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  1. A provocative article by one of America's premiere black Conservative spokesman. Black Protest Has Lost Its Power by Shelby Steele Jan. 12, 2018 6:40 p.m. ET The recent protests by black players in the National Football League were rather sad for their fruitlessness. They may point to the end of an era for black America, and for the country generally—an era in which protest has been the primary means of black advancement in American life. There was a forced and unconvincing solemnity on the faces of these players as they refused to stand for the national anthem. They seemed more dutiful than passionate, as if they were mimicking the courage of earlier black athletes who had protested: Tommie Smith and John Carlos, fists in the air at the 1968 Olympics; Muhammad Ali, fearlessly raging against the Vietnam War; Jackie Robinson, defiantly running the bases in the face of racist taunts. The NFL protesters seemed to hope for a little ennoblement by association. And protest has long been an ennobling tradition in black American life. From the Montgomery bus boycott to the march on Selma, from lunch-counter sit-ins and Freedom Rides to the 1963 March on Washington, only protest could open the way to freedom and the acknowledgment of full humanity. So it was a high calling in black life. It required great sacrifice and entailed great risk. Martin Luther King Jr. , the archetypal black protester, made his sacrifices, ennobled all of America, and was then shot dead. For the NFL players there was no real sacrifice, no risk and no achievement. Still, in black America there remains a great reverence for protest. Through protest—especially in the 1950s and ’60s—we, as a people, touched greatness. Protest, not immigration, was our way into the American Dream. Freedom in this country had always been relative to race, and it was black protest that made freedom an absolute. It is not surprising, then, that these black football players would don the mantle of protest. The surprise was that it didn’t work. They had misread the historic moment. They were not speaking truth to power. Rather, they were figures of pathos, mindlessly loyal to a black identity that had run its course. What they missed is a simple truth that is both obvious and unutterable: The oppression of black people is over with. This is politically incorrect news, but it is true nonetheless. We blacks are, today, a free people. It is as if freedom sneaked up and caught us by surprise. Of course this does not mean there is no racism left in American life. Racism is endemic to the human condition, just as stupidity is. We will always have to be on guard against it. But now it is recognized as a scourge, as the crowning immorality of our age and our history. Protest always tries to make a point. But what happens when that point already has been made—when, in this case, racism has become anathema and freedom has expanded? What happened was that black America was confronted with a new problem: the shock of freedom. This is what replaced racism as our primary difficulty. Blacks had survived every form of human debasement with ingenuity, self-reliance, a deep and ironic humor, a capacity for self-reinvention and a heroic fortitude. But we had no experience of wide-open freedom. Watch out that you get what you ask for, the saying goes. Freedom came to blacks with an overlay of cruelty because it meant we had to look at ourselves without the excuse of oppression. Four centuries of dehumanization had left us underdeveloped in many ways, and within the world’s most highly developed society. When freedom expanded, we became more accountable for that underdevelopment. So freedom put blacks at risk of being judged inferior, the very libel that had always been used against us. To hear, for example, that more than 4,000 people were shot in Chicago in 2016 embarrasses us because this level of largely black-on-black crime cannot be blamed simply on white racism. We can say that past oppression left us unprepared for freedom. This is certainly true. But it is no consolation. Freedom is just freedom. It is a condition, not an agent of change. It does not develop or uplift those who win it. Freedom holds us accountable no matter the disadvantages we inherit from the past. The tragedy in Chicago—rightly or wrongly—reflects on black America. That’s why, in the face of freedom’s unsparing judgmentalism, we reflexively claim that freedom is a lie. We conjure elaborate narratives that give white racism new life in the present: “systemic” and “structural” racism, racist “microaggressions,” “white privilege,” and so on. All these narratives insist that blacks are still victims of racism, and that freedom’s accountability is an injustice. We end up giving victimization the charisma of black authenticity. Suffering, poverty and underdevelopment are the things that make you “truly black.” Success and achievement throw your authenticity into question. The NFL protests were not really about injustice. Instead such protests are usually genuflections to today’s victim-focused black identity. Protest is the action arm of this identity. It is not seeking a new and better world; it merely wants documentation that the old racist world still exists. It wants an excuse. For any formerly oppressed group, there will be an expectation that the past will somehow be an excuse for difficulties in the present. This is the expectation behind the NFL protests and the many protests of groups like Black Lives Matter. The near-hysteria around the deaths of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Freddie Gray and others is also a hunger for the excuse of racial victimization, a determination to keep it alive. To a degree, black America’s self-esteem is invested in the illusion that we live under a cloud