Version 2.0

Culture, healing, politics and bullshit - Not necessarily in that order

The general, socio-political and very personal rantings and ravings of a hip hop head from the hood hustling for change... Of himself.

You all know me and are aware that I am unable to remain silent. At times to be silent is to lie. For silence can be interpreted as acquiescence.
—Miguel de Unamuno



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Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Whatever That Purpose May Be...

"I love the connections I've made through blogging, but at the same time I want to be respectful of this collective's purpose, whatever that may be. "

Zesty - In response to my post: "The Idea Is Still Maturing... Slowly"



I tell you what the purpose behind BrownBloggers is:

As a brown skinned man in America I gravitate to a lot of things. Because of my African heritage, I'm attracted to the kick of the drum and all that it has to offer. I love hip hop, even in it's current state. I love black literature and I consume it because it and things like African American art are pretty much ignored anyway and I feel like I get to have certain things to myself based on that. But as an artist, I feel for those that put great literary pieces of work together can can't get credit, accolades and compensation because either their work is 'too black' or is largely ignored. That hurts me.

As a multi-cultural kid of Latin heritage. I also recognize and respect the richness of my dual cultures. I also respect the fact that my ancestors came to this place from many places via Mother Africa. I may not believe in or have the faith based system that my African American mother or Puerto Rican father has but I have been raised to have an open mind, the willingness to learn and respect for what was taught to me. I attended Catholic school and was baptized as such at an early age. I also converted to Protestantism as a teenager and then Islam as an adult while serving in the military. After all that I have seen, I never felt the need to trash another person's culture or belief system because it is different or unfamiliar. Instead I choose to embrace all of it as my own. It made me... Me.

I've dated out of my race and out of my country. No, I never dated a white girl, but I have dated women of Japanese, Korean, Chilean and Indian heritage. I also courted a Nigerian woman and tried to marry a sister from that island just off the coast of Florida.

What I'm saying is, I got a chance to travel and live abroad and meet people, and I'm nowhere finished from doing and experiencing that. As much as I travel and experience stuff, no one group of people has is as bad as my family here in the states. It seems that society has everything for everyone, but access to my people's thang is damn near impossible. Yes, there are some that have the loot to market and advertise and some of us that have done good in and out of the hood, but it is not enough. So when I'm seeing folks on the internet coming together from all over the place in the attempt to share something good and having commonality, that gets me excited.

So I wanna do my part to organize and continue in that tradition.

There is no intention of excluding anyone from BrownBloggers. Just like BlackPlanet, Black Voices, Black America Web and other sites of the ilk, whomever wants to participate regardless of background or color can and will and I hope the same for BrownBloggers. There is a focus, to bring together brown-skinned bloggers of many backgrounds and use that commonality, the love of art, history, family, the spirit, education, health and such to enhance the online experience of the user whatever their culture may be. There ain't no crime in that, well at least I hope not.

I also recognize that in cyberspace there is a digital divide. The balance between the sensational and sensible needs to be rescaled. Emphasis on the superficial when it comes to brown-skinned people America seems to outweigh that of what some consider sensible, and I want to do what I can to get my weight up on the other side of the scale. There is unevenness, so if I can create anything to bring folk together to have uplifting conversation geared towards building my community I will do so. This is what BrownBloggers is to be. A place for folks that look like me to come and congregate and fellowship with each other to reach a common goal, enhancing each other's cyber experience thru infoshare... And I plan on monthly blogger meet and greets so we can put faces to the words typed and get to the bottom of the myriad of problems that seem to keep us apart and hold us back, whatever that may be.

Fortunately, I am 3 brown skinned cultures deep in heritage. I am American of African heritage, I am an islander from the Caribbean and I am also from a small country in South America. There are many more of my kinfolk with brown or brownish type skin that need a forum, a meeting place, an ujima.

I feel it's time for me to get off my ass and do something about it. I'll take the ridicule and the questioning, but I'll also sleep better at night knowing that I can finally go someplace on the world wide web where folks who look like me and can fellowship without the bullshit.

8 comments:

DivineLavender said...

is there space for all of us?

Anonymous said...

I agree fully....excellent purpose!

The Brown Blogger said...

Sister Divine, there is always space available for everyone, epsecially you.

You too Yaz.

Luke Cage said...

I hear you talking Hassan. Because of some hardwired programming and upbringing we oftentimes don't give someone the chance to really properly represent themselves or sometimes go at face value what we hear.

We go to blogs, we read, we connect, we agree, we disagree, we agree to disagree and then we make various assumptions on their personalities based on experiences that they've been in, or "sometimey" appearances.

The judging of the cover of the book instead of the content mentality kicks in here.

Even assumptions based on what the eyes and ears cannot see, but what we can read on the web, which is of course, the exposure of dialect. But now, with the power of the internet, it does bring us a whole new world; human interaction on many different levels without the distraction of skin color, or size, or intelligence, etc.

We get to know folks, they get to know us and before long, alliances are made. That's the way these things happen. Maybe 1 day, the Internet will grow into the Utopia that it strives to be. Until then, one great idea after the next. For now, Blogger meetups. Long overdue man.

Gallis said...

Ok cool. I just didn't want to make any assumptions.

This is exciting!

Let me know what you need help with.

Anonymous said...

Congratulations on your new site. I am full-blooded Black American, but I was raised to have a Pan-African/ Afrocentric view of the world. Its good to hear about folk who believe the same way.

I will be over to look at your site soon. Mazel Tov! LOL

Lola Gets said...

Sounds interesting. Ill keep an eye out for it in the future!
L

Liz Dwyer said...

I really like this idea. Good for you (and for all of us) that you've thought of this.