Content warning: excerpts from my inbox

In the four years I have served as an editorial fellow for The Gazette, I have submitted column after column within my particular area of expertise — social impact. In my first year, I wrote about large scale issues like the legacy of redlining, domestic violence, and food insecurity. In the second, I sought out stories from individuals right here in Eastern Iowa who had experienced these issues firsthand. This is a technique I often use in grant writing as well; explore the issue at both the macro and micro level. Illustrate the problem from your widest angle, and bring it home with a story about their neighbor, Betty. My third year was almost entirely stories about individuals in the community serving as changemakers; people who have dedicated their lives to making life better for someone else.

In each of these endeavors, I have refused to dumb down concepts or to overexplain them. There simply isn’t time. I expend significant effort in linking additional resources to my posts, but I will not be going back and forth with anyone fully mired in defensiveness and denial. As I stated when I posted the column about the school to prison pipeline; This article is not an argument about the existence of oppression. This is a tribute to the people doing the work to help children experiencing oppression to succeed anyway.

For the duration of my editorial fellowship, I have received mail and rarely responded. At the request of my editor, I will be doing so today — to all of you. At once.

From my inbox: “If Ketanji Brown Jackson is SO smart, someone should ask her, “How do you know which restroom you should use?” Anyone this stupid should NOT be put in charge of anything!!”

Dear reader: I have made a donation in your honor to the Human Rights Campaign.

Inbox: “ Thank you for the editorial you wrote on the needs of older LGBTQ people. We're often invisible.”

Dear reader: I am grateful for the platform. I hope I have used it in a way that uplifts and empowers others. Please continue to share your perspective; I might consider the Older Iowans Legislature.

Inbox: “As a journalist I think one of your missions …”

Dear reader: It’s an opinion column.

Inbox: “LBGTQ, gay, lesbian, same-sex marriage, etc. — is not the real problem. The real problem is that people are fearful of anyone different from themselves and, therefore, seek to discriminate and, if possible, erase those “others” from existence.”

Dear reader: If nothing else, I hope that I have been successful for someone in humanizing another person with whom they thought they had nothing in common. Thank you, Reverend.

Inbox: “You have never defended a Christian or other religious concept in any of your writings. Comes off as religious bigotry and cultural bias.”

Dear reader: I don’t write about religion, I write about social impact. I am less concerned with why you feel vindicated in stepping on someone’s neck and more concerned that they are unable to breathe. Kindly stop emailing me about Elon Musk at 1 a.m. I assure you, I will not be clicking the link.

In an unmarked envelope left on my editor’s desk: “Brother Malcolm would be calling you a “house negro” with the way you stand up for Democrat b — sh —. You and this judge are just another Stepin Fetchit for the white Lefties and the Ivy Leagues.”

Dear reader: There is nothing more patriotic than demanding that our nation deliver on its promise for all.

To the rest of you who have found me, either on social media ( facebook.com/sofia.demartino.140, @sofiasmash, sofiaspeaks.bsky.social) or on professional email accounts, in person, or via my gazette email to provide me a direct account of the isms that plague you — I hope you find healing.

To those who have sent me your own stories of exclusion from housing because you were a Section 8 recipient, about your abuse at the hands of those who should have been your safe place to land, your bare refrigerator shelves, or your experiences with oppression: I hear you. To those of you who have lost people you couldn’t afford to lose, and felt their jagged absence alter the fabric of your being, I understand. Thank you for sharing your experiences with me. Thank you for trusting me with your broken heart.

Finally, to those of you who continue to work for a better future for others, come what may — I comprehend on an atomic level the resolve required to face the rising sun and continue the pursuit.

Sofia DeMartino is a Gazette editorial fellow. sofia.demartino@thegazette.com