I Just received an email from Sean Sinico of the BOBS award congratulating me on winning the public’s choice award for the Best WeBlog in English. The jury award for best weblog went to PaidContent and the public’s award went to Lisa Neun which is a German blog. I just had a look through the list of Jury Awards compared to the list of Public Awards and there isn’t a common choice. This makes me think that the Jury criteria and the public’s criteria were quite different or maybe the public just didn’t get what the jury were looking for. I cant figure it out – maybe there was no criteria for the public vote – just vote for the blogs you appreciated and liked?
Nonetheless it is encouraging to see so many “freedom of expression” blogs being recognised at a time when those of us who live in the West are seeing our rights as individuals slowly being eroded. Maybe reading blogs by those challenging repression and censorship in their countries will be a wake up call for bloggers in the West to not take our “freedoms” (I use the word tentatively as real freedoms do not exist any where in this world) for granted.
Personally I was honoured to have been nominated let alone win the public’s vote and a big thank you to everyone for the recognition of hard work put into Black Looks over the past two and a half years. Most of all I am proud to win this as an African woman and want to share this honour with my sisters and brothers in the African blogosphere who have also worked hard to inform the global citizen community about the lives of women, health, literature, politics, human rights, music and just everything about Africa and the African Diaspora.
