BlogHer Session Discussion: Identity & Obligation on Day Two

23rd in our series introducing you to each of our BlogHer Conference '06 sessions and their speakers, and finding out what you would like to get from each session. Today, I bring you from Day Two:

Identity & Obligation: Do you control which parts of your identity are exposed? Do you feel an obligation to represent for your gender, race or culture? Do you feel you're not allowed to comment on issues facing a group to which you don't belong? Maria Niles moderates a discussion with Karen Walrond, Dawn Rouse, Marisa Trevino and Carmen Van Kerckhove on how we slice and dice our identity.

We've all heard the joke about the Internet and the dog that no one knows you are. But part of the blogging ethos (according to many) is transparency. Or maybe you've heard the alternate buzz word: authenticity. The fact is that if you use your real name, gender is apparent for many of us. If you include even a single picture, race and age may be apparent for many of us. If you go down the list you can find a lot of things that are almost never obvious unless you choose to reveal them...culture, sexual orientation, political ideology, religion. This session is about all the many aspects of our identity we could choose to blog about, and how we decide which ones belong in our blogs. And if the decision not to blog about certain aspects of our identity makes us feel guilty or like we're not doing all we could do or all we should do.

[img_assist|fid=1038|thumb=1|alt=images for contributing editors, L-N] Moderator Maria Niles is in a somewhat unique position. She is a different race than she appears. Sometimes she is privy to hearing things she doesn't want to hear. From even the "nicest" people. She has a bird's eye view on how screwed up attitudes about race can be. But she rarely, if ever, blogs about race, and then only on her anonymous personal blog. Why is that? And when she does choose to talk about it, what drives the decision?

[img_assist|fid=1083|thumb=1|alt=Dawn Rouse] Dawn Rouse is a white woman raising a bi-racial child. She writes about what that's like. Sometimes. What really stands out about the discussions on her blog about race is that when she does touch on race, she gets other white people to talk about their feelings about race too. That's pretty unusual. Sometimes it seems like most of us don't want to comment or express opinions on anything we can't lay claim to. Not just race, but any identity aspect. Sometimes it seems like that's the way lots of people want it! Dawn's blogging breaks those barriers.

A few weeks ago, and long after the conference schedule was pretty much set in stone, Marisa Trevino wrote to tell me that I didn't have enough of the Latina perspective represented, and she pointed me to some Latina bloggers I should know about. I said "OK...why don't you come represent?" And in true BlogHer fashion Marisa stepped up. Like Maria, Marisa is often mistaken for a different race than she self-identifies as. Although she is actually a "hybrid", Marisa's blog is all about la raza. A syndicated journalist and local public radio commentator, Marisa has written about family, education and other social justice issues for about 10 years. She is all about representing.

[img_assist|fid=1091|thumb=1|alt=Carmen VanKerckhove] Carmen VanKerckhove has the same dedication to representing, in her case for multi-racial identity. Co-hosting a podcast named "Addicted to Race", about "America's obsession with race" is only part of the plan. She also writes a blog that tracks how the media represents multi-racial identity and multi-racial families and relationships. She and her partner also conduct diversity training and consult on grass roots organizing. In other words, it's all race, all the time. But do you wonder if sometimes it gets tough for bloggers like Marisa and Carmen? Do they feel we're making progress. Do they sometimes wish they could turn off the radar and not notice? Well, for now anyway, Carmen can't...it's her mission.

[img_assist|fid=1072|thumb=1|alt=Images for Contributing Editors, F-K] Karen Walrond feels completely differently. She's not hiding her race or her culture, but she doesn't blog about it. Living in Trinidad she feels like America has an unhealthy focus on issues of race, and she also feels like we don't really think enough about differences in culture. Assuming, for example, that everyone of the same race thinks or feels the same, regardless of other elements of their identity. She doesn't feel an obligation to represent, but she knows there are those who think she should.

