Light in Darkness

Twelve years ago, an old friend and colleague, Raul Ramirez, established an endowment for journalism students at SF State, where he had taught for many years while also working as an executive at KQED News.

Raul called it a diversity internship, meaning that it was meant to promote diversity in journalism, a notion that almost sounds quaint in today’s fiercely anti-DEI environment created by the Trump administration.

But seeing the world through each other’s eyes is how we develop empathy for each other and how we learn about the many things we have in common with those who on the surface may appear to be quite different from us.

Over the years, a number of people have benefitted from Raul’s generosity. The latest is Cami Dominguez, whose project involved giving disposable cameras to kids in the Tenderloin so that they might capture daily life in one of the poorest and densely populated neighborhoods in San Francisco.

Given this opportunity, the kids didn’t focus on the drug dealing, prostitution, street crime or homelessness their part of town is best known for.

Their photos were all about the joy, beauty and excitement of being kids.

KQED has published Cami’s piece, Photos Capture SF’s Tenderloin Through the Eyes of Kids Who Live There. The audio version is here.

(Thanks to the folks at KQED, 826 Valencia Tenderloin Center and SFSU who helped bring this project to life.)

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One of the primary functions of journalists is to report on under-covered communities and give a voice to the voiceless. In my view, a healthy society welcomes this work, which strengthens our democracy and reminds us that we’re all in this together, no matter how hard some try to divide us.

NOTES: Raul Ramirez died of cancer in 2013, soon after establishing his endowment. I co-authored this memorial of his life and career with his close friend, KQED editor Pat Yollin, who passed away in 2020. I miss both of them. The very first Ramirez intern was the multi-talented Ericka Cruz Guevarra; she is now the host of KQED’s podcast, “The Bay.”

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