Against Your Own: When blood isn't thicker than party affiliation

Community-specific blogs tend to have an apparent political slant. For instance, readers don't usually turn to blogs sponsored by Latinos to gain balanced insight on issues like immigration reform. But where do the alliances of such blogs lie when two prominent members of the same community are pit against each other?

In an article published on The Root, a blog dedicated to exploring the issues of African Americans, an article entitled, "The GOP's Nutty Negro," illustrates the intricacies these online communities, especially those centered around ethnicity and religious background, tend to tackle. The article explores comments made by Alan Keye's, whose appointment as the Republican Party's first black Chairmen has garnished controversy from Democrats who criticized the choice as a lackluster attempt by the GOP to showcase the party's diversity. The article criticizes Keye's for making outlandish claims against the validity of Obama's election.

And although the blog exercises the liberty to use controversial words like "Negro" in their articles and headlines, author Lawrence Bobo makes no attempt to reach across the ideological table in an act of black solidarity, calling Keye's "a dispecable lunatic."

The fact that the publication defends President Obama is no surprise. But their all out attack on fellow African American, Alan Keye's illustrates that the community blog is rooted in is more than just Africanness but also political affiliation and shared ideology; it proves that it is not just an online publication aimed at "providing news to a variety of black perspectives," but an online publication aimed at providing news to the majority of black [democratic] perspectives.