A True Quagmire
The African-American Blogging Thing is a blog that closes with the following point:
At any rate, there are a lot of African-Americans blogging, but it’s not explicitly political. Figuring out how to change that is a lot of the challenge, but it’s not a simple problem, because blogging is representative of existing dynamics as much as it is a new system to change those dynamics.Save your energy, because there is no problem to figure out. It’s a blog! You either blog politically or you don’t. You’re either interested or you’re not. If you have access to a blog, then you have access to the political information necessary to contribute to the discussion. The only social dynamic to this exists in the author’s head.
If you blog, you have the following options: constructively contribute to the discussion, write something indifferent, or troll. As campaign managers, we do our best to inspire and persuade, but the ownership lies with the citizen. It is that simple and it should be that simple.
posted by SEPARight @ 11:27 PM
4 comments
4 Comments:
I think you are missing the point somewhat. The author is posing two dilemmas. First, there is a lack of political participation by the African-American community, this is something that is troubling to the author who is a member of that community. Imagine if conservatives were not part of the blogosphere, this is something that you would probably fret about, no? The second question is one of whether or not African-Americans are enjoying equal access to the resources necessary to blog. As these resources are more available to those with higher incomes, and African-Americans have disproportionately lower incomes than whites, the logic goes that they do not enjoy equal access to what is increasingly becoming a vital forum for political discourse, again, a troubling thought to someone from that community and to those who support the community.
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I agree with you SEPARight! The XX blogger recognized that there are a lot of blacks who blog but many are not blogging politcally. As you wrote, he suggests that we need to figure out how to chage that so they are blogging about political topics. How is it anyone's right to change that? Let people blog about what they want to blog about. Isn't that the whole point of blogs anyway, that people can disucss what they want to discuss?
To counter jd's point. Yes, blacks do have disproportionately lower incomes than whites and thus, have less opportunity for easy Internet access. However, this is not the main point that the XX blogger is addressing. He wants to know why those blacks who currently blog are not blogging about political issues. Obviously, these blacks who are currently blogging have no trouble gaining Internet access so let them discuss what they want to discuss on their blogs.
The fact is that there are leading political blogs that do influence the media, public policy, public opinion, and decision makers.
The other fact is that these spaces are not welcoming places for a lot of people. It's not welcoming to me - it often feels like a bunch of people arguing or attacking something, and sometimes feels clique-y.
Do leading blogs have a responsibility to make a space for a diverse group of people? Do they risk losing a section of the American public, whose votes they may need, if they aren't sensitive to other styles?
I think the lesson to take is not on forcing people to blog about politics. It's thinking about your own blogging or webspace critically to see if you may not be reaching some people with your style.
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