Contact: Atty. Francis L. Holland, afrosphere participant
Telephone Number: 55 (73) 9123-2538
Demographic Misinformation in the Blogosphere
Washington Post staff writer José Antonio Vargas attended YearlyKos blogger conference in 2007 and declared that the group was "A Diversity of Opinion, if Not Opinionators: At the Yearly Kos Bloggers' Convention, a Sea of Middle-Aged White Males, with one leader of the conference quoted as saying, "I hate to use the word diversity."
Founded by ex CIA-trainee Markos C. Alberto Moulitsas and billed as a "progressive," "liberal," "leftist" bloggers conference, Atty. Francis L. Holland of the Truth About Kos blog insists that, although the name of the conference has since changed to "Netroots Nation", the white male "opinionators" seem to have learned little about diversity.
For example, one report disseminated at this year's Netroots Nation conference says,
Research proves that women, Hispanics and African-Americans use mobile differently than the general population. This session is designed to engage participants in a discussion about mobile technology and how it can be best used to reach women and minorities. (Emphasis added.) Netroots Nation
However, the study is easily disproved based on facts from the US Census Quick Facts database. White non-hispanics constitute 66% of the United States population, of which less than half is white men. White men do not constitute more than 31 to 32% of the US population.
If you compare that 32% "general population" to those groups who are not included in the general population, you discover that the "non-general" population is actually twice as large as the so-called "general" (white male) population.
Women = 51% of population
Blacks = 13% of population
Latinos = 15% of population
Total women, Blacks and Latinos, etc. = approx. 68% of population.
Rather than diverging on the Internet from the general population in their use of networking tools, women alone and in combination with minorities actually constitute the "general population" from which white men may diverge.
The above statistics aren't perfect because of overlap between women and minority populations, but the female population alone shows that white men are not "the general population." What is true is that white men are, as the Washington Post observed, the general population of the Netroots Nation bloggers conference, but they are vastly outnumbered by the aggregate of other demographic groups within the Democratic Party.
"Research proves that white men use mobile differently than the general population".
Meanwhile, the only way the announcement as written can be interpreted is according to the premise that, although white men are perhaps 31% of the US population, they nonetheless are "the general population". The strategic advantage of trying to convince liberal women and Latinos and Blacks of this errant nonsense is that it encourages us to try to act like white men instead of demanding that institutions craft themselves according to the habits of the female, Black and Latino majority.
Also, setting white men up as the reference group for effective networking is part of convincing the public that white men control the country because their professional behavior is more effective, and not because they endeavor to act like a political majorityarrogating power unto themselves in a way that is disproportionate to their numbers. (See the assertion above that white men are the "general population".)
It's easy to see how women, Blacks and Latinos can attend the Netroots Nation conference and end up feeling like a part of the minority, when simply being a woman makes them part of the majority.
It ought not surprise anyone that statistics are distorted into misinformation at the conference, since DailyKos' founder, Markos C. Alberto Moulitsas Zúñiga, by his own admission, was trained for two years by the CIA while he was starting his DailyKos blog.
The attitude of Mr. Moulitsas, in declaring white men to be the "general population", is similar to that of the Afrikkaners during South African Apartheid, who insisted that only white opinion mattered in a country where whites were outnumbered by a ratio of five to one. At Netroots Nation, their most basic statistics don't add up and tend to value white men while marginalizing others.
Atty. Francis L. Holland, editor of the Truth About Kos blog urgers liberals "not to be brainswashed by Netroots Nation", but instead to read, "The Indictment of Markos C.A. Moulitsas ZÚÑIGA by Justice and History (Updated with Additional Information and Counts)."
Referring to a book by Netroots Nation leader Markos Moulitsas, Atty. Holland says,
"God help us if the Netroots Nation leadership ever succeeds in "Crashing the Gates" of the Democratic Party and declaring a tiny group of white male bloggers to be the 'general population' of the Democratic Party's membership. That attitude is for Republicans, not Democrats."
Holland cites a letter by Markos Moulitsas opposing all gay service in the military as yet more proof that Moulitsas' political goals are anything but liberal.
References:
http://www.netrootsnation.org/node/1142http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/05/AR2007080501580.html
http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/00000.html
http://www.google.com.br/#hl=pt-BR&q=%22white+male+supremacy+paradigm%22&btnG=Pesquisa+Google&meta=&aq=f&fp=7bcd4d7c7b346f40
http://truth-about-kos.blogspot.com/2007/08/indictment-of-markos-ca-moulitsas-ziga.html
http://www.commonwealthclub.org/archive/06/06-06zuniga-audio.html
http://truth-about-kos.blogspot.com/
http://www.northernstar.info/article.php?id=16416&old=1
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