Justin Gilmore, Myron Angus and Zoe Stahl, Editorial Board
Seeing and knowing is collective, or it is nothing at all. There’s so much that is invisible to us all, from the too-tiny-to-see animals of Lake Merritt to the young, often unnamed revolutionary organizers who move the workers’ movement forward. Year one of Current has taught us that the political problems and their solutions are — paradoxically — both right in front of us and yet difficult to detect. This difficulty has everything to do with the fact that the problems and solutions are multifaceted, requiring not one set of eyes, but many, to properly see them. Believe it or not, the working class isn’t one big eyeball. It is billions and counting, and it is only collectively that we can patch together an adequate view of the crisis of our world, and what to do about it. Through Current, we saw, and we saw through the eyes of the many. We saw labor organizing and tenant struggles, amid tech's swing to the right and, of course, the billboards. Through it all, we're optimistic. We can belong to the present moment, thinking and moving together.
Padmini Raghunath, Features Editor
As Features editor, craft is something I value, and I’ve really enjoyed working with many excellent writers. If you have a great yarn with solid characters, please pitch me. My other role is shepherding pieces that have investigative components — using records and first-hand accounts to uncover new information and hold power to account. In the process, I’ve learned a lot about the relationships between money, tech, and policing in the Bay Area. It’s always useful to understand the how of things. What are the interlocking parts that produce our conditions? Amy Martyn’s piece is a fantastic example of this. She used public records to trace how the California Retail Association lobbied the governor’s office to set up grants that incentivize police departments across the state to boost their shoplifting arrests — and buy as many surveillance toys as they want. I’d also recommend our Tech Editor Jimmy Wu’s excellent piece about the new right-wing “tech intelligentsia,” which explores the rightward lurch in the tech publishing world.
Dani Tutt, Politics Editor
Even when establishment politics disappoint — and the police keep begging for more cameras, drones and tanks — the working class of the Bay won’t stop organizing. And a lot of the time, we end up winning. People have shut down immigration courts. Teachers organized a rapid response team and legal fund to protect their students. We pushed back against a threatened ICE surge… and it was Trump who backed down. And then we marched in solidarity with Minneapolis. Tenants are organizing too, building up the power of the tenant union and winning, winning and winning. And that’s not even considering all the amazing workers organizing covered in the Labor section. Unfortunately, the Bay Area also produces billionaire simps, politicians drooling over cuts to public services, and an extreme affordability crisis. Maybe if the Democrats didn’t have such a kink for losing, and we could get a little of that Mamdani energy, things might take a turn for the better. For now, though, Current looks to the politics of the Bay Area working class: in our homes, in our workplaces, and in the streets.
Jimmy Wu, Tech Editor
It is an enduring fact that everyone hates the tech elite. Some of Current's most-read articles to date have come from the tech section, including Wendy Liu's column deciphering those ubiquitous SF tech billboards (subsequently parroted by less incisive coverage in the SF Standard and New York Times). I’ve learned that a tech story is rarely about tech in isolation; it’s usually tech enmeshed with something else — like Salesforce pushing AI in SF classrooms while educators' jobs are cut, or Flock cameras enabling police abuses and ICE terror. But people don't take these attacks lying down. We're already seeing, and covering, a resurgence of anti-tech thought and action: Jathan Sadowski made the case for reclaiming Luddism, Victor Wang wrote about Stop AI’s demonstrations against OpenAI, Veena Dubal explained why protesters in LA set Waymos on fire, and our dispatch from this year’s May Day actions included a sizable tech worker contingent. In the year ahead, expect more coverage in Current of our enemies in tech and those who are fighting back.
Stephanie Reist, Labor Editor
Over the last few months (I became the labor editor around my birthday in January), I’ve learned how much people want to read about workers. Our readers see in the Bay’s workers the best equipped movement to confront creeping fascism and tech oligarchy. The labor movement is not the only movement, it’s not as strong as it once was, and rank and file members will constantly have to push back against the reactionary compromises of union leadership, but it’s active across the sectors that matter most to the daily lives of people in the Bay — education, healthcare, housing, migration, food service and retail. People don’t just want to root for the underdog, they want to learn from others in the fight. And Bay Area workers are fighting like hell: continuing to mobilize through contract negotiations with weasely management (see Daniel Tutt’s great piece), blocking Kaiser from adopting AI-therapists (Emma Murphee’s insightful reporting), demanding and securing higher wages foe teachers (Eugene Violet’s excellent op-ed on SF Teachers’ Strike) and baristas (Caitlin Cliff’s dedicated coverage) in the face of the growing affordability crisis, protecting their children and neighbors against ICE Thugs (Eric Muszynski’s informative article on the Oakland Education Association) and stopping arms used in Israel’s genocide of Gaza from passing through our ports (Bay Current’s May Day coverage). I work as an educator, and there’s nothing I love more than seeing people learn from others, especially when they're learning about their own power to stick it to their bosses!
Justine Armen, Culture Editor
I used to brag that I have the lightest lift in terms of being an editor at Current because our Culture section covers “fun” things like art, film, music, and even parties. But, that actually discounts the deep thinking and heart our culture writers put into their pieces. Culture really encompasses all of Current’s other themes (politics, labor, tech) in addition to the fun things. Take for example, Chase Kemp’s excellent piece on the Free Key Choir. It delves deep into the origins and activities of the choir itself but it also exposes the inevitable politics intertwined within any community and the impact of performing non-traditional choral music on both the performers and the songwriters. Or Jacquelyn Tran’s upbeat interview with Liam O’Donoghue, which ultimately explores the meaning and value of work and what it means to depict it without lionizing it. Or frankly anything by Gabriel Lopez, who writes Sound Ward. You may think it’s a music column, but in reality it manifests as a corner for profound reflection on all the ways in which we interact with music and how it impacts our lives. These pieces may appear airy, but actually contain multitudes. Over the course of this year, I’ve changed my tune about what it means to work with these writers and publish these incredible articles. It’s certainly not light work.
Decca Muldowney, Managing Editor
Bay Area Current is a unique project that aims to report local news and tell working-class stories from a left-wing perspective. Across the US, the left has been good at starting small magazines, and relying on a handful of national outlets for news. But the demise of the socialist newspapers of the last century has left a gap when it comes to local news and coverage. Current set out a year ago, with a shoe-string budget, a few volunteer editors and a dream to fill that void for the Bay. A year on we’ve published over 150 stories, recruited more than 50 writers, many of whom have never written journalistically before. We’ve taught workshops on pitching and reporting, held film screenings, collaborated on live podcast tapings, and thrown parties that spilled out onto the street. Although we are still managed by a group of volunteer editors, including myself, we pay all our contributors, including writers, photographers and illustrators. We’ve come a long way, but we need your help to keep going. Please become a paid supporter of Current today so that we can continue to do this important and ambitious work. Thanks for reading!
