Wednesday, February 8, 2006
Whining about diversity? (11:05 am)
When I worked on the cover story on blogs for In These Times, the idea was to take a comprehensive look at the development arc of the progressive blogosphere, and assess its strengths and limitations. It started out as a 7000-word Frankenstein, which was rewritten, edited, and honed down to its present form.
I’ve been following the discussion of the article online and found a lot of it interesting and edifying. One of the bits that got edited out of the piece was a line about how blogs have transformed the way public knowledge is created: “Knowledge in the blog world is cumulative, collaborative, and collective. And its supporters would argue that it offers a richer understanding of the issue at hand than contained in any article written by an individual reporter.” And so I’d hoped that people would find the article important enough to add to its strengths and address its weaknesses. And many have done exactly that.
But in the spirit of this public debate, let me rebut the idea that this article represents “tedious whining” about diversity — a charge made by Markos over at Daily Kos, and partly validated by the very smart and insightful Josh Holland in the comments section of the story on AlterNet.
One, the story addresses diversity within a very specific context: Can blogs create a truly effective grassroots movement? Within this context, the fact that the blogosphere remains predominantly the realm of white, well-educated males represents a challenge to be overcome. So the “tedious whining” charge makes the article sound like some rant from some unhappy Indian chick, when it’s an extensively reported, researched piece that does its best to offer a fair assessment of an important political phenomenon. And it says nothing about the broader question of effectiveness. So it doesn’t really add to public knowledge of the issue or carry the discussion forward. But rather suggests that any attempt to even raise the issue of representation is to be dismissed outright, irrespective of its context. The Republicans do that well enough without our help.
Two, listing a bunch of women bloggers or talking about people you personally read doesn’t begin to address the the homogeneity problem. Every report on the blogosphere — penned by blog advocates like Stoller and Bowers or Mike Cornfield — say the blogosphere remains very homogenous, and extremely skewed in terms of traffic. In terms of visibility and attention outside the blogosphere, none of the women bloggers except former Wonkette, Ana Marie Cox, even compare to the men. And this will be a problem as long as blogs continue to depend on traditional media to reach a larger audience, affect national debate etc.
To suggest that A-listers could make it a priority to highlight and point traffic to the new folks joining the blogosphere in order to boost their traffic is hardly presumptuous or asking for some kind of “affirmative action”. Diversity enriches debate and dialogue — if much of the dialogue occurs in the top blogs, wouldn’t it be helpful to ensure that these blogs reflect the broadest spectrum of views, both in terms of authors and readers?
In any case, the article mentions the growing number of women and people of color in the blogosphere, and even suggests that the make-up of the blogosphere in terms of race and gender may in fact be very different in five years. The biggest hurdle is class — an issue that can hardly be overlooked when talking about a Democratic Party that is now a party of urban professionals. Not sure why the issue of class got brushed aside, but that’s really where the article ends up. The conclusion of the article is as follows: any one trying to build or participate in a digital grassroots movement needs to prioritize including as many people as possible, especially those who are most marginalized by the existing political establishment. What’s so tedious or whiny about that?
posted by Lakshmi Chaudhry
Reader Comments
Lakshmi Chaudry’s original article was well worth the time it took to read it. And her subsequent elaboration of her point about diversity deserves repetition. A progressive digital grassroots movement, reflecting class, race, gender and other diversities, is a necessary vision; congratulations to Lakshmi for raising the issue.
Such a movement has never been achieved previously, though perhaps the American Communist party got close to a portion of that in the early 20th Century. We must get closer still in the 21st Century. Obviously blogs and the internet are points or lines in the electronic space where that should happen. But even defining a movement in such a space as something other than a collection of like-minded fragments is tough to do.
