There is no better time than now to invest in independent foreign affairs news.
With Donald J. Trump's election, we need to accept that the U.S. should be covered with the same eye as our mainstream media stereotypically covers  so-called third world nations with “ruling parties” and authoritarian leaders. Most Americans choose to elect Trump, who has vowed to stack our judiciary with MAGA loyalists who will skirt the rule of law to accommodate his promise to go after his critics, gut our education system and turn the White House into an even bigger kleptocracy than he did during his first term.

Western media should cover Trump’s presidency the same as it has reported on Hungary’s Victor Orban. But it won’t. Black Diplomats Newsletter will. 
This newsletter will be your go-to publication to understand exactly how MAGA diplomacy is impacting Ukraine and the rest of Europe. Sure, I will touch on other conflicts and parts of the world, but most of you came to know me through my reporting during the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. 
Ukraine is my staple and will remain so.

But my reporting needs to adjust to the moment, which means I must report on authoritarianism at home and abroad. So, Black Diplomats will be the home where you get news about Trump’s authoritarian rule, as well as how Europe is responding to it. How close will Trump get with Putin? Will he completely hand Ukraine over to Moscow? Trump has said racist and xenophobic things about immigrants, undocumented or not. Will his anti-immigrant zeal help foment a white supremacy alliance with Europe’s most hateful political leaders and embolden political victories on that continent? 

I will address those questions in this newsletter as your global authoritarian and Ukraine beat reporter.

I named the newsletter Black Diplomats because, well, I’m a Black man from Brooklyn who was born and raised in Detroit, the biggest Black city in the United States. In my decades of talking about foreign policy, I’ve always been the only Black person in the room and rarely saw other people of color in meetings whenever there was a conversation about the world being had. I want to create a community where everyone feels comfortable talking about the world and naming my newsletter Black Diplomats empowers me to create a space where my expertise and life experiences are centered. 

I honestly feel foreign policy is simply how we want to live in the world and you don’t need to be an expert to have an opinion about that. You just need to have an informed voice and want to have a say in how the world treats us as human beings. For me, my Black experience growing up in Detroit has more than prepared me to have a unique say in how the world should be governed. My newsletter will empower you to embrace your own human experience as well—no matter where you come from or your race or ethnicity. 

Black Diplomats is the most inclusive foreign policy community on the web and you are welcome to join us! 

I’ve been a reporter for nearly twenty years, so you are investing in a seasoned journalist. I started off at my student newspaper at the University of Illinois before getting my first professional job at a local NPR station that’s now known as Illinois Public Radio. My first major reporting project was covering Romania’s integration into the European Union during a two-week trip to Romania and Italy, in 2009. From there, I was awarded a Fulbright scholarship to report on Afro-Ukrainians in Kyiv in 2009-2010. I also worked in Black media for three years and then got into national political reporting at FUSION, starting in 2015 and then at The Root, a Black-run news outlet where I reported on national politics until October or 2021. It was after those years where most of you discovered me for my on-the-ground coverage of the Russian invasion of Ukraine tha reached millions of people through my appearances on national television.   

But I was never paid for those appearances.

’m asking for your financial support because that is how I keep my independent voice alive. There are virtually no reporting outlets that give you morally consistent foreign affairs reporting that speak to the liberation of Ukrainians being brutalized by Putin’s genocide and challenge Benjamin Netanyahu’s genocide of Palestinians with the same outrage and heart for marginalized peoples. Most foreign affairs news is delivered from the same white dudes whose lack of self-reflection got us to where we are in the first place. The refusal to call out Trump for the authoritarian that he is, distinguish the difference between rightfully giving Ukraine all  of the weapons it needs to end Putin’s colonial invasion and withholding U.S. weapons from Israel to continue its genocide and making foreign policy accessable to everyday people will be to all of our detriments. 

I promise to be a diverse foreign policy community that centers people, not policy makers or their fancy think tanks that shut the rest of us out of the conversion.

For becoming paid members of my Black Diplomats Newsletter community, I promise to deliver reported articles and columns several times a week not only about hard news topics, but cultural stories that help you better understand how high-level foreign policy decisions impact common people. All for free. In return for your monthly subscriptions, you get access to me. Every month, I will hold world affairs chats  (via Zoom) to paid subscribers where we just talk through the foreign affairs news of the day and how you feel it is impacting you. And if you really want to support me, become a founding member and you will get a free Black Diplomats t-shirt and a special postcard from Ukraine or wherever I happen to be in the world outside of the United States! But mainly you will be going a HUGE way to keeping independent foreign affairs journalism alive. By paying for my journalism, you will also be able to see inside of the hood of how my reporting process works and why I choose to cover stories the way I do and you get to ask me why I made certain choices about who I report on and what angles I take. I’m pretty sure you don’t get to ask news reporters at the New York Times or CNN why they make the news decisions they make and meet with them monthly. You’ll get that chance with me!