BlackPerspective.net

[There were technical difficulties with the original post going to an error page when you try to comment, so here it is again]

With yet another blogger list that disrespects bloggers of color, where white is the default for anything good; I’ve decided to get into the fray of blogger recognition.

Villager has come up with the anecdote for Black bloggers being consistently left off of Best blog list, and being highly underrepresented on the blogs sites of popular netroots sites like MYDD and Daily Kos - DO OUR OWN.

For several months now he’s conducted Villager’s Best Black Blog Rankings monthly, based on Technorati Authority and Rank

Open Entrance recently did a Top Black Bloggers List, based solely on traffic

I want to create a list that takes in popularity, influence authority, and subjective quality criteria. To that end I’m holding a contest to create BlackPerspective.net’s Best Black Blogs List.

The process will go as follows:

1. We will take the top 50 blogs from Villager’s most influential list that’s based on Technorati Authority

2. From those 50 we will have a popular vote, and we will take the top 20 vote getters as finalist.

3. From that list of 20, we will personally examine all 20 blogs to determine a top 10 list, and the other 10 will be awarded Honorable Mention.

The criteria for examination are as follows with number 1 being the criteria to carry the most weight and descending in importance from there:

1. The veracity of the content of the blog; including use of multimedia
2. The creativeness and uniqueness of the perspective or twist on the information provided
3. How well written the content is
4. The diversity of content
5. The balance of informative versus entertainment or engagement value
6. The readability of the text area
7. The presentation via the layout

This will provide for a more comprehensive Black Blog list. It will go beyond the often use popular vote; which tells you more about which blogs have more mass appeal and less substantive material, more than it tells you the quality of the blog.

BlackPerspective.net’s Best Black Blogs List will start with its basis being the influence level of the blogs then taking the popularity pulse of those blogs, and yet finish with a human taking stock of the actual quality of the blogs based on some criteria.

This provides a more balanced level of objectivity with a level of critical judgment; rather than just going by raw numbers.

We’ll run this contest either bi-annually or quarterly, I haven’t decided yet.

The post to start your voting with the list of candidates will go up soon, so stay tuned.

This post experienced technical difficulties. Please see the repost here:

www.blackperspective.net/index.php/blackperspectivenet-best-black-blogs-contest/#comment-2548

I received the award from Villager at Electronic Village

The rules state that after receiving the Excellent Blog Award, you must pass it on to 10 more excellent bloggers.[though I personally, I certianly hold no one to it] Here are the ten bloggers that I would like to share this award with today:

The Field Negroe Gives biting political and social commentary. He’s also a lawyer from Philly, so they had him on NPR a head of the primary. I just happened to be listening driving home from work, and didn’t know he would be on, so it was a pleasant surprise. He’s a good political analyst.

Hicktown Press -
Lynn and company cover social issues and news from a conservative Black perspective. . Yeah yeah, I know what some of you are thinking; but she’s good; she was with us on the Jena 6, and I’m pretty sure she’s backing Barack Obama. All Black folks ain’t MoveOn.org liberals.

Her specialty though is providing a spiritual beat down, I mean, shining a light on corrupt preachers across the country.

Cooper’s Unforgivable Hell On Earth chronicling the happenings in Darfur and developin world inaction in regards to it.

Also Wonderland Or Not wonderlandornot.net/ has her insights on political happenings and quirky musings about whatever. I can’t tell you what that blogs about, because I’m not sure if she knows what it’s about :p - But it’s always interesting.

Black Women Vote - Eloquent articulator and blog activist for the Black women’s perspective. Ummm, don’t get on SheCodes bad side. No, really, don’t!

Sojourner’s Place - is an emerging blogger in the Afrosphere providing social commentary and thought in the spirit of Sojourner Truth.

Invisible Woman…..Black Cinema At LARGE - Black movie news with some thought, and without all the ultra-gossipy buffoonery.

Black In Business - Business less from an exec and entrepuernuer with applicable lessons from political happenings.

TelevisionTraci - Cultural, Entertainment and News headlines, update usually multiple time a day. Hey, it’s worth going by their just to See Traci busting out of in that bikini top. Yeah, I said it.

Vanessa Unpluged: well you get Vanessa unplugged, giving you strong opinion on various issues

…well, final at least for now anyway.

