political platitudes and the punditry that fills so much of our public space.
Specificity makes harm visible. It makes a vision resonant. It transforms “policy debates” into moral choices that demand action.
Third: it has to make sense to real people.
This is where we have to be honest with ourselves.
Sometimes, on our side, we tell stories that make sense to us but not to the people we’re trying to reach. We assume shared language. We assume shared context. We assume people already trust the institutions we’re asking them to defend or reform.
A real vision invites people in. It meets them where they are, not by diluting our values, but by translating them in ways people relate to. A real vision requires understanding. It provides what people need to answer basic questions: How does this align with my experience? How does this help me? How does this help my family?
We can’t bring people along unless we understand where they are.
Finally: we have to see it through.
Vision without follow-through is just branding.
We have to be honest about what it takes to win, and not just rhetorically, but materially. That means resources, infrastructure, patience. And it means a willingness to stay in the fight after the headlines fade.
Too often, many of us are asked to show up for a moment, a march, or an election. But if left without the support needed to sustain real change, converting those moments to something durable becomes much more difficult. A true vision commits to the long arc. It prepares people for setbacks. It builds power that lasts beyond a single cycle.
As we step into this new year, the challenge before us isn’t a lack of passion or intelligence. It’s building a vision for the future with the rigor and dimension necessary for it to serve as a beacon of hope, rather than a pipe dream.
A strong vision will be the foundation for what we build, and I look forward to continuing to work with many of you as we envision a better future.
And as you (hopefully) take some time off over the next few weeks, please check out the last few newsletters, linked below. As always, I welcome thoughts, questions, and pushback.
Looking forward to fighting alongside you in 2026 and beyond!
