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@Delano thank you for this insight. It helped me realize why I was having such a hard time with my creative writing. "Too much intake of other people's information - too much commentary and memorization - and not enough ingenuity and creativity." is what I was able to discern from your observation. ❤️ I was actually able to write when I stepped away from this forum... but this forum also provides insight on the national conversation.

During McCain's presidential campaigns the rumors about the USS Forestal incident have been rampant but i have since been informed that there is no substance to them and have deleted reference to them in my "Black and White Deaths in Living Color" essay.

The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Anyone paying attention to detail may have noticed I don't use our president's name. However the psychopath may actually do us some good. Reuters reported yesterday: "White House probes Google after Trump accuses it of bias." The man actually has a point -- seriously. I noticed this several years ago as Google out ranked negative information about Zane and Terry Mcmillan over their accomplishments. While I'm trying to learn more about their work as writers Google is shoving all the negative stuff they can find about these sisters in my face -- information I'd argue should be private. At any rate, 45's motivation is entirely selfish and I doubt anything constructive will come out of this, but if President Trump can reduce this gatekeeper's power, I say 4 more years 😮

If has nothing to do with anger. I use google for purely pragmatic reasons. All of the others I used previously I stopped using because they simply stopped generating revenue (largely because of googles dominance), so now I sell ads directly and use Google. What is frustrating Google's monopoly leave me less well off and at greater risk. When there were more options I made money from the other ad network and I also made more money from google. Today google is far better off financially, but everyone else is less wealthy. In my case, this is despite having more pages views than ever.

@Mel Hopkins, That is an interesting breakdown it was more than I would have anticipated thanks. Of course I did not expect you to take my data and run with an article trying to address all of the issues you raised would probably not be worth the effort given the potential interest in the subject. If the subject was expanded beyond just book it would be more interesting. I'll react to your questions: My data seems to indicate "Yes" is the answer to the first question. I suspect it is true for the 2nd question as well, but I would need to run a query of the number of authors published by the big 5 over time. The data presented here counts the number of books published. I've been tracking this data for 20 years. We would not need to have the publishers to verify it, as it is essentially public information. There are plenty of database where is information can be obtained. I get a lot of my data from Ingram's database -- my challenge is actually identify the Black writers many of the names I know other I have to check, but one could actually count the number of Black authors published by the big five. The largest published Penguin Random house only published 15K books a year a distinct list of authors with first editions will be a smaller number still. You don't need the published to verify. Again, I've speculated on this another reason I have not previously mention is that fact that mainstream publishing has increased it focus on hits big books that often skews to celebrities books intoday social media driven world. YA has seen growth. This is my impression given the increase attention given to the genre. I could run another query to see if my data supports my impressions. Mens fiction, always anemics has probably seen a decline, as with everything else. Books a African writers are seeing a surge. AGain we are talking about changes, relatively speaking, in really small numbers of books. I don't think the Big 5 are the answer frankly -- they, like the rest of media have challenges of their own. The Big 5 have the financial resources that indie publisher do not have. However indie publishers have the requisite motivation to get the books we need published. I think we can work both angles and other to be determined.

@TroyHow do you know that the discussion i participated in wasn't a good cross section that gave an accurate consensus? Do you have a source that disputes this? Why would you think the conclusion i reached is so unreliable, especially since you, yourself, are a black man who is anti-Omarosa? Surely you don't think you are an exception. In spite of what you want to be true, everything on FaceBook is not fake news. To think this, makes you as bad as Trump. There a lot of articles and blurbs and videos on there that are accurate and factual just as much so as the YouTube excerpts which you rely on.

@Cynique asking @Delano a question multiple times will not get an answer from him if he does not want to answer. I do it to make it obvious that Del is avoiding a particular question. Your question to him regarding how he reacts to me compared to how he reacts to Pioneer is a good one. Del will not answer a question that exposes his inconsistency. My take on the difference is that Del construes my comments as being elitist. Del dislikes elitists (incidentally, so do I). As a result, he is far more sensitive and less forgiving to what I say, while coming to the defense of @Pioneer1 thinking he is protecting him from an evil "elitist." But I've mentioned, on multiple occasions, I understand Pioneer's perspective as I've held many of his positions in the past. As previously mentioned, I believe Del had his feeling hurt in a big way by an elitist. Any man who has been in the presence elitists has subjected to some form marginalization. I too have experienced this -- even from Black elites. My embracing of 45 was intended as tongue in cheek. That is why I put a 😮 the end of the post to make this a bit clearer. Of course Google's monopoly. needs to be stopped. If 45 can do some good by accident that is fine with me.

