Is YearlyKos a Disproportionately, Overwhelmingly and Indefensibly White Gathering?
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I watched the promotional video based on last year's gathering, and I saw six Black people among 1,500 participants.
Cross-posted at http://francislholland.blogspot.com/2007/02/is-yearlykos-and-overwhelmin... and MyDD.
Today, I came across a link to a publicity video for YearlyKos and I watched the entire video to confirm a suspicion: That YearlyKos is an overwhelmingly white gathering -disproportionately white considering the number of Blacks in the Democratic Party. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=
-1234580617661540850&q=Mark+Bowllan Watch the film for yourselves and tell me if my perceptions are in error.
Here's what I saw: Watching a thirty-nine minute video of "1,500" "progressive" Democratic Party bloggers at a hotel in Las Vegas, in all of the shots where the camera panned the crowds, the hallways, the hotel rooms, and speakers diases, I saw two Black women and four Black men among 1,500 people. If accurate, this would mean that YearlyKos was about .03% Black in a Democratic Party that has 20% elected and appointed Black delegates at the Democratic National Convention. What is it about DailyKos and Yearly Kos that makes it so white in a Party with so much Black participation?
During the video someone said, "The community has come together at Firedog Lake and they're really tight!" Maybe that's part of the problem.
Markos says in the video, "Look at this conference! It's the epitome of people power!" To me, a yearly meeting of 1,500 people that includes only 6 Black people is the epitome of white people power, and that's why I think it's so important to bring this to everyone's attention.
In a thirty-nine minute video, Darrell Jackson of Young Turks was the one and only Black person to speak about the conference and his role. No Black politicians were featured in the video. One Black speaker was shown on stage, but just for a moment less than would have been necessary to hear anything he said. In crowd shots, one lone Black man was shown two or three times.
Someone else said in the video, "Locked in convention hall with 1,500 bloggers," "I think DailyKos is going to have an influence . . .for years and years to come. It's where everybody comes . . .!" "We broke a record of squeezing more people into one room". If all of this is so, then YearlyKos is setting a dangerous precedent for color-based exclusiveness within the Democratic Party that may portend a new realignment of voting patterns among Blacks and Latinos in the future. I predict that if virtually all-white groups likes YearlyKos gain more prominence in the Party then Black people will vote less at the polls or vote against the candidates and issues supported by all-white groups.
Because, a Black person watching the YearlyKos publicity video would conclude, and I think rightly so, that this conference was for white people who were designing a new direction in which Black people and other minorities are undesireable, irrelevant and/or superfluous. It's hardly necessary to post a "Whites Only" sign, when the publicity video makes the complexion of the group as clear as a sign would. If a "picture is worth a thousand words", then a 39 minute video with only six Black people must be worth a whole hard drive of words - words saying "DailyKos is overwhelmingly a white conference for white people". http://francislholland.blogspot.com/2007
/02/httpfield-negro.html http://francislholland.blogspot.com/2007
/02/new-reparations-blog-no-whites-allow
ed.html http://francislholland.blogspot.com/2007
/02/blogger-color-blindness-does-not-exi
st.html
It should be obvious that any political organizing among bloggers and any political movement that results from the meeting will not include Black people. How could it, how should it, if virtually none of us have participated in the white people's call to action?
If you simply don't like Black people, you will never find a more comfortable atmosphere in America than the Yearly DailyKos conference. The percentage of Black people at DailyKos is less than the percentage of Black people in any state of the United States.
But then I wasn't at the conference and I'm only reporting what I saw on a 39 minute video. My intention here is to explore the truth - not to propagate fallacies. If what I am reporting is incorrect, I invite anyone who has better information to provide it.
At the end of the Conference video, one speaker asked,
"One more question! Do you want to do this next year?"
With respect to the near-total absence of Black people, I think that's a question that urgently demands to be answered. "Do you want to do this next year?" http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=
-1234580617661540850&q=Mark+Bowllan
Cross-posted at Culture Kitchen and MyDD.
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Probably...
...because YK is very gay-friendly, and that's a big turn-off for many blacks, including so-called 'Progressives'. Face it, if you force your own brothers and sisters into the down low, you're not going to be hanging out in an environment that is open and accepting of gays. Didn't we just have that blowup with Isaiah Washington, and whoever that ballplayer was, about how much they hate gays?
So yeah, Francis, see, we do broad-brush defamation as well as you do. Is there anything else? Or will I just see you at Yearly Kos?
BTW, that video was made by a friend of mine. No further comment.
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All Journalism
has this problem, even though journalism is supposedly so enlightened and leftist generally, so it's not just the blogosphere much less one corner of it that should concern those who rant over such mis-models.
Not that I think ranting will help, but at least that larger perspective is something to add to the script, if documenting the larger need for meaningful reform is really the cause at hand?
Maybe try Columbia Journalism Review and/or the Society of American Newspaper Editors to start, and books like this?
And there are reports such as "Unfettered Press: Minorities in Journalism" (I can save you the trouble of looking; blacks are about five percent, it says) and "http://www.namic.com/">NAMIC: Empowering Today's Multi-ethnic Diversity in Communications"
But then why stop with black journalists, either? What about professors and teachers of journalism, indeed all professors and teachers, period? They influence everything about our cultural identity one way or another, as does religion. What percentage of Catholics are bending black knees? Hmmm, that shouldn't be hard to Google either . . .
I have my own misrepresentation madness to rant about, being Southern and so backward and all. Here's a new think piece from Bob Moser of the Nation on that: