"Could you ever find the love that you would not place yourself above?" - 22-20s, Shoot Your Gun
We had a well stacked audience again. I hope we shut up more this year. Last year, we talked a lot. It was our first time on stage and we felt like we had a whole lot to say so there wasn't much room for questions or interaction. This year, we wanted to let people talk to us, talk with us, talk at us if need be. It worked. I still worry that I might have talked too much and that my college diversity programming leadership training kicked in and I tried to lead the discussion instead of letting the amazing Lynne D Johnson do her thing. If I was a blabbermouth, I apologize.
There's an unedited transcript by Liz Henry at badgerbag (Liz was awesome by the way on her panel today and I want the chance to talk to her more about tags, folksonomies and other "softly viral" tools that bloggers can use to become more accessible) and a wonderful write up by Kevin Lawver at ultranormal. I won't hold it against him that he likes the negrophile seemingly more than this old negro because he talks about feelings and when does a man ever really do that?
No one asked me about my "Shut up, Honky" shirt or Tiffany about her "I *heart* black people" baseball tee. I kind of wanted to have that conversation.
We did, however, talk a lot about language and audience and voice and the importance of identity online. Last year, I was on the fence about the importance of identity on the web. As I said today, I have privacy concerns. In the offline world, I'm a very private man and have struggled with what my verbosity online means for my personal & professional relationships in the "real" world. I've come to grips with that, though. I don't want a job that would be uncomfortable with the content of my blog. I'm willing and ready to defend or talk about things I've written about my family and friends on this blog and if i'm not, please read the blogger's disclaimer and cram to understand.
There were great questions about how knowing who my audience is might now change the way I write and about Black vernacular English. There was discussion of angry words and online beef and the differences in responsibility and protection between the citizen journalist and the media professional. Aaron Hawkins's name was invoked again and I was honored to be able to speak loudly and proudly about his voice, spirit and uppitiness in the presence of Dru and Irina Slutsky (who eulogized Aaron at Red Herring) .
I have to admit that when I met Dru yesterday, I was caught a little off guard. My connection to her, which has waned since his death, will forever be linked to him and a lot of "stuff" came rushing back. It has been a pleasure to be able to see her and get to know her more offline and to begin to build a new relationship that moves past Aaron.
Bonus: Dru has a great liveblog of the panel as well.
But anyway, I still have pretty much a whole week here in Austin but I've already started to think about some things differently. I want to do a lot more for web professionals of color. Blogher and it's power and presence has really inspired me. I want similar tools, resources and community for those who look like me but don't show up here or at eTech or CES or at barcamps or the other places where smart folks like us should be. Not only for the professional connections it affords us but simply because it is a good time, it is an opportunity to collaborate and learn and because I'm guessing, based on a lot of the conversations I've had this year, we afrofuturists/black geeks don't often get the chance to interact with like minded folks.
And we need more opportunities like tonight where we all can get together and dance to our favorite jams, laugh and be comfortable in our own skin.
And to have the opportunity to share with others who don't look like us, make and further those connections and have honest discussions about culture and technology.
We need more time to stop. collaborate. and listen.
Oh, and: I'm heavily in agreeance with Carolyn who notes that SXSW interactive is much more about the technology and the tools of the web than it is about the content. I hope our panel kept the focus on content. As a web professional who works almost exclusively on content and the delivery of such, I might get caught up in all the tools out there but what I really want to know is how people go about the process of making compelling blog and web words, pictures, videos and sound. Without that stuff, who cares?
You all did such a great job. I think next year, you should keynote. AND we should have more panels about content that include all identity groups and/but aren't identity group-specific. IN ADDITION TO panels that are identity group specific.
Thanks for a great panel. Thanks for talking about Aaron. Thanks, Jason. Just thanks. It's totally an honor to meet you.
Did you really just quote Vanilla Ice?
Really?
God I love you for that.
i am so awesomely inspired by what you guys did out there. living vicariously thru your blog, hoping to be there in the flesh next year and sit in while you preach the blog truth!
I just started reading Negro Please regularly 2 or 3 weeks ago. I had stumbled across it 1 or 2 times before but lost track of it. It's great to find another person who looks like me, has a similar world view as me and speaks about things that I'm interested time. For a long time it has felt like I was the only one Blogging While Black but now I know I'm not alone. I'll keep reading and who knows maybe I'll be able to get down to SXSW next year. I've been wanting to go for a long time and it would be great to attend a panel like yours.
I think the question we need to ask is do we all really need to look and sound alike? Are you any less black if you choose not to discuss politics or race all the time? Is it OK to just take a stand when and where you want to take a stand, and just be yourself the rest of the time? And if you're just a black woman commanding her way in a white world, is that world view enough to change the perspective of your blog? I think it is.
I've been blogging for a long time, but I've resisted joining most webrings or classifications. I'm Buddhist, but I don't want to join a Buddhist webring. I'm black, but I don't want that to define everything that I write. My writing is largely related to my business, which is graphics and writing knitting patterns. That's my hardcore audience and who I identify with, and they come from all walks of life. I speak to race when I feel like it. But I really don't want to talk race and politics every day, and that's just me. I dont think that makes me any less black. I think it makes me a knitting spinning black Buddhist who sometimes feels the need to say that the president is screwing up or that Pat Robertson needs a lobotomy.
Of course, when I do sometimes break out and talk race, people sometimes flip. But my regular readers DO get it, and they try to see where I'm coming from. I think that the black fiber artists appreciate that there are lots more of us out here. And the ones that are not often enjoy that my take is often very different from theirs.
Just my two cents. I do enjoy the ideas, and I'm going to read the transcripts. Maybe I need to be more plugged into one community or another. Or maybe I can just keep doing what I'm doing.
I've been reading your blog off and on for a while and continue to enjoy it. Thanks for writing about and representing at SXSW. I thought the festival was only about film. Now that I know better, I think I should check it out next year.
BTW... If you haven't read Zen Under the Skin at typepad, you're really missing out. Very thoughtful stuff. I love her blog.
Like 3D, i've been reading you off and on and have, in the last few weeks or so, become more regular. This is my first time hearing about SXSW and i'd definitely be interested in attending if it were held on the East Coast somewhere it the future. it sounds amazing.
So for those of us who were stuck in way-too-cold for this time of year LA working on finals and stuff, will you give us a run down of the survey results? I'm a data junkie/
I think it would be extremely useful to have a forum for people of color who use technology in these ways. There's a lot to be said.
hi, thank you so much for the panel and for being honest. i'm always trying to report well about race in america (having studies with prof. gissler at columbia on this topic) but i still make a lot of mistakes, so please make sure to tell me your opinion. we'll have an episode coming out (no idea when) of george kelly and lynne d. johnson from after the panel, so come by to see if it's there. thanks so much for your panel!
I usually don't fill out those little insta-survey cards but for this panel I had to, so I could note that it was, for the second year running, the liveliest and most interesting panel at South By.
It was an awesome and inspiring panel. I hope something greater for the geeky black community is able to develop out of this.
I've mentioned an idea of a coupla of other folks but I wanted to tell you as well. A feminist friend is creating a network of female experts in tons of discipline across the country. Her goal is to have journalists contact her so she can give them contacts for say an Economist in SF. I think it might also be great to create a database for people of color in tech realms so conference organizers can go to one central location. It will take away the "I don't know any black folks who X" argument.
And thanks for your comments after I stood up. I feel honored to have been followed by your comments.
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