Last weekend the big left-wing blogger’s convention, Yearly Kos, made news by attracting not just 1,500 netroots partisans, but all of the major Democratic presidential candidates. Long gone are the days when powerful politicians with tens of millions of dollars to spend on fancy TV ads could just ignore a bunch of tech-savvy guys posting snappy articles on the World Wide Web.

Blogging is mainstream. The “netroots” has power!

And that’s basically great. The more regular folks can subvert the dominant media machine and get the attention of our leaders the better.

But who is the “netroots?”

Well, mostly, it is a bunch of privileged white men.

No, really. The Washington Post ran an article this week drawing attention to just that issue.

OK, so the dominant political voices on the Internet aren’t very diverse. That’s no surprise. What I want to bring up, however, is the problem of how we (a movement already struggling to include more voices and perspectives) use the Internet effectively and inclusively.

My job here at RAN is to do just that. RAN has a serious and growing commitment to anti-oppression principles I love that. I also see that as privileged white man myself I need to work hard to avoid, or at least minimize, the pitfalls of homogeneity that have plagued so much of the “progressive netroots” as I try to help sustain and improve RAN’s online grassroots organizing efforts.

I don’t exactly have answers here, but I’m hoping to spark a discussion, so I’ll start by sharing a few of my own beliefs about how we use the Internet to make change:

1. The Internet, primarily because it allows anyone with access to communicate to anyone else with access, has amazing potential to help spread our message, connect people, foster cooperation, and ultimately make change possible. This isn’t true for most of our media–who do you know with their own TV channel?

2. The more diverse, democratic, and representative our movement is–both online and offline–the more effective it will be. God, I hope that isn’t controversial. Once again, check out the Van Jones article I linked to above.

3. A big part of the problem is the very idea that something called the “digital divide” is what’s stopping us from have more diversity in the online progressive community. Frankly, I don’t really buy that. I believe that huge numbers of women, people of color, Indigenous people, and others who suffer directly from oppression already use the Internet–and use it for activism.

Although access is an important issue, I think that right now the “netroots” is falling into the trap of believing that blogs and other progressive online communities are meritocracies where the people with the “best” ideas get the most attention. I don’t buy that. I think that much of the rhetoric and framing of political issues online, not to mention the editorial control that does exist, is based in a few very particular worldviews and evaluated primarily using particular culturally-determined values and norms.

4. Pointing all this out is not meant to be a criticism of the above mentioned “tech savvy guys.” Everyone who is pouring their heart into helping to heal and repair this world deserves our deepest gratitude. When I bring all this up it is meant to help all of us (including the tech savvy guys like me) move forward in a better way. See thought #2 above for more on this.

So about moving forward in a better way. The big question I’m trying to answer is: “What should a organized powerful online community look like?” The issues we deal with at RAN are too important not to have a good answer to that question.

If any of you, the members of this online community, have ideas, I want to know.