Black Female Bloggers And Allies - Let's Get to Know Each Other Better

I have quite a few posts bubbling to the surface that I want to write about but I must prioritize my schedule this week. I am very excited that my recent engagements with other bloggers of color has encouraged a renewal of my mind. It's really good to know that if you're open you can still learn something of value well into one's adulthood. We all come to the blogosphere for different reasons and have diverse goals in mind, but I'd like to know if we're doing enough to reach out to each other. Or if everyone even wants to. 

It's just some of us find ways we can relate to people online that may not exist in our offline lives. We can hear, disagree with yet still ultimately learn from getting different perspectives. Are people being themselves online or pretending to be something they aren't? Do we need to have our viewpoints affirmed by others to make them valid? Is our level of engagement enough that we are being supportive of each other? We may think of the internet as this vast sea of people worldwide but I think it can be a much smaller world with niche markets. We can engage as much or as little as we want. If we want to reach more people we have to be proactive and focused about how we do that. 

There's this need - or want - for those of us who engage online to seek out things of interest and wanting certain comforts. I think we may have three good years left before the corporatists, working in concert with the government take over and our access is controlled and limited. In the United States our service providers are redlining certain communities in the first place and our connection speeds are one tenth of what you will find in Asia and a higher price. Just like with cell phones. When I lived in London in 2003 I took note of how incoming calls were free because they were paid for by fees from landline phones and the monthly service charges were around $30 when ours were double that. They were also using SMS regularly. I think that's why microblogging platforms like Twitter actually have a larger customer base over there. 

So if there are those that still have lofty goals of "changing the world" and "raising consciousness" or even "making money" we really do need to connect with as many individuals or smaller blogs to work with each other. A rising tide carries along more boats! So I am visiting more blogs, looking at some of larger blog networks and listening to podcasts in an effort to meet more people. What tools are you using and who do you recommend I should be engaging with? Feel free to leave suggestions in the comments, email or DM me on Twitter.