why I am starting a YouTube channel in 2026

also: help make my sabbatical dreams come true this summer

Hello gentle-people,

This past week I took a much needed break from Meta apps (Facebook, IG and Threads). I found that my heart was wrenched by recent news¹ and I needed time away. Coupled with four days off from work due to a school break, this week I found myself finally getting a chance to rest and reflect on what I really want in this season:

a sabbatical.

I know my last post was about finding work that supports a gentle landing, but let me be real with you:

My current job already supports a gentle landing.

My current job is part time and runs September-May. I am currently working out the details for a full time position through my job to start in the fall. This means, if I stay on, I just have to figure out the summer.

I would very much like to stay on since as I mentioned in my last post, this job does support a gentle landing for me. It has been very good for my nervous system and it is rewarding work. As a full time employee, I’ll have a bit more responsibility, which I am in many ways looking forward to. It will also mean an end to being underemployed, which has been very hard these last four months.

So I have decided to do something I’ve wanted to do since I started writing about Black women and rest four years ago. I have decided to fundraise for a summer sabbatical. The idea is to raise what I would make over the summer if I continued in my part-time job.

While I rest from my current job, I would like to do a different kind of work. You can read more on the GoFundMe page for more on the kind of work I hope to do—which I will be unpacking more in my new YouTube Channel.

Photo by Collabstr on Unsplash

Why YouTube?

There are many reasons why I am joining YouTube but I thought I would share a few of them here with you, in no particular order. You can read or gloss through this list and pick out the reasons that most stand out to you.

If you’d rather just skip reading the reasons and jump straight into watching my first YouTube video, that is okay, too!

1. Because we need alternatives to white capitalist supremacist cisheteropatriarchy.

In her book, Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom, bell hooks says “no education is politically neutral.”² Reflecting on her work within the academy to do liberatory political education, she goes on to say:

“We found again and again that almost everyone, especially the old guard, were more disturbed by the overt recognition of the role our political perspectives play in shaping pedagogy than by their passive acceptance of ways of teaching and learning that reflect biases, particularly a white supremacist standpoint.”³

It doesn’t take much of a careful look to see how this applies to other places where people are being educated. YouTube is a powerful platform for education and self-development. But I find over and over when I go to look for content on that platform, if I am not careful to write “Black woman” in the search box, they don’t show up.

Algorithms of oppression are real. They are real here on Substack and they are real on YouTube.

And yet it is possible, if you look hard enough, to find gems on YouTube. People sharing about womanism like EbonyJanice or exposing the harms of whiteness like Black Modern Mystic. The right search terms could lead you to the womanist preacher Pink Robe Chronicles, where you can catch a sermon every Sunday at 8am.

I find that many of the politically and religiously progressive folks I am in community with tend to treat YouTube as a place to upload content that was meant for other platforms, like podcasts and workshops. Granted, I love those videos too when I can find them. I am here for a lecture or a panel that was recorded for an event and shared online so that I might benefit from free access to liberative education.

While so many of us aren’t really thinking about how “the medium is the message” with YouTube, where 500 hours of video are uploaded every minute, we are missing the opportunity to engage the platform in ways that offer people alternatives to what is mainstream: “teaching and learning that reflects biases, particularly a white supremacist standpoint.”

2. Because we are in a literacy crisis and need to make learning accessible.

Almost every book I read, I look up on YouTube to see what others are saying about it. I have found over the years that a lot of the books I read don’t come up on YouTube. Or when they do, it’s from a bookstore YouTube channel and it’s a long conversation with the author. This format, for me, doesn’t typically inspire me to read the book.

What does inspire me is when a book comes up in relation to a problem I am having that I searched for a YouTube video for. When I find a video where the problem is addressed and solutions are offered in a way that highlights deep engagement with the work in the book, I feel like I have hit the jackpot. One good example of this comes from Jared Henderson’s video on why we can’t focus, which goes into the book Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman. (It is worth a watch.)

When I find videos like this, I wonder: where are the scholars who are more explicitly politically progressive? Why aren’t we making high quality videos that break down the concepts we know are important for reshaping the world? Why aren’t we meeting people where they are at?

Another reason I am passionate about this is because I am a first generation college student. One of two college graduates in my family, the first to get a masters, let alone two. I was socialized around people who did not read as much as me and maintain relationships with many folks who would rather watch an in depth YouTube video than read a book. Because of this, I worry about what they are finding or not finding online to support their education as a practice of freedom.

I know too many scholars that would think making YouTube videos in the way I am describing would be “dumbing it down.” I return to bell hooks again who emphasizes the importance of learning done in vernacular language. It is possible to talk about theory through our every day lives and stories. Just look at the stories Black women have been telling.

This is one of the reasons I am interested in autotheory, which is a combination of autobiography and theory. The combination of meaning making and talking about your life works well in books like Sister Outsider and Zami: A Biomythography by Audre Lorde. But they also make sense for thinking about making videos that share some dimension of your life with an audience.

3. It will be fun and challenging.

I have decided that fun is a good enough reason to try this new thing. So far, I am enjoying learning how to edit videos, write video scripts, design thumbnails and think of catchy titles. I have been practicing talking to a camera now for months and I have found myself growing increasingly more comfortable in front of it.

Since reading The Renaissance Soul,⁴ I have embraced the truth that I am wired to overcome the challenges I set for myself. I am wired for variety. Embracing this truth about myself is how I create a good life for myself.

4. Because I am disappointed in Substack.

Recently, Substack made the decision to platform Andrew Tate, a man who was indicted on human trafficking charges who believes women deserve abuse. Not only that, Substack has in the past allowed neo-Nazi hate speech to flourish while profiting off of it.

Now, no platform is perfect. YouTube certainly is not without its faults. But over the years, when YouTube faced criticism for its algorithm and creator policies, they made moves towards accountability by demonetizing harmful content, removing bad actors and refining their policies over time.

Substack is different. The platform directly profits from the voices it chooses to host. When Substack platforms someone like Andrew Tate, it isn't a moderation failure, it's a business decision. That distinction matters to me.

Now, at some point I will transfer my mailing list to some other newsletter platform. I will be in communication with you all about how I will do that. Right now, I am exhausted just thinking about the process. So stay tuned. Believe me when I say the community I have developed here over the years is important to me and I want to preserve that as much as I can when I move on.

5. YouTube’s search engine is powerful. Videos can and will be watched for years after they are made.

When I publish a newsletter, I can expect engagement for the first few weeks it is out. I guess the word “new” is right there in the title. I have four years worth of writing that isn’t being revisited be new readers. In order to engage new readers, I have to write new posts. Which isn’t horrible when I have new things to say. But when I don’t this emphasis on newness means I often feel guilty when I haven’t shared anything new in awhile.

However, on YouTube, videos can be relevant for years after they are made because the search engine is so powerful. People who are looking for content like mine will find me much more easily than they can on Substack.

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Now, without further ado, here is my first YouTube video! No more prefaces except to say if you click to watch, it would be helpful to get some of your feedback. Either here or on YouTube.

1. Specifically on Black femicide with 9+ Black women killed due to intimate partner violence and the New York Times article on the rape academy. Overall just deeply disturbing.

2. hooks, bell. Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom, 37.

3. Ibid.

4. I highly recommend this book if you, like me, have multiple interests, passions and skills and find yourself lost in a world that believes in one true calling. Here is my affiliate link for Bookshop.