Alum publishes book documenting Black LA

by Pamela Hernandez

From inner city Los Angeles to redwood trees, Tina Sampay, a Cal Poly Humboldt  alum, self-published, “Slauson Girl: The  Journey of a Black Journalist in South  Central” earlier this year. When she’s not  spending time with loved ones or nature,  she can be found learning and engaging  with her community.  

Sampay was born and raised in South  Central’s inner city and moved up to  Humboldt to pursue her bachelor’s in  critical race, gender, and sexuality studies  with a minor in journalism, graduating in  2016.  

Sampay’s memoir documents her  lived experiences as a Black journalist navigating white institutions, while also  engaging with themes of race, power,  state-sanctioned violence and the ongoing  marginalization of Black women’s voices.  Sampay felt that it was necessary to  build Black media as a counter-narrative  highlighting voices who are often silenced.  

Navigating Humboldt

“Coming from South Central, being introduced to race and gender theory as a freshman was mind blowing, and then having to navigate that on a predominantly white campus where I’m not represented, was just furthermore something that I was not expecting as a freshman,” Sampay said. “I thought I was just coming to get a degree.”

Sampay shares that although Humboldt wasn’t her first choice, it deeply shaped the trajectory of her work. Sampay’s experiences at Humboldt and learning about social structures both expanded and shattered her world view. During her time on The Lumberjack, Cal Poly Humboldt’s student-run newspaper, she had a column called “Slauson Girl Speaks.” Later she became an opinion editor, which helped develop her voice and deepen her passion for ensuring representation in media spaces.

“These incidents really shaped the work that I’m doing now, in terms of making sure that my community has hyper-local media that is written from our perspective and from our community,” Sampay said.

Sampay emphasizes why it is essential for Black people and other BIPOC communities to own media institutions and create their own spaces for representation.

“There is a lot of exploitation that goes on in America in general, but specifically in the inner city,” Sampay said. “There is a lot of extraction when it comes to our stories, even exploiting our traumas for profit in mainstream culture. That’s historically been a problem.”

Sampay feels that her experience in Humboldt inspired her decision to write “Slauson Girl” and report on Black media.

“Honestly, it was very traumatic at Humboldt but I always reflect on the fact that when I was a little girl my grandmother’s nickname for me was lumberjack.”

Slauson Speaks

In 2017, Sampay became involved in student advocacy following the murder of David Josiah Lawson, a Humboldt State student. She shared how traumatic it was to see the lack of support from the university to get justice for their students.

“It was not a good realization. Institutions should not be courting young people to environments that they can’t protect them in,” Sampay said.

Being the only Black outlet at the time in Humboldt, Sampay stayed local for a year to advocate with Lawson’s mother and to report on his case.

“Covering a murder case for over a year, on my own, on my platform, working hands on with this mother, I felt like there wasn’t anything else that I couldn’t cover,” Sampay said.

Black Los Angeles

A year later Sampay decided to move back home to South Central and begin developing a historical documentation of Black Los Angeles. Sampay described her work as counter-narratives, with the purpose of covering the complexities within her community that other outlets fail to capture.

“I want people to understand what has wasn’t anything else that I couldn’t cover,” Sampay said.

“I want people to understand what has happened to Black Los Angeles, because I think that it’s a microcosm to really understand the larger experience of Black people in America, and the ways in which the state has focused on, you know, repressing Black political advocacy,” Sampay said.

Sampay started to build her own Black media and archival of Black L.A., capturing the life and history on her news site and within her memoir. She believes that there is still so much Black history that is under-documented and under- discussed.

“There’s a lot of people that come to L.A., a lot of Black people, too, and they always ask in discussions online, ‘Where are the Black people? Where’s the Black community?’, but I never really hear the question ‘Well, what happened?’, it should be, ‘What happened to Black L.A.?’”

With the release of her new book, Sampay hopes to inspire and pave an easier way for future generations to speak their truth. Sampay reminds young journalists that it’s important to build strong coalitions and connect with like-minded people, because with a community, it’s easier to work toward collective interest.

“Narratives are being crafted, the stories are being told from people outside of the community that is being discussed or being impacted so I was like, ‘Man, this goes on a lot in Black America and Black culture,’” Sampay said. “Because historically we have been marginalized from owning the media infrastructure.”