The Washington Post today reports that black bloggers are not very pleased with the first blogger pool list that the Democrats chose for their national convention in August.  The problem it seems is that despite the likelihood that Sen. Barack Obama will be the party’s nominee the pool is lacking in representation from the black blogosphere. 

With the Democratic National Convention less than three months away, and with Web pundits playing an even bigger role during the four-day event, a whole other drama is chewing up the blogosphere — and the often unmentioned Afrosphere.

A small taste of the commentary:

“OK, folks, black bloggers to the back of the bus,” read one post on the African American Political Pundit, one of the more prominent national black blogs. A posting on Georgia Politics Unfiltered, a state blog, read: “Jim Crow raises his ugly head . . . at the Democratic Convention.”

So how were the bloggers selected?

Natalie Wyeth, spokeswoman for the convention committee, says criteria for selecting State Corps bloggers were readership, online ratings and focus on local and state politics. The General Pool will also be selected on the basis of readership and online ratings, she adds, with an emphasis on bloggers covering “national politics to niche issues of interest to specific communities.”

Race was not a factor in the selection of the State Corps, Wyeth repeatedly says.

For a party so bent on diversity it seems odd that they wouldn’t go out of their way to accomodate blag bloggers rather than subjecting them to a set of metrics where they may fall short.  I would venture to say that at this point blogging in the very early stages of what may become a powerful voice in the future so I can understand the frustration of the black bloggers.

As the story goes on their were more comments about the exclusion.

L.N. Rock, a Silver Spring-based information technology professional and founder of the African American Political Pundit blog, likens this “black shut-out” in the State Corps to an “I’m sick-and-tired-of-being-sick-and-tired” Fannie Lou Hamer moment. The civil rights activist and Mississippian challenged her state’s all-white delegation at the 1964 Democratic convention.

“This is all very puzzling to me — and to a lot of black bloggers,” says Rock, who didn’t apply for the State Corps because he blogs about national issues. “The Democratic National Committee says it wants to be inclusive. It wants to have a big tent. And then this? What were they thinking?”

Rock is right.  At a time when the Democrats preach and need unity this issue threatens to be a major thorn in their side.

Read the full story.

 

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