It is no secret that dKos has being undergoing a period of turbulence. I've hung around here for a long time, and though I can assure people that these tensions go a long way back, they seem to have reached unprecedented levels in recent weeks. It saddens me immensely that much of the tension seems to have fallen along the faultline of race, a development that should be of intense concern for anyone claiming to belong to a progressive online community.
One thing that I want to make plain here is that I feel that the exclusion and denigration of Kossacks of color should be of grave concern to those concerned about the ongoing viability of this site. The question is not one of "racism" among the top administrators of the site, at least not in any straightforward way. Rather, it is about the need for a consciousness of how race mediates people's experience at dKos. When a disproportionate number of Kossacks of color find that administrative measures are coming down on them, that resonates with their experience of racial exclusion and insensitivity in other quarters of daily life.
I think part of this for me also comes out of my participation in the ongoing debates about President Obama's performance. As someone who has been very critical of President Obama's policies, I have nonetheless sometimes been dismayed at the indifference and misunderstanding that many Kossacks have when it comes to the racialized character of the hostility directed at him. This is not to absolve him of his errors, which I often find frustrating. But when the rhetoric directed at him reinforces -- whether consciously or not -- a charged rhetoric of racist animus, that attests to a troubling degree of insensitivity at large in the Kossack community.
This may seem, on the surface, to be unrelated to the question of the "purge." However, it is precisely the reduction in the ranks of active Kossacks of color at this site that provides a congenial environment for ignorance and incomprehension of this kind. Diversity is not window dressing; it is a crucial component of any progressive community worth the name.
It would be easy for me as a white male to decide that this is somehow not "my" fight. I could continue to blog here obliviously, and bracket the entire question of the "purge" and its racial dynamics. But I am also acutely conscious that this is not an option for many Kossacks, who find that the measures put in place here of late have fallen disproportionately on them. It is in recognition of their work, their desire to be members in full standing of this community, that I join this boycott.