Happy New Year - I'm so grateful for this community and excited to build with many of you in the coming year.
I’m writing with some important and timely news to kick off 2026: yesterday, we launched Freedom Table on NewsOne, a major digital outlet focused on news, commentary, and storytelling centered on Black communities, with a monthly audience of more than 1 million people.
Freedom Table is a new conversation series where I sit down with organizers, journalists, and culture makers every month to discuss the issues affecting black communities. It's 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 episode, released yesterday, brings together Eric Deggans, Josie Duffy Rice, Franklin Leonard, and Kendrick Sampson for a wide-ranging conversation about crime TV and police procedurals. 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 collide.
This conversation is especially relevant right now, after Renee Good was shot and killed by an ICE agent in Minneapolis yesterday. Her death came days after an off-duty ICE agent killed Keith Porter in Los Angeles on New Years Eve. The lies about Porter and Good are part of the law enforcement playbook, as is the PR that police get from Hollywood that these Crime TV shows leverage. Hollywood has an unparalleled influence on the ways people view police, and violence from law enforcement is upheld through storytelling.
This was a great conversation and I highly recommend checking it out when you get the chance. Please let me know your thoughts and feedback - I want to hear from you.
Related to this episode, I also want to quickly note the recent release of Normalizing Injustice, a report I produced in collaboration with Color Of Change at the end of 2025, which highlights the role crime television plays in perpetuating the dangerous misrepresentations that define television’s scripted crime genre. It's a comprehensive study that explores how television’s most popular genre excludes writers of color, miseducates people about the criminal justice system and makes racial injustice acceptable. You can find it here.
More conversations like this to come, and if you have ideas for future episodes of Freedom Table, please share them. In the meantime, thanks for your support.
Rashad
