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@Mel Hopkins, I'm going to have a conversation with someone this morning about the very point you mentioned in the very large font. I'll keep the "eye glazing over" in mind and let you know how it goes. But in the meantime, I will share this anecdote. There was another book site, now defunct, that I worked with closely. I had 3 orders of magnitude more traffic--it wasn't even in the same ball park in terms of traffic (side bar: At one point Alexa ranked that site ahead on mine, which is one reason I've moved on from them as a tool). Despite the substantial difference in traffic the other site was able to sell just as much advertising as I could--for years. Their site, at least the homepage, was more visually appealing than mine--which I suspect was the reason. The person that ran the site understood completely your point about data. We spoke about this subject frequently. I would point out information that would benefit their site and they simply did not care. People are much more likely to make their decisions emotionally, not based upon data, or fact and figures. The most successful salespeople know this. Indeed they take advantage of people using this flaw in our decision making process. NY Publishing and individual advertisers are simply were not sophisticated enough to look at stats. I offer the ability for advertisers to login to my site to monitor their campaigns and no one does it--no one! Google provides a remarkable service called tag manager, and I don't know anyone in my niche that even uses it. So trust me I KNOW the average person, in fact MOST people do get this. But I do, and this is why I know I can attract more people to my site posting on wikipedia than I can with a Facebook advertisement. This is also how I know I can benefit my site more through search engine optimization than through social media marketing. This is how I know ads on my site out perform ads on social media--bank for buck. Again I know the way I came to this knowledge is not the way I can bring other people to understand it. This is also why Google, can algorithmically sell advertising on my site and get more money that I can. This is why I can benefit from a sales person, translating this into a language which resonates with the typical person is not in my strong point, but I'm working at it. I also need to free up more time to do it SEMRush and Google analytics are not easy tools for the average person to use. Google tag manager is not intuitive at all. I had to watch 3rd party video to understand how to even implement it. Again, I know few indie sites will use it--despite the tremendous benefits. So no, SEMrush does not make it easy. @Pioneer1, so you think Jared or Melania are qualified? @Delano, most of what you wrote is true, but running this site without a full time wage has been a struggle. If I were not work for the first half of this site's life it would not be around today.

This was a fluff piece, to get my foot in the door. Later my submissions were much more militant, so much so that the newspaper was flooded with complaints from whites, something the op-ed editor loved, assuring me that they wanted to provoke reader response. I also got a lot of hate mail that scorched my ears...

To understand the current war Black America is fighting against white America's attempt to resurrect white supremacy, you must first understand the weapons being used against us. The foremost weapon is fear, backed by threats of death by violence and confinement by imprisonment. These are the main weapons whites have used most against Blacks throughout history. Whites base their entire existence and authority on the use of violence and confinement or the mass murder of people who are not white, using weapons of war, violence, and laws that justify and reinforce inhumane sentences against other human beings and nations. To disarm whites by taking away their guns and places of incarceration, the white race would be a weak people, if all they had to survive on was their intelligence. But seeing it almost an impossible task to disarm their foreign and domestic military and paramilitary structure, or to tear down their walls and fences of confinement or even change their thinking to a more rational compassion toward humanity, there is only one other way to completely defeat their reign of terror on people of color without retaliation by using their own weapons of war. Bravery is the key....Read More

Its that drive or the need to inprove. Which is different than gunners and whiners. Who have lots of reasons for enabling failure. @Troy @Mel Hopkins, @Cynique to me you're all successful because you created your world. And wasn't limited by the societal limitations that all people feel. Pioneer despite your lengthy posts you can't envision black success. Or only in a rather narrowly defined range. Comic book Hyper sexual Hetero Black Men. With women as accessories. Which is the exact opposite of our experience in America. Black Women keep the Black church together. Because men are loners generally, and often don't forge relationships. Our thinking places us in different worlds.

Fear is tool that provokes are real-life response. Fight or Flight... Prolonged fear leads to mental breakdown. It's not easy to just resist because most people are approaching psychotic breaks. Most people of EVERY color. We are not just humans; we are human animals and animals all react differently when they're afraid. Some animals play dead, faint and poop when they're afraid and there are animals that make themselves bigger when they're afraid and if pushed to their limit, they will attack. This is where we are today - you can't use a weapon without expecting a weapon to be used against you. Use of fear has pushed everyone to mental instability. Danger is real and it also provokes the same response as those experiencing fear... Fight or Flight. There is another way to combat danger and its through the use of CHAOS... Clear Head Assess Observe Situation then respond. Response requires training. Those who are in imminent danger are usually not of the mindset to survive the danger... especially those who have experienced duress due to prolonged fear. So first we must learn how to respond to a situation. However I suggest first locating the fire (the danger) because fighting smoke (fear) is a waste of resources.

Hmmmm.... I missed (or forgot) about that bit about "2 Black Races" from our previous conversation. The is a confounding and befuddling statement. It is not supported by science and is actually something I never hear, even in colloquial use (until now). So there are 2 Black races which are distinguished by the straightness of their hair...wow. Why not three or four black races, We can put the light skinned one in one bucket, the straight haired ones in another, the thin lipped narrow nose ones in another, the flat butt ones in one, and the light eyes one in yet another bucket. Of course there will be some overlap; since some Black people have thin lips, narrow noses, light eyes, straight hair, flat butts, light skin, humm maybe they are yet another race of Black people... or maybe they are just white? I wish we could dispense with the word "race," or at least our current concept its meaning, as it makes no freaking sense and only serves as a tool used by the rich and powerful to divide the rest of us against each other.

Your Black Whine is vintage.

Pioneer you are missing my point. You are pulling numbers out your hiney hole. To a guy that's into numbers. Your solution is sub optimal. Your game is all talk. But hey maybe thst can be your hustle. If your market size is 100,000 black people. You could be a thousandaire. "Talking is just exhaling with sound. " - Del Strachen And a couple of degreed people. That you can't hear. You could have a brain trust ...

It worked; didn't it! You can write your tail-feathers off! whew!

Me too! And I was also referring to the your response to the literary angle too. Many fairies in various parts of the motherland (Africa) had different powers too - some would bring happy endings especially to young girls... and there were other fairies that would act as shapeshifters and their outcomes would depend on if their spirit and the spirit of the story. My stories tend to be bittersweet. I've tried my hand at writing HEA romance but it tends to turn dark. I do like reading /watching HEA romance. As for my own HEA , I haven't had one but I have lasting friendships and wonderful experiences.