I've been having some interesting conversations recently about identity, race, and blogging and other on-line activities. A lot was involved in these discussions...three underlying themes stood out that I'll try to summarize.
1) To what extent do I "mask" my race or other aspects of identity on-line?
I have written here about how and why I began this blog. In short (sorry to repeat myself): This started as an extension of my research and other grad program notes. It was to be a tool to help me organize my thoughts and vanquish my anxieties, to ease my journey through this last leg of my grad school journey.
I looked back at my first couple months of entries. It was not clear from these posts that I am African American. Or even that I am female, for that matter. Now, I did link early on to another web site. That site is kind of like an expanded, on-line resume, and somewhere on that site is a photo of me presenting a paper at a conference. And most people would (rightly) assume from looking at that photo that I am Black.
During my first month posting I linked to my department web site, to a streaming video that I appear in. Again, clearly Black. Also in that first month I had an entry called "The N-Word." But actually it was about developing the ability to say "No"--not the other n-word.
In all these cases, someone would have had to search other sites, or jump to conclusions based on limited clues, to know that I am African American.
In November, a brief outing as Black in an entry when I mentioned my experience registering to vote for the first time.
Then. In December I wrote in (perhaps agonizing and unneccessary detail) about my attempts to work the principles of Kwanzaa into my time with my daughters over winter break. And more recently I wrote a series of posts for Black History Month--Now fully out as Black.
So, what gives? Was I "hiding" from my identity in my early days of blogging?
I do not think so. Early on my ideas about what this was for and how I would use it were very limited. Plus, this was before my site meter days, so I assumed (likely, correctly) that the only people reading the blog were me, my mother, my advisor, and a handful of friends and grad school colleagues--all who already were very aware that I am Black. So--honestly, no, I don't think I was trying to "pass" for a white blogger.
Actually, I did not then see myself as a "blogger"--of any kind--at all.
2) Where do you draw the line between your private and public life?
If anything, when I first started posting to this blog I was still testing the limits of the fences that I was building around the allowable areas of my ready-for-blogtime life. Do I post pictures of my kids? Mention their names? Talk about conversations I have with my husband? With my graduate school friends? Do I post whole sections of drafts of my work? Whole reference lists?
In retrospect, though, I am now curious about the reactions of people who may not have known me who may have tuned in early then later "discovered" I am Black... Possibly it was not an issue at all. Perhaps they did not assume anything about my background to begin with. I dunno.
But this kind of boundary maintenance will likely be an on-going task, especailly as my primary purpose with this blog remains to have it be a tool for me to get stuff done.
I have had a couple of people ask me if I was "worried" that someone reading this might be put off by my talking about being Black, "Black topics," or whatever. Maybe some future potential employer, for example. I guess that never worried me--though now I do feel slight anxiety at the fact that it doesn't worry me. I guess I'd rather have someone be turned off by my blog discussions and decide ahead of time based on that not to interact with me (or hire me or whatever) than to have to deal with this kind of nonsense after the fact.
3) To what extent, if any, do I have an obligation to make my racial identity known?/To what extent do I have an obligation to blog from "the Black perspective"?
...Which brings me to the final theme. If I do not think I have ever used the anonymity of the web to "hide" from being Black, and further if I feel "being seen as Black" is not a burden, then do I have a duty for affirmative racial blogging?
Late in my Black History Month blogging experiment I reflected a little about this very topic. It was in the post that I linked to in that entry that I first heard the phrase "blogging while Black."
Interesting turn of phrase. And very clever on a number of levels. (Warning: deconstruction ahead.)
It is, I assume, a take on "driving while Black," which is itself a take on the criminal charge of "driving while intoxicated." In the case of DWB, the idea is to invoke an activity (driving) that, under normal circumstances, would be neutral...not criminal or suspect in any way, in and of itself. But when the person doing it is African American, then the activity becomes grounds for suspicion--merely by virtue of the race of the person doing it. So, the main issue in DWB is visibility: The highly visible nature of (some) persons of color may make it easy for law enforcement officials to stop them to (a) combat criminal activity using legitimate procedures, (b) oppress people and communities of color, (c) none of the above.
But in the case of blogging while Black the script, as they say, is flipped: the issue here is invisibility. LOTS of good discussion recently about such issues. A good place to start is the 2005 South by Southwest conference (http://2005.sxsw.com/) in one of the panel discussions . Also, see posts from the SXSW "community blog" about the panel, as well as this entry from one of the panelists, with various links about the panel.
These concerns mirror issues of (in)visibility of African Americans and other people of color (and others on the "margins") in higher education. In the blogoshere--as in, perhaps, the upper atmosphere of academia--there is a danger of African Americans being simultaneously not seen (due to all sorts of reasons, starting with low numbers) and being "suspect" when we are seen...
Interesting times. And definitely a blogworthy topic.
Posted by perry032 at March 24, 2005 08:30 AM | TrackBackI figured out you were a black woman when you started using the black female weather pixie. Maybe I should start using the Asian female, just to throw people off. I could act like Jim is a Korean name.
Anyway, it's a good point. Maybe the blogosphere is sort of egalitarian in that regard. I regularly read a number of blogs and I often have no idea what the writers look like, nor do I really care, when I might have felt differently about what they were writing if I could see them. I've gone to great pains (not really) to hide my face from the viewers of my blog. I'm sort of like Wilson on Home Improvement, where his face is always obscured by something. I think it adds to my mystique.
I used to frequent this political blog where I made a large number of very insightful and brilliant comments. I argued nonstop for about 2 years with another commenter whose screen-name was gender neutral. I figured this person was a scrawny little white guy, in his mid-twenties, who lived in his mom's basement and started petty arguments on political blogs. Over time, through our disagreements, we got to enjoy the ongoing debate with each other and I found out SHE was a white middle aged mother of four, living in the burbs. That totally changed my impression of the things she had been saying all along, and I realized that some of the things I wrote to her may have been worded differently had I known up front. Interesting topic.
Posted by: Jim at March 24, 2005 05:12 PMLOL, Jim! Given away by my Weather Pixie!
Posted by: Yvette at March 27, 2005 02:13 PMYvette,
Your post was wonderful and thoughtful, thanks. Can I give a shoutout to "my black friend"? I'm joking, but my friend Reggie is brilliant, funny, a polymath, and African American. I value his POV for many reasons, including his perspective as a black man on whatever issue is at hand. I only wish that he had more time to write/blog. I'm saying all this to note that I think he does a fantastic job of being himself, sometimes "out" black person and sometimes non-race identified person. I hold Reggie up as an example of a person and a writer who has somehow made peace (such that peace needs to be made) with these questions, which I, as a white-ish woman, still grapple.
Thanks again for your thoughtful post. Reggie can be found at two places if you'd like to take a peek:
http://dissentchannel.blogspot.com/
http://rdonkey04.blogspot.com/
Best of luck in your studies!
ae
Posted by: ae at April 10, 2005 09:54 AM