So, we've got a panel of folks with different backgrounds, different identities and different perspectives on how that does (and should)impact their blogging.

So, that's what we are envisioning for the session. But what do you think. What do you want to learn? What do you want to hear? What do you never want to hear again? What would make you attend this session?

Submitted by Elisa Camahort (view blog

) on Fri, 07/21/2006 - 4:49pm

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It's just that it's not all about race...

I'm thrilled to be a part of this panel, and I'm looking forward to meeting these wonderful women in person. I'd like to clarify something, however:

I think, when reading Chookooloonks, people will find that I'm proud of my race and culture, without my ever having to actually speak of it. I think, in the summary above, some people might interpret my lack of discussing race and my interracial marriage as not feeling proud of either -- the truth is, I'm immensely proud of both. To say I don't feel "an obligation to represent" is inaccurate -- I represent both all the time on my blog -- but I don't necessarily feel the obligation to do so as an overt subject of every blog post.

That said, my race is not the only aspect of myself that defines me, and I certainly hope that this panel will discuss more than just race (which is what it sounds like it's turning into!). Identity, in my view, encompasses MANY different attributes. I invite as many people as are attending to contribute how they define their identity, and hopefully broadent the discussion a little!

Submitted by Karen Walrond on Sat, 07/22/2006 - 11:21

Identity Discussion Beyond Race

Race is just one of the identities that each of these bloggers represents on this panel in very different ways - Marisa and Carmen do so more overtly, as an organizing concept and Karen and I do not do so overtly. I don't think that implies that any of us are more or less proud of our identities, rather that we choose to discuss them differently in the space of our blogs.

That said, yes, race was a key identity that served to organize this panel, but it is not the only identity which we will discuss. The question is broader - which identities, if any, do you feel obligated to represent on your blog and that can mean race, gender, culture, parental status, religion, and many others and, to link to the broader question of the conference, how has that representation, however you express it, changed your world?

So whether race is a primary issue for you or not, I hope anyone who is interested in these questions will join us for what I'm sure will be a rich and fascinating discussion.

Submitted by Maria Niles on Sat, 07/22/2006 - 13:30

I have an identity bone to pick

I really look forward to this panel. My identity bone to pick has to do with single motherhood and my decision to limit my blogging about this decade of my life.

I don't blog it for two reasons: I think it would backfire on my son and harm his relationship with his other family, with devastating consquences. No way.

Second, I am proud of my single-mom stripes, but it's a private, limited percentage of what I want to discuss online. And I don't want to be labeled. This information backfired on me professionally in the late 1990s when I was still very raw about it. A well-intentioned reporter outed me in a national magazine interview as a single mother. Suddenly, professional colleagues I deeply wanted to impress changed their behavior toward me. Out of good-intentioned sympathy, I am sure -- but they basically started patronizing me. They lowered their standards for my job performance and stopped asking me to take certain assignments because of my family obligations. Never again.

So I hope to learn a lot from this panel -- because once I can write about it (in about 100 years), I think these women will have great advice.

Lisa Stone
BlogHer Co-founder
Surfette

Submitted by Lisa Stone on Sat, 07/22/2006 - 16:41

Breaking stereotypes one blogger at a time?

Lisa: you remind me of what the fabulous Virginia DeBolt said during our "Increasing Women's Visibility" panel at SXSW. She basically said (and I'm paraphrasing) that she appreciated writing online because no one could see she was a "gray-haird old lady" (her words) and therefore they would treat her thoughts on technology with more respect.

And my feeling was (and is) that we need more Virginias sharing their brilliant thoughts and being "out" about their age, until people can no longer be surprised when an older person is a brilliant technologist.

What will it take until people don't patronize single moms, or older people, or people of color, or women, or whatever else? I guess I fantasize that if we are all loud and proud about our identities it will become more and more difficult to make sweeping generalizations at all.

I think many would call me naive. But I can't help believing it.

