This entry relates to an experience I had a few days ago in the workplace. I was so excited about my site's redesign that while it was still in draft form, I showed it to some of my coworkers. Many liked the new look but I was also told that it may be antithetical to the intellectual disposition of the blog. A hearty discussion ensued and low and behold, when one of my colleagues stated that she does read my blog, another coworker (jokingly) insinuated that she was trying to be a wigger(or is that wigga....who can tell nowadays). If you couldn't tell, this was a ABC conversation involving White folks. I wish my Black behind could have C(seen) my way out of it. This leads me to the heart of this entry....to be accurate, the blog is for everyone. Of course, the blog is called Afronerd but why is it assumed in jest(or not) that you have to be Black to read it? To be even more accurate a wigga would probably read King magazine and not Afronerd.
Again, going back to my "lack of a diversified Black image" complaint, this is what happens when the nigga(or wigga) aesthetic encompasses anything that is Black. I have said this many times in this blog-just as Whites are diverse so are people of color. There are a number of known White archetypes-the Midwestern farmer, the California Surfer dude, the Brooklyn Italian foreman, the Jewish New Yorker and so forth. But Black is just Black? We Have Black Brits, Caribbeans, Black Conservatives, straights, gays, southerners, northerners, various skin tone strata, educational levels, Afro-Latins, Africans.....I can go ad infinitum. The one thing we have in common is probably the difficulty in hailing a cab in midtown NYC. Again, I implore all to read my blog as well as any number of blogs by minority writers. You might just learn something....that we're all not the same.
No comments:
Post a Comment