Afrosphere

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Afrosphere/Afrospear is a play on the word Blogosphere which relates to all blogs and their interconnections within the African continent. The word Afrosphere has also been used to describe the African American blogosphere and has been reframed as Afrospear.

Contents

[edit] History

The genesis of the AfroSpear/afrosphere movement can in many ways be contributed to many bloggers, blogs and websites of African descent throughout the African Diaspora. Bloggers like AfroNetizen, African American Political Pundit, Jack and Jill Politics, Black Commentator Booker Rising, Prometheus 6, Mirror on America and Francis Holland had for many months expressed the need for inclusion of black bloggers into the majority blogosphere discussion on all issues impacting Americans. White bloggers in many ways refused to hear the outcry of black bloggers and even met in the middle of an historic black community of Harlem, N.Y. with former President Bill Clinton, to discuss politics.

Members of the white blogosphere coming into the Black community, and only inviting one Black person, (who was not able to attend for personal reasons) was considered by many Black bloggers an insult to Black bloggers and to Black communities.

The picture of all white bloggers in Harlem, with Bill Clinton talking politics, when black voters are a critical base of the Democratic Party insulted black bloggers from the conservative La Shawn Barber, the Moderate The Republic of T and the liberal Steve Gillard and The Culture Kitchen created early discussions for a chain of change in the Blogosphere.

Enter Black Internet Social and political activist Francis L. Holland, who wrote a groundbreaking post in MyDD: Blackosphere & Whitosphere: Silence is Never Golden on Feb 15, 2007 which provided additional emphasis for a coming together point for bloggers of African descent to further discuss issues of importance to the African diaspora in a collective manner. The "White-News" vs. the Blackosphere became to topic of conversation in the black blogger community. The term whitosphere made popular by Francis L. Holland is used even today.

Bloggers like The Field Negro, Jack and Jill Politics, African American Political Pundit, Asabagna, Aulelia, P6, Skeptical Brotha, Republic of T, BygBaby, Culture Kitchen, Angie, The Free Slave, and many other bloggers continued the discussions at the Republic of T's blog after his blog post "The Republic of T. Blogging While Brown, Part III" on March 30, 2007 with Black bloggers, Rikyrah, ecthompson, Electronic Viillage, Mark Bey, Dr. Lester Spence, Bronze Trinity and many other bloggers contributing to the discussion. Through further discussions on other Black blogger platforms such as The Free Slave the AfroSpear name was agreed upon.

The overall the origins of “AfroSpear” started from a discussion group of Black bloggers from around the world who had an interest in developing a community of African/Black progressive minded bloggers. The word AfroSpear came black blogger discussions regarding a name for a group of Black bloggers who did not want to limit their engagement to the continent of the United States, but also wanted to connect with bloggers from throughout the African Diaspora.

Seeing the need to water of the AfroSpear seed, and take it to the next level, a smaller ad-hoc black blogger group moved forward and began planning beyond the creation of a name and concepts into a baseline model of the AfroSpear. It developed into an idea to create a diasporic-wide think tank type blog comprising of 6 bloggers: 3 women and 3 men. The vision was that it would focus on discussing issues, exchanging ideas and creating strategies, with the objective of developing concrete and viable solutions to tackle the concerns relating to those of African descent worldwide.

The 6 who initially started the AfroSpear blog had developed a relationship by exchanging ideas and having discussions and respectful debates on each others blogs. They didn’t always agree, but what they had in common was their love for their community and a commitment to the progress of those of African descent, both near and far. They came from 4 different countries on 3 continents. They brought a variety of experiences, perspectives, ideas, beliefs and values in an effort to foster understanding, wisdom, knowledge and strength.

The Afrospear is a part of, connected to and add a collective voice to the variety of other Afrocentric/Black individuals, conglomerations and collectives out in the AfroSphere. To the best and the brightest for the progress of people of the African dispora. Original moderators and Contributors of the Afrospear included, Adrianne, Asabagna, Aulelia, BelizeBound, Field Negro and Kizzie.

Today the Afrospear and the Afrosphere of bloggers have worked on organizing The Jena 6, and Shaquanda Cotton and have helped spread word about the Jena6 while at the same time AfroSpear Members Mark Bey and Bronze Trinity organized the African American Bloggers Association and its Solutions Blog.

On August 02, 2007 the Afrosphere Bloggers Association was launched[1] as an organization to help the Black community to grow and prosper and became the first organisation to use the word in its company name.

