Is YearlyKos a Disproportionately, Overwhelmingly and Indefensibly White Gathering?

Wow, I had no idea of all these undercurrents - I mean, I expect there to BE undercurrents, always, but I didn't know what they were in this case. Thanks, Michael.

If you ever want to see real hostility, make an argument for equality to, say, the audience in a black church. There's a significant part of the black community - cf. Harold Ford's campaign - that's not socially Progressive at all.

...a timely variation on the "some of my best friends are [fill in the blank]".

Thing is, you're missing the point; I can imagine that lots of straight blacks feel put off by the pro-equality bias clearly extant on Kos, and gay blacks, needing to maintain deep cover or face the ostracism of their community (I've seen it, very vividly; certain black electeds still refuse to shake my hand), would stay away from the forum for fear of being tarred 'that way'. That's the logic of the closet, and seeing how ferociously it's enforced in large parts of the black community, I'd aver that this is certainly one reason for low rates of black participation. Go to any homeless shelter built specifically for gay teens (we have them in New York), or to our one gay high school, and you'll see the fruits of the black closet. The black community is literally killing its own. And don't even get me started on misogyny.

So yeah, in the face of that, I don't really wonder about low rates of black participation on DKos. It's a screaming shame, and needs to be remedied, but don't pretend that it's a 'whites are excluding us' phenomenon solely. I thik you're blinded by hatred of DKos and merely flinging mud with the hope that some of it will stick, Francis.

...but here's the issue: you posit that the racial complexion of DK/YK is the consequence of racial bias on the part of the leadership and/or user universe. I'm counter-theorizing that this stems from the negative self-selection that could arise from the ideological nature of the site. Your anecdote buttresses my theory, not yours.

I'd suggest it's time to widen your explanatory model to include my rather valid observations, namely that there are some reasons inherent in the black community for its under-representation at DKos. That would have the added charm of intellectual honesty.

I can say that generally Michael is on the other side of this debate, as was seen during the NY-11 Congressional Primary where race became quite and issue, quite to the shock and horror of many a white wealthy liberal. Michael and I were at the forefront (in different ways) of discussing the racial aspects and got attacked by many whites (Wallner included) for doing so and were thanked by many a black blogger even if they didn't completely agree with us. So consider that when judging Michael's comments.

For myself, I think there are huge problems with white liberals facing racial issues. Versions of what I wrote on the subject (expanded to be of relavence to people outside Brooklyn) can be found here and (the last also discussing what I call "angry white men".

dealing with race or whatever, Michael comes across in a far different manner than he has in this thread. And it's possible (as I mentioned) that, even here, he was attempting to make a point regarding across the board generalizations and so on, as opposed to stating his personal beliefs. If so, I don't think it was entirely successful. Still, that may be because all this "Blacks hate gays" stuff is one of my pet issues. Here's why.

I have a chatroom I've visited for years, mostly the same people all the time. One of the chatters was a White lesbian woman - over the years we'd talked about gay rights and their correlation to the various civil rights movements, equal rights for all, including the right to marry who you want to and have legal protections. She and her life partner owned a business together and neither was all that young, so there were those sorts of legal issues discussed and so on. Not an everyday conversation but one had often enough...

The day after the 2004 election, she came into the room and said to me, "So. I guess Blacks and gays are enemies now." Me (in shock)... "What do you mean?" It seems that in Texas (some) Black people came out to vote for a hate amendment on the ballot there, encouraged by extremely vile rhetoric in some of the Black churches, and I (a Californian) was the first Black person she'd encountered since the vote.

While I can, of course, understand the disappointment, fear and anger that rhetoric and a like that can cause, it absolutely astonished me how quickly I went from being "Nanette - Black, pro equal rights for gays, anti discrimination in all forms, individual person who's worked for years for gay (and other) rights" to being "Black people - who hates gays". Mission accomplished, by the right wing.

I feel that anytime that trope is put forth, it's a win for the right wing. Sure there are anti-gay Black people.. some have recently been in the news, and some of the ministers (any number of them bought and paid for by the Republicans) have spewed vile bigotry from their pulpits and on and on. Just like with any other group of people, there are views on all sides of the issue, but only one side gets the press.

Anyway, I could go on and on, but my main point that I wanted to leave in this post was that Black people are not anti-gay. There are, however, anti-gay Black people, just as there are anti-gay White people (and Asian, Latin@, etc., etc).

As for the daily kos thing, I don't believe it's a matter of being in the "in crowd" so much - it's more active hostility to what I would consider "liberal or progressive" issues, much more so when they are presented by people of color as affecting people of color.

