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You credit white people with greater homogeneity and racial solidarity than actually exists. This is a weird concept to me, because I don't claim other white people as "my" people. If you think "we" are all tight and think the same thing, heaven help you. Most of my ancestors came to America in the early 1900's from Denmark and Germany, and were farmers in the Midwest (Iowa and Minnesota), I understand my whiteness, and the advantages it conveys in modern society, but my "people" generally tried scratching out out an agricultural living in eastern Iowa without trying to coerce black folk to do anything. it's a racist construct to imagine all white people share the same the same ancestry or inherited beliefs. It is a funny thing to imagine my forebears in charge of anything except their own meager lives, much less the subjugation of other people. Don't buy into that idea, please. The American experience is highly varied..

As far as the myth of the super predator, I haven't done any research, but when people talk about poorly performing schools they are often located in areas where poverty and crime are highest, which is why I brought it up. Without research though I can't stand on that and I won't. I will stand by the fact that regardless of what Coates' proclaimed to be the problem in Black America in "reparations" no one ever explains to me why or how Blacks who are from the Civil Rights era and before were capable of coming through the absolute worst time in this country to be Black and gain ground, and why today in an era with more access to technology and tools for learning Blacks aren't doing so. No one has explained this in a way that clarifies why the last 40 years have been so "hard" for Blacks. When the previous 400 were the absolute worst conditions ever. I understand the systemic issues of welfare, the fracturing of the Black family by government programs, but are these programs and institutions any less harmful than the Great Migration was to the Black family when the men left families behind on sharecropping plantations to find work in the city often producing southern and northern families, both lacking fathers? I mean let's be real is any government institution implemented greater than Jim Crow? Was the lending debacle that crushed the middle class specifically the Black middle class any more destructive than the laws preventing Blacks from buying homes in the 50s? For that matter, did the subprime effect folks in the hood? I don't think it did. Those people were struggling and continued to struggle. First generation homeowners lost everything. I understand that, and the government should have stepped in, but this was not going to happen just because we had a Black President. I will say this if people want to fix or make things better in the Black community, I said it up there, look in the mirror and fix that which you can fix. Fix those things around you first. 1. Don't kill each other. 2. Support those Black businesses that are doing great jobs. 3. Support your spouse and children with what you have. If that's love, then give them love. 4. Take jobs that may not give you the life you are looking for but will at least show your children a work ethic. 5. Reestablish the nuclear and extended family. If more Blacks lived in homes together, a lot of small incomes could accomplish things. 6. Instead of buying more things, give the children more of what you can. 7. Make sure that the arts become more important in the community again. When our art uplifts we do better. When our art is destructive, it shapes us. There are a lot of other things that can be done to improve our lot in life. Writing articles about how banks wiped out the wealth of families, or discussing how laws prevented Blacks from amassing wealth is needed, but ultimately it doesn't do anything. What works is action. Understand I do not discount what slavery and racism and the continued lack of fiscal equality has done to Blacks. I know what it has done, but when has it ever NOT been this way? When was it ever right or equal? Name me a time when "institutions" weren't gutted for Black people? It has always been this way. Should it change? YES a resounding YES. Coates' article tells us what we already know. It also gives solutions which will never arrive or will arrive too late. I believe in self sufficiency. It's why I make an effort to visit AALBC everyday. It's why I stay on Facebook so if my students ever need me they can find me and call on me. It's why I make an effort to write reviews on my website about local Black owned businesses. I do this because it's my responsibility. If people basically took care of what THEY can control things will get better. I really do think it is this simple because it has worked for me.

