Leaderboard

Powerful video. Who was that little girl threatening to throw the rock back at that boy's face; little @Mel Hopkins..lol...????? Ofcourse most of them have grown up and have spawn another generation or two of racists. I don't remember it but I heard it was the same way in sections of Detroit and other cities that are now pretty much Black or Latino. The Black kids would get harassed and have rocks thrown at them. Probably the only good thing that came out of those days was more Black unity. Right around the late 60s and early 70s different neighborhoods around the city started forming "neighborhood committees" to find out who was moving into which house or building and find out what kind of work they did, where they went to school, what religion they were, ect....but what they REALLY wanted to know was if they were Black or not. And if they were Black they would harass them and threaten them not to move in, or harass them once they moved in.

Dude, I can't even afford to live in NYC let alone run a brick and mortar store there. But I guess if it is going to happen one has to dream big. Thanks! I'll peep Tariq's game.

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!

This video is sad and resonates because in 1978 or '79 I experienced something very similar in the same borough of NYC. My girlfriend, at the time, and I were walking, not too far from her neighborhood, just like these kids were doing on their bicycles. It is something we did as kids—explored our surroundings. We were not surrounded by a mob but white kids started throwing rocks at us and made it clear we were not welcome and would not be allowed to walk on their streets. When you get a mob involved things can really escalate quickly. If the camera's were not around things could have been much worse for these kids. If they were living in home in Queens during this time, I'm sure they were good middle class kids -- of a much higher social standing and rearing than the white people who where hurling racial epithets, rocks, and blows. Those white racist kids go on to become the cops, teachers, nurses who would work in Black neighborhoods....