January 11, 2013

Short Takes: Soul Food Junkies

Soul Food Junkies

ITVS

63 minutes

Seasoned. Battered. Smoked. Fried. Collard greens, fried chicken, corn bread, mac and cheese, sweet potato pie. Byron Hurt’s Soul Food Junkies makes you hungry and makes you think. In this insightful cooking show twist, Hurt traces black cuisine and its culture from slave times to the present using artful woodcuts, archival footage, a buffet of voices, and plenty of casserole dishes. At one point he partakes of a vat of corn and turkey necks at a tailgate party. “This is how we survived, this is what they gave us,” the cook says. But the cheap high-calorie food once meant to keep slaves working bears a modern price, contributing to high rates of diabetes, high blood pressure, and obesity—especially as mama’s fried chicken is replaced with the Colonel’s.

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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