Elisa Camahort
BlogHer and Worker Bees
elisa@blogher.org/elisa@workerbees.biz

Submitted by Elisa Camahort on Sat, 07/22/2006 - 17:07

I don't know.

But for starters, I want the right to label myself as Virginia labeled herself. I don't want anyone else referring to me as "white single mother Lisa Stone..." which I feel pigeonholes and labels me as a mother and as a woman.

I'd like to start by being Lisa Stone and have people get to know me and what I care about through my writing. That's why I find Karen's message so compelling.

Lisa Stone
BlogHer Co-founder
Surfette

Submitted by Lisa Stone on Sun, 07/23/2006 - 05:21

"Labels are for clothes, not people"

This is a topic near to my heart - sadly, I won't be at BlogHer this year, so I won't get to listen to this session live. There's another angle to being open / naked / authentic about some aspect of our identity - which is, will that openness ever fade? In my case, I never made any secret about my past - but, from March of this year onwards, I have drastically reduced the times I refer to that past. I've left the archive live (and Google-able) but I don't tend to refer to myself in those terms so much, any more.

Why not? Am I ashamed of that past? Not at all. Do I regret having been open about it? Not in the slightest. Then why the change in emphasis? Because, much as Lisa said, I'd like for people to get to know me, and what I care about, through my writing, *now*. If (or when) they subsequently discover those aspects of my past which I no longer emphasise so much (and will one day not emphasise at all) then they will simply add that small fact to whatever impression they've already formed.

I see it much like an experiment - I blogged a significant event in my life (because it *was* a significant event in my life, and such an event is significant in the lives of many other people) - but, it's done, I'm in a different phase of my life, now. I don't mind if people know about it - I don't mind if they find out, after meeting me - but I don't think it needs to be the very first thing they know about me. My hypothesis is that by no longer stressing that aspect of my identity (without hiding away from it) it sends a message that, really, it's no big deal - in years to come, I hope that that hypothesis will be proved correct. And then that might encourage people to be less guarded, and more authentic, in how they present their own identities, online and elsewhere - because, in my experience, taking control of such disclosures, and making them in your own time, and on your own terms, removes the ability of others to use them against you. It certainly removes the fear of someone else making such a disclosure about you, and putting you on the back foot in terms of what response to make, and how to make it.

Blog: Multidimensional.Me

Submitted by Koan on Mon, 07/24/2006 - 03:19

Try being middle-aged and single!

Identity *should* be about more than race. Esp. as women hit middle age and popular culture wants desperately to keep us out of sight and out of mind.

Because of this, I've been talking about being single, over 40, and doing unusual things since I started blogging--but it's a double-edged sword.

Single women over 40 who do not have children, such as myself, are almost uniformly left out of popular culture--that is unless the woman does something totally pathetic (such as call the police under false pretenses to see one of the cops again) or is a wildly thin and youthful celebrity defying nature to marry a younger man and have children. Trying to beat that stereotype by blogging about my relationships and my shifting career identity, as well as the things that are 'usual'--the death of my mother, etc.--has had mixed results.

Recently, I have had to go silent on many aspects of my life not only because, as I've learned, popular culture doesn't, at this point, necessarily care that their stereotypes are being challenged, but also because it has been pointed out that talking openly about my life could adversely impact my professional life (like Lisa mentioned.)

Yet how do I show the world that I'm not some pathetic spinster sitting at home pining away for an Ashton Kutcher look-alike for a husband and babeies I never had--if I don't talk about my personal life? Can I be comfortable hemmed in by a "professional" blogging personna that sometimes seems as false as a pair of collagen-plumped lips?

We should talk more about the ageism and the not-so-subtle sexism that usually begins when a woman turns 40 and is slowly dropped from popular media culture. These are issues that transcend race and effect us all.

Tish Grier
Editor, Corante Media Hub
Blogging at: The Constant Observer and
Love&Hope&Sex&Dreams

Submitted by Tish G on Mon, 07/24/2006 - 04:37