Blogosphere diversity open thread

by Shai Sachs, Sun Jun 03, 2007 at 12:20:15 PM EDT

In light of our recent discussions on diversity in the progressive blogosphere, I've had an idea and I want to give it a try. I'd like to hear recommendations for good progressive blogs run by women and/or minorities, which you think don't receive enough attention and/or general blogosphere love. I'll spend the next week going through the recommendations; next weekend, I'll write up reviews of the ones I liked best. If things go well, and it doesn't suck up all of my free time, maybe we can make this a regular weekend feature.

So let's hear it - who are the women and/or minority bloggers out there who deserve more attention? Who do you think deserves a front page write-up on MyDD, and a little blogosphere love?

Bonus points for anyone with creative ideas about how to spread the word about these deserving bloggers. Also bonus points for anyone who can point me to some bloggers who are covering infrastructure, funding, and general movement-building strategy, topics which I happen to be personally interested in.

Other than that, this is an open thread. Speak up.

Tags: Blogosphere, Diversity (all tags)

Comments

18 Comments

Sort by

permalink

Re: Blogosphere diversity open thread

Two nexuses (nexes? nexi?) of the brown feminist blogosphere are BrownFemiPower and CultureKitchen (Liza Sabater). Both of these are excellent voices. Another one I read religiously is Elle, PhD, who's one of the most insightful voices in the blogosphere as far as I'm concerned.

by Nonpartisan 2007-06-03 12:34PM | 0 recs

permalink

Re: Blogosphere diversity open thread

I've interacted with Liza a couple of times over email. And one time got fooled, and I mean fooled good, on April 1st. She seems like a great blogger. And I'll definitely check out the others.

Thanks!

by Shai Sachs 2007-06-03 12:36PM | 0 recs

permalink

Re: Blogosphere diversity open thread

I'd like to nominate a relatively new blog, The LCRchronicle, established recently by an old friend, who has, over the years taught me a great deal and her new blog has been no disappointment. She is very well read and a scholarly thinker.

http://lcrchronicle.blogspot.com

David J. Ginsberg, MD
djginsberg@providenet.com

by dginsberg109 2007-06-03 12:57PM | 0 recs

permalink

Re: Blogosphere diversity open thread

Thanks so much for the kudos.

Believe it or not, I have been doing this longer than most people in the political blogosphere; which is why I know personally or through online working relationships A LOT of bloggers not only in the political sphere but in new media art, technology and business --which is by way of which I came into political blogging.

It was, of all places, through WaPo's campaign blogfeed (managed by Feedster.com), that culturekitchen became one of the campaign blogs to follow. They included me exactly because there was no diversity whatsoever in their blogroll. No latinos, only one black guy (Chris Rabb) and only one woman (TalkLeft). I came in and killed 3 birds with one stone : a Puerto Rican negra :)

So I used the opportunity to have more people come on board to CK and post during that time. We had pundits and artists and culture critics, women and men, latinos and aframaricans all mixed up in one multi-culti pot.

That experience made move the site to a community platform and since then I have had my doors opened everybody. I do invite people to the front page on a regular basis but my intent has always been to provide an alternative to "the issues people" who get lost in the community blogs that only focus on the war or on elections (hint, hint).

We have people mostly from the US but we also have contributors from Africa, Europe and Latin America. And I just finished a major multi-lingual configuration that will now allow me (and others) to write in other languages. In my previous professional life I used to write in Spanish, Portuguese and English.

The technological constraints (or what I like to call the culturally biased technological imperialism of web2.0 software --but that's a mouthful) made it incredibly difficult for me to write properly in any other language. Try "ampersanding" every other vowel with accents and diacritics!

Diversity is not just a metaphor for unity and all that touchy feel stuff. Diversity is very factual, very concrete and very material --even on the web.

When you develop blogging software that is only meant to serve anglophones, you are not only creating a digital exclusion and marginalizing whole swaths of people. You are closing a whole constituency from mainstream political engagement; you are erecting barriers to entry to a whole market segment of the population.