The Black Women Bloggers campaign, that was joined by myself and other fellows, has declared a position of satisfaction in that the NAACP and Al Sharpton have refrained from using their advocacy powers to try and set the alleged Dunbar rapist free; particularly with NAACP Florida State President Nweze going to prosecutors to enquire about capturing the other suspects.

West Palm Beach Chapter President Maude Ford Lee still has never retracted her statement that keeping brutal rapist locked up is “unconscionable”. Nonetheless, she was rained in by superiors in the organization, and has ceased and desisted from active rapist advocacy.

Shecodes of the Black Women Vote! blog and Villager of Electronic Village appeared on NPR last week to discuss the issue amongst a couple of other things. Listen here

The success of this campaign highlights again how determine activism can win over naysayers skepticism.

Twice this week people have tried to discourage my activism.

They can’t discourage me though, because I’m not smart enough to stop. If I were smart, I’d just focus on making more money for myself and getting out of debt; rather then spending so much time an energy trying to help others and trying to help make the world a better place. Yet, the moment I try to pull away, I’m drawn back to it. If my own self-interests haven’t discouraged me all these years, neither will the naysayers.

Naysayers never do anything; they just sit around talking about what can’t be done. And while they’re talking about what can’t be done, somebody else is out there doing it. I want to be counted in that number with the somebody elses.

Naysayers told Alan Bean in February of 2007 that he couldn’t do anything for six black boys charged with attempted murder in a small Louisiana town. Guess who’s getting the last laugh on that one?

Jena Six Resistance: An Example of How Determined Activism Can Make A Real Difference

Don’t get me wrong, criticism can be good, and is often needed. But naysayers always criticize without offering alternative solutions. They criticise to keep you from striving; not ot help. They criticize to boost themselves up.

Being a critic is fine, again, if we don’t criticize bad practices then they’ll just go on; but be a helpful critic, not just an empty naysayer.

The Philadelphia Tribune profiles the rise of Black internet based activism in it’s April addition. A number of BlackPerspective.net blog partners are quoted or mentioned in the piece.

Here are a couple of favorite highlights:

“While most blogs are created for leisure, and better reflect an online dairy, a group of bloggers know as the Afrosphere is dedicating its efforts to the progress of African Americans.”

It goes on a little while latter to say:

“This network has used it’s heft to rally around social causes and draw the nations attention to overlooked injustices, such as in the town of the once little-known Jena.

Though many have vied for credit, the organization of the mammoth descent in Jena was the property of Black bloggers, wrote Rachael Christie of the American Journalism Review in the first assessment of the media’s response to the story. For months after the fight of the Jena High School students now as the Jena Six, the media and traditional civil rights organizations were silent.”

Shaw of the Dallas South Blog also got in a mention and description of the AfroSpear.

I told you all previously about the American Journalism Review story by Rachael Christie that is quoted in this story, as I was interviewed for and in quoted in it.

You can read the article at this Phili Tribune site It’s on pages 18 through 24.

To add to the comment of the Jena 6 turnout being “the property of Black bloggers”; I was talking to Alan Bean last night, who was the first civil rights activist on the ground in Jena (January of ’07) and is the single most responsible person for what later came as he’s the one who got the story out of Jena to the rest of us. Anyhow, he noted how the issue became a “Black blog phenomenon” and how it didn’t resonate even with white progressive bloggers even after Howard Witt of the Chicago Tribune started reporting on it.

Speaking of Howard Witt, congratulations are in order for his Pulitzer Prize nomination for his reporting in breaking the Jena 6 story nationally; though he didn’t win.

For more on the rise of Black blog activism power, you might want to read my

[Edited to add: This was Faxed to Chairman Dean, House Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid; before I posted it.]

Open Letter to Chairman Dean and the DNC

On Tuesday March 25, the Afrosphere Action Coalition and the Committee To Unite The Democratic Party embarked on a day of Blogging for Voter Justice, encouraging those who don’t want to see John McCain as our next president to sign our petition (www.petitiononline.com/ACUDP2/petition.html) and to let the Democratic National Committee know how they feel about this divisive campaign that is raging on despite the fact that the will of the majority of Democratic voters has been decided.

Three of our representatives have contacted the DNC for a response as to why they are letting this self-destructive catastrophe continue unabated; leaving phone messages for Chairman Dean and Communications Director Karen Finney. Likewise, any numbers of emails have been sent and have not been responded to; so we’ll speak to you via this letter and ask that Democratic Party leaders take decisive action and bring to a close this temper tantrum by Senator Clinton.

