Leaderboard

We live in a culture increasingly defined by ideas biased, and elevated, by algorithms designed by young white men to enrich themselves. This creates the false impression that the ideas which rise to the top of our social media feeds must be superior to ideas undiscoverable or unexpressed, on social media. Older media platforms reinforce this notion by trolling social media feeds for "news" to cover. Then working harder to elevation their social media presence than their own platforms. When a Kanye West expresses his political views it makes national news, while the thoughtful perspectives of the few remaining seasoned pollical journalists, who write for Black-owned newsletters, languish in obscurity. Is Kayne's opinion of Trump more important the someone who has studied pollical science, communications, and covered the political scene for decades? Seemingly it is, given the relative about of attention paid to Kayne. Some opinions are objectively "better" than others. Some opinions simply do not deserve an audience and other opinions should be shouted from the highest mountaintop. The idea that we should give equal time to opinions of anti-vaxxers is not only silly, it is dangerous. Anti-vaxxers rhetoric may attract a lot of attention (read: make a lot of money), but the coverage of their ideas by mainstream media gives credibility and a false equivalency to these hairbrained ideas. This is the same behavior that led mainstream media to clamor over every inane tweet generated by Trump. This not only gave Trump a massive and free platform, it eliminated the resources that should have gone toward covering other candidates. Our sorry reaction to the pandemic and the insurrection are just two terrible and direct consequences of our focus on what a Donald Trump thinks over experienced politicians. The idea that white women would choose Trump over Hillary Clinton is easy to understand if you believe that Hillary runs a pedophile ring, out of a Pizzeria, as social media made certain we were aware of this absurd "news" story. Social media's propensity to elevating the ideas of easily triggered young adults, who have not lived long enough to understand, or to have experienced, anything of consequence to "cancel" others is also an insane consequence of social media's bias. Our best and brightest minds will never be provided with a large platform by the mainstream media — especially if they are on Black-owned platforms. This is why we have to identify and elevate these people ourselves. I use AALBC to accomplish this, I will also promote other platforms when I see them to it. This is also why I actively promote Black-owned book websites, Black-owned book stores, Black-owned newspapers, Black-owned magazines, the best Black-owned websites, and much more. The support is not always reciprocal, but when it is, it is great, because it is mutually beneficial and one of the reasons AALBC has lasted almost a quarter of a century on the web. The support AALBC.com gets from institutions and people will never generate as much attention as as someone with, say, 100,000 Instagram followers. But the fact is AALBC has a much larger reach than someone with 100K followers, but again social media's focus is on themselves not — not Black-owned platforms. It never was the job of any social media platform to determine whose opinions should matter most to the Black Community, or to elevate Black-owned platforms — it is ours. Let do it!