of continuing injustice. When you don’t know how to go forward, you never just sit there; you go backward into what you know, into what is familiar and comfortable and, most of all, exonerating. You rebuild in your own mind the oppression that is fading from the world. And you feel this abstract, fabricated oppression as if it were your personal truth, the truth around which your character is formed. Watching the antics of Black Lives Matter is like watching people literally aspiring to black victimization, longing for it as for a consummation. But the NFL protests may be a harbinger of change. They elicited considerable resentment. There have been counterprotests. TV viewership has gone down. Ticket sales have dropped. What is remarkable about this response is that it may foretell a new fearlessness in white America—a new willingness in whites (and blacks outside the victim-focused identity) to say to blacks what they really think and feel, to judge blacks fairly by standards that are universal. We blacks have lived in a bubble since the 1960s because whites have been deferential for fear of being seen as racist. The NFL protests reveal the fundamental obsolescence—for both blacks and whites—of a victim-focused approach to racial inequality. It causes whites to retreat into deference and blacks to become nothing more than victims. It makes engaging as human beings and as citizens impermissible, a betrayal of the sacred group identity. Black victimization is not much with us any more as a reality, but it remains all too powerful as a hegemony. Mr. Steele, a senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, is author of “Shame: How America’s Past Sins Have Polarized Our Country” (Basic Books, 2015). Appeared in the January 13, 2018, print edition of The Wall Street Journal.
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  2. Press release for WooSah Bitter Sweer Blessings Enjoy a warm novel with drama, laughter, and love by. Juanita Graves
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  3. Academic Marketing & Sales Did you know there are many associations that host about 352,300* conferences and meetings that are attended by professionals who can make purchasing decisions, such as making a wholesale purchases of your book? Conference exhibiting is another way to knock on a backdoor market to reach your readers. If you’re only exhibiting your books at book conventions you’re missing out on quite a few opportunities. Source: MARKETING YOUR BOOKS TO THE ACADEMIC COMMUNITY
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  4. @Pioneer1, do you think any of the white people who voted for 45 will vote for Oprah? Everything Oprah's touched does NOT turn to success ever she has had some failures and has had to correct mistakes. She is human. Even with Oprah's vast wealth, even she does not have enough money to launch a Presidential campaign on her own. These things cost $7 Billion. But she is a charismatic celebrity and than, unfortunately, is her biggest selling point. I say unfortunately because that has little to do with running a nation as we can see from 45's presidency. I see Oprah as part of the same rich hollywood ilk that will do almost anything for money including cosigning on the behavior of the Harvey Weinstein's among them. \
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  5. @Pioneer1 here is something for you to consider, for the New Year: I think that you are the only one on this forum who has never changed their stance on an issue. I may be wrong, but I have no recollection of this ever happening. If there is an instance please relate it here or point to a link. If you can not do this, after so many years of participating here, that tells me that you probably think everything you believe is infallible. We all know noone is perfect, but an unwillingness to accept our own imperfections and fallibility will never led to growth. Are you interested in expanding your mind or simply winning arguments?
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  6. Deep article. As you know I have always decried the ineffectiveness on the NFL boycott, largely because we did not really sacrifice anything -- we refused to boycott, and the NFL and media controlled the narrative. The protest and Colin were easily dispatched. Random House will profit from a related book deal and I'll generate some commissions but football will go on and the brutality against Black people will continue... MY GOD! Have 4,000 people been shot in Chicago!?! I just looked it up and I see the number was actually 4,349 resulting in 771 murders! That is an astounding stat. In contrast, NY City with more than 3 times the population of Chitown had 231 murders in 2016 (the number will be well under 200 for 2017). I'm sure, but did not check, that murders in both cities were disproportionately Black on Black. In 2016, less than 260 Black people were killed by police -- nationwide -- Chicago's citizenry beat that before the summer was over. Of course some of the Brothers killed by police were unarmed and the shootings were unjustified. At any rate, I agree wholeheartedly with the idea that "...oppression left us unprepared for freedom." The word "Freedom," used 18 times in Shelby Steele's article, is key. We largely don't exercise freedom in the Black community. This is no different than what Carter G.Woodson wrote almost 90 years ago; "if there is no back door, he will cut one for his special benefit." I had not really thought about the protest in the content of freemdon before. Thanks for sharing the article (next time post an excerpt and link to the full article). _____________ BTW Jason, @Cynique is Brilliant nonetheless. In an alternative universe where wisdom and experience were revered more than youth and celebrity, people like Cynique would be more widely known.
