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@Cynique, you are a talented writer. Not because I agree wholeheartedly with what you wrote but you just have a talent for succinctly expressing yourself, one that I wish I had. @Pioneer1, technically you're right this is our country, but as Cynique pointed this is really not true. Here is an anecdote, that might help emphasize the point: I started a web based business, 20 years ago, selling books. The vast majority of other businesses like mine have long since failed or they disappears as quickly as they emerged. As far as I know, my web based business was the only one capable of proving a mostly living for someone. This is not to toot my own horn, but it is to explain that we don't have as many websites selling Black books online. This also means readers will find it harder to discover good books, which means that those books will be read less, and the publisher and authors of those books will make less money, which means fewer good books will be produced and the downward spiral continues. But why are there fewer web based booksellers? First, Google controls a website's discoverability. Google alone can dictate which sites survive and which sites fail. I've already described how almost 7 years ago Google took 75% of my traffic cut my adsense payments by over $2K a month--over night! I did nothing wrong, but I say this to explain Google's power, who in one day put many websites out of business. Google also uses the search engine to put the book store in front of organic search results. This had the additional impact of reduce traffic that bookseller websites would normally get if Google were not using their search engine to hijack customers. This is a tactic only monopolist can utilize. They are prevented from doing this in the EU, but in America Google can go buck wild. Of course Amazon is already effectively a monopoly when it comes to Black books. Has anyone noticed that virtually all the authors who post information about their books here direct people to Amazon? Even the few that link to their own websites, direct readers to Amazon when they get to their websites. This might sound like a minor thing, but it is a seismic shift in our collective behavior and that hurts the Black book economy and will ultimately kill if were it not for the activities of a few folks like myself doing what they can to stop it. Of course on the horizon is another existential threat to the Black book ecosystem, Net Neutrality which basically prevents internet service providers like Verizon from slowing down or even blocking, access to other websites. This means that if Net Neutrality is repealed on December 14th (you can petition to stop it here) it is almost certain that business like mine will need to pay a lot more for their website to have decent access to the internet. The price for access could conceivably be more than I can afford! No, Black people do not own the country, but neither do most white folks. The country is owned and controlled by oligarchs, and there is seemingly nothing that we plebs can do about it. People are so dead set in behaving against their own interests. This is a function of our education system, which by necessity, must create a population too ignorant understand why electing a "45" is a grave threat to our way of life... Yes @Delano, we can be our own worst enemy.

@Pioneer1This ain't your nation. You are just a stepchild, a member of a group who many would have no problem with deporting back to Africa, and who the idea of rewarding reparations for slavery to, is laughed off. There is no large concentration of "wealth " in the black population, no black manufacturers or black monopolies.There are very few black traders on Wall Street, no sports franchises owned exclusively by blacks. Blacks don't even have a representative in the U. S. Senate. and only a right-wing conservative lackey on the Supreme Court. We had a figure head black president whose legacy is being systematically erased by Republicans. And currently have a bunch of mayors presiding over deteriorating urban metropolises. There was a thriving little self-sufficient black community in Oklahoma back in the early 1930s and The Great White Father annihilated it. Why? Because this ain't your country and never has been. Was America really built on the shoulders of black men, thereby making this country theirs?? Slaves, who were considered 2/3rd human, were just a part of the manforce that built this country. The difference between them and white immigrants, is that the immigrants were paid meager wages. The Chinese built the railroads on the west coast, and the labor gangs of Italians and Irish, who were once regarded with almost as much contempt as blacks, built the infra-structures of the cities. Today black males make up over half of those incarcerated in privately-owned prisons, where they are paid less than a dollar an hour. Blacks in this country are currently relegated to the roles of entertainers and athletes existing for the amusement and diversion of white fans. They also populate a large underclass of common laborers, and a modest middle-class of traditional professions that provide a few high profile tokens to enhance the image of well-known corporations. They are also a part of the rank and file of the military. All blacks are primarily consumers, dependent on the goods and services provided for them by white companies, and they take great pride in being able to afford the brand names of these stores. As for the China towns and Mexican sections in big cities, they are not industries. They are cloistered ethnic enclaves, sustained by outsiders and tourists who patronize them primarily for their food and novelty souvenirs. These areas are actually monolithic ghettos. Furthermore, what is the incentive for blacks to become entrepreneurs when it's so easy to be catered to by people hungry for your dollars, a choice that will relieve them of the stress and strain and failure that await all but the most capable among those who strike out on their own, pursuing the elusive American dream. Worst of all, things are not getting better; they are getting worst in a country that is coming apart at the seams. It has reached the point of being a case of every "man" for himself, - of finding a way to just avoid the pitfalls of not being white and rich. Like Del suggests, if you want to solve a problem, you need to correctly state it, or you will get an irrelevant solution. Blacks need to set forth a pertinent viable proposition and the logical conclusion will go a long way toward dissipating their "problem".