I don't speak for Michael, merely wanted to point out that Michael usually has good reasons for saying what he says and he has been solidly on the side of better representation for blacks.

Occasionally I have experienced being viewed as a category rather than a person. I remember in Western Samoa, where I stayed for a few months, hanging around with a guy getting drunk on local beer. We talked for a long time. At one point he asked me what my religion was, which in Samoa really means what kind of Christian church do you belong to. I said I was Jewish. His look of utter shock and horror was astonishing. "You're JEWISH?" he yelled. Then he visibly calmed himself and replied, "I guess I don't know what that means." I went from being a guy to hang out with to a "Jew" in one second. More ominous things happened when my wife and I visited Latvia and Russia. Seemed everyone pegged us as Jewish and some were not friendly at all about it. Makes one jumpy.

Of course in American society (as opposed to as in Eastern Europe) I pass as simply mainstream white if I want to. That is not really an option when your skin contains lots of melanin.

Daily Kos does seem like a very strange place to me now. But I have met a lot of good political connections, learned plenty of good information and get some traffic to other blogs I write for when I post stuff there. So I keep going back from time to time. But I am seldom satisfied with the dynamics there. Then again, after being warmly welcomed to My Left Wing I gradually found I felt less at home there than at dKos. Can't really say why.

I really enjoyed your series on visiting Europe and finding the old synagogue and all that. I don't think I ever said, as I'm mostly a lurker.

Yes, it's disconcerting to suddenly become a category, especially in places and among people where you don't usually expect it. Thankfully your Samoan was able to recognize his own ignorance - and hopefully started to question whatever it was he had been told about Jews prior to actually meeting, laughing and having a good time with one.

I don't post at any of the larger and/or scoop based kos satellite sites much anymore - kos, mydd, bootrib, mlw, etc. I do read from time to time, much as I would any other news source, but I don't get involved in the sites. Most are too right wing for me

MLW, from my observation is personality driven, and thus lurches from drama to drama, with some excellent writing in between times, so unless one is into that sort of thing it's not likely to be a comfortable spot. I also don't think they realize what the ultimate result of the "say anything, free speech absolutist" policies are, as they relate to traditionally marginalized people.

That is actually the best description of MLW I have read and describes exactly why I lost interest. Well put!

And thanks regarding the Eastern Europe trip. Should write more travel oriented stuff. It's just been so long since I had the time and money to travel much that it all seems so distant.

While it's true from my experience that many blacks are indeed homophobic (as are many whites), the point of my arguments here was indeed to ridicule the broad generalizations and sweeping conclusions reached by Francis. The best way to do that, from my experience, is to make equally broad generalizations and sweeping conclusions based on incomplete data; in some cases, that actually does get through to people making such arguments, but Francis has proven remarkably resistant to anything that undercuts whatever his pet peeve of the day happens to be.

Such as, in this case, that if you don't support Hillary, you must be taking that position out of irrational hatred of black people and a decided Jim Crow mentality. Silly, but that's his argument.

I just did a search on DKos - here - for the n-word, and it turns up 14 examples over the last four weeks. Furing that timeframe, roughly one thousand diaries were posted there (assuming a daily average of somewhat more than 300).

From glancing at the diaries in question, most seem ***not*** to be racist.

So frankly, your claim that DKos is off-putting because of that isn't one that stands up in terms of the data. Sorry.

No, Francis, what I think is that you're on a vendetta of some sort, and hurling invective that has little basis in fact. It's a tired crusade that is making your name something of a by-word, one might add. And no, just to shatter that no-doubt well-polished illusion, the reputation you're acquiring is not that of a tireless fighter for all That Is Good And Right, but that of a tedious one-trick pony looking frantically for his very own Tawana Brawley in the most unlikely places.

As far as the n-word is concerned, from my experience, it is almost exclusively used by blacks themselves. Hint, hint. Have anything to say about that?

Regarding DKos, it's well-known (and a strategic challenge for those of us in it) that the Progressive movement needs more black involvement. But to claim that the site is affirmatively racist - as you post on every blog not wise enough to ban you immediately - is downright silly and offensive. Surely, your HillaryBottery has deeper reserves of intellectual heft than merely to claim that those not enthralled with the Senator are racist.

Or perhaps not.

"Only after we change that which seemed essential do we realize how natural the "new normal" really is and how inevitable it always was."

www.francislholland.blogspot.com
francislholland@yahoo.com

That Francis is on a vendetta. Nor would I agree that the points he brought up or the links he gave was grasping at straws. Neither Tawana Brawley nor the use of the N word by Blacks, or hip-hop or any of that should have any bearing on the conversation, actually.

