Some of the best blogging this month has been at Granny Gets a Vibrator, where Granny has created an experiment she calls the Black Media Immersion Month:
...what this means is that for the next thirty days I'm going to be reading almost entirely blogs written by black people. I'm going to get my news and opinions from black publications, I'm going to read magazines and web sites published and written by and for black people. I'm going to read novels, drama, and poetry written by black authors, watch black films, listen to black radio stations, and so forth.
This is an experiment for me. I'm not trying to be black, or become black or pretend like I'm black or any of that stuff. I'm just very curious to learn how looking at the world through this lens will affect me, my white thinking, and my white perspective. Will it sharpen my awareness, increase my insights, alter my feelings, improve my ability to understand what it's like to be black in this society? Of course, I already tend to think of myself as a Good Liberal Anti-Racist White Person. But I've been wondering, how deep does this identity really run? What can I discover about gaps and weak links and blind spots in my anti-racist commitment by indulging in this experiment?
An idea that could be very cool or very corny depending on who tries to implement it, luckily Granny and her lively readership are sharp enough to make it worthwhile. The discussions on cultural appropriaton are a highlight (despite, or because of, the obligatory one guy who doesn't get it), but there's good reading all over the place in there.