I don't have the stats on crackbabies at all. I just know that the neighborhoods have an abundance of kids who are now in their 20s and the crime rate and graduation rates reflect some type of change that can only be associated with the crack generation coming of age now and having their own kids. I won't try to support it with hardcore stats, but it would really be interesting for people to take a look at the numbers. In regard to big business and books, I get that Amazon basically wiped out Borders and small mom and pops, but you know what else kills small Black bookstores? Black folks not shopping and buying as many books. There isn't anything the government has to do with this. People buy books, stores stay open. When I look at simple supply and demand from a business standpoint the government doesn't have anything to do with this. For instance Carl Weber had two book stores here in Memphis at the Raleigh Springs Mall and the Southland Mall. Rent in both malls probably totaled 2000 bucks per month for two locations. He had about 4 employees running those stores. At a salary of maybe 15/hour we are looking at about 6000 for salary at both locations. So to keep these stores open on a monthly basis the stores had to make at a minimum 7K. Average book cost is 10 bucks. The store would have to sell 700 books per month just to get back to money paid out. So to buy those books you divide by 2 and you get 3500 for the books. Both locations needed to make a minimum of 10,000 per month. To be profitable they would have to make 15,000 which is 1500 books sold per month or 50 books per day. Where does the government come into play in this equation? Startup Capital? Maybe, but I can't see how the government affects the bookstore moving 50 books a day. The only thing that affects this is the customer walking in and buying. I'm not naive so I know that startup capital is hard to get. I know that better than most, and I know that lending practices aren't fair, but we are talking about a guy who didn't need any of that to start up. He could have only carried books from his imprint and cut out the book cost and hired people at 10 bucks an hour. Either way the store would have to sell something to stay open. The government doesn't affect that. In regard to Black owned businesses staying open I can do a breakdown for any type of business like I did above. You get your business license, you come up with a business plan, you get capital, you open a business. Taxes are collected and paid. You sell stuff. I do it for a living. When I make stupid decisions, I lose money. When I make good decisions I make money. Does the government affect me? Maybe because I can't get a traditional loan, but the fact that I need a loan is my own fault because I didn't need one before. Once again, if I have what the people want, I sell stuff. How does the President affect this at all? I was in education from 95 until 2012. I know what's happening in schools. From California to Mississippi to Tennessee and from middle school to college, I've seen the inner workings of charter and pubic schools. I've seen HBCUs, public 4 year schools and 2 year colleges and while tuition is very high and resources are few, I've seen the poorest schools perform well when teachers did the work. So it's very hard for me to blame the government and testing and all of that because even with testing you can teach the test and still teach the material needed to make good students if the teachers are knowledgeable in their subject area and the kids want to learn. I know you're not coming at me and this is just commentary, but I really do think that people who blame Obama and they have a platform, are doing so to get paid and bring attention to themselves. I stand by my statement that the government has never been for Blacks, but Blacks have overcome much more difficult circumstances than today to do great things. What is the problem now?

Yes Sara, it was an April Fools Joke. But the idea that some folks found it plausible enough to be possible is promising (I think).

Chris you wrote; "What in the hell did people expect to happen over the last 10 years when the crack babies are now becoming parents?" What percentage of Black parents today were former crack addicts? Was it 75%, 50%, 10%, if you know I'd like to know how you obtained those figures. Also to your points "You want Black books to sell, support AALBC, don't ask Obama." If the government creates conditions that are adverse to small businesses there won't be any AALBC.com's to buy those books. There are FAR few bookstores (online and physical) today than there were before Obama took office. I'm not saying it is Obama's fault, but corporation exert seemingly more control over the government and have way more power than they should and get bailed out when their ponzi schemes fail. The Obama administration has dome nothing to change this, indeed it could be argued the opposite is true. "You want Black small biz to work, take your ass to a Black business more than once a year." See the above "You want Black schools to get better, support the teachers, discipline your kids and then sit and discover what your kids are working on everyday." Chris corporations are taking over schools as well speak, schools unions are being busted across the country. Our children, based upon our global standings are poorly educated. BUT if you are wealthy you get the best education on Earth. Working class Parents however are overworked, have not seen a real increase in wages the whole time Obama was in office, and tired themselves. What good would it do for them to look at school they themselves may not understand or are too exhausted to deal with. I'm not trying to come at you, you are my man, but the situation is much more complicated than simply blaming Obama or pull yourself up by your own bookstraps. To your point about Dyson: I have to admit I was very surprised by his critique of Obama. Because he was one of the guys giving folks like Cornel West a lot of grief for this very same position. Sure, people can change their minds, but now when Obama is out the door and access to the white house is no longer in jeopardy--now you come at Obama?! Man it is too late now to make any difference, but I guess it is not too late to make money on the lecture circuit or from book sales.

Charter schools are a money grab, at the expense of children, usually the ones with darker complexions. It is beyond pathetic. People with money simply send their kids to private schools.

It is easier to steal in the charter school system because there has to be a foundation set up to garner the government funding as a non profit. In that structure I have seen non-profits have lavish offices, all of the people at the top drive BMWs and carry Gucci bags. The schools have a mediocre tech infrastructure and the people who run the schools are not academics and don't have any real understanding of how to empower teachers. These schools also tend to cater to the "struggling" student making the atmosphere very tense and also allowing for the abuse of kids due to fear of not having any where else to go if they are kicked out. The public school system is a very difficult place to hide discrepancies, but it happens. The overall issue is that people look to schools when there isn't anything a school can do without a good parent or parent involvement. The school in the poorest area in the country can be successful if the parents support the kids.

I believe it, but I also believe white folks abuse the system even more. As with anything else Black people are prosecuted more frequently, penalized more harshly, and more weakly represented by attorneys in our criminal justice system. But stealing money that should go to students is wrong no matter what the so called race of perpetrator is. It is unfortunate, though that Black folks suffer more as victims and victimizers. It is all connected