Let me preface this post by stating that I love my black community. But most of all, I love hearing positive stories about the accomplishments of black people. I’m not a racist. I simply find pleasure in success stories given our troubled and difficult history. For example, I think its quite an accomplishment for Venus and Serena to dominate in tennis. They aren’t your typical athlete. They trained from a very young age and despite their poverty, lack of resources regarding tennis training and blatant racism they are world champions in a white dominated sport. That, in my opinion is amazing.
Conversely, I truly despise NEGATIVE Black people who tear down other black people’s accomplishments. I often read posts from Blackweb20.com. I think they do a wonderful job in covering subject in the digital space. Very recently I became an active participant in this community and have written comments. One article in particular that was of interest to me African American Magazines Need to Look Online for Advertising Future.
It was a great article outlining how black magazines need to step it up in the digital space, especially regarding advertising revenue streams online. I had something (of value) to say and I posted a comment to the article and I wanted to see what others had to say as well. Generally there were some great comments but…there is always one or two haters in the bunch. Not haters in the sense of calling someone out – haters of the since of spewing out hatred remarks and adding no value to the conversation! Let the fake African American Magazines Die? That is a tad extreme to me. At one point, these were the only magazines that were covering important events and hot topics related to the black community. Although they are falling behind in the digital space, how dare someone suggest that we just give up on them!
Another example on Blackweb2.0 is a series written by Wayne Sutton #28daysofdiversity. This series covers accomplished black folks in the digital space. I really am enjoying the series and have even followed some of the people profiled. But here comes another hater example. In this particular post Gwen Peake was profiled and it was reposted on Blackweb2.0. Gwen has got it going on – a dual-Masters degrees in Journalism/Mass Communications and Television/Film Production and working with Fortune 10 company Ford and radio and TV personality, Steve Harvey to name just a few. The very FIRST comment I read was a personal attack on Gwen and how she does nothing for the black blogger community. I don’t know if this commenter personally knew Gwen and had a personal agenda of throwing salt in her game (which it seemed like to me) but from the small profile that was written, I don’t know how she could have come to the conclusion that she is a “pawn” and doesn’t help the community! Thankfully there were other comments made supporting Gwen and her accomplishments. Gwen herself actually wrote what I call a *snap* *snap* rebuttal to the nasty remarks posted.
Beyond these two examples I’ve noticed a lot of black people in the digital space tear each other down. We are too small of a community to do this to each other. We should rejoice in each others success. It’s absolutely fine to “check” someone who is obviously adding no value to the black community – which is what this post is all about.
Be sure to check out the articles (and comments) mentioned in this post. I would love to hear your thoughts about this. @jbrotherlove also wrote a blog post: Haters, Crabs in the Black community which covered the conversation that he, myself and other black techies had at the SXSWi Atlanta party last night. He is also a speaker at SXSWi for the Black Bloggers Rockstar session so check him out. (See how I support my fellow black blogger, take some notes, Negative Nancys’ of the black community!)
Looking forward to hearing from you!
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lol @ “Negative Nancys”!
As I mentioned at the event, I don’t pay much attention to comments, especially when they come from an anonymous source. That said, I did read the comments on the Gwen Peake post and in my opinion, the negative comments helped Gwen outline her accomplishments. Good for her.
This won’t please the haters, of course. But my challenge to the opposition in any cases is: “List 10 things YOU would do if you were in my position”.
Interesting post, there are always haters in every industry. Black Web 2.0 has many haters as well, I don’t let it get me down, we all just have to keep it movin’
@jbrotherlove: “List 10 things YOU would do if you were in my position” LOVE this suggestion!
Indeed. I shouldn’t let it bother me. You guys just keep up the good work so we can continue to have success and raise the bar in the digital space.