Steve Gilliard wrote an essay that I quote in a 2004 blog post titled Secular Blue America. The post I quote is called "They voted for this mess". Even though the context is about religion, the intent is the same : women and people of color voted for Bush not because they were stupid but because they had to. This is what Steve had to say :

Let's examine this Laura. What she got from us: "Domestic violence workshops."

What she got from the church: food, a job, and people that said they loved her. The church gave her something to do, a narrative to organize her life around. Someone to tell her what to do.

Are we prepared to do that? To make her a bowl of soup, and sit there and hold her hand while she eats it, and pretend to love her, and force our narrative on her--to own her? To tell her what to think?

I think probably not. Because we're liberals. We believe in teaching her skills, in getting her a job, giving her a loan, maybe lecturing her. But she doesn't want to learn skills, she's weak and tired and afraid. She doesn't want to think.

And most people would rather be preached at by a preacher than a social worker.

This post by Steve changed the whole way I think about politics. You can say it not only opened my eyes but radicalized me.

As a new media producer my job was not just raising money for art projects. I was deeply engaged in helping develop the user interface for the works. As a web developer and designer I have spent countless hours working with CMS systems learning not just how they work but working to improve their usability.

As an activist, I am involved at the local level through NDM, one of political groups here in NYC. But I have also done tons of pro-bono work with advocacy organizations. So much so that I have had to curtail it because it's hit me and my family financially. And if I can't feed and clothe my kids, that's a problem --but I haven't gotten to the point of a Cindy Sheehan to say I have to actually quit.

Stoller knows I have been saying for years that we progressives need to find ways to better mesh all our consituencies online. There is too much "myfriendism" right now that is not only unprofessional on a more traditional sense but that, again, creates gatekeeping barriers to developing truly "people powered" democracies online and most certainly off.

But that's a matter of time given we are in a historical transitional period. The blogging revolution is not the first one online. The first one started 10 years ago with the netart movement. Which, btw, was anchored by Mark Tribe son of the famous constitutional lawyer. Here's the book he co-wrote with Reena Jana and turned into a wiki : New Media Art.

There's a lot to learn by looking at what people tried to accomplish online 10 years ago. It's the "you don't know where you're going if you don't know where you come from" sort of thing. I don't want to say that MyDD, DailyKos, are part of a progression (that would be so unWeb2.0 of me). The blogosphere, and the netroots part of it, are just nodes of a network of democratizing movements.

First it was the scientists and engineers. Then the artists. Then businees came and took over and so commercial writers and marketers --the people who wrote the cluetrain-- rebeled. Now it's the pundits, politicos and scholars; the last, I hope, of the social and cultural elites.

To truly democratize our politics we really have to focus on The People. We need to make digital those bowls of soup Steve wrote about. Yet we have to take it one step further.

As far as my personal mission is concerned, I'd like to turn those bowls of soup into tools to be used by anybody who wants to connect to others online. So the challenge is to feed and lead and connect and empower easily, seemlessly and as untechie as possible all at once.

We haven't gotten there yet but I believe we are on our way. And that's what makes building 'diversity', so interesting on the net.

Cheers,
Liza Sabater, Publisher
http://culturekitchen.com
http://dailygotham.com

by liza 2007-06-04 08:06AM | 0 recs

permalink

Interesting that you say this...

I was just wondering if this convention is some how tied to YearlyKos:

What: BlogHer Conference '07

When: July 27 - 29, 2007

Where: Navy Pier, Chicago, IL

Deadline to register: Friday, July 20!

More here:
http://blogher.org/node/17751

The above info come from:

BlogHer.org
http://blogher.org/

I would also like to give a plug for this woman's site:
Washington Woman
http://washingtonwoman.blogspot.com

TKelly is also one of the cohost of Equal Time Radio
http://equaltimeradio.org

by kevin22262 2007-06-03 12:39PM | 0 recs

permalink

Re: Interesting that you say this...

