Fred,


--- On Sat, 2/7/11, Fred Bauder <fredbaud@fairpoint.net> wrote:


> I have said this before, but we seem to lack African-American editors,
> and it's my 
> impression we don't cover African-American culture well. I wonder if we
> could get an article 
> out on theroot.com 
>
There are a few really good and prolific African-American editors, but
mass participation is not there, but that kind of fits the demographic.



I know of one that fits that description (TTT), and there's one (1) admin who indicates African-American (as well as Jewish) on their user page.



African-Americans are very active on Twitter (with higher participation rates than Caucasians), but for some reason haven't taken to Wikipedia in their masses.



American Hispanics even more so




That may in part be a language issue; I would hope that Spanish-speaking Hispanic Americans do contribute to the Spanish Wikipedia. Again, having data would be useful.



American Indians barely edit. I edit articles on American Indian history
and I don't think I've ever run into an Indian editor.

My strategy with any of these groups, and women too, is to generally
support them strongly, but not to support any particular campaign they
engage in. For example, the idea that Egyptians are "Black", which one
young African-American woman was promoting strongly, against considerable
opposition.


I looked in on [[Ancient Egyptian race controversy]] once, and it was not pretty. 






The same problems that women encounter with women's topics are also encountered by editors writing on black studies.



For example, here: 






Marimba Ani is unquestionably a notable, black, female scholar, yet we didn't want to have an article on her:












(As a matter of fact, I now know what my next article is going to be.)



Having data on African-American participation, rather than guesses based on pictures uploaded to Commons, would help. 



Outreach to African Studies departments might help, as would an interview with Sue in The Root, or Ebony. 



Andreas



So that is the first premise, the door has to be open for everyone and
they should be able to depend on strong support by others.

Whether they will come in the door is another matter. And how we handle
particular strongly held points of view is another. For example, we had a
Ute chief come and give a talk in Crestone. Very smart, wise man, an
elder, but he made a point of maintaining that the Utes have always lived
in the Rocky Mountain west and that any theory about crossing the Bering
Strait was just nonsense. That sort of attitude can be documented, of
course, but I doubt he could do that if he decided to edit. This guy was
about my age so I know he could if he thought it mattered.

And that, I guess, is the missing piece, believing, or knowing, that
editing matters in shaping global knowledge and consciousness.

That is kind of the story of academia, they thought they had a monopoly.

Fred


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