One of an occasional series on black travelers and their Web sites

SITE: Spinster’s Compass

LOCATION: London, UK

OPENED: Oct. 2010

MACRO-SIZED CHANGE IN A MICROWAVE WORLD
One of the great things about creating IBIT is that it’s made me some terrific new friends, one of whom is Porsche, the young lady who writes this blog. She’s a black American living in London, and she literally lived through the recent riots.

Photo courtesy of Spinster's Compass | All rights reserved

Much of the time, she writes on travel and her life as an expat. Since the riots, however, she’s devoting a lot of her time and blog space to conversations with folks in her London neighborhood (at her request, I’m not saying which one) about what happened there — and more importantly, what needs to happen there, and the rest of Britain.

“We live in a microwave society – people want things done in 90 seconds or less…macro-level change does not happen as quickly as a microwave society wants it to.” —Porsche, “Spinsters Compass

She posted a fair number of images during the riot itself, but it’s what she offered up in the aftermath — the messages left on an open-air community billboard and her own on-the-street chats with locals — that give a true feel and provide the greatest insight on the ugliness, its roots, and just maybe, some solutions.

These are the kinds of convos you’re not likely to find in the mainstream media, on either side of the Atlantic, which makes her blog worth a read. Nor is she shy about including her own opinions and insights, which include some unsettling parallels to our own history and experience in this country as black Americans.

Porsche is our eyes and ears on the ground in London town. When you’re ready to go beyond the headlines and the sound bites, give Spinster’s Compass a digital spin.

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