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Brad Winderbaum and Diahnna Baxter, creators of | |||
Colbert accepting his Webbie Award at the 12th Annual Webbies Awards.
1n 2008, Guardian.co.uk
The Guardian.co.uk, formerly known as Guardian Unlimited, is a British website owned by the Guardian Media Group. It contains nearly all of the content of the newspapers The Guardian (founded in 1821) and The Observer (founded in 1791, taking a liberal/social democratic line on most issues and it is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper). It is also one of the world's leading online newspapers, becoming the first UK newspaper to attract more than 25 million unique users in a month (October 2008). Their record breaking day of Traffic was 1.3 million unique users visiting the site and a total of 7.8 million pages were viewed in a single day. Guardian.co.uk is part of the Guardian Media Group of newspapers, radio stations, and new media including The Guardian daily newspaper, The Observer Sunday newspaper, and the Manchester Evening News. All the aforementioned are owned by The Scott Trust, a charitable foundation which aims to ensure the newspaper's editorial independence in perpetuity, maintaining its financial health to ensure it does not become vulnerable to takeover by for-profit media groups, and the serious compromise of editorial independence that this often brings. The Guardian.co.uk website won the Best Newspaper category in the 2005, 2006 and 2007 Webby Awards, beating the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal and Variety. In 2008 The 2008 British Press Awards took place and the Guardian.co.uk won best website.
Why did I bother to share all of this and tell you all of this when I know the average reader's attention span ends...right about here? Because with the help of their award-winning in depth research, sponsored by a charitable organizations, using comparisons, endless amount of staff and college-degree holding, thoroughly experienced writers and staff meetings... they had the time tested and proven wisdom to list the blog of Sharkfu, a Black Feminist, who owns the AngryBlackBitch blog, as one of 50 Most Powerful Blogs In the World in March 2008... on the same short list with the consistently #1 rated Huffington Post Blog. And Yet SharkFu's Blog is still overlooked here in the USA by Awards, Journalism and other Progressive Websites and Blogs refusing to link to her blog and mention her stories and articles in the USA and it pisses me off to no end!
"The progressive blogosphere is segregated," said McCauley [A Black Woman Writer and Blogger], whose What About Our Daughters blog was accepted to the Democratic National Convention'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.
The Awards for Websites and Blogs are becoming larger and larger and are enabling blog writers to not only have thousands of more people read their articles, but enabling blog writers to have the same respect at huge media events in order to ask the tough questions that mainstream media refuses to ask.
Furthermore, many of these blog awards have enabled talented writers to have so much traffic that they are able to dedicate more time to quality writing, research and investigative article. But there is a problem: those People of color who consistently speak about racism are not being considered for many different types of Blog and Journalism award categories.
I would like to float the idea of People of Color Blogs (and their allies) boycotting all 2009 Blog Awards. As many people who know about Rap can attest to, it is when many of the major rappers, and their friends and supporters, boycotted the Grammy's in 1989 that the Grammy's truly began to give them respect in the following years.
Article here: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1452234/20020211/salt_n_pepa.jhtml
What would be the demands made of such a Blog Awards boycott?
Simple...
1. Have more women of color (or at least more self identified people of color) on the decision panels on major Blog Awards,
2. Not simply using links to determine popularity but to also use.... gasp... examples of blog posts with unique insight (not the Euro-Centric "well written articles" methods which is racist and classist in itself)... and/or
3. At the very least to have more niche categories to include women and feminists. If the Olympics can include such Niche categories as a Trampoline contest (yes, it is real) than Blog Awards need more niche categories. As much as people dislike Blog Awards, they will continue to exist and continue to drive up traffic. Anyway, I thought I would float the idea.
In the comment section On the amazing article On the Feministing Blog Article Started by SharkFu, Ghostchild, left a comment saying “I don't check Feministing, Pandagon, and other A-list feminist sites...as much anymore. There's too much emphasis on media, body image, and reproductive/sex stuff and not nearly enough about colonialism, globalization and immigration.”
Maybe if we could get some of the major Blog Awards to make a separate category for Radical Feminists who are more focused on 'colonialism, globalization and immigration' than it wouldn't put Feminist's devoted to 'media, body image, and reproductive/sex' in direct competition with one another.
Maybe if we could get some of the major Blog Awards to make a separate category for Radical Feminists who are more focused on racism, colonialism, globalization and immigration than it wouldn't put Feminist's devoted to 'media, body image, and reproductive/sex' in direct competition with one another.
Womanist-Musings has already been listed as one of top 30 feminist blogs from a feminist conference and listed as an honorable mention on the top ten Black Blogs listed at Electric Village. SharkFu's Blog was listed as one of the top 50 most powerful blogs in the entire world (on the same short list with the Huffington Post) by the Guardian overseas, but is still passed over for awards here in the USA in much the same way that Black Soldiers found they were treated extremely well overseas in the 60's but when they came back to the USA they were treated as less than human and told not to even use the restrooms...that the White prisoners they brought back were permitted to use. That was one of the many catalysts to the Civil Rights movement. We need our own civil rights movement in the progressive blogosphere because the digital segregation and censorship is getting worse in the Feminist Movement and the entire Progressive movement and many people have spoken up to say, it is indeed done by many of the A-list Progressive sites and feminist sites, or even worse, not featured at A-list feminist sites because none of their owners want to admit that they are facilitating the problem.
I think all people of color, feminists, of all races and genders including LGBTQI and our allies will benefit if we take a united stand and all ask at the same time, with a boycott, that we link to on our blogs asking: "who gets to decide what is relevant and what isn't?"
If that is not an idea, what about Renee and SharkFu starting their own Awards for all Marginalized People..and have rotating judges each year so that the judges might be considered in alternating years? I think it would be immensely popular. I bet we could easily get some radical feminist musicians and artists involved too and create something that even reaches mainstream media interest.
As we approach the steady rise in government's dragging us against our will into warfare when mothers are no longer content to watch helplessly as their sons and daughters are sent to war, as we approach what some are calling an Economic Depression, it grows more critical each and every day that the issues that matter to the women, that matter to the poorest and most marginalized people are given an opportunity to be heard. It just might save us from us from a Depression or a Nuclear Holocaust.
Love for the people,
-T
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