Psychedelics for racial trauma: 5 Questions for radio journalist Tonya Mosley
Mosley discusses the new season of her podcast Truth Be Told and what it’s been like to weave her own stories into her reporting.
In 2021, journalist Tonya Mosley reported an audio story on how psychedelics could be used to treat PTSD in Army veterans. The vets told Mosley, then the co-host of WBUR’s show Here and Now, that psychedelics had helped them heal. She was drawn to their stories in part because she, too, was grappling with feelings of anxiety. Then, a friend told her he’d recently been to Jamaica for a psilocybin mushroom retreat, calling it one of the most amazing experiences of his life. Mosley had never envisioned herself doing something like that, but her curiosity was piqued. She called a clinical psychologist and psychedelics researcher named Monnica Williams, who described what Mosley might experience on psilocybin — and then Mosley decided to go to Jamaica herself.
Mosley has documented her experience and how psychedelics are helping Black Americans heal from racial trauma in the new season of her podcast, Truth Be Told. The first episode of the six-part series was released in April, just a couple weeks before Mosley became the new co-host of NPR’s Fresh Air. The Microdose spoke with Mosley about the role of storytelling in the podcast and what it’s been like to weave her own stories into her reporting.
How did you develop your vision for this season?
Truth Be Told had previously been a show where every episode takes on a different topic. But for this season, I wanted to interview everyone we’d put down on our list as potential guests and let that exploration lead us into how I would produce this six part series. Every single person I spoke with, within the first five minutes, talked about the War on Drugs, about their trepidation around it, and how it impacted them. Before I could even take on the topic of psychedelics with this particular community, I needed to address that harm and I needed to address how it affected people going into this healing modality.
I also wanted to touch on the idea of psychedelics helping to heal racial trauma. Racial trauma can mean lots of different things. Dr. Monnica Williams’ research was focused on MDMA paired with talk therapy, but I also met so many people who healed through “wild therapy,” or through personal experiences. I thought it was very important to have those experiences in the podcast too, and that all ties back to the Indigenous origins of the use of psychedelics.
As a journalist, I often just want to make sure everything is backed up by facts, that everything is legal. I don't want to seem like I'm telling people to do something that's reckless. But after I learned about psychedelics and about all of the stuff that we had been taught about them that wasn't necessarily true, I opened myself up to being able to take on the topic in this way.
Most psychedelic podcasts tend to focus in on a particular aspect of psychedelics, like science, business, or policy. But I was struck by how the connecting thread through Truth Be Told was storytelling. For instance, in episode three, educator Ayize Jama-Everett tells a story about Tupac, and for a few minutes, I wasn’t sure how it would connect back to psychedelics at all! What role does storytelling play in your work?
It’s funny you mention that episode, because it was one that I had the most challenges with. It was clear to me that Ayize’s life experiences had something to do with his choice to use psychedelics. When I first met him, we talked about how psychedelics played a role in helping him become his own man, really taking ownership of himself. Through the unwinding of who he was and those stories of his childhood experiences, I was able to get a greater understanding of him coming into his own.
Also, I thought that the listeners that I really am speaking to need to see themselves in the people that we're talking to. Black people are not a monolith, but Ayize’s experience is not uncommon. A significant number of Black men are raised fatherless, and some men have a certain bravado, and expectations for how they should be, how they should perform Blackness. To hear themselves through Ayize, or to see themselves in contrast to Ayize, was an important way for them to see themselves, and to come to some of their own conclusions about whether psychedelic therapy or psychedelics more generally might be right for them. That is why the storytelling component of it is so super important to me.
Storytelling is also a big part of the culture in many communities of color. You know, if I sit down with my grandmother right now, she's not going to give me a bunch of facts. She's going to tell me a story. And so I try to honor that storytelling tradition.
Racial trauma is clearly something you have lived experience with, and you talk about your experiences growing up in Detroit in the podcast. What’s it been like for you to talk to others about their racial trauma, and how they’ve tried to heal from it?
We converted our garage into a little studio for me, and it's one of the best things we've done, because in producing this series, I've been in there sobbing, crying, laughing, and having moments where I feel like, “Yes.” What has been amazing about this work is that the stories just kind of come together seamlessly for me. It's not that it's not hard work, but as I'm relistening to the interviews I've done to put it together, I hear so many synergies between other people’s lives and my own life. Not to be too woo-woo, but it seems divine, like it's all supposed to connect in this way. That has been so gratifying, and it has been emotionally deep and powerful. Some nights I would tell my husband, “Look, I know it’s only like 7 o’clock but I have to go to bed.” I'd just spent so much time listening to people and their experiences while also processing my own experiences and what they mean.
Like you mentioned earlier, journalists often try to keep themselves out of the stories they tell. How has it felt to release work that details your personal experience?
It's crazy because the podcast came out just as I was named the co-host of Fresh Air. That wasn't the intention; this season was actually supposed to come out in February, and I knew I would be starting this job in May. But with all of it happening together, there was a part of me that felt vulnerable. Fresh Air is a very mainstream public radio program, and I felt that I was putting myself out there with this podcast. Journalists like me typically aren't supposed to be a part of the story. But Fresh Air's been amazing; they say, “Oh, we love this podcast. It's great; we want to talk to you more about it.”
And based on the audience reaction to the series, I think it’s been tremendously helpful that I've been this vulnerable, because people can see themselves in me. And that's the purpose: for people to see themselves and do their own self-reflection.
Journalists are also typically discouraged from taking a stance on specific issues. But when you’ve spent a lot of time covering a topic, it’s hard not to develop your own opinions. When it comes to psychedelics, is there anything you hope to see in the future of psychedelic policy?
In episode six, we actually are taking on the argument that psychedelics should be legalized and regulated across the board, and that the decriminalization movement is not enough for Black and Brown people. I'm inclined to agree, but whether or not that's going to happen is another story. I think the FDA's potential approval of psychedelics for medicinal use is going to be tremendously helpful. But until drugs like cannabis and psychedelics like psilocybin and MDMA are legalized and regulated, Black people are going to be targeted, because without legalization and regulation, it's at the discretion of police and law enforcement whether or not to criminalize their use. We've already seen what has happened with cannabis. In Baltimore, for instance, in the years after they decriminalized cannabis, 96% of the people that they arrested were Black people. Decrim doesn't necessarily protect people from enforcement. Plus, legalizing and regulating also helps to protect people so they know what they're taking.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.
