The SA blogosphere is 'entirely' white

Not that it's worrying. But a small concern it is. The SA blogosphere is nearly entirely white - I realised since starting to blog. I went across many blogs on Amatomu, the SA blog aggregator, and you hardly ever come across a blog by a black person. I asked qDot, one black who features reasonably well on the SA blogosphere, what the cause may be. He briefly explained it this way:

Why the lack of [black] bloggers. I think...

1. Expensive bandwidth
2. Technophobic apathy
3. Some just don't know

I don't doubt that he is right about any of these, generally. But I really believe that anyone who wants to express themselves will find a way of doing so - all the better fast ways let me rather say. Even if it means stealing a moment of their own lunch time to propagate their own cause, their laundry, or the hot night they had yesterday with their unsolicited partner. Whatever choice of topic.

I suspect that, worryingly, black people may be turning more and more less expressive and opinionated in some spheres of life - so anti-1976 youth spirit. They maybe becoming less mouthpieces of their own cultures and somewhat feel a bit off-ish for laying bare their writings in a blog for fear of judgement. True, 'some just don't know'and I've come across them whilst publicising my own blog.

But they speak, mostly, of a phobia of reading and the lack of writing ability - the kind that may be of palatable chew to other people. I don't know if that's such a good shot that people love reading and writing less and less. And on chats with friends, I noticed that it is not really that - the issue I mean.

The problem is that of incentives. And yes, blogging is not very good or good at all in offering much of materialistic incentives or return on (time) investment - and us blacks, as Chika Onyeani of Capitalist Nigger fame said, we love material and we want to show it all off. Can you realy show off a blog? Well, I'm showing off mine. And in fact, it inspired me to re-incarnate that long lost dream of writing my debut book.

And more for, as this black man that I'm, I get incentives in that by blogging, I sharpen my writing daily. I discover new technologies of my generation and thus, am embracing them, such as blogging. I also get to write what I like (albeit responsibly because my name is laid bare here) and I feel, somewhat like Biko when he said, "I write what I like".

I feel that blogging can do a lot of good for the black people, notwithstanding the lack of resources to doing so. But one thing for sure, resources are available (limited of course) and are accessible. Down-town Johannesburg is laid with salon/internet cafes opened by ever-joyful and restless entreprising Nigerians and Sunnyside in Pretoria is also nicely-ridden with same salon/tech shops with cheaper internet-user rates.

More so, there is internet access of great bandwidth in companies where we all work and we can always spare a moment to Shakespeare or Biko a word or two. Especially if we are able, already, to spare time to read and forward all those interesting jokes in viral mass emails (which work nearly alongside blog concept, in terms of syndication and extensivity of reach).

I think apathy is rather extending itself from the black individual to the black mass - certain groups together, not entire mass as such. The struggle youth, those in Fred Khumalo's group/'generation', are the masses that embraced the prominent cultures and trends, although with caution, of their times and came out to be the kind of admirable writers they are today - and lead in other fields.

So the problem is only partially,

• 'Expensive bandwidth'
• 'Technophobic apathy'
• 'Some just don't know'.

The answer is more cultural than just resources access one.

I'm not choosing blogging for the black brothers and sisters for there is more to life than to blog. And I'm not speaking to those who don't like the arts or new technology - 'every man his own'. They can express themselves in other ways.

But would black people really want to remain under-represented in a phenomenon where interesting and insightful debates take place? I know Patricia De Lille didn't choose to be left out of this blogcake.

I didn't mean to write this entry. But the blues song In the mood by Glenn Miller inspired me to kill my fingers a little. Haaah, what relieve to write! You so maar forget it's cold outside.

===========================================
"Judge of a man by his questions, rather than by his answers." - Voltaire