Unlocked : Issue #6

A monthly curation of Black, Global Indigenous, and POC voices

Apr 04, 2025

Unlocked is a monthly selection of content from Locked In, an unofficial BIPOC writing community on Substack. Each month’s issue will be curated by a different Locked In member, chosen from a monthly call for members to share posts that they’re most proud of. If you identify as BIPOC, request to join our private community.

Welcome to our sixth issue of Unlocked! Every month, we ask our BIPOC writing community to share posts that they’re proud of. There was a hiatus for a few month, but she is back!

I’m James Luckey, one of the Locked In organizers. I write The Conscious Traveler & The Throwaway , the former, an in detail telling of my nomadic travels through the world with my little white dog. I highlight social political issues and have interesting anecdotals on the countries I go to. The latter being an in depth analysis of a time in my travels or more popularly social political issues that affect the black community within and outside of the United States.

Here are a few other community submissions from March 2025 that I loved and think that you will too. We are back with UNLOCKED. we are always looking for writers to submit their work. So PLEASE inquire about us showcasing your work.

Politics

What I Know About Trump Thanks to Fujimori by

Ines Bellina

I was actually supposed to meet Ines in Peru for coffee, but by the time I left the Andes for Lima, she had already gone on her trip to L.A. A missed opportunity, because her prediction of Trump's election and her skepticism of what the U.S. is capable of, which she explores in this article, would have made for a great conversation on what seems to be a mutual understanding. I find her comparisons of Trump to Latin American leaders an interesting angle on how many Latin American leaders have not really chosen the path of “career politician” with the goal of presidency in mind, with very little care for what happens to the people, but rather say whatever is popular enough to get elected and then eventually fade into the past. Instead, Trump and the people she has compared him to, have ultimately chosen to rule as dictators long before they even stepped foot in office and have neither the want nor the need to keep up the facade of your average politician or leader. Her comparison to Fujimori is exactly the type of in-country information I love to have while exploring a country.

In total, this article does a great job of warning and also perhaps giving the American people a chance to prepare for the remainder of the next four years Trump has in office by showing how impressively similar he is to the infamous South American dictator Fujimori.

If you’re wondering, “Damn, how did Peruvians let that happen?” Well, Fujimori appeared when the country was the universal poster child of Economic Anxiety, and we had spent the bulk of the 80s spiraling into some Dante-level of hell. Forget $10 cartons of eggs, we’re talking about a hyperinflation rate of 4000% in 1990. The economy was completely stagnant, unemployment was at record high levels, and we were basically cut off from international trade. Some of this had to do with President Alan García’s terrible economic policies and affinity for corruption (we reelected him in 2006, LMAO). A lot of this had to do with the internal war unleashed by the terrorist organization, the Shining Path. Yeah, we were also the poster child of Existential Anxiety on top of the whole “bread-and-butter” issues of, like, eating. I fully understand how a sense of chaos and the inability to put food on the table can create ideal circumstances for monsters like Fujimori and Trump to come through.

Fatherhood

For Survival's Sake by

James S. Walker

A name I have been hearing in the Substack spaces that I inhabit. I am happy to finally be reading the brothers' work.

With that said, although I have ambitions to one day be a father, I don't think anything in the world could prepare me to be a father and James, a father of almost three, highlights just how unready I really am. James, already a father of two, assumes the position, already knowing what to do. He already has been here before and knows being a father isn’t just one of those jobs that just stops. Yet, although this is a place James has been before he still talks about his unborn daughter as if this is an entirely new and unprecedented experience. The emotional preparation he is considering on not only as she is a newborn, but as she ages, especially in this politically climate is admirable.

She’s not here yet, but she’s getting ready. I felt a strong kick the other day, but I don’t think my other two littles have yet. When they do, I wonder what they will think. I wonder what their faces will look like when they see her for the first time too.

Miscarriage & Eldest Daughterhood

The Math of Mothering Myself by

Bethany Nicole

Here we dive even deeper into parenthood, “discussions of miscarriage, chronic pain, parentification, and intergenerational trauma. It also references emotional abuse, bodily grief, and childhood caretaking”

We start the essay with an anecdotals about Bethany’s own childhood and her family, if they are good or bad, all filled with emotion. Fast forward Bethany highlights the tragedy within miscarriage, but to put it into the words of her mother “Just because you want a baby, doesn’t mean you wanted this baby. Your time will come, and when it does, you’ll be ready.” Bethany through this essay does a terrific job of bridging different parts of her life in a very visual, almost cinematic way. At the same time she sprinkles these details that are said in a very poetic way that contrasts the matter of factness of the subject matter. She wraps it up nicely towards the end in a way that makes it feel like she under her mother in a new profound way.

When I was little and she was very sick, I’d brew her coffee in her special mug—the big brown promo mug from Dunkin’ Donuts that held twice as much as a regular cup. Mommy has taken her coffee the same way since 1996: Two sugars, and enough milk so the coffee is our complexion. Every Saturday morning, I would carry that big-ass cup to her in both hands, little self trying to keep all the liquid off the floor as I made the trek from percolator to sleeping parent. And she would take the first sip, and say, “Oh, that’s just perfect.”And it would be, all through the Saturday morning cartoon lineup.

Rest

Rested and Rooted by

Brittney Portes

A quick, cute little read, this was!

As someone who has decided to travel the world nomadically for basically the entire duration of his 20s this article helped me reflect on the fact that I don't have to do something everyday or get to a new location everyday. She talks about how growth can happen even in the moments when we are not doing anything. These times can be spent self reflecting and understanding the lessons we learned while being productive. She ties her understanding of rest to her gardening, which if you know anything about gardening, a lot of it is the passive activity of letting your garden do what it needs to do which can feel anti productive, but it is exactly what needs to be done.

Sometimes, when we take breaks, we feel like we’re falling behind—like the world is moving at full speed while we’re stuck in slow motion. But what if rest was simply rest? And every time we allowed ourselves to pause, we actually came back with more energy, revitalized, fresh, and new.

Local Politics

A Brave New World by

Phayvanh Luekhamhan

Phayvanh captures the importance of local politics in this thought out essay. Not to mention she ties it into a dying MCU, who younger me thought was the pinnacle of cinema. Phayvanh does a great attempt at the impossible and somehow ties a copaganda machine like the MCU into the importance of the average person using their power to make change on a political level even if it be local. There are areas I am skeptical of and have my own criticisms of, but because of the nature of the article and Phayvanh’s ability to connect something like the MCU to something politically positive, has made this one of my top three favorite submissions of the month.

I think everyone should give this a read.

Those of us who have taken up space in exceptionally white spaces know this. Perfection, a tool of white oppression, will never be enough. In a CBS report of diversity efforts within the FBI, Black agents reported the need to outperform their white counterparts in order to receive equal status within the bureau.

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This issue of Unlocked was curated byJames Luckey, who writes The Conscious Traveler & The Throwaway. It was edited by the locked-in members who help manage the Locked-in member publication. To be considered for the feature, request to join the Locked In community.

Did you miss our Unlocked Issue? Catch them below: