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Thank you for addressing this @frankster @Jeromex I’m curious about your backstory and who your reverend is. It might help me understand how you’ve come to your worldview . you say “I love my black brothers and sisters” but then you proceeded to go on to show how much you hate us. It is not clear to me why you don’t see the inconsistency. it is also not clear me how you hold our level of crime at a completely different level than you hold Europeans. Even if we completely ignored the genocide of the indigenous populations here in America and the enslavement and extreme violence against Africans and their descendants. The Civil War over 600,000 dead World war one over 20 million dead World War II over 50 million dead the most violent conflict in human history! And that’s just the last 160 years or so, not even counting the Spanish, American war, the Vietnam war, the Korean war, the wars of the Middle East, etc. Of course, they are the lynchings Frankster mentioned. Think about it, there are white people, alive today, who attended actual lynching celebrations with picture postcards and everything! Were Black people behind any of this violence? You’re blaming Black people but we live in a culture of violence look at how many guns people own in this country. look at how many mass shootings there are. we lead the Western world in executing people — too often innocent black people. there were more than 40,000 gun deaths in the United States last year half of these are suicides, mostly white men people killing themselves. Black people are arguably the most docile group in this country. Historically, whenever we stand up for ourselves, we are brutally crushed and our leaders assassinated. Any effective leadership today is just bought off or marginalized, in some other most sophisticated way. You’re proclaiming, Black people in this country the most violent in the world?! You sound woefully uninformed at best, or rabid hater of Black people at worst.

Our Rights are God Given....Evil and Racist Individuals denied us our Rights - We fought and won them. Stop it.....One Family or Company in the White community is responsible for 100's of thousand of deaths....so bad it's called an epidemic - and it is on going. National Safety Council | The opioid crisis (2021 Data) The Nazi's cooked Millions of Jews Southern Confederate Racist whites Lynch thousand of Black and destroyed 100's of Black towns throughout the South. Practical committed Genocide on Native Populations. Show or tell me about these so called opportunities? Good for you. I love our Culture...It shines in Music Sports Science Family Entertainment Politics etc Which Liberal Politicians are saying that "we aren’t intelligent enough to make it on our own."? If as you say Liberals do not care for us..........Do You think Conservatives Care about us? I say we should do our own dirty work.... Whose do you say we should do?

This is sourced from the National Endowment for the Arts 2022 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts. Viewed through a Lense of negativity one can say that 62.4% of Americans -- two out of three have not read a book (print or ebook). in the past year. Reading of novels or short stories, and of books in general, has declined sharply over the last five- and 10-year periods (This is not depicted in the chat below but if you look at the study you will also discover this as well). However, on a positive note one can say that most Americans (52%) have read at least one book (print, ebook, or audiobook) including plays, poetry and fiction. That is 129 million readers! If we included readers of nonfiction (many men) and school aged children (reading is required), the numbers would be much higher at least 200 million (in my estimation) 🙂 The NEA does not report on this, but I know that African American women over index in read rates. If I have not shared this data I will. Given all the pressured on our attention, I'm rather encouraged by the reported reading rates. My only concern for the youngins coming up (Gen Z and Alphas) who only know a world dominated by social media. Many of my Boomer peers and older Gen Xers never got involved with social or have tired of it. If the generations after mine get sucked deeper into AI driven social reading rates will drop dramatically as the boomers and gen xers die off.

I haven't followed the story too closely but it's clear that the right-wing wanted her out of her position. For over a week I had been seeing stories pop up on my news feed every day from right-wing outlets targeting her over this and that. To be honest with you, I kept seeing the word "gay" and thought it was just another ploy to promote the LGBT agenda and use a Black face to do it....lol. And that short natural she was rocking didn't really help clarify things....lol. I hadn't realized that it was her last name until I stopped to read a few articles.

I know. it is counterintuitive. There are many things I like to do but don't do as much as I like. Hopefully in a year or so I make more time for myself 🙂

Of course -- it should be the reason we all read. I understand what the romance writer was saying, but there is nothing necessarily wrong with this. I enjoy sci-fic I can't get the future in my real life so i read about it. It is escapism. Sometimes I real about things I would never want to experience I guess that is voyeurism... As far was Black women reading more this is definitely for genre fiction. I can not put my figure on a source... sorry I'll keep looking

@Mel Hopkins as you can appreciate I’m not the typical Book buyer as I get free books all the time and when I do buy and I can buy them wholesale. I visit independent bookstores all the time, and I always buy books from them. most recently I’ve visited liberation station bookstore in Raleigh, North Carolina, and purchased the book by a local author. It’s not just black owned independents that I visit. I find White owned stores to be super engaging. Once they find out I’m a bookseller they will give me a discount which is considered standard practice between Booksellers 44th and 3rd in ATL was kind enough to extend the courtesy. I have not purchased an e-book in a very long time. I’ve had several e-book readers over the years, but never used them very much. It just seemed like extra baggage when I had a tablet laptop or cell phone with me. I’ve purchased audiobooks most recently. But in the last several months actually find my time, mostly consumed, listening to podcasts. I’ve been working a lot of hours, and when I do take a break, I travel to see friends and family so when I do have downtime I’m actually too tired to read the next book I’ll read is The Savion Sequence but that is work related as I’ll be helping to proof read it.

I had a Mastodon account - I've since deleted it, and unfortunately, I can't remember who hosted it. Medium dot com offers members an account through their hosting site, but I'm just burned out on social media platforms. But I will always follow AALBC. So, if I understand correctly, and you do an upgrade, I'll probably go through medium dot com /mastodon since I have an account there.

Chevdove, thank you.