“White-News” vs. the Blackosphere

But now that we have blogs, to what extent have American blogs changed the white-news paradigm?  In my experience, white blogs are just as committed to white-news as is the mainstream media.  White blogs are mostly dedicated to exposing injustices that affect white people, for the purpose of empowering “progressive” white people (mostly men) to gain more control over society and make society more “progressive”. 

One need only examine the demographics of most white blogs to conclude that they cannot have been designed to involve, inform or empower Black people, because they have very few Black people among their readers and writers, and they mostly don’t care or are openly hostile to new Black voices.  For whatever reason, there is precious little participation of Black people at most white “progressive” blogs.

Consequently, to much the same extent that the mainstream media has been a purveyor of white-news, white blogs have equally become purveyors of white-news, produced by, for and about white people for the purpose of increasing white people’s power. 

How can I support such a radical assertion?  An example of this is to be found in the battle between white progressives and Blacks over atheism vs. religion within the Democratic Party.  This is a battle which many people do not know exists because there are no Black people at white blogs to address the issue.  But the battle is implicit in the statistics that describe who supports atheism and who opposes it.

There is a considerable amount of political activism at white blogs aimed at reducing the influence of religion on our government, political candidates and elected officials.  Recent polls at some “progressive” Democratic blogs have revealed a surprising predominance of people who do not believe in God among whitosphere blog participants.  For example, internal polling and research show that 69% of DailyKos participants are atheists or agnostics who do not believe affirmatively in the existence of a traditional God.  Meanwhile, 36% of Black people go to church at least once a week compared to 25% of white people.  The point here is NOT to argue the existence of “God” or the value of religion per se, but rather to point out a fundamental difference in how Black people and “progressive” whites see things, and what motivates us politically.

There is a significant religion gap between Black people and white people, both in terms of participation and in terms of the relatively more important role religion has historically played in Black people’s political organization.  Before Senator Barack Obama, the two best-known previous Black presidential candidates were both ministers – Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. Two of our best-known national leaders – Martin Luther King, Jr. and Louis Farrakan – explicitly depended upon their religions and their religious followings for the genesis and substance of their movements.

But, with so little Black participation at whitosphere blogs, white “progressives” seem never to have stopped to consider the political effect on Black political participation and turnout that would result from decreasing politicians’ efforts to be relevant to Black religious people through religious speech and imagery.  And there are virtually no Blacks at white progressive blogs who could bring this issue forcefully to white people’s attention.

A successful “progressive” atheist/agnostic movement to reduce religious parlance, imagery and influence in Democratic and American politics would inevitably reduce Black participation and influence in politics, because Blacks traditionally organize and participate in politics through their religious base and their religious officials.  In the whitosphere, this fact is largely ignored while many whitosphere participants are openly hostile to the kind of voices produced by Black churches – religiously tinged voices.  These white progressives effectively want more people in politics like them and less people in politics who are like us.

When Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton went to Alabama recently to celebrate the Civil Rights Movement, each of them spoke in a Black church, because Black people – to a much higher degree than white progressives  – believe in and are motivated politically by a Christian “God” and, to a lesser degree, by other non-Christian religious influences.  Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, like all successful Democratic presidential candidates of recent decades, recognize the political necessity of going to the political forum that is central to Black people – the church and its ministers – in order to obtain Black people’s participation.

So there are fundamental ways in which white progressives are different from Blacks  – different in important ways that white progressives typically ignore.  When “progressives” demand that Democratic candidates and office-holders speak less of religion in the public square, they (1) clearly have not conferenced this demand with Black people and (2) may be subconsciously demanding that politicians speak in a way that will, as a perhaps unintended result, be less relevant to Blacks.  And white progressives don’t care how Blacks feel about their efforts to remove religion from public discourse.  If they cared, they would consult with Blacks before pursuing this Black-destructive goal.  This willful and practiced ignorance and opposition to  Blacks’ needs and interests among dominant white bloggers is a principle reason why Blacks feel unable to meaningfully participate in the whitosphere.

