The Experience of a Mixed-Race Woman...
Hello again good peoples...and tweeples!
Let me first say I had a wonderful time at this year’s Netroots Nation in Pittsburgh, PA. I’m told by the locals that PIT has a long way to paddle upstream to get to integration, but the Pittsburghers I met, black, white, straight, and gay, were paddling hard for their beautiful city surrounded by rivers. I'm sorry it took me so long to post this but sometimes we can't see what’s right in front of us until we take a step back and open our eyes, like this photo I took of the city from across the river at night.
I came away from NN09 with some useful tools and ideas for how to advocate more effectively online. Equally important to me were the opportunities I had connecting with some of you in classes, or at one of those amazing after parties where people actually looked up from their mobiles and participated in "real life" social networking.
Next, I want to acknowledge all of the Netroots participants, panelists, and organizers for providing an annual forum that encourages progressive bloggers to rage against the machine of social injustice by speaking truth to power in America and around the globe. Big ups to us all for our various contributions!
I decided to share a few of my thoughts and frustrations with you about how "diversity scarcity" played into my NN09 experience from the time I boarded the plane—CA to PA.
My goal is not to offend anyone here, but to figure out how we can take joint responsibility and pride in making the future of Netroots more inclusive and culturally integrated.
I'm an online communications professional, performing artist, and activist. I develop websites, write songs, and have produced dozens of creative videos for the CNA/NNOC Nurses, who have lead the fight for single-payer healthcare in America.
Some of you may know me from this music video I wrote and directed a few years back for the Clean Money initiative, now approaching 50,000 views. It’s a good example of how to flip a serious campaign message into a fun new medium to reach younger, more diverse audiences:
I've attended several Netroots conferences but have to confess this is my first KOS blog. I thought now was a good time to start since Daily Kos is the womb from which the Yearly Kos conference was born and Netroots Nation became its "baby brother from the other mother."
As a mixed-race woman, I feel I have a responsibility to communicate my black, brown, and white experiences, perhaps with a tiny bit less prejudice and more internal conflict than non-mixed peoples. "Lucky me," I say, rolling my eyes, because being in the middle is a blessing and a curse. Here’s why:
My African American father was born in the South in 1911. He had a third grade education but was wise beyond books and was a passionate civil rights activist. My white mother (German, Scottish, Irish) was an only child who reached eighth grade and spent her adult life giving birth to and raising eight children—six white and two mixed-race (my baby sister and I) later in life.
When I was born in the mid-60s out of wedlock in a small town in Northern California, my mom's white family turned their backs on her for loving a black man, so I was sent to live with my black brother and his family. This was my dad's oldest son of four black kids he had with his wife in Louisiana before meeting my mother. And yes, if you do the math, I’m actually number 11 of 12 siblings—black, white, and brown together. I was eventually reunited with my parents after my sister was born three years later and they found the courage to start standing up to the racism within our own family!
American Families 2.0 and Beyond...
Fast forward to me at age 43. I'm now a proud mother of two fantastic kids ages 7 and 3. They are both way smarter and better looking than me and their other mother, whom I spent 17 years of my life with. So you see, folks can pick from any number of reasons not to like me other than just skin color. The important thing is that I love myself enough to give them choices. Take me or leave me!
My daughter is my egg and looks like me but her other mom gave birth to her through IVF. Our son is the other mom's egg and is blond-blue like her. He and his sister share the same sperm donor, so they are biologically related but unfortunately, may be treated quite differently later in life based on skin hue alone, not to mention gender inequities, or homophobic judgments about their two moms.
For these reasons I gave my daughter the middle name Freedom so she could appreciate what she has while honoring the sacrifices of her African ancestors, and my son the middle name Justice, so he could be mindful of his white male privilege and use it to better society.
I'm telling you all of this to demonstrate how my family alone has evolved from one generation to the next and how just beneath the stuff we are judged by—our fancy clothing of colorful skins—is the stuff we're really made of—flesh and blood, heart and soul.
Now that you’ve seen me naked...
It's no secret that most Netroots bloggers are clothed in whiter skins. This is not just true of 2009. I attended the first Yearly KOS conference in Vegas where I was a finger on a hand of color. However, I was encouraged to see our numbers increase dramatically in Chicago the very next year. Adding color to the conversations and panels there was like shining light through a crystal. Without that reflection of diverse opinions, we are basically talking to ourselves in a mirror. I did not attend Austin last year but sadly, the "diversity scarcity" was back with us in Pittsburgh.
Take a look at the audience when the camera pans wide in the first 30 seconds of Bill Clinton’s keynote address at NN09 and see how many people of color you can count:
By contrast, here's a colorful healthcare video I shot at Yearly Kos 2007 in Chicago.
