It all started with this, a letter from Kali Tal...
Now I first read something of hers in WIRED back in '96 and fired off a provocative little e-mail. I liked her piece but wanted to say a few things. Well, it turned out that she remembered me and came back a year or so later with the proposal of (e)race.
When she started saying things like "We think that that such ideas are based on the false notion that there's a normative whitehetmale middle-class culture to which all folks can gain access now that the barriers imposed by the physical body have been miraculously removed." I knew she was on the right track. Not since my musings on black identity and cyberspace way back in '95 have I heard such phrases. I was hooked.
However, I'm wedded to the interactive internet form. How can I contribute to a printed book? Over time I became very frustrated. I sent the following:
"i have written deeply in the media of web, usenet and email and my entire
style, i beleive is inseparable from the substance of why i am worth
reading in the first place. in some ways, asking me to write about the
subjects, outside of the context of where i have, is like asking blind
lemon jefferson to draw a picture of his music. in other words, i'm not
sure i'm up to the task, despite the fact that i remain with plenty to say.
(well, plenty to *repeat*.) in the end, however, my saying it is most
effective where and when i do say it and that is enmeshed in the unique
give and take of interactive conversations on the 'net. i have read sailing
books by william f. buckley, and i'm afraid to look as foolish as he."
I thought about it, but probably not enough because I had been engaged in Cafe Utne, Slate, Gravity, Salon and other places. I still think my best work *is* interactive. so i thought, do I do this as myself or as boohab? Do I write an essay or just point to my website? How can I communicate what I have been doing outside of the medium?
I finally decided that the closest thing to interactivity in print is a Q&A format, and so i have decided to compile a multi-way interview. it kind of works like a call-in show with you (the regulars of Cafe Utne, Slate, Gravity & Salon) interviewing boohab about his work with me (michael bowen) as the facilitator through this website, slate, e-mail and my website (which includes boohab's factotum). the subject is race and the internet and what are the experiences of a black man (me) creating a personna (boohab) whose sole function is to 'stir up trouble' as an internet activist & gadfly talking about race for years with hundreds of people from all different backgrounds.
So here we go...
m.d.c.bowen
april, 1998