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I ran into poet, author, Heru Ptah at the Brooklyn Book festival on Sunday. Now Heru has been published by a major publisher, he has appeared on HBO's Def Jam, and he was book writer for the Broadway Musical Hot Feet. He has accomplished a lot. But he is still "grinding" like a self published author. Walking the fair hand selling books person to person. This is the way Heru was discovered, hand selling books on a NYC subway. He sold a book to the publishing director of MTV Books and got a "mid-5-figure" book deal. Some authors, after getting a book deal stop self promoting (assuming they ever promoted their own work at all). You can't stop--especially if you are Black. Heru approached me at the fair and I've created content to promote his work as a result. To be clear, selling books on a New York City subway is not for everyone. Even if one were inclined to do it, some might consider it too aggressive or intrusive a tactic to use. Whatever your technique, you have to actively promote you work even after you "make it."

Troy I think that with the exception of the 400 years of slavery and semi-slavery conditions, the other problems you laid out are actually more SYMPTOMS of a larger underlying problem of Black intellectual decline. Even the loss of Black newspapers and news orientated Black media is just another sign of AfroAmerican intellectual decline. Quite frankly, As Black America gets dumber and dumber it no longer has the academic sophistication and standards to develop it's own media sources NOR does it's target audience have the mental capacity to understand the content being presented to them and most likely aren't even interested in stories so serious and mature. Look at what attracts so many of our people today....entertainment full of juvenile gossip and foolishness. We had more informative and better organized media outlets back in the 1930s and 40s than we have today. We REALLY made a lot of progress after slavery during Reconstruction with inventions, land ownership, farming, building schools, building hospitals, and building self sustaining communities in general. Relatively speaking we were outpacing White people in terms of growth for decades....then something happened. Something happened to make many of our people...to put it quite plainly....STUPID. To the point that even many immigrants.....including African immigrants...who come to the United States can easily notice an intellectual deficit in the AfroAmerican community and often take advantage of it.

News Says , Un Armed Black Man Killed By White Police In Tulsa, Oklahoma. I Think , White Police Are Trying To Help Trump Get Elected. F B I On The News Talking About The Bombs In New York, New Jersey. F B I Will Not Talk About White Police Being Fired For Being KKK Members, FBI Said White Police Are Members Of White Supremacy Groups. F B I , Not Talking About Neo Nazi In U. S. Military Training Themselves For The Coming Race War...Last Week 13 Year Old, Black Boy Shot Killed By Police. Black People Divided ,Gang Violence Helps White Racist Genocide Black Race.

This is why we need Black newspapers with real journalist. Given the number of Black men killed by white police officers under these conditions; the KKK is beginning to sound like a plausible explanation for these senseless killings. Journalists can also dispel these theories, or put them in perspective, so that we don't waste valuable time and energy on falsehoods. Obviously Tulsa has a history of destroying Black people...

@Troy Do "we know how to fix these problems without locking negros up and throwing away the key"? How? @Pioneer1There is probably an element of truth in what you say in regard to lead and toxins having an adverse effect on blacks. But why does this only affect certain ones? Not all black males in the ghettos embrace the thug life and some do escape their dire circumstance and go on to lead rewarding lives. What's apparent is that living and dying by the gun has gradually evolved into a way of life by many underclass black males, and in their fatalistic view, this is "no big thing". Aside from drug and turf wars, some of the violence is simply fueled by a determination to settle a personal "beef", or to retaliate for being dissed, or to avenge the murders of a "homie" or a family member. This situation can, in turn, result in the perpetrator of such acts being killed himself as the vicious cycle repeats itself, compounded by the killing and maiming of innocent bystanders, who relatives also want revenge. This is "how things go down" in the dead-end ghetto environment. Babies being born into unstable, fatherless households also play a part by supplying the future victims and victimizers in an atmosphere where wayward children grow up with no respect for authority or human life.