Learning things: Other voices

While I continue to work my way through my history reading, I wanted to take a post to talk about all the reading I do that isn't as formal as books. Just like the dominant group gets to define history, the dominant group also gets to define current reality - or at least the most widely-known version of it. I think about the congressional hearing on birth control with all men and the race panel with all white people - the assumption is that dominant group members are so all-knowing that they understand the experience of the oppressed group just as well as the actual oppressed people do. I also think about much of the media I consume - even when it's not so explicit as an all-white race panel, there is no shortage of white, straight, cis, and/or male voices in the news that I have the easiest access to, or in the social circles where I discuss that news. Happily, there's the internet!

Specifically, over the past few years I've started being intentional about following blogs written by people in communities whose perspective I rarely get to hear. Hearing from a variety of diverse voices helps me gain more perspective on the world, and how many people experience it so differently than I do - which in turn leads to deeper and more holistic understanding on my part. It's sort of like a live version of "People's History of the US." I also appreciate that reading these blogs allows me to gain that valuable perspective without having to burden all the people of color in my life with the task of educating me - although I also try to keep in mind that the bloggers themselves are doing me a service pro bono, and so I also donate to them to fund their work.

What I'm reading so far:

• Black Girl Dangerous: BGD is a blog written by many different queer and trans* people of color. I love that it has so many different voices on it - everything from nuanced intellectual analysis of pop culture to personal stories of joy, pain, and everything in between. Mia McKenzie, BGD's founder, also recently published a book that is great - I bought myself a copy and my sister bought me one too, so now I have twice the greatness if anyone wants to borrow one!
• Great post to get started: Sooooooooo many! I especially like her posts about ally-ship and how not to suck at it - 8 Ways To Not Be An "Ally" and No More "Allies" both pushed me a lot in how I think about myself as a white person aspiring to act in solidarity with communities of color. I also love a new series they are doing called "Qraftish," which features a young Black queer woman who shares her thoughts on identity while making crafts.
• Racialicious:  Also written by multiple contributors, Racialicious is a blog about race and pop culture. I particularly like that a lot of the pop culture they write about is nerd culture - they cover Comic-Con every year, and often live-tweet various panels and media events. Plus, a lot of their contributors are really funny.
• Great post to get started: The worst reactions to John Boyega's appearance in the Star Wars Teaser is brilliant, and I also really appreciated their coverage of racism and Serial.
•  Angry Asian Man: The title is pretty self-explanatory. AAM is written by Phil Yu, but he brings in a ton of other blogs, magazines, youtube streams, etc... to cover a variety of Asian American perspectives on news and pop culture. He tends to write many brief updates instead of fewer, longer posts - which makes AAM very accessible and enjoyable, because if you aren't into one topic you can bet there will be another one posted later that same day.
• Great post to get started: The about page is actually a pretty great post in and of itself.
• Native Appropriations:Written by Dr. Adrienne Keene, who is a postdoc studying Native higher education and is a member of the Cherokee Nation. She write about the representation, and lack thereof, of Native people in the media, as well as how Native culture is often appropriated and represented in problematic ways. She's smart and snarky and just wonderful.
•  Great post to get started: White tears and aggressive Indians, a paragraph-by-paragraph deconstruction of some of the problematic coverage of what happened when the Daily Show brought Native American activists to confront fans of the Washington football team who defend its name.

What I'm committing to start reading:

• In compiling the above list, I realized I don't read any Latin@-focused blogs (although Racialicious and BGD both have Latin@ contributors). I found a list of Latina feminist bloggers, so I'm going to check out the various recommended blogs for a while and pick out one (or more) to follow permanently.
• Similarly, I realized that all the people I read currently are able-bodied, so I'm also going to explore this list of Top 10 Disability Blogs to find some new people to follow.
• Anyone else have suggestions? Let me know!