>I guess the difference is that I don't need to watch or read
>these things to relate. In my blog I referenced Jennifer
>González' The Appended Subject: Race and Identity as Digital
>Assemblage.

Of course, I don't NEED to read or watch these things to relate either, my point is that the major influences for most non-black people of colour in North America are tied into the black struggle. Back in 1996 until about 2000, I worked with a relatively large group called Third World Alliance. Although we were a group representing the issues of all non-white peoples, and altough we were composed of Latinos, Africans, Arabs, Iranians, Philipinos, and Far East Asians (interestingly, since our race analysis was rooted in power and not the superficiality of skin pigmentation -take note Bartek- Japanese folks were excluded from joining. I have since adopted a more class oriented analysis, however I strongly retained this analysis of power), we found that most of the culture, language, and philosophy came directly out of black power movements. Not because we were an organization of "wannabes", as Bartek would like to believe, but because that is the culture of most influence upon all race struggles in this part of the world.

>"...the appended subject describes an object constituted by
>electronic elements serving as a psychic or bodily appendage,
>an artifical subjectivity that is attached to a supposed
>original or unitary being, an online persona understood as
>somehow appended to a real person who resides elsewhere, in
>front of a keyboard. In each case a body is constructed or
>assembled in order to stand in for, or become an extention of,
>a subject in an artificial but nevertheless inhabited world."
>
>What do we really represent online? You or I can say we're
>anything but it really is artificial. I am intrigued by the
>idea of race online. My experiences as a Black woman are real
>time, everyday kinds of experiences but who I am online is
>based upon how I want others to view me. This goes for
>everyone. How am I supposed to know who is real or authentic
>on a discussion board? Does it even matter?

This is an amazing point. I often lose sight of this myself.

>In this country and other parts of the world the African
>diaspora is the appended subject, their expressions in form or
>in movement represent a certain consciousness, class, or
>gender of the individual or group. González also writes about
>the appended subject as the colonized subject perceived by an
>imperial nation such as the United States in the 16th-20th
>centuries and even the present. This subject is an appendage
>to the centralized state. Unless you belong to the oppressed
>group how can you really know what their struggle is like
>except for what you read or hear? You'd have to include that
>history, the legacy of slavery, and Jim Crow...all of this
>makes up the consciousness of the African diaspora. Online
>it's an idea, a concept...something to discuss but not take to
>heart.

Yeah, I agree, our struggles are different in many ways but our oppressor is of the same source. That is all I meant to argue. That and the commodification of black struggle has found its way into a market for other people of colour who seek a local culture to identify with a global problem. For better or for worse, it is the case that many of us oppressed people have found ourselves identifying with black movements.