White, Young, Suburban, Rich and Oblivious

I came across this at DJ Chuang.

"Only 8% of internet users keep a blog — but an additional 39% read them. Not surprisingly, a survey by the Pew Internet & American Life Project also finds that the most distinguishing characteristic of bloggers is their youth. More than half (54%) of bloggers are under the age of 30. Like the internet population in general, however, bloggers are evenly divided between men and women, and more than half live in the suburbs. Another third live in urban areas and a scant 13% live in rural regions. Most bloggers (65%) do not consider their blog a form of journalism and 52% of bloggers say they blog mostly for themselves, not for an audience. "

He includes a chart, which basically says that the majority of bloggers are:

White (60%)
Young (54% ages 18-29, 30% ages 30-49)
Suburban (51%)
and Rich (which is a conclusion I'm drawing based on the 79% of bloggers who use broadband, which we all know is more expensive by quite a ways than dial-up.)

Interestingly, men and women are fairly evenly split, which I didn't expect.

Based on those stats, I'm a very typical blogger.

White: Guilty
Young: Guilty
Suburban: Guilty
Rich: (based on the broadband assumption) Guilty.

So....

I just finished reading Shane Claiborne's "The Irresistible Revolution". If you haven't read it, I highly recommend it, if not only to stretch your thinking. However it's easily a "make you feel horribly guilty" book, too. Guilt is not in his tone, not for one moment; but the conviction still stands that while I am such a completely average person in America, I'm incredibly rich, healthy, and privileged according to most of the population of the world. Shane talks about how if you have two coats, you have excess and someone else has none. How if we have more than we need of anything we are robbing from those who don't have enough. His philosophy is extreme, but I think it's important for most of us average Americans to realize how fortunate we really are.

This, of course, is especially poignant during the Christmas season, when we are hustling and bustling and not really thinking about the people around us. We are shopping and spending and maybe making a mindless donation to some charity. These things aren't inherently wrong, but the more I think about my white middle-class suburban lifestyle, the more it pains me that I complain about being able to *only* spend X amount of dollars this Christmas.

I feel some thoughts forming between these two examples (the blogging stats and Shane's book), but I'm not quite sure where they are going.

I do know that I am thinking real hard these days, and some of what I am learning about myself I don't really like all that much. I know I'm not called to a community like the Simple Way, but I do also know that I am not called to be an oblivious white middle-class suburbanite forever.

I know don't want to remain a statistic on a chart. I will always be white, maybe always middle-class or suburban, but hopefully I won't allow myself, or God won't allow me, to always be oblivious.