Please do not tell us that you are neutral and that you can do nothing. This is simply not true. Chairman Dean gets to appoint the credential committee. He can choose to appoint people that will unfairly seat the Florida and Michigan delegates, or appoint a committee that will stick to the DNC’s own rules, which Hillary agreed to. All of the superdelegates can come together and make a decision now that would render one campaign or the other pointless. Certainly Democrats cannot choose to wrench the nomination away from the popular vote winner; but if that’s what you will do, do it now and get it over with one way or the other.

Operation Chaos, as you must know, is an organized effort by the republicans to flood the democratic primaries with votes for Hillary Clinton to keep the Democratic slugfest going so that the apparent eventual winner, Barack Obama, will be so damaged by Hillary’s tactics that they then can finish him off in the fall.

These Operation Chaos voters are not the republicans switching over because they actually want to vote for a democrat in November, but are people intentionally trying to rig the nomination process, and will reregister as republican and vote for McCain in the fall.

All of the DNC members are superdelegates, so in the end they will cast a vote, therefore by definition they are not neutral when it comes down to it. They will each have to make a decision. They should make it now, and actually bother to lead their party, rather than just being head administrators.

You’re allowing Rush Limbaugh and republican crusaders to determine the outcome of the Democratic nomination process, while the bunch of you sit and twiddle your thumbs. Limbaugh is showing leadership within YOUR party, and you’re doing nothing! Operation Chaos proves that Senator Clinton’s vote totals are not representative of sincere votes; but are significantly enhanced by those looking to weaken the Democratic Party candidate, as to pounce on said candidate in the fall.

What the hell is the point of the Superdelegates, if not for this?

Barack Obama is an acceptable candidate both platform wise and elect-ability wise; he’s already secured the vote of the people (those who would actually vote democrat in November) and this continued underhanded, “kitchen sink”, “Tonya Harding Option” campaign does nothing but bloody the eventual nominee, and makes it increasingly likely, week by week, that McCain will be the next president of these United States.

Hillary Clinton is now even threatening the entire Democratic Party to a convention floor fight if they don’t give her, her way visa via Florida and Michigan delegates; she’s sent out her big money stooges to threaten Nancy Pelosi and the entire Democratic Caucus in congress; and has embarked on a campaign of intimidation of superdelegates such as sending out surrogate James Carville to send a shot across any wavering party officials bow with the “Judas” comments regarding Governor Richardson.

Chairman Dean, DNC Members, Congressional Party Leaders and other Superdelegates; when are you going to actually LEAD! What are you for if you’re just going to stand idly by as your party is ripped apart for a nomination that has already been decided anyway?

Are you that scared of the Clinton’s? Are Democrats really as spineless as their growing reputation? Is the party that in love with their former standard bearers that they can’t move on from the Clinton’s for the sake of the party; even if the Clinton’s are willing to destroy the party for their own personal ambition?

Chairman Dean and DNC, we urge you to act now! Hillary Clinton Must Concede or you all must put down her personal rebellion by coming together as superdelegates for the candidate who has already won.

D. Yobachi Boswell
Afrosphere Action Coalition, Lead Coordinator
lionrunner777@yahoo.com
www.blackperspective.net/

This post had technical difficulties, so you can go see the new post here

This is actually more than two weeks past due; but with all the important happenings going on that I needed to write about; I haven’t had time to squeeze it in.

On February 26, 2007 I made my first post to BlackPerspective.net, and started on a year long journey, that in most ways was more than I could have ever imagine would have transpired in such a short period of time.

I entered the scene to find a more robust Afrocentric minded Black blogging community than I expected. I wasn’t exactly a rookie to internet ideal exchange as a veteran of years of message board wars at various places, and a periodic reader of blogs. Yet, as it just so happened, as I was starting my blog, a group called the Afrospear was simultaneously forming.

For the first few months I didn’t post that much. I guess I was a little disappointed at the lack of response. I didn’t want to keep posting if nobody was reading. I’ve come to realize you need to post regularly to get people started reading and to keep them coming back.

In May I only had 3 post, and in June only 2. In July I caught a spark for some reason and started posting about every 3 days. By the last week of that month the Jena 6 came on my radar screen and everything changed.