Get real! You've never looked at the world through anything but your squinted eyes because you're handicapped by the tunnel vision that limits you to an Afro-centric view. What you call personal creativity is the self-absorbed conceit you are full of, and there's nothing flexible about your thinking. Nobody, for instance, could make you change your idiotic diagnosis about the female sex drive, delivered in your self-appointed role of a gynecologist. Not to mention your entrenched views about black culture, something else you consider yourself an authority on, enabled by the degree in sociology you awarded yourself from pioneer's college of "dis here is right, y'all". 🤓 If you can stop wallowing in the crud of your self-satisfaction long enough, pray tell the world what other worthwhile purposes a fire plug could fill beside serving as a place for you to lift your furry leg when there's no public bathroom around. You actually need to devote some time to more constructive things like learning how to spell everyday words. And get a life so you'll have something better to do than make up lies about an 85-year-old grandmother sending you pictures of herself. Watta loser.🤣

Before. Aretha. Franklin. Was. The. Queen. Of . Soul,She. Had. A Rough. Beginning. Preacher. Father. Was. Involved. In. Orgies,Read. Orgies. Was,At Her Father's Church. Aretha,Was Sexually Active,Got Pregnant. At Age 12. By 16. She Had,2,Sons.At 19 She Was Married To A Pimp. Her Mother Died When,She Was. 9 -Years Old..With,Her Voice ,She Found The Strength ,To,Go. On,To Become The Queen Of ,Soul.Not Just A. Great Singer,And,Piano Player.She Wrote,Some Of Her Hit , Songs. Among. Them,Think,Call. Me,And. Day-Dreaming.I. Read. Aretha. Had. Diva,Tandrums,Had. A. Strong. Appetite For Sex,Spending. And. Fried. Chicken..She. Won. 18-Grammy. ,Awards..She. Sung. At. Dr. King's,Funeral,Sung. At President. Obama's. Inauguration..Her. Funeral. Is,Today.She. Is. Gone,But. Her. Music,Her. Voice. Will. Live. On..The-QUEEN. Of . SOUL,ARETHA. FRANKLIN..

Mel In fact, I even stepped back from judging some of the things you've written. I've noticed that although I don't agree with some of your methods; I've found merit in it. Some of your positions have helped me see past my blindspot and find a solution to some of my own challenges. Now imagine, if you would have kept those thoughts to yourself and just been a lurker... been "invisible" then I may have missed an opportunity to move out of my own little 'world' ... I'm beyond pleased to have helped you with this! Even if a person doesn't agree with me, if I manage to convince a person to change and expand their way of thinking on a given subject I get an exceedingly rewarding feeling. I learned some time ago that one of the keys to solving problems and even developing one's personal creativity is to see the world we live in from multiple and often unorthodox perspectives. I decided to make a habit out of this to the point that even when I'm driving down the street I can look at a fire hydrant and come up with 4 or 5 different uses for it OTHER than what it was originally designed to do. 　 So, no I don't agree with Jesse but why would I fault him for being self-serving? Who isn't self-serving? If you don't help yourself you sure can't help anyone else? I don't fault Jesse for simply helping himself and doing what's in his best interests either. Infact, unlike most people I don't think selfishness.....like lust or greed....is necessarily bad in and of itself. As far as I'm concerned these are morally neutral concepts. When it becomes a problem is when your selfishness or greed influences you to HARM others in order to enrich yourself; now you're infringing on the rights of others and causing damage. If Jesse was taking money to simply keep his mouth shut and not speak out against racism and injustice I wouldn't have too big of a problem with him. I probably wouldn't even have heard of him. But he's getting paid to actually fight and argue with other AfroAmericans who want to fight racism and make them look silly. He is also getting paid to lie and spread falsehood, things that are inherently wrong. By the way, Hannity is still buying up Georgia ... so, Hannity is "ignorance" seems to be paying off too - Lol..... If you're bored, listen to Hannity get made a straight fool of by the late Dr. Khalid Muhammad on his own radio show many years ago when he used to have a radio show down in Alabama:

What people are calling "leprosy" today, in older King James translations was refered to as the "dreaded skin disease" in the Old Testament. I believe this refers to atleast 2 DIFFERENT diseases. One is probably psoriasis, but the other is most likely VITILIGO. In 2 Kings 5:27 a man named Gehazi and his descendants were said to be cursed with a type of "leprosy" that turned them White: "The leprosy therefore of Naaman shall cleave unto thee, and unto thy seed for ever. And he went out from his presence a leper as white as snow" That's not psoriasis but some sort of disease that turns your ENTIRE body white but someone allows you to function in every other way without the other problems associated with psoriasis.

