PostBourgie

PostBourgie is a blog on race, culture, politics and media founded in 2007 by Gene Demby. Demby also hosts an accompanying podcast by the same name.

PostBourgie
Created byGene Demby
URLpostbourgie.com
Launched2007 (2007)
Current statusOnline

Founding

Demby founded PostBourgie in 2007. He had begun blogging a few years earlier, prompted by frustration with the state of media conversations about race. Speaking to Colorlines in 2012, Demby recalled in particular an occasion when a CNN reporter approached him on a basketball court to ask for comment on Bill Cosby's Pound Cake speech at the 2004 NAACP Image Awards. Demby said, "I pushed back on him pretty hard...There are people who think black people's condition in the world would be better if we just looked better. 'Pull up your pants.' It seemed so petty that we were having these conversations." In search of an alternative, Demby founded PostBougie as a group blog, inviting collaborators who shared his desire "to have conversations that assumed that black people were human beings who were complicated and imperfect, a space that wasn't super didactic."[1]

Writing in The New Republic, Jamil Smith situates the origins of PostBourgie in a decade of outlets founded "[a]s the number of black journalists in newsrooms inched up in the 1990s, the number of formal race beats declined. Racial coverage began to migrate to media organizations and websites that covered it full time," including Colorlines, Racialicious and This Week in Blackness in addition to PostBourgie. Smith: "These sites don’t bring in corporate dollars like Vox or FiveThirtyEight, but they have survived and even thrived by concentrating their coverage on issues affecting people of color, and by providing opportunities for writers to write on these subjects with a frankness rarely seen in mainstream publications."[2]

Format and content

The PostBourgie blog operates as a "volunteer effort."[3]

PostBourgie has drawn notice for its commentary on topics including television,[4] film,[5][6] music and language,[7] gentrification,[8] hair politics,[9] and race and violence.[10]

Speaking to New York Magazine, Jamil Smith cited PostBourgie as one of the blogs that "really set the bar for...spaces that were made available to [African-Americans and other people of color]. Even if you were working for traditional media, you didn’t have the opportunity to offer your perspective, to tell the unvarnished version of the truth that you see every day...it really hearkens back to the tradition of the black press."[11]

In an interview with the Boston Review, novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie mentioned her admiration for the "irreverence and un-safe-ness" of PostBourgie's commentary.[12]

Influence and alumni

In The Washington Post, Alyssa Rosenberg noted PostBourgie's accomplishments in "building a ladder for all its participants. The blog gave the people who wrote there a chance to workshop their voices and refine their ideas for a smart audience, even when they didn’t have paying assignments for an idea. When one PostBourgie writer got a new job, he or she encouraged others to freelance for that new outlet and to apply for fellowships and jobs there."[3] In The New Republic, Smith agreed that PostBourgie "served as a launching pad for celebrated black journalists." Alums have included Shani O. Hilton, now executive editor of news for BuzzFeed, and BuzzFeed writers Joel Anderson and Tracy Clayton. Demby is now lead blogger for NPR's Code Switch project on race and culture,[13] as well as co-host of the Code Switch podcast.[14]

Podcast

Demby hosts an accompanying podcast, also called PostBourgie, that's been widely praised. Mashable named it to a list of "11 diverse podcasts to give you a fresh perspective on life," saying "PostBourgie's topics run the gamut, but always include intelligent conversation between Demby and various media personalities he invites to chat."[15] Blavity named it one of "23 Black Podcasts You Should Add to Your Playlist,"[16] and Buzzfeed to its list of "13 Awesome Podcasts Bringing Black Voices To The Mic," saying "You should listen if: You’re looking for a gabfest that’s rooted in real-world reporting. There’s riffing and jokes, sure, but the voices you hear are sharing from a place of knowledge and journalistic rigor."[17] The American Sociological Association's magazine Contexts recommended PostBourgie to "the sociologically inclined" listener,[18] and the Atlanta Black Star called it "great for fans of The Daily Show and The Nightly Show looking for a Black voice in the news."[19]

Awards

In 2009, Demby's PostBourgie won a Black Weblog Award for Best News/Politics Site.[20]

See also

References
  1. King, Jamilah (12 April 2012). "Sepia Mutiny's Closure Is a Reminder: Blogging While Brown Ain't Easy". ColorLines. Retrieved 19 August 2016.
  2. Smith, Jamil (2 March 2015). "Working on the Race Beat". New Republic. Retrieved 18 August 2016.
  3. Rosenberg, Alyssa (February 3, 2015). "PostBourgie, Andrew Sullivan and why blogging still matters". The Washington Post. Retrieved July 30, 2016.
  4. Rosenberg, Alyssa (7 October 2013). "'Scandal's President Fitzgerald Grant Is The Absolute Worst — And That's Precisely The Point — ThinkProgress". ThinkProgress. Retrieved 18 August 2016.
  5. Emerson, Jim (December 30, 2009). "The Worst Movie of the Decade Relay | Scanners | Roger Ebert". www.rogerebert.com. Retrieved 19 August 2016.
  6. Coates, Ta-Nehisi (December 30, 2009). "Worst Movie Of The Decade". The Atlantic. Retrieved 19 August 2016.
  7. Pulliam-Moore, Charles (January 8, 2016). "What Does 'Stay Woke' Mean And Why Is Everyone Saying It All Of A Sudden?". Fusion. Retrieved 18 August 2016.
  8. Coates, Ta-Nehisi (March 24, 2011). "Because There Is No Black Middle Class". The Atlantic. Retrieved 18 August 2016.
  9. Rao, Tejal (16 October 2012). "Blogger Wore Afro Wig to Fried-Chicken Tasting". Village Voice. Retrieved 19 August 2016.
  10. Ofori-Atta, Akoto (11 November 2013). "Instagram Deletes Philadelphia 'Rats' Account". The Root. Retrieved 18 August 2016.
  11. Tabor, Nick (July 24, 2016). "MTV News' Jamil Smith on What's Wrong (and Right) With the Media". New York Magazine. Retrieved July 30, 2016.
  12. Bady, Aaron (10 July 2013). "The Varieties of Blackness". Boston Review. Retrieved 18 August 2016.
  13. Kennedy, Channing (16 April 2013). "Gene Demby at NPR's 'Code Switch': As Our Demographics Change, Will Our Stories Follow?". ColorLines. Retrieved 19 August 2016.
  14. Wang, Shan. "What does the intersection of race and culture sound like? NPR's Code Switch is looking for the right mix". NeimanLab.
  15. Desta, Yohana (April 14, 2015). "11 diverse podcasts to give you a fresh perspective on life". Mashable. Retrieved 18 August 2016.
  16. S, Eileen (9 June 2015). "23 Black Podcasts You Should Add to Your Playlist -". Blavity. Retrieved 18 August 2016.
  17. Furlan, Julia (February 11, 2015). "13 Awesome Podcasts Bringing Black Voices To The Mic". Retrieved 18 August 2016.
  18. Weingartner, Rose Malinowski; Clarady, Carrie (March 18, 2016). "Podcasts for the sociologically inclined - Contexts". Contexts. Retrieved 18 August 2016.
  19. Riley, Ricky (13 April 2015). "6 Cool Podcasts You Should Consider Listening To". Atlanta Black Star. Retrieved 18 August 2016.
  20. "Black Weblog Awards - Past Winners". www.blackweblogawards.com.
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