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Yes sir, the underlying nature of a man is always there lurking just under the surface and veneer of his new mage whatever it is. It is hard to abandon the ideas and tendencies that went into the process of shaping your worldview. What is so pervasive about the street mindset is that it is hard to shake. If you are in corporate America, you can shuck your 9-5 work image and ease into your everyday brotherman persona in the afterhours. Even this role-playing can have detrimental effects since one has to be careful when putting on his 9-5 game mask; he has to be sure to erase anything in his brotherman persona that will conflict with his corporate visage. Just like a sista can't forget to put on her lipstick, a brother cannot forget to put on his corporate mask. It's designed to both protect him and to defend him agaist the negativity his skin tone will bring forth. But you can never step outside the street persona, though you can mask it. In fact, most brothers from the streets such a myself don't ever want to lose our 'street smarts' because we know that if we can survive on the streets, we can survive anywhere. It's like the adage that if, as an entertainer, you can make it at the Apollo, you can make it anywhere. For street people, it is a badge of honor to know we have survival skills that would allow us to go anywhere in the world and get by. We have this thing we like to ponder about if you put a hustler in the jungle and a corporate brother, the street brotha would survive (What do you think?). Even when we 'square up' and join the real world, we are not giving up our street mindset. And like anyone else in a situation of immense stress, you always revert to instinct which is the primary thing that can be counted on to insure the outcome you will need to survive or to end a threat. Hence, the acts of the 83 year old gangsta. In the 70s, there was a white convict named Jack Henry Abbot who wrote a bestseller from inside. Norman Mailer and other writers helped get me out. The ex-con was enjoying life as an acclaimed writer, making all the rounds ,rubbing elbows with the NYC elite but while dining in a swanky NY resturant, he got into a minor dispute with a waiter. The ex-con felt threatened and despite everything her had going for him, reverted back to who he was and he stabbed the waiter, killing him. He couldn't avoid who he had taught himself to be in order to enhance his survival quotient. Check this out. These racists cops, even in the aftermath of George Floyd are still publicly executing black men. They know how rabid public sentiment is against their murderous behavior. They know their body cams are recording. They know bystanders are recording. They have even been allegedly trained as a professional not to employ deadly force, but when the moment grows to the point where he must choose between his training and his instinct, the cop will revert to instinct. He will kill the brotha because he has taught himself that despite his training, his instinct is more reliable. Oh yeah, let me throw this one as I had seen this play out time and time again in prison. Out here in the streets as well. Try this if you ever want to see how instinct works on a human level. Get up in face of the wrong sissy. You can talk shit and ridicule his sexual preference but when you go too far, you gonna find yourself in a fight but not with someone who fights like a girl. You find out you're fighting a real man who got real skills with his hands. Sweet Thang be done reverted back to instinct and you dealing with a monster.

Today, while still young, may ultimately evolve into a moment long remembered by all of us for some time to come. This Election has been huge, but later after the dust has settled and you check off the things you would like to see occur in exchange for your vote. Nothing will change in some places, and in others, there may be change for us as a collective, but while we are trying to peep what others can will or might do for us, we must look to see what we can do for ourselves. We, I am sure, can all find things for which we would enjoy planting our flag, but I know that if we don't take immediate steps to preserve our literary heritage, then we will find ourselves written out and wiped up of the literary conversation just like we have already been written out of history. If we now let them control the narrative of our fiction, then who will be there to speak for us. We have lost our historical narrative. Do we now elect to tarnish the richness of the urban experience by sitting back and watching doors closed on our own ability to tell our stories as we have seen and lived them. I rememebr being mad in the joint when I read a book called Freedomland or something. It was a white man writing about the black experience. How dare he? Only we can tell our stories, but can we do it without platforms like AALBC. Not hardly. We need a place where we can write and tell our stories without interference. We need AALBC. We must take steps just to insure its survival so that we can continue to dialogue. AALBC, whether you know it or not, is like our THINK TANK. At least, that is how I see. Look at how the landscape has changed over the years as black owned book stores have dwindled down to nothing, What's next. Black sites like this one. I know many of you are familiar with the GReat RESET because I have seen mention of it here so you have to know that one of the key proponents of the RESET is to eliminate all the poor performing businesses and to eliminate them as this is truly an 'only the strong survive' agenda. Who is more vulnerable to a RESET than anything black, and cyber business is just as vulnerable as brick and store establishments. Now, that the race is over for the soul of America, let's join the race to SAVE THE SOUL OF BLACK AMERICA! Save our literary heritage. I believe that the lifeblood of any people is sustained via its literature. What can you do to join this CALL 2 ACTION? 1, Continue to support the site with your participation 2. Invite friends to the site 3. Join FB book clubs and make them aware of AALBC 4 Buy books from this site 5 Sell books on this site.

A lot has been said about it, especially in the Black Nationalist and Pan Africanist communities. You can read the rough draft of the contract here: https://contractwithblackamerica.us/