There's economic and political systems. I believe Switzerland is a democracy. Pioneer you may want to look up the definition of oligarchy.

There are kids in Brooklyn who have never been to Manhattan, or a museum, or a Broadway Play, or the beach... NYC like much of the deep south is very stratified first by class and then by race. 　 As a black person you knew not to got to Bensnhurst or certain parts of the Bronx. Manhattan has stores where they buzz you in because the door is locked. I wasn't let into to a store I believe it was in the 1990's on the east side of Manhattan 　 I saw more racism in Pennsylvania than I did down south. Those "ethnic Whites" that are talked about so much in political arenas are the main cause of the racism of the Northeast. They are pro-union but anti-African which is why the Democrats have such a hard time keeping their vote. Those of Italian and Irish descent who are both Caucasian but they aren't AngloSaxon so they're constantly trying to PROVE their "Whiteness" by being overtly racist towards AfroAmericans and AfroLatinos. Many Italians have African and Arab ancestry and this effects the way they look, think, and see the world. I believe this stresses a lot of them out and in confusion and frustration they engage in racist behavior as a form of over-compensation for their feelings.

Aretha Franklin killed it when she sung natural woman Carol King wrote it I believe. She was in as were the Obamas. I have heard her struggle to hur notes but not in that performance. From 2015 McCain left his model wife after his release from a POW camp. Sge had an accident was two inches shorter. He cheated on her and eventually left her for an heiress 19 years his junior. His former wife had a child kd with him and two from a previous relationship.

I figured Troy was just joking but like Cynique said.....this is one of the ways he has garnered support around the nation. To detail it a little further............ He goes to one group and hits hard on ONE issue they care strongly about and wins them over, then goes to another group and does the same thing on just ONE issue for them. He'll go to the innercity and tell AfroAmerican men that the reason they don't have jobs is because of all the illegal immigrants brought in to displace them as workers. And they'll jump up and down cheering because he spoke to THEIR pain. Then he'll go to Caucasian men in rural areas and tell them the reason they're getting laid off and their community is being hit hard by heroin is because of the unions and NAFTA. And they'll jump up and down cheering because he spoke to THEIR pain. Older Caucasian men love him and probably get erections everytime they hear him bash the NFL players and tell them to either respect the flag or leave the country because he's saying what they want to say so desparately in public but are afraid to. They dont' care if he gets rid of medicare and takes away all of their pensions and retirement...as long as he keeps hitting hard at those " spoiled rich ungrateful black guys"...lol. As I said before I figured Troy was just joking BUT some people who were big critics of his ACTUALLY DID turn to supporters of his over just one or two issues while ignoring the dozens of other issues he diametrically opposed them on. I know people like. These people would ignore everthing Trump did and said that they disagreed with as long as he bashed Google or bashed Mexicans or promised to establish mandatory prayer in public schools! Some of these people really don't support him, but because they feel vulnerable and helpless and don't know what else to do.......rather than simply not doing anything they figure it's better to jump on his side to be safe. It's a mix between the "Stockholm Syndrome" and the old " if you can't beat 'em join 'em " attitude.

https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.capitolhillblue.com%2Fnode%2F10086&h=AT1jjepBBNcI7CqYDJpa_bkRMF3tJCXIKHjsieSOqE9jtsBu4Uc8pe5gOWLTT11_4YZ-oijzt-MZtOzj2mnJhTtom81ob4v3cNN93Ew0_1U2lgw70Lo7wZAeJM86FEh4LDbChpCndmtrIZ-fxweEb1HvcH7VGgwIx6nFMEjNTE8_LQm7tKYntR5qLrYHr-rRFh2qWFLcwLm6vjAV5yBZjsQ4kdJI2yQUSczj-wH5RN1jHhx1-e9FZ2bKbIfX49W3euUdcGc9f4Zo-_110kRL2Zn_A7Zi8MNtmecZfETjazPJrbNQNVaqEiH-vGmOiaxqKeL5bpG8tQpXGdGIOJCfg2daz-M8qBaDMbbB86YCmNYROnfpHX76n5iknH7HHzGbSpRKDQocz8jLKu-JgDNfYMQg2q7ZC0rZZzPl6w i have deleted the rumor about the USS Forestal

