It would be interesting to see all the Identity Blogging posts in a tree structure.
Terry at The Storm:
I thought about it overnight, along with thoughts about racism and stuff like that, and decided that for me, it means very little. As I said before, my ethnicity has very little to do with my identity as a whole. I don't wake up in the morning and think "hmm, I think I'll act black today," although that's not what this is about. I suspect I came to this conclusion after being really tired of being talked down to, being asked for the "black" perspective, wondering if that rude lady at the mall was a bigot, wondering if that frat that slighted me was doing so based on skin color, people wondering if I'm in the remedial program for low-income students (aside about that, it's for low-income first gen. college students that IS disporportionally minority, but conservatives on this campus continually scream about affirmative action when the program is NOT an affirmative action program) and so on and so on. I just want to be considered and seen as a normal, All-American boy! Is that so wrong to ask for?
Hm.
W.E.B. DuBois, The Souls of Black Folks, I. Of Our Spiritual Strivings:
After the Egyptian and Indian, the Greek and Roman, the Teuton and Mongolian, the Negro is a sort of seventh son, born with a veil, and gifted with second-sight in this American world, --a world which yields him no true self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world. It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others, of measuring one's soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his twoness,--an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.
There are only three possible reactions to this dual-souled condition: Fuse them, amputate one or referee between them for the rest of your life.
Erica at Swirlspice has a post that's more about her than anything else. So of course a comment on this discussion (since she ran into it) was appropriate:
Black Bloggers...
This subject has been a big thing lately. Frankly, I'm inclined to stay out of it. I have enough issues with myself as a person and I ain't tryinna drag other folks into my thought processes, so there will be no linkage here. That might be irresponsible in that I'm not providing any context for these thoughts, but oh well.
The gist of the black blogger thread seems to be that some black bloggers think the other black bloggers of the world are not representing. I don't like the idea that black people are pondering if the blogosphere "needs" a voice/portal of the black variety. If you want to do it, do it. Do it because you're interested and because you have something to offer, not because people "need" to hear what you have to say.
Why do black bloggers feel a need to amass a critical number of fellow black bloggers and say things like "we've arrived"? Everything I've read about black blogging echoes my experience living in a pretty cosmopolitan but pretty white city. There's a black culture that I don't really feel like I'm a part of, but they feel a need to bond strongly with their own and make their presence known and that amplifies the blackness vibe I get from them, which in turn makes me even more uncomfortable. I guess that makes me a northern racist (more on this in a sec). And amongst all this is where Dean called me "vaguely conservative" (the horror!).
The distinction between "black bloggers" and "bloggers who are black" has emerged. I suppose I fall into the latter category, and it flows nicely with my "I'm not political" stance. It's not something I think about.
The post has sections subtitled "Identity", "Growing as a blogger", "Race/Racism", "Gay", and
In conclusion...
This is not intended to sound all Angry And Black or Angry And Gay. Because I'm really not. It's just fascinating to see people get all worked up and I think perhaps the energy is misdirected. But, as I've said many times, I'm no activist, I'm not so much political, and all this makes my brain hurt.
And not connected to, yet relevant to, this discussion are post from Aldahlia, Delilah at The Liminal Liberal (with 87 comments, though that seems to be as much a function of a limitation on the size of each comment as folks having a lot to say), and Kerri at Some Grrls.