Francis has certainly made few friends with the Hillary obsession, and has most definitely made a few enemies by bringing race up all the time on primarily white blogs. I haven't read all of his pieces (especially the ones at kos), but I know I'm not the only person of color that has been following - sometimes with amusement, sometimes wondering why in the world he bothers - his attempts to not only bring out the issues of race and what Stoller (of mydd) terms "The White Progressive Movement", but also his attempts to sort of bridge the gap. That's actually why I wound up clicking on this article when I surfed past here the other day, to see the reactions.

"The Progressive Movement", by the way, has plenty of Black (and other color) involvement. Has had for decades. Where there is a large gap is between the primarily White Democratic party operative/partisan blogs and progressives/liberals/activists of other colors, including party activists.

One, that there is a color gap - to coin a phrase - in the new Progressive movement that started after the 2000 coup, and two, that Francis is using some pretty out-there rhetoric to promote his preferred candidate.

Personally, I don't see what the one has to do with the other, either, but the simple fact is that he is using that color gap to advocate theories of racial animus in explaining why his candidate isn't getting any traction among the netroots. That's a profoundly dishonest argumentative claim, and will no doubt continue to receive a chilly reception at the netroots.

Frankly, I doubt if this kind of invective is really quite the way to advance black participation in the blogosphere.

on your other points, but first - I was wondering, in a related manner... what, exactly, do you mean when you refer to the "new progressive movement"?

What does this consist of, and what are its goals?

After the 2000 election/SCOTUS coup, we've seen a new generation of activists emerge, primarily web-based. Some would put the beginning of that movement earlier, to the establishment of MoveOn.org during impeachment in 1998. The biggest catalyst was election 2004, specifically the Howard Dean campaign, which spawned or grew Democracy for America, Daily Kos, and numerous local blogs and organizations. This happened in rough parallel to the emergence of the anti-war movement.

It's often been claimed, especially by the right (and by HillaryBots like Francis), that the Progressive movement is defined by an ultra-left ideology, but I find that to be false; to me, the defining characteristic is partisanship, of which the Democrats have had too little in the Bush era. That's the core reason why Democrats who on paper are perfectly acceptable - such as Lieberman or Rodham Clinton - are disdained by the netroots/grassroots; they're seen, and rightly so, as being too willing to compromise principle. We - if that's an appropriate use of the plural - seek to get Democrats elected who won't sell out their core values to a hostile media and to the conservative 'Washington Consensus'.

This is brief of necessity, but is hopefully helpful to your question.

Sadly, due to flu or maybe the plague, I was unable to get back to this conversation before whatever happened happened and now I find I have little taste for it.

I did want to acknowledge your reply though, as I did request it, and thank you for taking the time to answer.

I'll tell you one thing, Nanette. If there's anything I've learned over the last year, it's that diversity is NOT a goal of the New progressive movement. If it were, "new progressives" would be as excited as I am about the possibility of ending the 43-term white male monopoly of the presidency. New progressives are no more interested in ending the white male monopoly of the presidency than are the Republicans. If it weren't for the advocacy of Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and Bill Richardson, I could easily imagine the Republicans nominating and electing a non-white male president or vice president before the Democrats do.

For "new progressives", it wouldn't matter to many of them if the United States NEVER elected a president who isn't a white male. They would happily keep electing the "best white man for the job, regardless of his skin color or gender".

This teaches me that new progressivs are not my friends, and not even really consistent allies. We just happen to share strong feelings about some advocacy issues while disagreeing vehemently about others. We disagree fundamentally about how to pick a Democratic nominee, but we agree that we must elect a Democratic president (I think).

But it is not beyond the realm of imagination that some of these "new progressives" will vote Republican in 2008 or not vote at all, disregarding out opportunity to elect the first liberal Democratic woman president of the United States. Frankly, I find that utterly repulsive.

"Only after we change that which seemed essential do we realize how natural the "new normal" really is and how inevitable it always was."

www.francislholland.blogspot.com
francislholland@yahoo.com

...unless we march in lockstep with the establishment candidate, and vote for that candidate's gender rather than her agenda, we're bad people.

Good lord, move on already.

I think those who support Richardson and Obama aim for the "possibility of ending the 43-term white male monopoly of the presidency." Which means THREE out of the four main Dem. candidates would fit the bill of "ending the 43-term white male monopoly of the presidency." And one of the prime choices of the "new progressive movement" is Obama, not Hillary.

