Opera at SXSW 2008

Where are all the Black Tech Bloggers?

By Jim Brown. Sunday, 9. March 2008, 22:12:28

Lynne d Johnson was the moderator for a panel on black tech bloggers, and she explained that she’s been a part of some version of this panel (panels about black tech bloggers) a few times. She began to wonder if there was anything more to talk about. Then she ran across a video by Loren Feldman that reminded her (and everyone else) that there is still a need for panels on race at SXSW.

So, it seems that there are still some race issues to talk about.

Panelists included (not all were listed in the program, so I may not have gotten all the names):

Lynne D Johnson, Sr Editor & Community Dir, fastcompany.com
Angela Benton, Publisher/Founder, Black Web 2.0
N'Gai Croal, General Editor, Newsweek
Ronald Lewis, Ronald Lewis Dot Com
Lena West, Chief Social Media Strategist, xynoMedia
Craig Nulan, Pres, Basement Research Corporation

These panelists shared a number of stories about the difficulties of being a black blogger (or a black person in the tech industry at all), and they discussed how it’s important for people of color to be in the room. Leena West got the loudest round of applause with this remark:

“I don’t look at myself as the only black woman in the room. I look around and say ‘Wow, I stand out. How can I leverage that? How can I get more money for my business?’”

Another panelist (unfortunately, not all the panelists aren’t listed in the program, so it was difficult to catch all of the names) mentioned that she had been able to put the kibosh on some really bad ideas (such as when one young man wanted to feature Chef’s “chocolate salty balls” sketch from South Park to commemorate Black History month.) So, while these spaces seemed to be white dominated, it seems that having black people in the boardroom is extremely important.

One audience member raised the issue of design and whether black people are driving design issues. He said that there’s often no “love” in websites designed by people of color—that they are template driven: “If I can see that as a black person, then other people can see it and they will think that we’re not on that same level with design…where’s the black guy that’s putting out the next Facebook?” A number of panelists traced this problem to a lack of black people working on design, and then the question turned to how to get more black designers in powerful positions. Obviously, the answer to this is difficult. As West was quick to point out, “non-white people have had a 300 year head start.” Change will be slow.

Overall, this discussion never got too heated, and it seemed to be a passionate discussion about issues that aren’t going away anytime soon. It’s a shame that this is the only panel (at least that I’ve noticed in the schedule) that deals explicitly with issues of race.