theGrio’s 100: Jamie Broadnax, encouraging black girls to embrace their inner nerd

Jamie Broadnax is a self proclaimed blogger and nerd. She’s also the creator of BlackGirlsNerds, an online group dedicated to covering topics that interest women of color who consider themselves to be geeks, as she put it, “A website for Blerds–black nerds.”  If you’re a fan of Star Wars, Dungeon and Dragons, and Star Trek, BlackGirlsNerds is the place to be. With a great sense of humor, she posted in her Twitter bio, “Blogger, Nerd. Billionaire. Last part may be a slight exaggeration.”  And in Google+ she writes, “Geekette. Nerd-Extraordinaire – Credit Analyst by day…Blog Super-heroine by night.”

Not all black women enjoy watching Love & Hip Hop or the RHOA in their spare time. Creating an online haven for those hobbies that aren’t as mainstream was an idea that Broadnax brought into fruition. Have you ever dressed up as your favorite superhero at Comicon? Feel free to link with other like minded women and go together as a group.

 The main goal of BlackGirlsNerds, is to support and be around like minded people without fearing ridicule for enjoying arts that others may find odd.  Embrace your nerdom.

“This is a blog that is owned and operated by a black girl nerd that is tired of feeling ashamed of who and what she is.,” Broadnax wrote as BGN’s mission statement. “The term ‘Black Girl Nerd’ is not intended to be derogatory nor is it racially biased.  It is a term of endearment to all women like me who have been attached to a stigma that is not an accurate representation of my personality or my idiosyncratic behaviors.”

Broadnax has stated, “My future goals for BGN is to allow this to be an online magazine and source for Black and other women of color. I would love BGN to be a social enterprise where we can have BGN meet-ups in metropolitan cities and to also host Comic-cons in the area. She went on to say, “I would love to partner with existing comic cons as well as create new cons for Blerds since we are so sparse in many of the major cons. If there were ever a TV network for only Nerds I want BGN to have their own channel!” You can follow Jamie on Twitter at @jamiebroadnax.