House Rules (Why field Negroes should break them)

A blogger who I have a great deal of respect for posted a few days ago about the White vs. Black blogospehre debate that I have been participating in recently. Her post was more a critique of another blogger, Francis Holland, who started this debate after he was booted from Daily Kos.

Ms. Tubman raised some very good points, and I would expect no less from her. But I must take issue with some of the things she said concerning Mr. Holland. Throughout her post, she seemed to be admonishing Mr. Holland for not blogging with the proper tone, or for being a "bull in a china cabinet" while he was allowed to post on Daily Kos. (To be fair, Ms. Tubman said she agreed with the message but not how it was being delivered) My question to Ms. Tubman would be this: Should we modify or stance on positions or the way we post in order to be allowed to participate in certain online discussions with white folks? I would certainly hope not, and if there are black bloggers out there doing that....well, let's just say that I hope they gave you a very nice "room" and computer in the house for your troubles.

Now I don't want to speak for Mr. Tubman, she is more than capable of speaking for herself. But I am sure she will say that her critiquing of Mr. Holland , was due mostly to the fact that he himself, seemed to really want back in with the Daily Kos crowd. So one could argue that her post was a road map for him to more or less find his way back in. But I doubt seriously that Mr. Hollands motivation was to simply get back on Kos just to say he could post there again. I suspect that his motivation was political, as he really seems to have a thing for Hillary, and he wanted to openly campaign for her on a site that clearly has kicked her to the curb. Mr. Holland suspects that his race has something to do with why he was kicked off. And while it may not have been a direct cause, I think the fact that he is black made the conversation-whatever it happened to be-more uncomfortable, even for the so called progressives over there at Kos.

Now let me be clear; as I have stated before, I could care less whether I interact with that crowd or not. Their issues aren't my issues, and visa versa. " So the rage against the machine bit is self created. If you want to talk about Iraq,or oil,or campaign finance reform,or deficit/debt..there's none of that on Field Negro" That would be corrct "Charlie", you won't get discussions here about the deficit,the national debt, campaign finance reform etc. You know why my progressive friend? Because most black folks out here don't give a f**k about those issues. We are too busy trying to hold down a nine to five and not get shot on our way home from work to be worrying about your f*****g campaign finance reform. Like it makes a difference whether a mother f****r can spend 100 million or 200 million of his own money. Poli-tricksters, democrats, and republicans, will always find a way around that sh**. Don't even get me started on these clueless,disconnected mother fu****s that I have to share country with. Sorry folks, that was a serious digression, and I tried to finish this post without cursing, (I guess they won't use this one at the Bob Dole Institute of Politics in Lawrence Kansas) but some people just set me off.

So anyway, back to Ms. Tubman's post. She had some wonderful and thought provoking suggestions towards the end. Should black bloggers come together around common goals and try to make ourselves stronger? Or should we seek more inclusion from white bloggers and combine our efforts with them around some common political agendas? Folks, I think you know where I stand on this issue. The problem is, well, I won't call their names, but there are bloggers out there like the Christian lady, Lasha...whoops I said no names, and a few more who know who they are; who would tear the freaking house down if they thought they couldn't get in. Unfortunately, because of their positions, and their way of making white folks feel good about themselves, these are the more popular sites among black bloggers. So the rest of us, who want to start unifying around issues that effect us, will have much more of an uphill battle ahead. It would be so much easier to sell out and write to make right wing "Charlie and left wing "Charlie" more comfortable, but some of us just can't and will never do that.

I loved Ms. Tubman's the idea of a black ad network, and more black empowerment economically. But again, that will call for more black progressive bloggers (why do I even use that word) coming together and being unified in our goals. That's easier said than done, but I have hope. I am starting to see more and more positive black bloggers out here every day. (The usual posters to this site comes to mind.) People who are truly independent and could really give a damn about what "Charlie" thinks. The beauty of it is that many of these folks are new, and they haven't developed a large following just yet. So in a way, this is still virgin territory, and they can take this blogging thing in whatever direction they choose. It's too late for people like LaShawn, and Oliver, and Sh...whoops, I said I wouldn't call names. But that's what's so great about America, there are so many more of us out here, with so many resources, and so many points of views to express that even a few of us typing away in the house can't hold back our message. Because at the end of the day, the fields are so much bigger than the house, and there are so much more of us out here than in there.