"The progressive blogosphere is segregated" and "Black bloggers link to Blacks and progressive white bloggers link to other white bloggers."

While I was researching a soon-to-be-published article to provide detailed analysis, charts and fact sheets about how Feminist People of Color Blogs are racially segregated in Awards, linkage and credibility, I found two interesting things:

#1. This inspiring quote publishing on Common Dreams in May 2008, before Obama was even selected to be the President:

"The progressive blogosphere is segregated," said McCauley, whose What About Our Daughters blog was accepted to the DNC's blogger pool. Essence magazine named McCauley one of its 25 most influential people last year alongside Illinois Sen. Barack Obama and filmmaker Tyler Perry. "Black bloggers link to other black bloggers, and progressive white bloggers link to other white progressive bloggers," she said.

Brave words for her to say. No matter what this woman does or says in the future, I have instant respect for her for saying such true words because I notice when people achieve positions of prominence they often stop telling the truth about racism. Her words are still true and I see it all the time.

So you can imagine my surprise when I tried to look up her name and accidentally found a different website that is not hers at all called "Diary of a Content Black Woman and saw this at the top:

"Welcome to the #1 site for African American Women committed to combating the stereotype of the "Angry Black Woman". Formerly "Why Black Women Are Angry", this is the companion site to the Valencia Roner Show on BlogTalkRadio.com. Our blog is ranked as a top site for the search terms "black woman" in Google. By identifying issues that contribute to said anger while exploring ways to overcome such anger, we strive for society to view Black women as the content beings we truly are."

I read it about three times and each time I felt like I was slapped out of my chair. And after I picked myself figuratively (almost literally) off of the floor...I wondered...wow...so many things I have to say about this. How should start? I lived in some of the worse Ghettos of Philadelphia for over a year when I was a child and saw the kinds of suffering amongst Black girls and women that horror films can't even begin show. So many thoughts on this content Black woman statement. How to even stay calm about about a statement like that? Here..lets try this....Well, my sister (my biological younger blood sister) was a Black woman... and she died of Lupus, her heart stopped on a hospital operating room table...after fighting the painful disease for years... and I can assure you she wasn't entirely content about having a lack of healthcare insurance to take care of it our patriarchal, capitalist world. I better stop there before I get wound up. *happy laughter*

Wait, as you know I can never stop when I should, so I must also say, when she talks about Black women being content...is she including the Black women in Africa who along with other 3rd world Black women and people of color are dying at a rate of 1 every 4 seconds from hunger, thirst, lack of water and starvation? or is she just talking about those who can afford to blog about their contentness? OK, now I will stop!

Moments like these is why I realize I should write even though I know I am not such a good writer. I write because there are a lot of people misrepresenting the direct-action struggle for a better world (statements like 'the poor people want us to buy Nike') and are ignoring the suffering of others... probably because it bothers them to think about the 3rd world suffering.

Oh, and to set the record straight, when I typed 'Black woman' into Google and and then into yahoo search engines I just now came up with a different website at the very top that i highly recommend called Angry Black Woman at http://theangryblackwoman.com -Thank Goodness!

Anyway....

As you will recall from when I wrote about the reason this blog was started, I honestly feel more racism from so-called progressive people all the time. At least right wing folks often admit to disliking Black people and they are openly racist, and they don't hide it. But progressive people often treat you in a racist manner... and then blind themselves by saying:
"I speak out against racism all the times... so how could I be racist?"

It is interesting to note that they said there are more Black blogs these days. Why do you think that is? Easy, because we're tired of being attacked on other folks blogs. Renee over on Womanist Musings talks about it as well. Congratulations to Renee for receiving an honorable mention on the Top Ten Black blogs list! Awesome. I recommend everyone to read Womanist Musings (We keep her rss feeds on the right hand side column at all times! Good stuff there!). Which brings me to....

#2. I also found this "Top Ten Black Blogs (Feb 2009)" article interesting. I gave an excerpt below of the top ten. (The best part was, of course, when they named themselves in the Honorable Mention section! *happy laughter*

Awesome, I'm gonna' do some self-promo like that, someday. Name the top folks in the world... and give myself an honorable mention! Heee heee! ;)

I made sure to give links to most of the blogs in the hope that more people can find out about them if they didn't look like over-the-top hard core right wings Clarence Thomas Clones! *happy laughter*

Love for the people,
-T

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February 9, 2009

Top Ten Black Blogs (Feb 2009)

Are you enjoying Black History Month? It appears from the growing popularity of the Villager's Black Blog Rankings (BBR) that many of you are enjoying the nubian flava flowing from in the afrosphere. The list grew to 1,593 blogs ranked in February 2009 BBR. Join us in welcoming This is SOHH.com as a new member of the Top 10.

Were any of you with us when we started this monthly ranking BBR with 75 Black blogs in Sep 2007. It has been a remarkable journey. It is likely we are missing some Black-owned & operated blogs our current list! If you see any that are missing ... please let me know in the COMMENTS section.