Perhaps the economy played a role in lower attendance by people of color in PIT. Perhaps people of color who read and attend KOS blogs and events don’t feel their voices are amplified enough and decide not to return. I know there is some truth to this because I attended the first annual "Blogging While Brown" conference last year in Atlanta. While this experience validated my existence as an online activist of color, I’d still like to see where we can UNITE our diverse "geek powers" against forces of evil. My question to us all is this: If we "progressives" can't crack the diversity nut, who can?
Which brings me to the issue of "Bloggers with Attitude" or BWA...
One of the identifiers being tossed around NN09 was apparently coined either by or for a KOS group of white guys known to some insiders as the "liberal blogging elite." How can one be liberal or inclusive and elitist or exclusive at the same time? Apparently it's time to check our egos.
If you're white thinking, "I never noticed a diversity scarcity," imagine how you might feel alone at the Blogging While Brown conference, not that you wouldn't be welcome. If you are white and male, you enjoy the privilege of being born at the "top of the food chain" with greater access to higher education, higher pay, better healthcare, and 43 out of 44 chances at being a U.S. president. Now compare that to the everyday experiences of immigrants and people of color.
At the African American Caucus, we couldn't help spending a few minutes in shock that earlier in the conference, a white person had suggested there be a White Caucus at NN10 in Vegas. Our minds boggled at the idea that white people at a white conference felt the need for a white caucus. It's like straight people feeling threatened by gay marriage, or people with health insurance feeling threatened by those without. I can’t wait to see that agenda.
There were about 25 of us in the black caucus enjoying rich conversation about how black and brown youth are using technology, the "Afrosphere" of black bloggers, and the long list of issues adversely impacting communities of color. Among us was a wise and wonderful anthropology professor known as Deoliver47 who had more to say in her blog about the Color of Netroots.
U.S. Healthcare Debate Widens Racial Divide...
On my flight to PA, I sat between a white male public option supporter also on his way to NN09, and a white middle-class mom who was ranting about "personal responsibility" as a viable solution to the most broken, profit-driven healthcare system in the galaxy. These phrases were created to exclude immigrants, blacks, and poor people, many of whom couldn’t afford "personal responsibility," much less healthcare. Meanwhile, dude-man was offering his opinions in my other ear.
Being a single-payer supporter sandwiched between these two, I could have easily caused an airplane riot had I not chosen my words very carefully. By the end of the flight the woman had calmed down and said she felt like I was her new best friend. I felt like I needed a stiff drink!
The people shouting the loudest in the U.S. healthcare debate seem to be taking the most ignorant pills. They’re also taking hate pills, I-got-mine pills, and perhaps the most potent, screw-everybody-who-ain't-white pills. The pharmaceutical companies could be making a killing on these but they’re FREE...and folks are poppin' 'em like candy.
At the conference, we heard keynote addresses by Bill Clinton and Howard Dean, who in a nutshell said single-payer made the most sense BUT, politically, we should take the public option carrot and ultimately save Democratic face—politician speak for roll over and play dead. Clinton also got called out on "Don’t Ask Don’t Tell" but to his credit, I believe responded with sincerity and deep regret.
Let's Do Netroots New Orleans 2011...
I participated in some other culturally important but under-attended panels including one called "New Orleans on the Brink" where we all got to hear about their persistent struggles with housing, schools, and healthcare—a disgraceful four years (as of today) after Hurricane Katrina. Oddly, no one seemed willing to address how the elephant in the room called racism was making life so hard in the Big Easy.
So I took the liberty. Had Americans really forgotten all those black faces on TV news waiting for help when the storm hit, or was it too painful to face the guilt, shame, and reality of this American nightmare? It was suggested that we spend one post a month on what's happening in NOLA to keep light shining on their struggles.
Here's a mini-documentary I directed last year about Katrina's Healthcare Legacy, and sadly not much has changed since. Please use it to help tell the inconvenient truth of this great American city.
My new friends at The Progressive Electorate had more to say about New Orleans and the lack of diversity at Netroots. I agree with them about the location of Netroots being critical to our diversity and I echo their vote for a Netroots New Orleans!
Yes We Can...do a whole lot better together...
I'm happy to see Obama—a mixed-race brother with a white mother—living in the pretty White House, and I was so proud of how our American colors blended together to put him there.
Yet unfortunately, some people only see him as "black" and are hoping he will fail based on that alone. I however, like so many of you, I am deeply invested in his success.
That said, I will not stop pressuring him to deliver on the change he promised and gave us all hope to believe in...like real healthcare reform that leaves no person out!
Let us not forget where we came from and all those who sacrificed to get us here!
Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in healthcare is the most shocking and inhumane.
-- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Presidents always say God Bless America...
I understand that when we take difficult steps forward, we tend to stumble and backslide as a nation, but I refuse to relinquish what we can and have accomplished when we band together. So let's start blessing all beings in all directions and finding more unity within our diversity!
Please contact me if you are interested in working together on a panel that addresses "New Media and Diversity Messaging: Who do you think you’re talking to?"...or something like that.
Peace,
Rock4Justice
@ Twitter and Gmail