I don't know for certain, but I'd have to guess this is a coincidence. It'd be cool if there was a connection, but I think BlogHer is non-partisan.

But your recommendation is duly noted!

by Shai Sachs 2007-06-03 01:20PM | 0 recs

permalink

Re: Blogosphere diversity open thread

http://edictsofnancy.blogspot.com/

as referred by the poor man.

by elfranko 2007-06-03 12:41PM | 0 recs

permalink

Re: Blogosphere diversity open thread

Thaddeus Matthews, without question!!!

Thad is a minority (African American) blogger in Memphis, TN.

His is unquestionably one of the greatest local blogs, run by a minority, in the blogosphere today.

He rentlessly investigates and reports on the the corruption and hypocrisy of local elected officials.

In addition, in the comments to his blog, one can see the bald-faced racism which runs rampant in Memphis, TN. While not a fan of racism, Thad's blog is eye-opening in the way this is revealed when people are allowed to post anonymously.

Here's a link:

http://www.thaddeusmatthews.com/

by Elmo Buzz 2007-06-03 12:52PM | 0 recs

permalink

Blogosphere Diversity Wiki

Shai,

Something that might help with this is a wiki I set up for my day job with The Opportunity Agenda. It's a wiki listing all the black/racial justice blogs, immigrant blogs, human rights blogs, etc. that I could find - basically "non progressive netroots" blogs (aka the "Whiteosphere").

The URL is http://www.bloggingresources.pbwiki.com
The password is: justice

by Mike Connery 2007-06-03 12:53PM | 0 recs

permalink

Re: Blogosphere diversity open thread

http://blog.vivianpaige.com/

http://www.vbdems.org/

http://catzmaw.blogspot.com/

see also catzmaw's comments on www.raisingkaine.com

by VAB 2007-06-03 01:53PM | 0 recs

permalink

Re: Blogosphere diversity open thread

I'll be bold enough to suggest you might want to look at my blog. I suggest searching the "campaign' tag. Link in signature. Enjoy.

by janinsanfran 2007-06-03 02:05PM | 0 recs

permalink

Re: Blogosphere diversity open thread

Nothing wrong with self-promotion. You're not blogging to hide in the shadows, after all. :) Will certainly check it out.

by Shai Sachs 2007-06-03 02:16PM | 0 recs

permalink

Re: Blogosphere diversity open thread

Bloggernista! http://bloggernista.com/

by arthurcoulston 2007-06-03 02:12PM | 0 recs

permalink

If I may be so bold

as to invite you to check out Texaskaos, I'll do just that.

Among our frontpagers are women, Afro-American, GLBT, and Latinos. We're trying to include all the voices of Texas, with perspectives on both national and local issues-including reform of local county parties.

And I'm partial, but we have some of the best damn diarists out there, too.

C'mon down and help us take Texas back. We plan on leaving no safe ground for the Republican machine to rebuild on.

Insert obligatory Draft Rick and Stop Cornyn links...

by boadicea 2007-06-03 04:31PM | 0 recs

permalink

Not to Rain on the Diversity Parade But...

A lightening strike made my computer shut off so my original response to this post was zapped. Which was probably best since my response was knee-jerk and unnecessarily caustic.

I appreciate your sentiment. For wanting to be more inclusive of "women and/or minorities", I give you a gold star. But how hard really is it to go to Google blogsearch and type in "African American" or " Black Bloggers? " or type in a subject you are interested in and adding the word "women" or "asian" , "latino" or whatever other groups you include in the term " minorities."

I can't tell what you want? Do you want "minority bloggers" to talk about "minority issues" or "minority bloggers" who talk about issues in general or do you want "minority bloggers" who talk about general issues from "minority perspective?" I have blogs that deal with African American issues. I have one that doesn't and unless I put up a photo or cream "I'm Black!" nobody would know.