Here are some of the blog lists from the past four quarters:

• January 2009 - 1,550 Black blogs
• October 2008 - 1,440 Black blogs
• July 2008 - 1,269 Black blogs
• April 2008 - 1,045 Black blogs

Anyhow, with no further ado, here are the Top Ten Black Blogs for Feb 2009:

1. Pam Spaulding: Pam's House Blend (Authority: 1,241 / Rank: 1,257) - [Politics] Pam's blog continues to maintain a commanding lead as the top Black blog in the universe. Tags for this blog are race, politics, feminism, gay and lesbian. This blog was BBR #2 a year ago.


2. The Bossip: Bossip.com (Authority: 751 / Rank: 2,942) - [Entertainment] Bossip.com is the top-ranked gossip or entertainment blog on our list. We continue to wonder whether The Bossip is male or female? Tags for this blog are Music, Entertainment, gossip, R&B, Racism, Black, Hip-Hop, Harlem, Bet, African American, alicia keys, jay-z, Allen Iverson, russell simmons, p diddy, the superficial, spelman college, young jeezy, hot 97 and Mary J Blige. This blog was BBR #1 a year ago.


3. Ahsmi Rawlins: Nah Right (Authority: 738 / Rank: 3,042) - [Entertainment] Ashmi (a.k.a., ESKAY) has been blogging since May 2005. Both his name and job are based on phonetics, literally and figuratively. The name – eskay – is the phonetic spelling of “SK,” the tag he used as a graffiti writer years ago. Tags for this blog are news and music. This blog was BBR #6 a year ago.


4. Angel Laws: Concrete Loop (Authority: 634 / Rank: 3,762) - [Entertainment] Angel Laws is the young sister who who owns and operates this dynamic entertainment blog. Angel has other interests in life as demonstrated by her photo blog. Tags for this blog are Music, Pictures, gossip, R&B, Hollywood, Celebs, Exclusive, loop, concrete, gossip blog, concreteloop, black celebs, black gossip, celeb interviews and black hollywood. This blog was BBR #3 a year ago.


5. Oliver Willis: Oliver Willis (Authority: 600 / Rank: 4,061) - [Politics] Oliver has been blogging since April 2005. He is expanding his cyber-empire to YouTube as well. Tags for this blog are politicsmedianewscomedyhumor, progressive, politicsmedianewscomedyhumor, Journalism, News, Entertainment, Politics, Media, Liberal, pundit, Democrats and Movies. This blog was BBR #7 a year ago.


6. Felicia Palmer and Steven Samuel: This is SOHH.com (Authority: 592 / Rank: 4,118) - [Entertainment] I just learned about this blog last week. SOHH stands for Support Online Hip Hop. SOHH.com is a destination site for fans of hip hop music. The site was created in 1997 as a more cost-effective information alternative to a monthly print publication called 4Control Media, which launched two years earlier. SOHH.com, which is based in Jersey City, N.J., began as an online hip hop campaign to promote the musical genre on the Internet. Tags for this blog are HIP HOP, Rap, Magazine and Newspapers. This blog was not ranked a year ago.


7. Natasha Eubanks: Young, Black & Fabulous (Authority: 570 / Rank: 4,118) - [Entertainment] Natasha Eubanks started blogging four years ago out of her passion for celebrity gossip. This blog was BBR #8 a year ago.


8. Baratunde Thurston and Cheryl Contee: Jack and Jill Politics (Authority: 563 / Rank: 4,405) - [Politics] Baratunde and Cheryl make up the dynamic online team of Jack and Jill. This blog was BBR #13 a year ago.
   
   
9. # La Shawn Barber:
   

1. 10. Wayne Bennett: The Field Negro (Authority: 382 / Rank: 7,637) - [Social Commentary] The Los Angeles Times interview provided insights into Wayne last year. It is worth noting that this is the top-ranked Black blog running on Blogger.com platform. Tags for this blog are house negro, Politcs, Race, Racism, negroes, Economics, Law, Urban, Jamaica, Pan Africanism, Malcolm X, Crime, Sports, killadelphia and third world. This blog was BBR #17 a year ago.

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HONORABLE MENTION (11-25): AfroBella, Womanist Musings, Necole Bitchie, Raw Dawg Buffalo, Living Life Abundantly, Ill Doctrine, Angry Black Bitch, Sandra Rose, Crunk & Disorderly, Rod 2.0:Beta, The Black Snob, The Angry Black Woman, Stuff Fly People Like, SoulBounce.com and Electronic Village.

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This ranking is open to any blogger of African descent. We invite all progressive Black bloggers to consider applying for membership into The AfroSpear.

Black Blog Rankings lean heavily on the Technorati Authority and Rank score for each blog. The Technorati authority and rank numbers are shown in parenthesis. The authority figure includes a number of factors including the number of blogs that are linked to this blogger over the past six months. The rank number indicates how many blogs are between the one listed and The Huffington Post, which is the #1 overall blog in the universe.

We are adding links to the Word version of the Villager's Black Blog Rankings. Let me know if you want a copy of the Word version. In the meantime, I encourage you to share some link-love with this post so that your blog readers know about us!