What I have always liked about ITT is that it has never given up struggling to explore such issues.
posted by Jeff Epton on 2-13-06 at 12:36 PM
Is this Jeff Epton who’s been published in ITT? When newspapers run letters, they note the affiliation of the person. I thought this was a reader’s forum. I agree with the original comment. Great post, confusing article. Enjoyed hearing Lakshmi on Laura Flanders Sunday!
posted by Natalie on 2-13-06 at 10:59 PM
Lakshmi (if I may), I’m only sorry that you’re still using the mistake-laden term ‘race;’ so you AND MARKOS should BOTH take the http://www.racismtest.com. MARKOS could only talk about “tedious” & “whiny” because he’s obviously a recipient of white-skin-unearned-privilege-in-America and is SCARED into such colorist rhetoric. Unfortunately, he’s a pitiful example of the egregious mal-education of millions in this country:never learned about his own mot -distant ancestors: Black they were AND in Africa! He and others of his ilk (most of this benighted public) should come on outta’ da’ C.C.A.G.E.S.’ - Colorism, Classism, Ageism, Euphemism* and Sexism! * misusing the word ‘race(s)’ to mean people/issues of color. Carol Taylor, First Black U.S.A. Flight Attendant, President: The Institute for “Interracial” Harmony, Inc. (Racism/Colorism Quotient Test)
posted by Carol Taylor R.N. on 2-15-06 at 12:15 PM
Gotta echo that this post is so much better than the article. How about a sequel? Also gotta echo L.C. was great on RadioNation. Keep kicking ass, L.C.
posted by ERIC on 2-15-06 at 1:56 PM
I don’t fully understand position of mixed opinions.
As for me, i think that womens themselves starting unnecessary fight. A lot of attacks on women? Organizations? Why? Coz them fighting with themseves! Why she needed to create somth organizations? When last time you see a brave mass of discontented MANs?
p.s. As you remember therm of “attack” appearing earler then “defence”, so they will be doomed.
imho
Russian Post, with best wishes…
http://www.xnetdot.com
posted by Fire on 2-15-06 at 9:56 PM
The article wasn’t “whining” in any way, shape, or form. “Whining” is a word used by a person in priviledge to undermine the opinion of anyone challenging that priviledge. It’s already been proven that Kos can’t handle any form of criticism, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that he reacted so defensively to Lakshmi’s comments. The article was bang on about lack of diversity - it’s a big problem and bringing it up isn’t “whining”, no matter how uncomfortable it makes Markos.
posted by Damien on 2-16-06 at 11:19 AM
Actually, you don’t go far enough. BLOGS are the only hope the American people have to save their democracy. There is currently a Neo-Nazi conspiracy to abolish all our Constitutional Freedoms. They are spying on us, bugging our phones, reading our emails, all because a few guys in airplanes flew into some buildings in New York. It’s almost as if they WANTED them to attack America so that they would have the excuse they needed to attack us even more profoundly.
The only way to save this country is for the people to take back control of their own destiny. We need to support the brand new movement for National Initiatives and Referenda. What is that? Find out at: http://www.votingontheinternet.com
posted by Michael Mathiesen on 4-7-06 at 3:58 PM
Lovely buncha’ responses! I would but add two observations: ‘Tis a damnSHame that Folk keep eupHemizing with the word ‘race’ to refer to people/issues of color as though we’re some ‘other’ than an originating and integral part of the ONE human race: they need to take the racismtest.com ; Michael M. erroneously wrote about ‘planes hitting NYC buildings’ - they didn’t (holographs) and thelesserbush & his D.C. wardawgs were the perps of that outrage - in MY mind! How do y’all spell ‘Impeachment?’
posted by The Carol Taylor on 4-7-06 at 4:35 PM
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There’s nothing tedious or whiny about that; however, I think that should have been your opening and focus. I was very disappointed in that article. Had you written with the focus you do in this post, I would have taken the time to drop a note via real mail and say “Great job.”
Instead, the article (print) seemed to me to make the above commentary the side story while covering sites that a) didn’t need propping up and b) that are the equivalent of J-Lo in that more than enough has already been said about them.
I also think the “we are the establishment” opening should have been examined. That statement strikes me as frightening. I’m not seeing a great bit of difference between the online “super” pundits and the ones already showing up on CNN and elsewhere - not in terms of drawing attention to things that need attention. I see a lot of echo chambers, I don’t see a lot of focus on Haiti, India, Nepal or anything beyond domestic elections. Plus a lot of attacks on women and on women’s organizations. I don’t see any effort to examine issues from beyond a very narrow frame. I’m talking about the blogs you covered in the print article, not your post here which I applaud you for.
I’ll reread the article and hopefully I misjudged it but this post is, without rereading the article, better than anything that made it into print.
posted by Jake on 2-8-06 at 8:48 PM