I'm annoyed that there aren't many Black folks at DU

[devilgrrl]

We need more! Where are they?

[EagleEye]

1. How can you tell?

[ibegurpard]

2. Exactly what I was going to ask.

eom

[hiphopnation]

7. here's how

www.democraticunderground.com/gallery

[bif]

Do black people type differently than other folks or something?

How do you know how many are here?

[devilgrrl]

6. The photo gallery.

Not many pictures of our black friends and neighbors - what's up with that?

[ibegurpard]

9. The photo gallery represents a small fraction of DU membership

I can think of several African-American DUers whose pictures are not in the photo gallery.

[dogtag]

22. There's a photo gallery? Where?

[latebloomer]

43. here

www.democraticunderground.com/gallery

[HamdenRice]

35. representative sample

The point is that the photo gallery is probably a statistically representative sample of the entire membership.

[gpandas]

62. probably...

as in you-don't-really-know-but-what-the-fuck-i'll-post-it-anyway?

[SoCalDem]

45. Yep.. Lots of people are camera-shy

no matter what race they are :)

[Minstrel Boy]

12. But there are 53,000 DUers

and how many post their pictures?

[bowens43]

3. What makes you think there isn't?

[ChipperbackDemocrat]

4. Another one of the black folk at DU

Devilgrrl, you are not alone :)

I'm black, and I'm here :)

[devilgrrl]

11. Hello!

:hi:

[Indiana_Dem]

5. How do you know there aren't?

The internet seems to have no color.

[calico1]

8. I'm not Black but I am Hispanic.

Can you tell? :-)

[qanda]

10. Hey, what about me?

I'm black and also a proud DUer.

[devilgrrl]

13. Post your picture in the gallery.

Your presence is needed. Black is beautiful - show it off. :-)

[qanda]

24. No way in the world

I don't take pictures, although there was a picture of me and my children at one of the rallies posted on DU at some point.

[slor]

14. I am here...

did you not know?

[devilgrrl]

16. Did you post your pretty picture in the Gallery?

If not - do so! Don't be so shy.

[Yavin4]

15. I'm Here

Been here since 2001.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

17. how do you know my ethnicity?

[Name removed]

18. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[DrWeird]

19. Pfff

:eyes:

[Name removed]

23. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Name removed]

38. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[DrWeird]

50. How is any of this racist?

She's white and would like to see more African American DUers.

Are you calling her a race traitor?

[951]

63. *ugh* As much as I hate to ask because I want to stay away from race

How do you know she's white?

[realisticphish]

29. whoa dude

chill

:hippie: The Incorrigible Democrat

[Name removed]

54. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[devilgrrl]

20. The only reason I started this thread...

was because everyone here was making fun of freeREPUGnic because they had one or two black members. Then I go to the DU gallery and there's not many black folks pictured there either. With so many great progressive Black thinkers, it got me a little concerned, that's all.

[DulceDecorum]

34. Black Freepers?????

Oh gawd,
the economy MUST be bad to make people sell out like that.

Are you sure those weren't Dartmouth students in blackface?

What are the mnames of these "black" freepers?
Amos 'n' Andy?
Must be, otherwise the other freepers would never accept them.

[951]

40. You are really beyond help devilgrrl

[devilgrrl]

47. Who are you to judge?

:nuke:

[Name removed]

53. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[cheezus]

21. I'm annoyed that so many working poor have no Internet access

then again, many have no phone service or even electricity. That's just WRONG. These are public utilities that everyone deserves access to

[devilgrrl]

25. Great... twist it into that...

Way to go. :eyes:

[cheezus]

51. sorry. just postulatingthat lack of access to DU is more socio-economic

...than racial

[Minstrel Boy]

26. I'm a bit confused by your annoyance

Because it seems to come down to gallery photos. Are you actually annoyed that black DUers don't post in the gallery?

And I went to the gallery and looked at your picture. Not that I care, and not that I would have thought about your colour if you hadn't made an issue of race, but you're white. Compounding my confusion.

[devilgrrl]

30. Refer to post 20

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=2542291&mesg_id=2542365&page=

And quit jumping to conclusions about what I'm insinuating.

[Minstrel Boy]

37. but the gallery is a small sample,

and your original post said nothing about it.

I'll leave it at this, because I believe you meant well: I think perhaps inviting black members to post in the gallery, rather than stating you're "annoyed" there are not more blacks at DU, when you really don't know how many there are, would have wiser.

[Kipepeo]

39. Yeah but you do seem to be focused on getting

people of color to post their photos. If the DU gallery is a representative sample of DU then the problem is a lack of people of color and the answer is not to ask all black DUers to go post their photos.

[devilgrrl]

44. Why not post photos? Anyone's better looking than me.

and thanks for twisting this into another direction.

[Kipepeo]

48. Twist it into what direction?

I thought you were addressing lack of (or perceived lack of) racial diversity on DU.

I notice you accused another poster upthread of "twisting" it as well when they put forth their reasoning for why there might be a lack of diversity, but then thanked a poster downthread who agreed with that poster who suggested that this is probably the result of low penetration of internet access in the neighborhoods of people of color.

I don't understand how you are picking out who is twisting a topic and who is discussing.

[shanti]

57. people don't post photos for many reasons

#1 - if you've had someone take your picture from one site, and post it (without your permission) on another site for everyone to rip to shreds, you would be very very wary about posting your photo online too.

[951]

67. devilgrrl why havent you posted your picture?

*waits*... I know this is going to take all day for her to answer or she might just ignore *shrugs*

[beanball]

27. Blacks

I am reporting for duty.

