A Household Mainstay in Black America in the 21st Century age of the Blog

My mother used to have it in the magazine rack in the living room. My dad used to keep a copy in the bathroom on top of the radiator cover, where I saw my first centerfold of a pretty woman in a bikini. I used to get so much news that identified me with my culture, our world, and who I was in it. I first read about Motown, Marvin Gay, Sly & the Family Stone, Sammy Davis, Jr., Bill Cosby, Michael Jackson, Andrew Young, Dionne Warwick, Lola Falana, Diana Ross, and of course Dr. Martin Luther King.

What is it? It's Ebony Magazine, and Jet Magazine, those scions of black America in the 1950s, 60s and 70s. It's what Black America grew up on and what made us "us" all of our lives, or at least that life as it existed in the mid-20th century. In a new century and a new age, some of that has been lost as print media has given way to the powerful tsunami of the internet, desktop publishing, and the blog.

If you're 50 or older, you may remember the movie "The Blob". Remember going to the drive-in and seeing that blue, gooey thing spreading through the town, coming into that movie theatre and oozing out of the front door, either chasing frantic people out or absorbing them in the blog alive? Eeesshhh!!! Remember the nightmares you had dreaming about it afterwards when you and the family came home from the drive-in? Eeeeesshhhh!!! Well, the blog is the modern 'blob'. It is spreading through the net, coming into our homes, and oozing through our computer screens everywhere. Eeeessshhhhh!!!! What a nightmare!

Well, to add some civility to that nightmare, we now have the online mag EbonyJet.com (http://www.ebonyjet.com.) Not to be outdone or lost in the online shuffle, black culture, heritage, and the pride of the black media community, before Black Voices, before BET, before Essence, before Black Enterprise, there was Ebony and Jet, reminding us that black people are a force and a pride and perhaps the most important part of America that ever existed. There were many others (like the Amsterdam News of Harlem and Mohammed Speaks of the Nation of Islam - now known as The Final Call), and others before it. But none other like Ebony and Jet. So check out the website above - I think you'll enjoy what you see.