In an article that surely pleased her masters at Fox News, just before Yearly Kos, Kirsten Powers dismissed the netroots the netroots as a bunch of ninnies:
Newsflash to the netroots and the media (which seems perpetually confused on this issue): The netroots are not the base of the Democratic Party.
Overwhelmingly white, male and highly educated, they're a loud anomaly in a party that's wholly dependent on the votes of African Americans, women and working-class whites.
This is a common criticism of the netroots: it is just a bunch of well-educated, well-off, white dudes who are not like the rest of the Democratic Party. Now, the same criticism could easily be made of the elected officials of the Democratic Party, given that under 30% of the Democratic members of Congress are women, even though nearly 60% of all Democratic voters are women. Further, the Senate Democratic caucus is almost entirely white, and I think members of Congress in both branches are pretty well educated and well-off, too.
In fact, much of the same criticism could also be made of the established media itself. Women make up only 37% of newspaper staff (including only 25% of news directors), while persons of color make up 5%. Again, I think it can be safely said that people in the media are pretty well-off, and pretty well-educated, too. And yet, for some reason, they have no problem lobbing this criticism at others.
The truth is, however, that the notion of the progressive netroots as lacking in diversity is now outdated. A quick survey of staff and front-page writers of the twelve groups most commonly associated with the "netroots" shows a wide range of diversity in terms of race, gender and sexual orientation. These groups include the three largest activist organizations (MoveOn.org, Democracy for America, and Color of Change), and the nine largest websites that are unquestionably termed blogs (Huffington Post, Daily Kos, Talking Points Memo, Crooks and Liars, Think Progress, Eschaton, Fire Dog Lake, Americablog, and MyDD). Collectively, these twelve organizations account for over 90% of the activism and audience of the "netroots," so while it is not entirely complete, looking at them collectively is a reasonable survey of the netroots as a whole. Not only are these groups more diverse than is commonly understood, but they blow away both the established media and the Democratic political establishment in terms of diversity.
More in the extended entry |
Organizations
While I have not conducted an exhaustive survey of the staff of the three organizations, my work has brought me in contact with quite a few of them. Color of Change, whose diversity speaks for itself, lists two employees on its webpage, both of whom are thirty-something men of color (I had the honor of speaking with James Rucker on a panel at Netroots Nation). Democracy for America does not list any employees on its website, but I do know four employees. Two of the people I know are white dudes, including Howard Dean's brother Jim and the political director, Charles Chamberlain (at least I think Charles is white). Arshad Hasan is the executive director. and Sheri Divers is the communications director (Correction: Sheri is no longer with DFA, and now works in Michigan. DFA did hire another person of color as office manager / volunteer coordinator / finance assistant. This changes some of the numbers below).
While I was unable to find a complete list of MoveOn.org members, I did find an older list on wikipedia. I know it is older, because it still includes Tom Matzie, who does not work for MoveOn.org right now. Of the eleven (I think) current employees listed, five are women, and six are men. Having only met a few, I can't speak to the ethnic diversity of all the employees, but I know Nita Chaudhary and she is Asian-American.
Adding it all up, of the sixteen employees I can loosely verify, six are women and at least five are persons of color. Not only is that an incomplete tally, and not only does it only count two employees for Color of Change, which seems highly doubltful, but even that count is superior to the level of diversity found in both the political and media establishments. The percentage of women seems about equal to the media establishment, but higher than the political establishment. It isn't quite 50%, but it is close. The percentage of minorities is much, much higher than that found in the media, and roughly equal to the percentage of Democratic voters who are persons of color (one in three) and Democratic members of Congress who are persons of color (again, about one in three).
Blogs
The larget blog of all, bar none, is the Huffington Post. It is the most read and linked to blog in the entire world, according to Compete and Technorati. It is even about four times larger than Daily Kos. The Huffington Post is, obviously, founded, owned, and named after its flagship writer, Arianna Huffington. I can't speak to its employees, but it is probably just about the largest media outlet in the country owned by a woman.
Next up comes Daily Kos which is, also obviously, owned, operated and named after Markos Moulitsas Zúniga. Of the twenty-one writers on the front page of Daily Kos, at most only ten are white dudes. I say "at most," because I have never met Darksyde, Devilstowever, smitheus or Trapper John. So, between eleven and fifteen of the twenty-one writers on the front page of Daily Kos are not white dudes, on top of Markos himself (and SusanG, who is the executive editor). That is actually pretty diverse.
The next tier of blogs in terms of audience size and incoming hyperlinks are Think Progress, Crooks and Liars, and Talking Points Memo. Of the five editors of Think Progress, three, including the two highest ranking editors of the site, are Asian-American. Crooks and Liars was founded by a white dude. However, if its last forty posts are a representative sample, about 35% of its content is written by women (and I'm not even counting articles written by people with gender neutral, pseudonyms.) Talking Points Memo appears to be written almost entirely by white dudes (forgive me if I am wrong about this), so there is one example of a lack of diversity, I suppose.
The next tier of blogs, in terms of audience size, is Americablog, Eschaton, FireDogLake, and MyDD. Americablog is, I believe, written entirely by members of the LGBT community. FireDogLake is, I believe, operated entirely by women and a couple of gay men. Eschaton is basically a one-person operation, so these diversity comparisons don't exactly apply. However, if you have ever met Mrs. Atrios, you might think twice before questioning Mr. Atrios's commitment to diversity. The same can be said for MyDD, even though it appears to have a front page dominated by men (although my partner does write on the front-page there).
*****
Overall, this quick survey leaves me not really seeing much of a diversity problem at the staffing and professional level of the netroots anymore. We haven't quite reached 50% parity in terms of gender balance, but we are close. Further in terms of gender balance, we are equal to newsroom staff, and way beyond newsroom management, the punditry, or elected officials. In terms of ethnic and racial diversity, we are actually pretty close to the percentages seen among both Democratic voters and Democratic members of Congress. Further in terms of ethnic diversity, we blow away all English-language news media at every level. There is, admittedly, a death of African-Americans, despite our relatively large percentages of Latinos, Asians, and persons of mixed ethnicity.
The longstanding image of the white-male dominated netroots just no longer applies. The growing diversity in the netroots should be celebrated. At this point, it is probably just about the most equitable area of professional political and media life in the entire country. Members of the political and media establishment who dismiss the netroots for a lack of diversity are going to need a new talking point, not to mention a mirror in order to compare their institutions to the netroots. We hold up better on these grounds than they do. And I won't even go into the laughable times when members of the political and media establishment dismiss the netroots for being too well-educated and too well-off in order to represent America. That is as classic a case of psychological projection as I can possibly think of.
Now, this isn't a complete survey, so it is possible that I am wrong, or that there is something I am missing. Also, I should emphasize that the netroots are certainly not perfect on these grounds, just relatively better. However, given the economic structure of the blogosphere--small organizations with minimal staff and little funding--not to mention the persistence of the digital divide, the netroots actually face more structural barriers to achieving diversity than other fields, and other institutions within our fields. And the netroots hasn't even reached its tenth anniversary yet, either.
Times are changing, and the netroots are adapting to those changes faster than almost any other institution in America. If you think I am wrong, let me know. |