[aden_nak]

28. *converts*

[Crunchy Frog]

31. How do you know what color

particular DUers are? From what I can tell, there are quite a number of African Americans and people of other races, but you can't tell by looking at their posts, it's rarely in their profiles, and most people here seldom mention their race.

If you think you can tell by looking at a persons post what race they are, you may have some issues with racial stereotyping that you're not aware of. It may be something you might want to work on.

[devilgrrl]

33. Wow! You're about the 50th person that asked that.

Read the thread first please.

[Crunchy Frog]

41. I often like to respond right off, before reading a thread.

I like giving my immediate knee jerk reaction to certain types of posts, without first filtering it through what everyone else has said.

Your post evoked a strong knee jerk response in me, and I just wanted to share it. Hope you don't mind too much. :7

[HamdenRice]

32. And the diversity rate is ...

Hi devilgirl,

Assuming that the gallery is a roughly random sample of the total membership of DU -- and there is no reason to believe it is not a representative sample -- the pictures in the gallery should approximate the racial makeup of the total membership.

I tried to count persons of color of all kinds -- African American, Latinos/as and Asians -- and the total number of pictures. While this may undercount Latinos/as and Asians, it probably does not undercount black people.

My estimate is that there are 7 people of color out of 269 people in the gallery or a rate of diversity at DU of approximately 2.6%, which is far below the national average.

I agree with the poster who suggests that this is probably the result of low penetration of internet access in the neighborhoods of people of color.

BTW, I'm black too!

[devilgrrl]

36. Thank you :-)

BTW, :hi:

[HamdenRice]

46. And a good estimate of the number of people of color at DU ...

Hi again Devilgrrl,

If the gallery is representative, and the diversity rate is accurate then there are about 1400 DUers of color -- which is much better than the one or two people of color you report being members of Freep

[papau]

58. There is no scientific concept called race-there is skin color & inherited

diseases.

So if one has "Black" inherited diseases, and light skin color - do we say white - or black (granted sickle cell in a light colored skin is called Mediterranean anemia! :-) )

If you looking for similar background, I grant you skin color in America does determine how you grow up.

But I prefer a DU where "race" is not even asked - unless a Duer is a potential date and you have a skin color requirement for such dates, I do not see much reason for the question.

[Cocoa]

42. flawed in so many ways

including the fact that you can't always tell from pictures what race people are.

The fact is, if you're annoyed by the lack of blacks at DU, you're annoyed by something you don't have any way of knowing is true.

[DrWeird]

49. It's a valid assumption.

Assuming the gallery is a random sample, and there's no major reason not to, then there's a great desparity of AA DUers and that would be a shame.

[Cocoa]

56. still just guessing

why get upset about a guess? And what good is a discussion based on a premise that no one has any idea how good it is?

More valid to discuss, why do so many of the people that chose to post pictures in the gallery, that even know about the gallery, look white?

[HamdenRice]

61. not a guess -- it's a science

Do you read the polls about election outcomes? Do you ever notice how many people the pollsters ask? It is usually no more than 1000 to 2000 people for a national poll.

Mathematicians discovered a very long time ago that a random sample of a larger group provides amazingly accurate predictions about the characteristics of the larger group.

For this reason, you can predict the outcome of a national election with tens of millions of voters with just 1,000 randomly selected voters polled by telephone.

Similarly, if the 269 photos in the gallery are a random sample of the total DU membership, it will give a very exact prediction of the characteristics of the overall group. You would have to argue that white people who are members of DU are more likely to post their pictures than people of color. It may be possible, but you would have to explain why -- eg that white people are more exhibitionistic, or people of color are more afraid of disclosing their pictures. I doubt both.

As for your last question -- why do so many people who post pictures in the gallery look white? I would guess can it be they look white because they are white?

[ibegurpard]

64. It's not a random sample

It's a self-selecting sample, which is the same thing that makes internet polls worthless for anything other than amusement.

[UpsideDownFlag]

52. what's the ratio? anyone know? nt

[Thtwudbeme]

55. I am not in the gallery

I assume that the only people who know my skin color are the DUers that have actually met me.

[kerry-is-my-prez]

59. Black DUers were offended by people thinking the Confederate flag was ok

Quite a few left at that time. I know because several stated that they were disgusted and were going to leave. I also got a few e-mails from some of the black members saying they were going to leave. I left for a few weeks at that time in disgust myself.

This is referring to when Dean was running for Pres. and made his comment about the Confederate flag. Some didn't see what the big deal was and others - I suspect were so tied in to Dean that they just wanted to show their support for him by "sticking up" for him.

[chimpy the poopthrower]

60. Um. The gallery is NOT a representative sample.

And I don't know why some of you are acting like it is. I really don't have much to say about whether DU has the "right" amount of black members or whether we need more, but as someone with a passing interest in statistical methods, I can say that there is absolutely no reason to think that the DU picture gallery is representative of DU as a whole. People who self-select to include their photos may differ from the general population in many, many ways. And since the apparent racial makeup of the photo gallery is the entire premise for supposing that DU doesn't have many black members, I think the entire question becomes moot.

[HamdenRice]

66. self selection bias

is only relevant when the basis for self selection is related to the characteristic you are measuring.

So the gallery of pictures of people at a KKK rally, or for that matter a republican party rally, would include people self-selected for not being white.

Why on earth would white people at DU self select to post their pictures more than people of color?

[kerry-is-my-prez]

65. There's not much discussion re: race issues here so it may be a valid

assumption. True, there is a forum for it - but you'd think there would be more of a discussion of it on the main board.

[Moderator]

68. Locking

This thread has turned into a flame fest and is not a productive discussion.