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As I said on FriendFeed: “I could say that applying labels in this case is really no better than labeling in any other case. Who is the authority on what is actually #blck? Just because I think the latest Nas album is hot, does that mean it’s a #blck thing? If I’m not #blck, am I allowed to use the tag? It just seems like a slippery slope thing.”

Some of the use-cases you guys have mentioned seem very cool and I hope things work out that way, but the fact that we have to rely on people to use #blck correctly still bothers me.

@tgrundy – we go back, so I definitely respect your opinion. Now granted, back in the day, a lot of AA bloggers found one another in black blog rings and the like, or just one hipped on to the other.

I guess just what was so weird to me overall, when I first heard about it, is that I’d been on Twitter for eons, as had been a cadre of other AA folks (not to the degree that there is now) and no one ever felt the need to single out their conversations or selves as a tag.

I’m not trying to knock it down mind you, I’m trying to understand it. I feel I can flip talking about Kanye West and php scripts, and the latest gadgets, or whatever without having to identify any of it. So yeah, I guess it was a personal emotional reaction to it first. But as I hear more about it being discussed, I say more power to it. If it’s working for folks, so be it.

Now I just gotta get you all off of Twitter on to FriendFeed.

I’ve been online for awhile (maybe not as long as some others, though) and I remember a time when it was damn near impossible to find AA and other people of color on the ‘Net. Thankfully those times are receding as each day passes. AFAIC, the #blck tag has proved immediately beneficial since I have found at least a dozen (and counting) POC and their blogs that I am now following and can gain information and insight from. Definitely one of those ideas where I can say, “Gee, I wish I had thought of that first!”

But, if it is used correctly then maybe I will reconsider it. My main issue as with others though is that some of us did not want to be targeted by internet marketers for some assume that as a black consumer I may be interested in that product.

I am on the net not as a seller of anything but as an activist in sharing who I am and my interests. I am exchanging thought and only trying to share respect for one another. That is why when I saw the #blck discussion out of context I was becoming infuriated because I felt it was going to be abused.

Therefore, I am thankful for @negrophile and @blackweb20 who always use the black discussion in context and they don’t have to use a tag. I know following their twitter streams that I am enlightened!

However like @markus said it helped him find some other cool people who are even McCain supporters. I love knowing stories like this.

Thank you for the explanation from everyone. It has helped me make sense of how some feel too.

We just setup @blck as a user on Twitter to allow @blck to have a Twitterless Account with that we will be able to actually via geo mapping see the Blck Tag users on a map which will be cool. NOT for seperating but demonstrating the community additionally i dont know if you were a part of #JOURNCHAT on Mondays 7-11pm but anyone using the #JOURNCHAT Tag and watching Twitter with http://www.tweetgrid.com/ or http://www.monitter.com it is awesome to watch the conversations and learn all the things Journalists, PR and Bloggers are talking about. With the #blck tag we can do the same thing.

I said all that to say that I think non-blacks wonder what we’re talking about, but there’s no solid way to expose them to the millions of unique African-American perspectives and conversations we see on twitter everyday. The #blck tag if used correctly helps group some of these conversations together making them easier for interested non-blacks to find.

So rather than looking at the #blck tag as a tool to separate us, I see it being used as a tool that could be used to expose people our conversations hopefully connecting them with people who they would not normally see in their daily tweet stream.

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To all:

I think I get what the tag is for, but in a way it has me feeling like some sort of separatist movement that I’m not sure we need in this day and age.

This brings up some questions about monolithism in the black community, which begs two very interesting questions: 1) Do all black people only have an interest in black-related content (whatever that means). 2) Do all black people only want to connect with other black people all the time?

Sure, there’s not a lot of us on Twitter, on the Web, in the blackosphere (black blogosphere), and that’s why there’s a feeling of need to connect. But on the other side of things, isn’t the Web supposed to be the place where it doesn’t matter if you’re a man, or woman, or white, or black, or whatever, to be able to dialogue with someone else? And no I’m not naive at all here, I’ve witnessed and experienced attacks on race and gender on the Web. But I’m saying, for the sake of seeing the other side of things. And of course, we can agree to disagree.