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Everything seems so incidental after seeing the heartbreaking Facebook video posted by Diamond Reynolds as her boyfriend Philandro Castile, is dying after execution by a Minneapolis police officer because of a broken taillight. Compounding the tragedy is the sympathetic voice of their four-year-old daughter who witnessed his brutal slaying. Day’s prior a similar horrific depiction in New Orleans ((Alton Sterling). The pattern is statistically unavoidable---minor traffic infractions, selling looseys or CDs, wearing a hoodie, are a pretext to stop, frisk, searches and shoot black people, see http://mappingpoliceviolence.org/unarmed/. Profiling of African Americans is sanctioned for government control, historical/contemporary oppression and revenue. We must candidly face the systematic devaluation of black lives in all our institutions, not just criminal justice system. When all else has failed the courts and prison become societies response to racism, disparities, poverty, unemployment and hopelessness. The prison removes the reality from view and is the least capable institution to resolve the racial chasm. Maybe the visual of Philandro’s death at the hands of state action will awaken the self-denial of the majority. I have to assume humanity, empathy and truth will prevail. But I recall saying the same thing after witnessing Rodney King’s brutal beating, Trayvon Martin, Walter Scott, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Freddie Gray, Tamir Rice and seeing in Jet magazine the open casket of Emmet Till. To the African American spirit that has suffered for so long, this must end. Hearts and minds, in a just society, can no longer accept the inhumanity and ugliness including the police assassinations in Dallas that we all witnessed this week.

OK got you @CDBurns. Again that type of service makes sense. I just need to think about pricing for promotion of these internal websites. I made a few more changes/enhancements; I updated all of your individual book pages to include your side bar widgets: Here is an example book page: http://aalbc.com/books/home.php?isbn13=9781502461759 I added the favicon (the image of you that appears in the browser tab to all of your pages. I removed the masking with your domain name. In other words; when someone browses to http://christopherdburns.com, they are actually sent to: http://aalbc.com/authors/home.php?author_name=Christopher+D.+Burns. Previously I maintained http://christopherdburns.com in the browser's address bar. Doing this might seem advantageous initially, but it has a few downsides; it prevented me from using the favicon; and the URL in the browser window never changed, which prevented visitors from hyper linking directly to any of your pages. So I removed masking. Here is an author where I still have the masking in place: http://elizabethnunez.com/ let me know what you think (note: there is no image on the browser tab). I added one house ad near the bottom of the side bar. I also plan to give authors the ability to add their own ads with tracking (using my ad server). I think I'm ready to roll out the service. I've already bounced the idea off a couple of authors who don't have websites and their is define interest

Cynique Oprah is short when she's standing next to Gayle King! At any rate, we're not just looking at these figures through the eyes of AfroAmericans ONLY but also the eyes of the White majority and how THEY perceive Obama or Oprah. To most White Americans Oprah is a dark skinned woman. Now if you want to compare her to Michael Jordan or Flava Flav, well....I recon she's not that dark. I'm a little curious, what do you mean by Obama's "regular" features...??? As for Obama's choice in a wife, considering his ambitions, I don't think he would've chosen a plump, high-school educated dark skinned woman to fall in love with. He reserved his affections for someone who suited his purposes. Someone who "suits his purposes"??????? You talk as if the man was a controlled experiment since birth and conspired to get the perfect wife for his generated image as if she's just one piece in his chess game.....lol. Michelle is smart and very ambitious, but she doesn't exactly fit the bill of a "trophy wife" or the type of woman that a man would marry just for the image. Actually she seems more like the active "Hillary Clinton" type who has her own agenda and sees herself more as a PARTNER, than a supporter of another man and his ambitions. Ofcourse he probably wouldn't have chosen a woman with a mere highschool education because for one thing she wouldn't be in his circle for them to meet. President Obama doesn't take me as the type that went around hitting on random women in the street and sweating the cashiers at KFC and Walmart for "them digits"...lol. Nor would a woman of low education feel comfortable around him anyway...her self esteem would alway be threatened by the intellectual and academic aura of him and his collegues. Most professionals meet their spouses WITH IN their profession. Why? Because most professionals are so focused on what they're doing they don't have time to look OUTSIDE for potential mates and the only way they do find one....if they ever find one...is if they happen to meet another professional they are immediately attracted to. I'm sure they met at some work or academic related function as most professional marriages go as only another lawyer could have satisfied him intellectually and emotionally. Besides, unless they have a lot of money to offer or wealth connections......who is gifted enough in discerning human personalities to know how valuable a potential spouse will be to one's future political ambitions?

I recall all of the incidents you mention from the past also, and over the years, i have witnessed the ups and downs of law enforcement reform, an exercise in vacillation that never seems permanent. Now, we can't be sure that those encouraged by the "black lives matter" protest movement won't tend to take more risks, thinking they will survive and get justice. Meanwhile, what's to keep white cops from believing that blacks are out to get them, and that they have no choice but to overreact to this aggression, secure in the knowledge that The System will exonerate them. Looks like a no-win situation. Nothing seems to work. America's experiment in democracy has failed. Being a nation of immigrants with a history of slavery has proven that diversity is not all it's cracked up to be. Human beings aren't sophisticated and liberal enough to overcome their innate xenophobia. The pettiness of prejudices persists. When a population is monolithic, all it's country has to worry about is class division which is not without opportunities to move up. When color and religion and culture and language are different, things don't mesh well. The USA seems destined to be strife-torn because it doesn't really have a national character, and is a "house divided against itself". But maybe change will come and things will improve with the passage of more time...

I don't think Obama looks like the typical "mulatto" most American's are used to seeing. His skin isn't that light and his hair definately isn't the texture of most mixed people. Look at that kinky hair. Looks like Michael Jackson when he was still with the Jackson 5. He looks more "Black" that mixed to me. There is nothing about his phenotype that I see would cause White society in general to treat him any different than any other young AfroAmerican man. Unless Trump was right about him being born and raised in a village in Kenya, he undoubtably experienced America as a Black male growing up and intimately knows the stresses and problems Black people face in this society. As far as his accomplishments....... I don't think his looks play as big of a role as you suggest. I believe his brain and articulation were the biggest factors for his elevating increasingly through this nation's best academic institutions as well as his successful political career. American politics and acadamia are largely controled by Anglo-Saxon "old establishment" White people who are well known for seeing ALL people of color as the same (meaning "not White") regardless as to how light or dark they may be. Perhaps his lighter skinned may have been impressive to a darker skinned MICHELLE....lol....but not to those White folks running the country. They just want to know is he smart enough to help them carry on their traditions and keep the money flowing in. Remember...... A short fat dark skinned woman named Oprah (who is also brilliant) had more clout and prestige in America than even HIM and he had to go to HER for help launch his national image.