Comments on (White?) African Blogger Conference in a Week African Bullets Honey

Comments on (White?) African Blogger Conference in a Week

September 8th, 2006

Below are some comments on the last post I had on the upcoming African bloggers indaba.

It turned out that AB H is racist and illegitimate. I will be back to talk more about the attempt to codify the African blog space and make it part of a kind of NGO-ish, funded civil society space with established mores. In other words, the attempt to bring it in line.

I guess you re upset because you didn t get a free ticket to the conference, sorry for you.
anonymous - haha. Indeed, the obvious comment comes forth.

Thanks for being sorry.
Thursday, September 07, 2006 8:06:58 AM
Hey,I think I read on Ory s blog that there were scholarships, whic irritates more because why were people not asked. Maybe some would come on their own steam?

Thursday, September 07, 2006 8:44:32 AM
The scholarship applications have closed, there were more than 200 applications and the final selections have already been made.This event was announced to the media and to several bloggers who linked to it. If you search for it on Google you will find 280 links to the web site.

It was also sent out in the Poynter E-Media Tidbits list.Obviously we could not invite each person in Africa individually, and we hope that it will be successful enough for more applications next year.In general I think this blog post is unacceptably racist and misinformed but I have published my perspective on my own blog.

Thursday, September 07, 2006 8:55:03 AM
Scholarships. The assumption as ever is that Africans are broke, always in need of a (white?)helping hand.

I am quite sure that the conference was advertised but as someone who spends hours online, I am puzzled that I did not run into it until yesterday. I hope that the sessions will be taped so that we can see who indeed is an African citizen, blogger, moblogger, vlogger, podcaster, hactivist and new media journalist.
Thursday, September 07, 2006 8:55:13 AM
Here is the link to a fuller explanation of why AB H is now a racist blog that lacks credibility.

The very credibility that can be enjoyed by joining the African citizens Code of Conduct.http://nml.ru.

ac.za/maher/?p=137To the program of events: http://dci.

ru.ac.za/documents/Draft_Programme2.

pdf
LOL at The Hustle that is the African situation. Africa sounds so hopeless a place to live in!I believe it s a much better place than say Europe!

I was reading somewhere that the American Dream is over, and seeing how self-respecting Africans are demeaning themselves in the name of asylum in Europe, i see where all this (mis)information is coming from.The hustle is further propagated by the brain-drain, where our brilliant minds are given scholarships, and attain green cards, citizenship and stuff, only to be dumped back here when wasted. Look at our current political class.

Akina Musyoka, raila, Kibs, The whole lot of them; products of the hustle, turned activists.Pole for the long comment.
Ory posted it at her site about a month ago with the scholarship mention.

Am happy to have been invited.
Binyavanga and MMK, you are clearly looking in all the wrong places [good looking out bankele] The scholarships are always a good idea, but they should be renamed to read something innocuous like conference/travel support .Vincent, laudable work.

Thanks for lending a helping hand to blogging in africa. It s quite clear your efforts are still not reaching a (significant?) portion of your target audience might want to rethink the strategy.

That said, I wonder how many bonafide black south african bloggers will be at this conference. I am of the old school in believing that the word racist cannot be used to describe an african, so i d recommend you take a different tack when blogging in the african space.
Rista, you may be right regarding our efforts though right now we re focussing on Southern Africa.

I can t agree with you on your other point about Africans being exempt from racism, I have seen a lot of racism between all different races in my life, including Africans. Obviously you re entitled to your opinion, as am I, and I respect that.
Ai mmk, even I, who is a relative bloggo-virgo heard about it.

Sometimes, it is good to first, swallow the sour grapes. then blog. I ll provide the whisky to down them :-).

Of course assuming that you can do grapes with whisky.
After reading your post mmk, I initially got angry.