@Troy Throw in a tad of creativity, even if it doesn't work, Trump sets the tone even the best of us will try to duplicate, if not outright follow. As a Viet Nam era veteran myself, I held MaCain in the highest regard; also, being from Alaska, I can say, first-hand, Sarah Palin's an extreme republican who duped many Black businesses to support her and turned on them when she campaigned with McCain in 2008. I respect the man but there's truth in 'birds of a feather.' If I recall speaking with Business leaders correctly, man, you wouldn't believe the enthusiasm which they spoke of her; as if she was their White savior. It's more than envy though, what 45 is doing to the country, race-baiting division, plutocratic governance, etc., illuminates the dark side of how I feel, personally. Sister Cynique is right, what will be, will be; and you're right too, the worse is yet to come.

Standards don't come into play if people don't know what others are doing. People do what they want to do - in secret! Discretion is their shield. What places do you have in mind that are apart from big cities? The suburbs where teenagers are sending nudies of each other on their iPhones? The rural areas where Meth deadens peoples morals? Trailer parks known for their white trash? The farms down in Mississippi where illegitimacy and teen-aged pregnancy are common? The little towns and villages where the coaches are having affairs with student athletes of both sexes, and female teachers are seducing their young male pupils? College campuses that are home to hook-ups? The Internet, for one thing, has tainted everybody and illicitness is not determined by location. It exists everywhere, including pockets of "respectibility". You need to get out of your Mayberry mode and watch true crime programs like Dateline and 20-20 , real life stories about murder sex and mayhem that goes on all over America's heartland and not just in urban areas. (And churches are not exempt from any of this.) Watch Maury Povich and Jerry Springer. Of course this tripe offends your sensibilities, but these shows deal with a reality that goes on in all walks of life. Not just big cities. Well, it's no secret that i don't think pioneer's beliefs hold anymore legitimacy or authenticity than anyone else's.

Popularity is a reflection of identity - what is popular is how the majority see themselves. 62 million people identify with 45* - they see themselves in him. 90 million people couldn't even be so bothered to vote in the last presidential election. Our reality is what it is - even if it is the WORST side of us. We get the government we deserve.

@Cynique Is just one way of looking at it; another perspective is America (and all other nations) have been heading towards destruction since humans first started keeping records. I seriously doubt anyone can imagine what a better America would look like let alone describe it. There won't be a 'better,' only a slow burn and the beauty are in the ashes left behind. Pessimism intended. Yes, Trump is going down before 2019 which will only merge with the downward spiral already sucking in misdirected people. Have matters really changed, or simply adjusted in degrees and levels of intensity? Even nature has turned against us. @Troy Careful, you're starting to sound like me! That's true, I think people envy 45 more than they want him out, and that includes Black folks. It isn't in man's nature to love one another or act differently.

Then listen from 6:28 it's all sanging

AND THAT IS EXACTLY HOW HE GOT THERE! All these big whiny babies think he "feels their pain"... This is so on point, THANK YOU @Cynique

@Troy Join Tiger Woods and Jim Brown who both just said Trump was being unfairly treated by the media who doesn't respect the office of president, and pounces on his every word, constantly criticizing him. BooHoo. I've predicted that 45 will pick up more and more support because everybody has a gripe and he will eventually get around to bitching about one that matches up with one shared by someone who doesn't like him. Multiply this by a thousand and the numbers will groooooow. i give up. Let the chips fall where they may.

Just like most other religions....... One of the BIGGEST differences between Black Christians and White Christians is the fact that most Black Christians ACTUALLY BELIEVE in their religion. Most White Christians don't. They use it to seve a means to an end and when the means is no longer useful for their purpose....they abandon it. Neely Fuller Jr. said that a White racist will be a Christian on Monday and a Jew on Saturday if it suits his purpose. He'll be a Catholic on Friday to get some fish, and then turn to a Baptist on Sunday to have a nice big Sunday evening meal. Check out how AfroAmericans like to argue with eachother over religion and church and scriptures. But if you go to the average university you'll see the Caucasian Catholic, the Caucasian Jew, and the Caucasian athiest all hanging out and studying together and being good friends RARELY even mentioning religion among themselves. This is because they DON'T take their religions seriously and know what it's purpose is.....to control people.