Still it must be noted that one of many reasons that Blacks don’t abandon the Democratic Party for the Republican Party over religion is that the content and “works” of Blacks’ religion are still more similar to the socially progressive humanism of white Democratic progressives than to the relatively more capitalist, jingoist and supremacist religiosity of white Republicans.

If Black’s views are mostly absent and ignored in the whitosphere, does that mean that Blacks are not touched by the blog movement?  Absolutely not.  What I have discovered over the last six months is that there is an entire parallel universe of Black blogs where news and views more relevant to Black people are discussed.  These blackosphere blogs include Black Prof  , Field Negro , Exodus Mentality, Asabanga and Nat Turner’s Revenge.  To this movement, I am adding my own advocacy, through my Francis L. Holland Blog.

These blogs are by and principally for Black people, focusing not only upon Black people but upon people and issues deemed relevant to the Black people who write these blogs and post comments.  At Black blogs, we comment on the issues of the day raised in white newspapers and blogs, but we also highlight issues that whites mostly ignore, such as the unfair criminal prosecution of individual humble and unknown Blacks.  Our commentary and the relative importance that we give news are informed by our unique historical perspective on and position in America.  From our vantage point, we share with each other a distinct perspective and critique that white people, including white progressives, cannot have and generally do not want.

Meanwhile, white blogs and white media are mostly self-referential.  They rarely cite non-white sources and they almost completely ignore t
he existence of the parallel world of Black blog voices.  At white blogs, it is almost as if the Blackosphere did not exist at all.  Although they are relatively new, our Black and white online communities are just as segregated as many of America’s schools and geographical communities.

When Americans read this post, their opinions about it will mostly be divided along likes of skin-color.  Most white readers will deny that “white-news” (as defined here) exists, while Black readers will insist that white news has dominated American thinking for all of American history. 

Most (but not all) whites believe there is no need to visit Blackosphere blogs, because Blackosphere blogs are “only about Black people and Black issues”.  Essentially, they incorrectly assume that Blacks discriminate against whites in the same way that whites discriminate against Blacks. 

Many whites also ignore the Blackosphere because they assume that what THEY think is much more important and relevant than what others think, even to the degree of believing that what Blacks (even Black voters) think and believe can be safely ignored.  So, the measure of white progressives’ relationship with Blacks is not whites’ tolerance of Black History Month.  The measure of the white “progressive” relationship with Blacks is whites’ relationship with the Blackosphere, which is almost non-existent because of conscious choices to exclude and ignore Black voices.  For example, most whitosphere blogs do not link to any Black blackosphere blogs, although Blackosphere blogs typically link to some whitosphere blogs.

White bloggers defend the absence of Black bloggers in the whitosphere by offering  false excuses like Blacks’ purported lack of access to or interest in the Internet, while white “progressive” bloggers studiously ignore the parallel world of Black blogging that already exists “on the other side of the train tracks.”

So, what happens in the Blackosphere?  First of all, the Blackosphere is diverse and I cannot claim to have visited most Blackosphere sites.  But, from what I have seen, there are Black lawyers, journalists, published authors, groups of renowned university progressors and other highly-educated Black intellectuals sharing their thoughts with one another.  Although they are highly integrated with whites in their professional lives, their Blackosphere blogging activity is focused on communicating their own ideas to other Black people rather than on communicating with whites.  The Blackosphere is a support system and communication medium by and for Black people.

Because we are communicating amongst ourselves, we can do so without filtering our language and thoughts to appease white sensibilities and without worrying that the information we want to share and the fundamental truths that we wish to impart are more than whites can bear.  In the Blackosphere, although views are diverse, there is a strong sense of shared struggle, an implicit and explicit shared awareness of the irreducible facts of Black life in America whose very existence white people and “white-news” strenuously deny.

It is, indeed, fortunate that there is a Blackosphere, because much that is said there would be considered “controversial”, “argumentative”, “overly combative”, “rude” and “insensitive” at whitosphere blogs.  Indeed, part of the value of the Blackosphere is that we can express ourselves to one another without censoring ourselves because of a concern that most white people will be offended by the views that many Black people hold in common.