on black christian bloggers

Following on Cobus's post, black bloggers needed in this white conversation, let's just reflect quickly further on this. As I indicated, I agree with the assertion of Mandy De Waal, on his post although she is not specifically focusing on the Christian ( or broader religious sector). The sense is that this sector is still very marginal. Be that as it may, the blogosphere at large is not inherently racist. It is open and although, we can agree that access to resources such as an internet connection, is still skewed in favour of white people, the space in this qualified sense is 'free'. Where it comes to the contestation of ideas, where we engage one another, it remains limited and follows the lines of white Christian bloggers talking to one another and the rest, black Christian bloggers well, we are talking to ourselves. (This is fine in itself, as some of us simply post to vent or to reflect- to journal)

This situation, as I state above, is not the problem of the blogoshere, it's merely a reflection of the current Christian conversation anyway. Klippies Kritzinger recently
(actually last year) presented a brilliant paper on a phenomenal young black Christian martyr of the 70s, Steve bantu Biko, more so on what he (Klippies) calls Liberating Whiteness. In this paper he states that there were, in the main, three responses of white people to articulate black Christians (like Biko and proponents of Black Theology): 1) they ignore it and go on as ussual, 2) they sympathise in a paternalistic condescendance or 3) solidatity. (These reflections comes primarily from his doctoral research, under David Bosch, which focussed on The challenge of Black Theology to Christian Mission). I would add, that this finding also come in order of importance, with the majority of white people in 1 and a few in 3. One could use the scheme to look at the blogosphere as well and it would be the same results. So, how do we deal with this?

Of course, its obvious that the fundamental root causes of racism and the ongoing seperation amongst Christians need to be addressed and in terms of that a different blogosphere may emerge. Where the blogosphere can play a role in this, is obviously another question that need to be explored. Are we ready for that kind of journey, is the question and as a start, it seems that Cobus' notion that there is a 'white conversation' out there need to be accepted. What also need to be accepted is that black Christian bloggers ( or black Christians in general for that matter) don't need a ticket to that 'white conversation' or to the coffeeshop, to recieve a badge of authentication, espescially in Africa.