History of the AfroSpear

The genesis of the AfroSpear/AfroSphere movement can be attributed to many Black bloggers, Black blogs and websites within the African Diaspora. Bloggers like AfroNetizen, African American Political Pundit, Jack and Jill Politics, Black Commentator, Booker Rising, Prometheus 6, Mirror on America and Francis Holland had for many months expressed the need for inclusion of black bloggers into the majority blogosphere discussion on all issues impacting Americans. They contended that white bloggers, particularly the "big [white] boys of blogging" refused to link to Black blogs on their blogs lists as well as within articles, and generally pretended that Black bloggers did not exist.

In spite of the demands by Blacks for inclusion in the white blogosphere, in 2006 white bloggers met in the middle of the an historic black community of Harlem, N.Y. with former President Bill Clinton, to discuss politics but did not include the participation of a single Black blogger. Many black bloggers considered this an insult to black bloggers and to black communities.

The resulting photograph of an all-white group of bloggers in Harlem with Bill Clinton infuriated Black bloggers, who represent a critical base of the Democratic Party. From the conservative La Shawn Barber , the moderate The Republic of T and the liberal Steve Gillard and The Culture Kitchen created early discussions for a chain of Black change in the blogosphere.

In 1996, Black Internet social and political activist Francis L. Holland, Esq. began criticizing the lack of diversity at DailyKos, but he was banned from participation there. He subsequently published a groundbreaking study at MyDD, on Feb 15, 2007, that included a startling graphic which showed a square entitled "Blogosphere" divided in half, into two segregated triangles, the "whitosphere" and the "Blackosphere," with an accompanying essay entitled "entitled Blackosphere & Whitosphere: Silence is Never Golden . This graphic acknowledgment of the de-facto segregation of the blogosphere provided an additional crucial catalyst for bloggers of African descent to coalesce to discuss issues of importance to the African diaspora in a collective manner.

A subsequent article entitled "White-News" vs. the Blackosphere became to topic of conversation in the black blogger community, and the term "whitosphere" made popular by Francis L. Holland became essential to Blacks and whites conceptual understanding, continuing to be used even today.

Bloggers like The Field Negro , Jack and Jill Politics, African American Political Pundit, Asabagna, Aulelia, P6, Skeptical Brotha, Republic of T, BygBaby, Culture Kitchen, Angie, The Free Slave, and many other bloggers continued the discussions at the Republic of T's blog after his blog post " The Republic of T. Blogging While Brown, Part III" on March 30, 2007 with Black bloggers, Rikyrah, ecthompson, Electronic Viillage, Mark Bey, Dr. Lester Spence, Bronze Trinity and many other bloggers contributing to the discussion. Through further discussions on other black blogger platforms such as The Free Slave the AfroSpear name was agreed upon.

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