Naomi Ishisaka

Seattle

Social Justice Columnist and Assistant Managing Editor at Seattle Times

Find me on Bluesky @naomiishisaka.bsky.social Seattle Times Social Justice Columnist / Asst. Managing Editor. Race, culture & equity. she/hers 🏳️‍🌈

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Articles

Seattle backslides on crowd-control weapons - and so much more

3 weeks ago | seattletimes.com | Naomi Ishisaka

The summer of 2020 feels like it was both a minute ago and a lifetime ago. Five years ago this month Seattle was in the throes of dramatic political and cultural change. The murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis by police on May 25, 2020, sparked a global uprising for racial justice and the largest protest movement in U.S. history.
Naomi Ishisaka: Those nifty AI tools on your smartphone come with hidden costs

1 month ago | tri-cityherald.com | Naomi Ishisaka

May 19-It seems that everywhere I look, there's now an AI assistant ready to "help" me with things I didn't know I needed help with. AI has exploded onto my iPhone, web searches, on my note taking app, shopping websites - it's even in washing machines and light bulbs. Generative AI is now pervasive in classrooms and social media. I used AI to transcribe the interview for this column - a tool that has been a game changer in my work. Pretty much everywhere you look now, there's AI.
Those nifty AI tools on your smartphone come with hidden costs

1 month ago | seattletimes.com | Naomi Ishisaka

It seems that everywhere I look, there’s now an AI assistant ready to “help” me with things I didn’t know I needed help with. AI has exploded onto my iPhone, web searches, on my note taking app, shopping websites — it’s even in washing machines and light bulbs. Generative AI is now pervasive in classrooms and social media. I used AI to transcribe the interview for this column — a tool that has been a game changer in my work. Pretty much everywhere you look now, there’s AI.
Naomi Ishisaka: Fighting for visibility for missing and murdered Indigenous people

1 month ago | tri-cityherald.com | Naomi Ishisaka

May 12-Update: As of 2:30 pm, Monday, since this column was written, key reports chronicling violence against Indigenous people, which were previously removed, were restored to government websites. May 5 might have marked the 2025 Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and People Awareness Day, but Abigail Echo-Hawk thinks about the missing every day.
Trump administration hides reports on missing, murdered people

1 month ago | seattletimes.com | Naomi Ishisaka

May 5 might have marked the 2025 Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and People Awareness Day, but Abigail Echo-Hawk thinks about the missing every day. Echo-Hawk (Pawnee), the executive vice president of the Seattle Indian Health Board, is one of the leading voices nationally drawing attention to the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous women and people and is one of the co-chairs of the state’s MMIWP task force.
Political scientists find submission to Trump 'shocking,' says UW professor

2 months ago | seattletimes.com | Naomi Ishisaka

I didn’t imagine this is what authoritarianism would look like if it got to our doorstep. It turns out it’s not, as I might have thought, tanks on the streets or martial law (yet), but instead it’s showing up in the creeping, incremental decisions made by individuals and organizations to try to survive increasing federal repression on liberty and speech.
UW professor battles a ‘direct, frontal assault’ on Black history

Mar 24, 2025 | seattletimes.com | Naomi Ishisaka

When Quintard Taylor launched BlackPast in 2007, he didn’t realize attacks on history would make the site as necessary as it has proved to be. BlackPast — what Taylor calls an “encyclopedia” of African Americans and people of African ancestry around the world — features over 10,000 online entries about people, events and organizations from throughout centuries.
Naomi Ishisaka: One ‘chronically pissed off’ Seattle-area mom decides to take action

Mar 18, 2025 | tri-cityherald.com | Naomi Ishisaka

Sam Doyle finally had enough. At 46, Doyle said she had long followed national politics and the news but had always remained a spectator, and never gotten into the arena. But as a queer person of color, mom of three, advanced registered nurse practitioner and state employee, the longtime Mountlake Terrace resident said she could no longer stay on the sidelines. The onslaught of attacks by the Trump administration on people like her and other marginalized people propelled her to take action.
One ‘chronically pissed off’ Seattle-area mom decides to take action

Mar 17, 2025 | seattletimes.com | Naomi Ishisaka

Sam Doyle finally had enough. At 46, Doyle said she had long followed national politics and the news but had always remained a spectator, and never gotten into the arena. But as a queer person of color, mom of three, advanced registered nurse practitioner and state employee, the longtime Mountlake Terrace resident said she could no longer stay on the sidelines. The onslaught of attacks by the Trump administration on people like her and other marginalized people propelled her to take action.
We need women of color to lead. Here’s why some may choose not to

Mar 3, 2025 | seattletimes.com | Naomi Ishisaka

There’s a famous James Baldwin quote I have always appreciated: “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”I thought a lot about that quote when I read Vanessa Priya Daniel’s book “Unrig the Game: What Women of Color Can Teach Everyone About Winning.”I don’t think I have read anything that resonated as strongly as this book or more cogently touched on hard truths we don’t talk about — much less face.