My opinion is that race is moot anyways, we are all Africans anyway:
http://www.actionbioscience.org/evolution/johanson.html

Culture and language on the other hand, will be influenced by the environment you grew up in, but it can also be adopted.

But I agree with Vincent that it if you wanted to talk more deeply about the blogosphere, having Malays and others represented would be good; in fact that’s one drawback to my own research, because I don’t speak BM I can’t track most of the Malay bloggers – so basically I can’t really make conclusions about the ‘Malaysian blogosphere’ really. Often when I talk to people (typically English-speaking Chinese – which reflects my social circle also), they say ‘Oh there aren’t many Malay blogs anyway’, but if I ask them for more details, or if they know of some significant Malay bloggers, it transpires that they don’t know – they’re just assuming so because they don’t come across them. People like sultanmuzaffar and redmummy have quite big audiences.

Also, just in terms of giving talks and so on – I guess if there were the different ethnicities represented amongst the speakers, it could make some people feel more at ease. Which isn’t a bad thing if one were to do such talks regularly.

That said, the point can be valid if it was a slightly more advanced workshop. There are topics which appeal to the different market segments (age, race, economic status). For instance, you should be familiar with Sultan Muzaffar, yes? How many Chinese would give a hoot about his Akademi Fantasia postings? But those topics appeal the the younger Malays (and dare I say, the more kampung folks) and is extremely relevant if you are conducting a workshop on Blogging For Money.

It’s a workshop conducted in English by an English language daily; so as long as the speakers and participants understand each other does it really matter that none of them are Malays/Indians/green skinned aliens?

I guess the political scene in the country must have affected the minds of our fellow Malaysian brothers and sisters.

Your explanation or clarification shows that you have made a just decision based on your powers and personal relationship. I believe the question would make sense if it was directed to NST and not to you personally.

If NST was in charged of getting speakers, they could get representative from all walks of life, even senior citizen, disabled bloggers, as mentioned by Jeff. Since it’s you and you have the whole workshop sorted out with topics beforehand, it doesn’t really matter who the speakers are.

Who cares if a 9 year old speaks about blogging if the child know what he/she is doing?
It’s the content and not the speaker.

That said, you do have an obligation to consider all feedback, professionally speaking. Then you have to give any important feedback due consideration (I’ll assume this one’s important since you’re blogging about it even just for 2 seconds. And then, once you’re done, you have every right to say “Nah..”

Now, why someone might give that kind of feedback deserves an entire PhD thesis to consider.. heh heh..

Well anyone these days can have a blog.. Blogspot, wordpress.. very easy. So technically speaking no-one is being held back from creating a blog. Yet, I thought ethnic Malay people comprise 50% of the population in Malaysia, so in theory they should be 50% of all bloggers in Malaysia..is that right?
Perhaps a successful Malay blogger could give advise to up and coming Malay bloggers ..but what about? Only a Malay person would understand,, maybe there are some topics you just don’t touch for example. And things Malay people should be telling the world.( the internet is a global thing you know)Perhaps a Malay blogger should be inspiring other Malay people to get a blog.
I guess we would all love to live in a ideal world of equality, but in reality it doesn’t exist.

A cab driver in New York may blog, but it won’t happen for any taxi driver in Malaysia soon. So for a Malaysia hawker that earn more than you, he is not likely to blog in near future, because some of them still think internet and computer is something out of their reach(not about the money, but the knowledge).

Let’s not forget the Babel tower. Even one who well verse in many language, they will choose the language that they feel comfortable to practice their blog. So those who blog in English, find it tedious to translate and rewrite in Malay, mandarin, Tamil, etc.

I think it should be made clear, that on the Internet, you could be a dog, and no one should/would care. Race, is something that *no one* on the Internet generally cares about (and I can speak on this with some authority, having been in the Malaysian Internet scene, from the time when we were on dialup, and jaring.* newsgroups were the way we spoke to each other).

Chinese, Indian, Malay, who cares? The law, advertising, advocacy, and those raising awareness aren’t race bound.

Be happy, that everyone participating in this workshop, all the facilitators, were *Malaysian*. Don’t introspect, as to what “race” they were.

(fast forward a century from this post, and with all the mixed-marriages, and so on, there will be truly, a “Bangsa Malaysia”, and we’ll all be laughing at the commenter… Oops, here’s hoping I’d be around 100 years from now )