đ„ If My Work Has Ever Touched Your Heart, Iâm Asking You to Stand With Me Today
Why Iâm doubling down on Gaza, justice, and The Shaun King Showâand why I need you in the inner circle to keep going
As-Salaam-Alaikum and Good Evening from Queens, New York. I just landed at JFK.
Most nights I sit down to write these pieces long after the house has gone quiet. My phone is full of videos from Gaza and the West Bank, reports from friends and journalists, court filings and sanctions documents, stories of babies freezing in tents and ships being seized on the high seas. For over two years now, since October 2023, we have watched a genocide unfold in Gaza in real time, and I have tried, piece by piece, to help you see it clearly and name it honestly.
I donât take for granted that youâre still here, opening these emails, reading thousands of words on subjects most people run away from. So today I want to ask you, very plainly, to become a member of The North Star. I keep this work free for the world â for readers in Gaza, for students in public schools, for elders on fixed incomes, for families living in deep poverty who will never be able to pay for it â because a smaller circle of people who can afford it decide to carry some of the cost.
If thatâs you, Iâm asking you right now to click here to become a member or click here to join as a monthly, annual, or founding member. Your support keeps this work free for them, and even for you when you canât afford to pay.
Let me tell you what youâre actually building when you do that.
What weâre doing here together is not content. Itâs not a brand. Itâs not a hot take factory. It is a living record of what powerful people do when they think nobody is going to check the receipts.
When Britain and the United States leaned on the International Criminal Court to protect Netanyahu, we didnât just repost headlines; we walked through the filings and explained how they were threatening to blow up the very system of international law they pretend to cherish. When a baby like Rahaf froze to death in a flooded tent in Gaza during a so-called ceasefire, we didnât just say âthoughts and prayersâ; we laid out, step by step, how deliberate deprivation and blocked caravans made her death part of the genocide. When the United States started seizing tankers off Venezuela and cargo off Sri Lanka, we didnât just cheer ânational securityâ; we said out loud that our government is acting like pirates with a Navy escort.
None of that comes from a PR budget. Nobody is paying me to talk like this. In fact, a lot of very powerful people would be thrilled if I shut up.
Thatâs why your membership matters. It buys time. Time for me to sit with long-form investigations instead of chasing clicks. Time to read court documents, sanctions notices, obscure reports. Time to talk to people on the ground and then sit quietly with what theyâve told me until I can write it in a way that a teenager can understand and a professor can respect.
Your membership buys independence. It means I donât have to soften language for advertisers. I donât have to stop calling Gaza a genocide because a sponsor is uncomfortable. I donât have to write âclashesâ when it is really police violence, or âtensionsâ when it is really ethnic cleansing.
And your membership builds what comes next. I am trying to launch The Shaun King Show, a video-first podcast where we can break these stories down face-to-face, bring on guests, show you the receipts on screen, and reach people who will never read a 3,000-word article but will absolutely watch an honest conversation. To do that at the level you deserve, I need to hire and support a small team whose full-time job is to help research, produce, and edit this work. Membership is how that happens.
I know there is a temptation, when you read things like this regularly, to assume âother peopleâ are the ones keeping it afloat. That there is some foundation, some philanthropist, some secret backer quietly paying the bills. There isnât. Itâs you. Itâs this community. Itâs the people who read a piece, feel it land in their chest, and decide, âI can give a little bit each month to keep this alive.â
If your life is in a place where money is tight, where youâre choosing between groceries and medicine, hear me: you are the reason this stays free. I want you to keep reading. I want you to keep sharing. You donât owe me a dime.
Iâm speaking right now to the people who do have some margin. To the folks who open nearly every email. To the people who have quoted a phrase from these posts in a sermon, a classroom, a staff meeting, or a group chat. To the ones who have thought, over and over again, âI needed this language. I needed this breakdown. I needed someone to say this plainly.â
If thatâs you, Iâm asking you to move from appreciating this work to owning it with me.
Take a minute. Open the link. Decide what level fits your life and your budget. Then go ahead and do it.
Click here to become a member.
Click here to join as a monthly, annual, or founding member.
When you do that, youâre not funding a personality. Youâre helping to hold up an independent, courageous platform that speaks freely about Gaza, about police violence, about imperialism, about faith, about power, without asking permission from a boardroom or a party headquarters. Youâre keeping a space alive where we can tell the full truth even when it costs us, even when it gets us banned, even when it makes very important people furious.
Iâm going to keep doing my part. Iâm going to keep writing the pieces that keep me up at night. Iâm going to keep following the stories long after the cameras leave. What Iâm asking today is whether you will do your part too.
If this work has ever helped you see more clearly, if it has ever given you words you didnât have, if it has ever steadied you in a moment when the world felt upside down, Iâm asking you one more time: click here to become a member or click here to join as a monthly, annual, or founding member.
Love and appreciate each of you.
Your friend and brother,
Shaun