It has been a rough year for the members of the Black Elite Establishment. All of a sudden they've discovered these pesky little things called blogs GASP and their whole world has been turned upside down.
First we had DL Hughley wonder about “that lady and her email page.” (that would be moi-he is so “special”). Then we had Michael “Baby Oil” Baisden slander all the “folks online” who were working tirelessly to help out the ungrateful 6. Then Stephen A Smith ranted that bloggers aren't entitled to their audiences and shouldn't have the right to speak to people. Yes he did!
Now our latest member of the Black Elite Establishment to go ballistic over the fact that Black folks have access to computers and the internet is actress Gabrielle Union and she's launched a repeated broad based attack on “Black bloggers.” She does not bother to differentiate between one Black blog versus another, but she lumps all Black blogs together, savages them and then to add insult to injury, she holds up PEREZ HILTON, the man who routinely draws penises and semen on photographs of celebrities and called Serena Williams a man, as an example of how we should be blogging.
If you look at what Perez [Hilton] does - and I don't advocate for Perez, you know, he can write hurtful things about a lot of people - but what he does as a man of color, as a Latino, is he never dogs Latinos, ever. He actually breaks artists on his website. They can go from "Who the hell is that?" to Number One on iTunes in a day, just from what he says. So he's trying to uplift his own people. I mean, he dogs everybody else, but as a man of color, I applaud you. I can't dog you for not dogging your own people. He never says anything negative about Latinos, ever, and I just wish that we had more of that kind of "raise up" mentality and pulled each other up instead of dragging each other down. Especially like... If I got arrested, say whatever you want to say. If I had kids and left them in the car while I partied, or I got out of cabs showing all my private parts, you have every right to dog me. If I came out and dogged my own people, kill me in your blogs. But don't make things up! I do enough, and if you really got spies everywhere you'd know what I was doing, you wouldn't have to make things up. And if you don't know your facts, then just don't print them. Urban Hoopla.Com
You see folks, members of the BEE are not necessarily the most intellectually curious people on the planet earth so I can forgive Gabrielle's original complaint in ESSENCE's December issue, but this latest VIBE interview is ridiculous and somebody needs to grab ya' girl by the collar.
You see there are well over 7 million blogs on technorati alone. The Black Weblog Awards got over 6,000 entries last year so when you attack “Black bloggers” or try to chastise ALL BLACK BLOGS by holding up Perez Hilton as some type of standard its ridiculous. Are some Black entertainment blogs vicious and hateful, yes. Guess what, I don't go to those. Are some unreliable and untrustworthy, yes. Guess what, people start to notice and they lose credibility, but there are some really creative Black entertainment blogs out there as well.
What was happening is that Gabrielle wants Perez to cover her more on his blog because the last time Gabrielle was on Perez Hilton was???? Exactly, but these Black entertainment blogs have promoted Gabrielle's projects over and over again. Not only that, but some of the biggest Black blogs are run by very young entrepreneurial African American woman. So I am trying to figure out what Gabbi is trying to say.
Now I have about 6 Black entertainment blogs that I skim everyday because A) some of them are hysterical and B) I have gotten tons of material from them. I want to say I first saw the DL Hughley YouTube clip on one of the Black entertainment blogs. Most of my YouTube clips from from black entertainment blogs. Anyway, I have seen some of the things they have written in the past about Gabrielle Union and other than speculating that she is dating every man she's in a picture with, they've been relatively kind, even laudatory to Gabrielle Union. Now if she was Karrine Stepphens, Remi Ma, Lil' Kim, Ashford and Simpson, Usher and Tameka Raymond or Norwood Young, I could understand her whining and complaining, but saying she is dating X,Y,Z? Come on.
Needless to say, the Black entertainment blogs are not happy and she is about to get it! Or worse, she will get nothing at all. These blogs can stand toe to toe with Perez Hilton when it comes to page views. Imagine if they decide to not mention her at all?
Here is a heads up to the BEE, Black bloggers ain't going anywhere. If anything, they are growing at an exponential pace. I don't even watch TV anymore. I just read my news online. Get used to it and please if you are going to whine about BLOGGERS, be more specific. The Black blogosphere is not a monolith.
To those who say I shouldn't criticize Gabrielle Union. My response is that she should stop using her megaphone to defame all Bloggers. What is the point? What's her agenda? Perez Hilton morally superior to Black bloggers? Are you serious? These magazines which keep asking her about Black bloggers are no better, they are terrified that Black entertainment blogs are going to over take them... too late, they already have. The advertisers just haven't figure it out yet.
BEE's agenda is to try to staunch the growth of the Black blogosphere-She's trying to sweep up sand at the beach. - Futile.
So I am guessing Gabrielle won't be attending the Blogging While Brown Conference in Atlanta next year? Maybe we should invite Perez.
