Hey, I'm rich and white, now!
Jory Des Jardins, BlogHer co-founder, my neighbor and supremely fabulous blogger at Pause, was interviewed at The Huffington Post recently. The expanded BlogHer website and organization has been getting some wonderful, positive reaction and a fair bit of negative, knee-jerk backlash (generally along the lines of ... it's by and for women, so even though men are welcome, it must be whiny and sexist.) I've got to say, though, that some of the commentors to Jory's interview blew me away by their complete lack of taking even the most cursory of looks at BlogHer before launching their attacks.
Especially this one from "netparrot"Oh thank goodness - I was worried that rich, white, liberal women weren't adequately represented online (*cough*HUFFINGTON*cough*), so thank goodness BlogHer stepped into the void. Especially since sites like TypePad and Blogger.com like, so totally exclude women! Well, they don't actually, but you know, since their URLs have no feminine pronouns in their domain names, so that won't do.
Of course, I'm simply aghast at the lack of black and latino voices on BlogHer, so it's time to balkanize again.
I suspect that, in addition to me, some of the women* who are Contributing Editors, Conference Speakers, or who are on either the Conference Team or Advisory Board will be stunned to find out that they are white and/or liberal and I would be willing to bet that any woman involved in BlogHer would like to know how netparrot knows anything about their finances, let alone knows whether or not they are rich. If you think Arianna's voice somehow doesn't count because she is rich,white and liberal, then what are you doing over there supporting her blog by commenting and not starting your own non-white, non-rich, non-liberal male blogging community? (Perhaps there are not enough poor, non-white, conservative male bloggers to put on a show?)
*Charlene Li, LaShawn Barber, Liza Sabater (whom Jory specifically mentioned), Marian Douglas, Nichelle Stephens, Lynne D. Johnson, Tiffany Brown, Trisha Okubo, Zadi Diaz, Kim Pearson, Laina Dawes, Danielle Henderson, Karen Walrond, Liz Henry, Desigal and LDW, plus I'm sure I've missed others.If you are coming to Day 2 of BlogHerCon '06 check out the panel I'm moderating on "Identity and Obligation" where we will discuss issues around identity and blogging.
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posted by Wag at 9:00 PM
4 Comments:
Yowsa!
You go!
I heart you :)
yeah, those commenters seemed to be using Russell's post as an avenue to complain bitterly about the HuffPo more than BlogHer.
Axe to grind much?
May 31, 2006 9:43 PM
I am so happy to be suddenly rich and white! I always thought I was poorish and tannish.
June 01, 2006 8:53 PM
I'm white, actually... I do the Latina stuff for Blogher because, well, because it was on the list of possible areas to cover when Blogher formed and I volunteered to do it when no one else did.
The identity & obligation panel was awesome!
I think that we could do more at Blogher to bring in more women of color. For example, thinking of women who came to the conference last year and could not come this year because of financial struggles. I have a feeling that if we don't pay more attention to that, we will lose a lot of women of color from our community, and lose the poorer women, and younger ones, and become less diverse instead of more diverse. That would suck! We can't let that happen.
So for me, obligation as a rich white ally means 1) knowing people of color are out there 2) talking with them 3) follow through, including cash money or some kind of structural help for fundraising through blogging. And, not tokenizing people. I was thinking about this a lot today and what if everyone in Blogher did a blogathon to sponsor themselves if they need it or some one else if they don't? We could try it next year. I wonder if every rich (white) liberal of BlogHer committed to co-blogathon for/with a woman of color to attend. Or something. I see there are problems with that too. But I'm throwing it out there as an idea.
Can I go off in other people's comment boxes or what?
August 01, 2006 10:30 PM
Liz,
You can go off in my comment box any time! That sounds vaguely dirty, doesn't it?
I think this is an excellent idea and much appreciated. I am sick of the hating and am down for any constructive idea to make things even mo' better next year.
August 02, 2006 1:06 PM
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