- Blog: What About Our Daughters
- Niche: Social Commentary
- Founder: Gina McCauley
- Twitter: @BWBConference
Oprah has a way of inspiring people to find their greatness. In 2007, Don Imus‘ negative comments about the Rutgers’ women basketball team turned the spotlight on how women of color are depicted in mainstream media. The outrage and dialogue around that on an episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show inspired Gina McCauley, 36, to do something about it. “I was convicted in that moment and launched What About Our Daughters with the narrow mission of getting Black women to defund foolishness,†she says. Now, five years later, McCauley’s site receives an estimated 60,000 views a month and continues to fearlessly confront negative images of Black women and the companies that support them, either directly or indirectly, such as Ford, whose spokesperson Kevin Hart has been under fire for comments made about dark skin Black women.
Based in Austin, TX, McCauley has geared her career towards blogging and the digital space. She is the co-founder of Blogging While Brown (June 1-2, 2012), an annual conference in its fifth year and serves as a godmother of sorts to dozens of new bloggers building their presence online. Among her many accomplishments, she’s been named 25 Most Influential African Americans of 2007 by Essence Magazine, made The Root’s 2010 list of emerging and established leaders in the African-American community and won Blog of the Year at the 2002 Black Weblog Awards. Now, McCauley adds a Black Blogger Month honor to the list.
I did not start blogging…
To earn money. I started blogging in an act of righteous indignation. I quite frankly have always been suspicious about “branding” when it comes to online activism. I think that makes perfect sense if you are selling a product, good or service. The truth is whether you like it or not, you have an online “brand.” There are things people associate with the name of your online platforms whether you like it or not. Whatever you call it, you make a promise to your regular visitors that when they visit your platform, they are going to get something in particular.
The biggest lesson I learned about branding in the digital space is…
That I may blog for one reason, but people may read for another, and that’s okay. Also, I’ve launched several online platforms that are completely unrelated because one site can’t always be all things to all people and due to the low cost of startup, there really is no reason not to give your varied interests their own identities and communities.
The best piece of business advice I ever got was…
From a venture capitalist at the 2011 BlogHer BET conference in Silicon Valley. She looked me straight in the eye and said I needed a cofounder. She said I needed a business development person and that I could remain the chief evangelist. She said that if I didn’t get help, I’d be burnt out in a year. She was right. I was burnt out six months later. And that’s when I was completely open to handing off the reigns of Blogging While Brown, a conference I founded, to someone else. Blogging can be a solitary exercise. In business, it doesn’t hurt to have a second set of eyes and a different perspective and someone who isn’t so in love with that baby you built that they can’t see its flaws and its needs.Click here to continue reading…
How I measure success is…
By whether [Blogging While Brown] is helping Black independent content creators and online activists execute their visions. Success to me is watching the relationships and business opportunities which are birthed by the connections people make at the conference go on to blossom in front of my eyes. As an online activist at What About Our Daughters, I measure success by what my readers do after they’ve read a call to action.
None of my success would be possible if not for…
My family. It’s okay to go cliff diving if you know that there will be people to catch you if you stumble and fall. When the New York Times reporter wanted me to give up my anonymity as a blogger back in 2007, the very next phone call I made was to my mama to ask her if I could sleep on the couch if this blogging thing blew up in my face. [My family] also always helps out during all of my live events.
In business you should never be afraid to…
Tell people NO!
If I weren’t in the digital space today I’d be somewhere…
I don’t even want to think about. Blogging changed my life. It literally took me from a carboholic couch potato to a cyber-crusading warrior princess. I was born for this technology and this time.
It’s important for women of color to have someone like Michelle Obama in the White House because…
They are growing up in a world where they can aspire to be President. Where they can aspire to walk with confidence on the world stage. Where they can aspire to be fit and healthy and have a career and children as well. For Black women, it’s been a wash. I think television programming and depictions of Black women have become more vile in the past three years. It’s almost as if the entertainment industry is working hard to undo any positive [Michelle Obama’s] image may be having on Black women.
The most important lesson I would want to pass down to my future daughter is…
To go for it! Play it smart, but don’t play it safe.
Next on the horizon for me is…
To do with film what I did with blogging. So many women have emailed me and have said that they started blogging after reading my personal blog. I want to harness the power of digital technology so Black women can do with film what we’ve done with social media.
Be sure to check out the rest of the digital thought leaders who were featured by logging on to BlackEnterprise.com/BlackBloggerMonth. For anyone interested in attending the 2012 Blogging While Brown conference (June 1-2), be sure register at BloggingWhileBrown.com. As a Black Blogger Month bonus, attendees can get an additional 20% off registration and day passes by entering the promo code “BE†at checkout.