Regarding the "minority" wiki... Do you want to include "diverse" viewpoints, ideas, backgrounds, within the big " progressive blogosphere" tent DO you really want to set up a "Plessy vs. Ferguson"-esq. separate but equal blogtopias? How exactly are you going to "review" them? Will people get bonus points for being "clean", "neat", "articulate"?

The truth is "minority" bloggers will build their traffic in the same way that you did. They'll be better off building on their own without "initiatives" from nonminority bloggers and they won't have to compromise their viewpoints in order to gain access to the country club. In the end, I think that will be a good thing for "minority" bloggers.

I watched everything go down last year with the whole Clinton-Harlem-Blogger-Cleavage-Photogat e brouhaha. Now you're being criticized for exploiting Black bloggers to provide cover to criticize the CBCI and the Faux News Brouhaha. I was one of the critics on Jack and Jill.

If this was just about page clicks, your post wouldn't be a big deal. But this isn't about page clicks is it? "Progressive" bloggers want their influence to move beyond cyberspace, your problem is the same problem Iowa and New Hampshire are experiencing now; the "perception" that you don't represent America. It's not a problem now, but as this medium matures, the labels "elitist" and "out-of touch" " a bunch of white folks" will attach ( Yes I know some of you claim an ethnic heritage, but I`m talking about perception which in politics is more important than reality).

Minority bloggers don't need you. I don't care how many dollars you raise with the netroots or how many Macaca moments "progressive" bloggers fuel, it's " women and/or minorities" walking into the polls and punching the chads (or staying home) that are going to determine the outcomes of many Democratic primaries and general elections. I predict an epic battle in about 4 years when "progressive" bloggers start to attempt to assert even more influence on elections( it won`t be pretty and the battle scars will probably be permanent a la Republicans and their stance on the Civil Rights Act decades ago) . Or "progressive " bloggers will make other major screw ups like putting white folks in blackface again because no one on your team will be there to say " Um this really looks BAD!"

I think you should accept your limitations and not try to be anything more than what you are. Your background limits your world view. That is okay. You can have a great deal of influence within the ranks of the progressive blogging world. But you can`t "independent contract" out your responsibility to be intellectually curious about different groups of people and their interests, thoughts, concerns etc.

So I'm not going to do your work for you. If you are truly interested in being more diverse, the first step is to be intellectually curious enough to undertake your own research efforts and exert yourself to type a couple of phrases surrounded by quotation marks into GOOGLE ( THAT`s WHAT I DO EVERYDAY!). If you have to be spoon-fed URLs you're not really incorporating "diversity" into your blogging. I will however direct you to Political Sapphire's tribute to Steve Gilliard. http://politicalsapphire.blogspot.com/20 07/06/rip-steve-gilliard.html

What you're doing is no different than what the Republicans do when they trot out their latest Black candidate who can't win a general election or what politicians do when they run to Black churches during election season. Its window dressing. Looks good, but lack substantive change. That might not make you feel warm and fuzzy, but you need to be okay with that.

by WhatAboutOurDaughters 2007-06-03 08:03PM | 0 recs

permalink

Shameless self-promotion

I don't necessarily write about minority issues, but I am a young (21 year old) Hispanic male who blogs from New Mexico. Of course, Hispanics in New Mexico aren't the minority in either population numbers or power (Hispanic Gov, biggest city has a Hispanic mayor, prominent Hispanic politicians and business men around the state).

I don't think I am one of the best or most important minority bloggers, but just thought I'd point out our unique situation here in New Mexico.

by fbihop 2007-06-04 05:08PM | 0 recs

permalink

Re: Blogosphere diversity open thread

Bridget in the Sixth, Cynthia's Interests, Ellen's Illinois Tenth Congressional District Blog, It's Just Teaching... Isn't It?& South Side Star

by Carl Nyberg 2007-06-04 09:50PM | 0 recs

permalink

Re: Blogosphere diversity open thread

The Disputed Truth

Fornication: Our Dark Little Secret

by Forgiven 2007-06-08 09:30AM | 0 recs