Last Thursday, I went to the website Afronetizen.com and read this: "Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you already know that the drive-by shooting otherwise known as the sub-prime mortgage debacle has claimed its first high-profile victim. Until his “retirement” a couple of days ago, Stanley O’Neal was sitting precariously atop the world’s largest brokerage firm, Merrill Lynch. The financial behemoth had just announced a .9 billion (yes, that’s with a “B”) OOOPS in the form of a write-down of its huge exposure to collateralized debt obligations also known as "CDOs"... Those of us concerned with African-American participation at the “C-Level” – as in Chief (Executive, Financial, Technical, etc.) Officer – can’t help but feel some level of disappointment. Mr. O’Neal, along with Time Warner’s Richard Parsons, American Express’ Kenneth Chennault and others, ushered in a new era of possibility for ambitious corporate denizens of color. Their very presence confirmed the ideal of corporate meritocracy and gave credence to the assertion that corporate boards and the shareholders they work for are concerned with only one color."

In months filled with sub-prime reporting deluge, this was the first thing I read that said maybe, maybe part of this story is race. There's something you don't hear on the nightly news.

But it is something that Chris Rabb is talking about - and talking about all the time. So we sat him down for our Wednesday Interview to find out more.

Veracifier: So tell me first about your name - Afronetizen. Where did it come from?

Chris: In the late 1990s when I began spending most of my waking hours online, I realized that the Internet had become for me more than a convenience, crutch or consumer's paradise. I realized that it had become for me a kind of civic resource that allowed me to learn and share what I learned (or already knew) with others who I cared about. And beyond my family, friends and colleagues, there was a larger community I cared about . . . fellow Blackfolk who I could connect to/with beyond geographic boundaries like never before. So, one day it just dawned on me that I had become an "afro-netizen". A term a coined circa 1999 based on an earlier defined term: netizen, which had a civic component to it which I liked and identified with.

Veracifier: It's a great moniker - and indicative of the larger movement we see on your website. Since you started blogging, what issues have you been most motivated to bring to this community?

Chris: digital literacy, media literacy, political literacy, civic engagement & the power & impact of technology on/within Black communities.

Veracifier: In action, then, what has political literacy meant? Do you think you've been able to encourage a new kind of civic engagement?

Chris: I think Afro-Netizen represents the potential of a new kind of civic engagement. And perhaps that has on some small level encouraged others to think and/or do things differently in this realm. But I'd also like to think that it's made people see the inter-connectedness of multiple arenas/disciplines that impact people from all backgrounds.

Veracifier: Like what?

Chris: media, technology, electoral politics, entrepreneurship, structural inequality. business & politics are a hand in a glove. But you can't talk about either without talking about the power of media. . . . and technology.

Veracifier: I've been reading your website religiously lately, and I think we've seen that inexorable link between politics and business very clearly in an issue you've been covering - the sub-prime lending crisis. In all the stories I've read, your site is the only place I've seen any decent - even respectable - coverage of the mess from a racial perspective.
Why do you think that is? Does mainstream media ignore Black America?

Chris: Mainstream White media used to ignore us before desegregation. Then, slowly but surely in the 70s & 80s less dim-witted folks in corporate America realized we had some discretionary income and began -- albeit shabbily -- to cater to us. The irony is that someone of the media coverage (e.g. TV shows) did a better job of talking about race in the 70s than they do right now. I think there was a very small window of optimism that died right as Vietnam vets were being sent home broken and ignored (followed up by the Reagan era).

Veracifier: This is something I know I'd hear on Tavis Smiley... and your website.  But shouldn't we be hearing about it elsewhere? Shouldn't the media be taking some responsibility (in their role as that third pillar of a functioning democracy...) and daring to ask the questions you do?

Chris: Ideally, yes. But our mainstream media is controlled by a handful of conglomerates whose #1 objective is maximization of shareholder value. Protecting/expanding/defending democracy ain't even on the top 10 list.
That's the media literacy part though. How many Americans know that they don't really have a choice in mainstream society anymore?

Veracifier: You mean besides FOX and CNN?  Wait, there are choices?

Chris: But deeper than that, who owns FOX and what else does that behemoth own that impacts how FOX provides "news"? Same with CNN & MSNBC. What's worse, Black-oriented media is virtually all corporate-owned/White controlled. So there's no autonomy regardless of how many higher-ups are Black. They have no power -- unless is to do the bidding of the owners of these outlets. Black people owned more land a century ago. The same is true for Black newspapers -- a medium that was originally used as a proto-blog for Black and White abolitionists. These newspapers were viral because Blackfolk would share them from house to house, church to church, railway to railway.

Veracifier: Do you think the Internet can follow in that path?

Chris: They were independently owned and progressive (if only narrowly defined around the issue of emancipation and human rights.) I do think that the netroots communities can learn a lot from the Underground Railroad and other important, successful movements. I think the Jena protest on 9/20 affirmed such similarities. Black netroots activists advocated for, organized around & promoted the hell out of Jena 6. . . . which ultimately resulted in 30k people from all walks of life showing up in one little town on the same day. Like the Chicano youth of L.A. who marched in droves, they made the world/CNN/Congress take note.

Veracifier: Hopefully you can, too. If our readers can see one thing on your website today, what would you want them to read?

Chris: Well, I'd say the most edgy thing of late is my piece on the word "nigger", which is so rarely talked about comprehensively and honestly.

Veracifier: I actually listened to that piece on NPR.

Chris: I was mad as hell at that guy. Not sure if you could tell.

Veracifier: For good reason though. Do you ever feel like people invite you into the room (like then) to be the voice of Black America?

Chris: all the time.

Veracifier: What do you think about that?

Chris: it's annoying as hell -- and offensive. What we need is White people talking about race deliberately when Blackfolk aren't within earshot. The same goes for men regarding sexism. We have to acknowledge and own up to our respective sites of (largely unearned) privilege.

Veracifier: Do you think it's levels of privilege that keep Americans from talking about race? Is independent media any different from mainstream media, even? Uou just NEVER hear the word 'race' anymore unless a Pew study comes out.

Chris: There's a public narrative being told & increasingly embraced around a meta-racial/racist society that simply doesn't exist.

Veracifier: Another Wednesday Interview we did was with Max Blumenthal - and he started to talk about the "quiet war on Black America." Do you think this is what's happening - we can't talk about it, so now it's all quiet - and not getting better? How do we start this conversation?

Chris: From my perspective, the war's loud as hell.

Veracifier: How do we make it something that's not quiet for everyone else?

Chris: But the reality is that Whitefolk can talk about race, they just choose not to for various reasons -- some less noble than others. We need progressive White people to speak up in a non-self-congratulatory way and state the obvious: race is America's original sin that keeps this nation from greatness (or even decency). We need to provide more spaces & opportunity for multi-ethnic dialogue.

Veracifier: Well hopefully we'll play some part in that.

Chris: Ideally, this is what independent & alternative media could have a hand in along with other non-profit and faith-based groups. I'd love to see Veracifier and others enter this space. I'll end with this: Talking about race doesn't make someone racist. But by not acknowledging race and racism in its various forms further benefits (in the short-term, anyway) White people -- even those who are opposed to racism.