I was lucky to have come across Villager’s Blog pretty earlier on. He introduced me to both the Jena 6 and the Afrospear. Outraged by the Jena 6 story, and for some reason feeling empowered and thinking I could do something to raise awareness (this is one of those times when foolish ignorance makes you think yes I can, when conventional analysis would have found it laughable); I endeavored to use my little blog to try to help. It was probably the feeling that I wasn’t just one voice but a part of a movement of others, so I guess I recognized the potential of collective power.

We pulled off the Day Of Blogging for Justice with dozens of participants, and everything took off from their. In the January 8th interview with me that Vanessa Byers conducted, I told her in regards to this that:

I was relatively new on the scene when I proposed putting it on, yet many other bloggers, some who were already well established, such as yourself; jumped on board with me right away. PurpleZoe at the UltraViolet Underground immediately offered to help write the press release and Francis Holland of the Francis L. Holland Blog gave me some good advice on framing the campaign.

It was my first time doing a campaign like that, and I really didn’t know what I was doing, but it went off like gang busters and served as a model for future campaigns that I’ve run and even others have run.

The trajectory of my blogging activity changed do the success of this campaign from the first days, along with other campaigns like seeing bloggers defeating BET. My primary mission remains the same, to provide analysis and commentary towards building a dialogue to elevate the Black body politic and even shift the Black political paradigm. But I’ve add to that. Being that mainstream media has always ignored our issues, and seeing that even major Black media is neglectful of things that corporate America might not like; I realized it my duty to be informative about news, events, and injustice happening right now. I still refuse to just be a news headlines site, commentary and analysis is remains primary; but it’s expanded to having some news headlines just to inform, action alerts to call people to battle, and outright activism through the blog. Though I was already an activist in the actual world, I don’t think I set out planning to use my blog to effect activism through the virtual world, I initially intended just to effect thought.

Anyway, I thank all of you who’ve gone on this ride with me the last 12 months as I’d amassed approximately 350 posts by February 25th of this year. I truly appreciate those who keep coming back, and especially those who tend to comment. I hope to keep having these discussions with you.

I will have a second part to the anniversary celebration next week, including something special for my readers.

Edited to add: I just wish you guys would pay me attention about warrentless spying and corporate amnesty. Watch the debate live in the House of Representatives about the FISA Amendment that will be voted on today: www.c-span.org/watch/cs_cspan_wm.asp?Cat=TV&Code=CS

Well for one, I was back on NPR’s News and Notes today.

I’m miffed because I asked the engineer if he could hear me from the position I was sitting and distance from the mic, and he told “yeah”. I thought it was obvious that I meant could he hear me well. I clearly don’t come across as loud and my voice as full as the other participants. Had I known I need to be closer, I would have. Different mics are different, and different sound systems intake audio differently; but whatever, you live and you learn.

I’m also annoyed that we didn’t talk about the FISA warrentless wiretapping as I was told that we would. That was the main thing I wanted to talk about.

You can hear the conversation by following this link: www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=19199472

We talked about the fake Barack Plagiarism controversy (waste of time in my opinion), Michelle’s statement about being proud for the first time in her adult life, the impact of Black Blogs (I got in an Afrospear shout out) and the 25th anniversary album for Thriller.

Also

In an article that came out early in the month By Raquel Christie, The American Journalism Review interviewed and quoted, among others, a number of Black Bloggers, all who are members of the Afrospear.

Double Whammy
How the Media Missed the Jena Story - Twice

I think her title and subtitle are to intimate that the media missed the story initially by not covering it, then by not getting it right when they did.

Funny, I believe she still didn’t get it right for a number of reason, that I will not go into now; but maybe I’ll do a review of it at some point.

What annoys me personally is that she interviewed me for 45 minutes, then did not use one word of the interview in the piece. Even right before the piece ran, one of the editors was doing fact checking and called me to confirm quotes, then only quoted me visa via the press release I and Zoe of the UltraViolet Underground wrote, that I quoted for a post.

So she quoted me, quoting me. I’m glad that portion of the press release was actually a part of it that I wrote, and that I wrote alone. Would have been kind of messed up if I’d gotten credit for what Zoe wrote or something.

Thanks for running up my cell phone bill for nothing!

Damn right I’m complaining, this is all valid stuff to complain about.