Response to - AFRICAN AMERICAN BLOGSPHERE; GAINING STATURE IN THE WORLD OF NEWS.
on The World Of Ensayn Reality Blog
"How to drive more of the Black collective to the internet and the Black blogsphere?"
My feeling is with you, I never stop thinking about ways to reach the Black masses. One important way to get answers is to broaden the question. So we can add ----How to deliver the contents of the internet and the Black Blogosphere to the Black coillective?---- to the original question.
I think we shouldn't forget that while we have been many moons in America, we are still more of a verbal culture than a written one. Griots have always been an important factor in African communication, history and genealogy many generations of information was passed on unbroken by this means. Up until the point where many of us, in the diaspora, were hijacked and thus pulled completely out of the loop, this means of communication was working for us.
Even then, after several centuries our young folks are coming full circle with Rap.
A rapper may be compared to a griot telling stories of the things that folks in the village want to know about. It is another spoken word means of communication which has proved to be very effective. So much, that millions have been spent in America to divert and circumvent the original form, in an attempt to subvert the output and once again minstralize our image while at the same time raking in tons of money.
Rap reaches so many people around the world, that it truly is a force to be reconed with. People of all cultures find it appealing but especially those of the African Diaspora . Outside the US I have seen quite a few progressive presentations and productions being utilized by young people to express their impression of how they perceive and are determined to respond to their sociopolitical environment.
African Underground: Hip Hop in Senegal
even sometimes a personal risk to speak out for the cause of liberty and justice.
While we may appear to be separated, we are not alone.
Cuban hip hop group protests racism and injustice
Media Activist Davey D on media consolidation ncmr 2005
VoxUnion.com is a fantastic site that IMO all Black bloggers would benefit plugging into.
My favorite feature on this site is the Freemix Radio concept, that suggests we all create mixtapes
of music, news, current events and such and listen then pass them on and if we have the resources create more add to it and pass that along too. I could see this model working for e-mail newsletters as well.
There are others also out there working and we all have to somehow communicate with one another in order to
consolidate and or coordinate at least some of our efforts in order to take advantage of the fact that right now we have potential access to millions of people. In the last ten years I have seen a number of excellent productions come and fall by the wayside because of lack of support and the people producing them just couldn't maintain their level of output while working alone.
Blogging, youtube, podcasting, skype and more resources are available, in various combinations for those of us who will challenge our imaginations. Never before and (when this window closes) possibly never again, will we have such a fantastic opportunity. We have to talk about it, we have to learn real fast how to combine efforts for maximum use of input.
And yes, I think we have to do everything we can to drag the collective, (even if kicking and screaming) right along with us.
I'll close with this message from
Davey D at the NCMR 2007