In 2007 bloggers, and podcasters of the Afrosphere played a significant role in publicising and organising activism in response to the Jena Six[2]

PARTICIPATION IN THE 2008 DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL CONVENTION

On May 16, 2008, AfroSpear member Atty. Francis L. Holland broke the story of the Democratic National Convention's (DNC) virtually all-white state blog pool, where some 53 of 55 state blogs chosen to sit among the delegates on the floor of the Democratic National Convention were white, with only two Black or Latino blogs chosen. The DNC state blog corps story was first covered in the mainstream media by reporter Karen Brooks of the Dallas Morning News. Atty. Francis L. Holland and D. Yobachi Boswell, both coordinators of the Afrosphere Action Coalition issued a series of press releases and gave a series of interviews to the mainstream media on the issue, after which the story was covered in the Atlanta Journal Constitution, the Washington Post, USA Today, The Chicago Tribune, The San Francisco Chronicle, and Politico.

Partly as a result of these actions, as well as a generalized afrosphere campaign of e-mail contact with the DNC and intense media attention, six AfroSpear blogs and an additional three afrosphere blogs that had applied for credentials were credentialed to cover the 2008 Democratic National Convention (see " DemConvention.Com for complete list) as part of the Convention's "general pool" of blogs, but not as part of the state blog corps, which remains virtually all-white.

AfroSpear blogs admitted to cover the 2008 Democratic National Convention in the general pool were L.N. Rock's "African American Political Pundit"; Pam Spaulding's "PamsHouseBlend"; Shawn Williams' "Dallas South"; Gina McCauley's "What About our Daughters?"; Jill Tubman and Baratunde Thurston's "Jack and Jill Politics". Additional afrosphere blogs selected included "Culture Kitchen" and "Georgia Unfiltered". " DemConvention.Com

AFROSPHERE BLOGGERS' RECOGNITION AS A FORCE IN AMERICAN JOURNALISM

The Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism has taken notice of Black bloggers' presence at the 2008 Democratic National Convention as one of the significant trends 2008, citing Francis L. Holland's advocacy to see Black blogs credentialed for the convention. The State of the News Media: An Annual Report on American Journalism (2009) and "notable credentialed African American blogs" including: African American Political Pundit, Jack and Jill Politics, Pam’s House Blend and Dallas South.

CONTROVERSY

Since founding the American Journal of Color Arousal in May 2007, "controversial" African American blogger Francis L. Holland, Esq. and L.N. Rock of African American Political Pundit have been primary AfroSpear proponents of abandoning the words "race" and "racist" and "racial".

Atty. Holland points out that the Department of Energy Office of Science, Office of Biological and Environmental Research, Human Genome Program has declared that, in spite of historical belief in the concept, "race" simply does not exist as a matter of biological and genetic science, according to DNA experts who have mapped and analyzed the entire human DNA grid. [1] Therefore, any words whose meaning is premised on the existence of "race", such as "racial" and "racist" and "racism" are misnomers the underlying premise of which has been disproved by the Human Genome Program's modern and sophisticated scientific DNA inquiry.

To fill the linguistic gap left by the US Government announcement that "race" does not exist as a matter of science, Atty. Holland offers the term "skin color" as an alternative to "race"; "skin color-associated" as an alternative to "racial"; "color aroused" as an alternative to "racist"; and color-aroused ideation, emotion and behavior as an alternative to "racism". He urges that the existence of skin color is generally accepted, while the nonexistence of "race" has been conclusively proven. [2]

Atty. Holland further argues quite controversially, but in reliance on e.g. the publications of Harvard Medical School's Alvin F. Pouissant and documents published by the American Psychiatric Association, that what has been known as "racism" is actually a serious mental disorder, a potentially serious psychiatric disorder, in extreme cases. Is Extreme Racism a Mental Illness? Pub. Med. 2002 Resolution Against Racism and Racial Discrimination and Their Adverse Impacts on Mental Health POSITION STATEMENT

[edit] Tracking

Sites such as Afrigator, KenyaUnlimited, Muti and Global Voices Online track the interconnections between African bloggers through the use of RSS feeds.

[edit] References

  1. ^ http://bronzetrinity.efx2.com/view/98661/Announcing-the-Launch-of-the-Afrosphere-Bloggers-Association/
  2. ^ Afrosphere Bloggers Ask Media To Cover Jena Six Story « THE SOLUTIONS BLOG

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afrosphere"
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