We Are Respectable Negroes features Lady Zora, Chauncey DeVega and Gordon Gartrelle as cultural theorists with an attitude. Want to talk about race? I mean really talk? Well, pull up a chair. A recent poll asks readers, "How man of you use a 'white' voice for phone interviews?" (56% of respondents, in case you were wondering.) This blog goes after homophobia, racism, religion, frank conversations about unusual white people, politics, African-American history and culture, teaching, music, popular culture, and other commentary on the current state of our post-racial (not) country. Read it. I have no idea who these bloggers are, but they have settled on their plot to stay.
The second blog is Breaking Up With New York. Full disclosure: I know this blogger, and she reads me, but had no idea she was such a beautiful writer. Really. Urban Exile isn't an academic, and I wouldn't be surprised if, in the end, this blog became a platform for a book. There are only five posts right now, so you have time to get in on the ground floor.
Posts
1 comment:
Having just read the first post in the second blog you link, I have to say, I am somewhat concerned. The blogger says this:
My ethic in this blog will be to not use real names, and to modify unimportant details without ruining the story.
Well, if this really was a wrongful death settlement discussion involving the person liable for the death and a parent and sibling of the deceased, and there really was an interpreter there, and this really did happen recently, then regardless of changing numerous other "unimportant details", if one of the other people who was at the meeting stumbled onto the blog post, they would surely recognize themselves.
I consider it extremely problematic to publicly blog about conversations with third parties that those third parties would have reason to consider private, where--were those third parties to stumble upon and read the blog post--they would recognize that the post was about their conversation. I consider it completely insufficient to ensure only that someone not privy to the conversation would be unable to identify any of the parties.
It is true that I cannot know how much has been changed about this occurrence, and whether the other people who were there besides the blog author would recognize themselves in the post. But on its face, this particular post is quite troubling. The fact that it purports to have been a legal settlement discussion only adds to how troubling it is.
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