So I think your comment is highly misleading.

Only Hillary is. Heh.

Funny, she doesn't look...

As noted above in my diary, the "new progressive movement" is constantly taking Obama to task for his religious embrace of Christianity and religion in general. Since the general public strongly favors religious candidates and strongly distrusts atheists like Markos, Markos embrace of Obama is potentially as damaging to Obama as anything else that might occur.

Obama needs his Christianity to show that he is not a averse to the dominant religions of the United States.
Not bothering to concern himself with this, Markos constantly demands that Obama discuss religion less, even while the poll data shows that the PUBLIC wants to know the religious views of its candidates.

So, Markos is guided in this not by his political instincts but by his emotional atheism. I support Obama and Clinton in expressing their religion openly to an openly religious public, and I denounce Markos' counterproductive efforts to discourage the candidates from doing this.

Did you notice that both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were in CHURCHES this weekend, commemorating the civil rights struggle. That's because the civil rights struggle itself was a product of relgious people acting and organizing through their churches.

Markos would sever the Democratic Party from this current and thereby, albeit unintentionally, discredit our presidential candidates and force them into a position on religion from which they could not recover politically. I support the candidates in sharing their Christian views with the public, and I denounce Markos for discouraging them from doing so and trying to impose his militant atheism on the entire Democratic Party.

"Only after we change that which seemed essential do we realize how natural the "new normal" really is and how inevitable it always was."

www.francislholland.blogspot.com
francislholland@yahoo.com

... of these usages you cite, how many are intended to be offensive to blacks, and how many are made by blacks themselves.

Note that I'm not defending improper language, but I'm just not seeing what you are here. True enough, I haven't been looking for it; but it seems to me that the determining color on DKos is orange, not black or white. Unless someone affirmatvely tells you what race they belong to, how would one know?

Interestingly, there's a bill currently before the NYC City Council to ban the n-word in public. It's aimed expressly at the usage of the term by blacks (according to an interview with the sponsor I read some time ago). Me, personally, with two exceptions in the South, I've not heard it used by whites - ever.

to be offensive to Blacks? I don't know that any were directly intended... although, as I mentioned, with *some* - if complaints were voiced - there was no doubt left that there was little concern if anyone was offended or not. A more likely answer would be wailings about being persecuted by the "PC police". And "concern trolls".

While I certainly didn't track each of the hundreds of uses in the diaries or thousands of uses in the comments, the ones I did observe were very rarely used by Black people. I do recall one or two diaries by a person who was Black that actively encouraged White kos members to use the "N" word, and spell it out, loud and proud. This, mind you, after they were already doing so, but I believe the diarist was writing as a way of supporting the practice. As with anything, views vary, even among Black people.

Note that I'm not defending improper language, but I'm just not seeing what you are here. True enough, I haven't been looking for it; but it seems to me that the determining color on DKos is orange, not black or white. Unless someone affirmatvely tells you what race they belong to, how would one know?

It actually wasn't, at one point in time, anything one had to actually look for... it was just there. In fact, it used to be almost one sure way of getting on the recommended diary list (having that word in the title - as well as other "shock value" words), which is probably one reason so many used it.

Also, as for how would one know unless someone tells you what race they belong to, well that was sort of my point. Or one of them. Some (not all, possibly) people of color have found, over the years, that it's blogging on kos (and other sites) *as* people of color, and attempting to address issues that, while they relate to overall progressive or liberal issues, directly affect people in various marginalized communities that often brings out great hostility.

"Colorblind blogging", which some seem to feel or wish was the norm, only works, in some cases, because everyone just assumes everyone else is White.

I don't believe banning words does much good and, while I deplore the use of it among young Black people especially if they are not fully aware of or acknowledging the history about it, it's still a lot different from them saying it and a White person using it, as Francis mentioned above.

to hear the ex-pat POV. But I wonder then, having chosen it, why you don't focus on that culture and political screeds applicable there?

You could perhaps achieve prophet stature with scathing criticisms of the US made from beyond our borders. I understand it's quite popular!

Are these pictures of Brazil's presidents worth a thousand words in this conversation?

I think the argument that any country should vote for or against leaders based superficially on sex is intellectually bankrupt -- but if one insists on making it anyway, surely it's even more bankrupt to make it selectively . . .

What, you want consistency?

I notice two things. The Brazilian presidents lost their facial hair at one point. I think we need a return to traditional values of lots of facial hair!

Second, Emilio Medici (any relation???), one of the military dictators, looks a lot luke Bush senior. More than a coincidence???