Posting here during the middle of my Black History Month blogathon, I reflected about using this blogging medium to reflect on my own history and place in African American history, while grounding all this firmly in my consideration of "place." Today, now that my formal BHM posting session is almost over (note, I say formal because for me BHM is all year long), I have further reflections about the nature of blogging and "citizenry":
Yesterday's post on the adoption of African American children was a little different from my previous BHM posts, in part because it touched on a very "now" controversial issue. As such, I realize: With that post I was not merely brainstorming, informing, resource-sharing, or reflecting. Instead, something I said (or could have said, but chose not to...or did originally say, but edited out...or might have been able to say, had I been more articulate...) may have the potential to move people to action.
This is not a role I chose for this forum. My primary purpose in writing this blog remains the same: It is a way for me to do what I have always done--personal and academic journaling--in a new platform. But I have to realize that now more people than just my Mom and a few friends drop by this blog from time to time. Thus, a "call to action" is one of the things that some folks might take away from their time having my site rendered on their web browser.
This realization entails for me some considerations, considerations of "blog citizenship" that go beyond common courtesies regarding linking and responding to comments and trying to spell words correctly and being as factual as possible. I do not have all the answers about exactly what these further considerations are. (Though, I guess I could start with something akin to "First, do no harm.") I only know that the possibilities for influencing action--however mildly--are present with this forum. And with that potential for influence comes some ethical standards for "blogging practice."
Beyond "considerations" and "standards" is something else: "duties." In this post writer and blogger Christopher Rabb is emphatic about the responsibility to blog in order to better society:
"We must blog while Black. It is not a fad or a luxury; it is our civic responsibility to do so. ...Where the success of all previous grassroots movements has been measured by feet on the ground, the power and effectiveness of blog activism for Black folk and other dispossessed communities will be measured by hands on the keyboard."
How fascinating to think that 20 years from now one Black History story will tell of a mass movement sparked by the blog. How wonderful to think that the next changewaves of graduate education, like those currently flowing through journalism and politics, will arrive through the blogosphere.
How typical for me to have stumbled right smack dab in the middle of it all.