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  7. @Delano that was a typo... I will go correct it now... @Pioneer1 I don't remember joining in on that discussion between you and Cynique.. I remember your discussion with @Cynique being more nuanced.
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  8. @Pioneer1Oh, quit taking bows and cherry pickin. Long before you insisted on equating knowledge with comprehension and subsequently offering your example, i gave the example of me knowing all the exponents of Einstein's E=MC2, but went on to say that i did not understand it! I contended from the beginning that having knowledge about or being aware of something does not necessarily means that you comprehend its implications. And i noted that a mystery is an example of this.
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  9. @Pioneer1Get outta here! Mel and i did not verify what you were saying all along which was that knowledge was synonymous with understanding! I said that knowledge encompassed facts and information but was not the same as comprehending what this data meant. So i don't agree with you when it comes to what knowledge implies. You are really a die-hard, still refusing to think your ideas through lest doing so would prove you wrong and leave you with no choice but to admit that your entrenched beliefs might be incorrect. One thing is sure, a whole generation of white Europeans killed each other during World War I. And just because a relatively few number of men of color participated in Word War II, does not negate that the majority of those fighting against each other were white Europeans. You're always crowing about the 2 Million Men marches organized by your messiah; wasn't that a display of black men unified? And didn't white men from the Union and the Confederacy fight and kill each other during the Civil War? Puleeze. I deleted a previous post expressing my opinion that you are not a critical thinker because i didn't want to keep piling on you, but i reinstate that sentiment now.
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  10. Troy You must remember that of those killed in the world wars and Crusades.....millions of those people were actually PEOPLE OF COLOR. When the Europeans went into the Middle East and North Africa for the Crusades most of the people they killed were Arabs and Africans of color. And even in the World Wars 1 and 2 a large percentage of those killed were people in Africa and Asia who were serving as proxy soldiers to help their European colonial masters fight.     And don't get me started on white folks and their genocide of the indigenous people in the American's, Australia, and the treatment of Black people--come on man! Surely you are going to use some random white guy, given their collective history of rape, pillage, and plunder across planet Earth, to make your point Exactly my point! Their anger and violence tends to be focused on conquering people of color. While people of color's anger and violence tends to be focused on conquering EACHOTHER. Which goes back to my point about Black men constantly arguing and going to war with eachother over petty arguments when we should be on the same page when it comes to MOST things since most of us get the same treatment from society. Now let me bring something to your attention as an excellent example of how people stick together AGAINST the Black man........ Check out the end of this page of the thread where Mel correctly observes the difference between KNOWLEDGE and simply repeating facts and information: https://aalbc.com/tc/topic/4850-actually-troy/?page=2&_fromLogin=1 What's the problem? There IS NONE.....except for the fact that I basically said the same thing in another thread but Mel ignored it and Cynique argued AGAINST it and said that facts and information IS knowledge!!! But if you'll observe, this same Cynique actually gave her a TROPHY at the bottom of her post for what she said....signaling that she agrees with it. So now you have two Black women AGREEING with a position I initiated but one of them OPPOSED me on that very same position when it was coming from me and another simply refused to agree with it as long as I was the one pushing it! I'm telling you man, this is NO coincidence! White society has been against Black men and many of them have turned Black women against Black men. Many Black women have a HATRED of Black men. A hatred that DIDN'T come from being abused, molested, or abandoned with children but because they were TRAINED to hate and oppose Black men. Now ofcourse, I.....Pioneer....don't represent all Black men and just because someone disagrees with me or opposes me it doesn't mean they disagree with all Black men. But what you see going on against Black men in this society....especially in the United States is UNUSUALLY suspicious because too many brothers are complaining about it for it to be a hallucination and if you leave the nation and go to Canada or Europe Black men are NOT treated the same way. But Black men really need to put the pettiness aside and recognize that if we don't support eachother who else can we expect to support us.
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  11. Thanks for clearing that up, @Mel Hopkins
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  12. Mel @Mel Hopkins How is it you can explain something you don't know?
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  13. @Pioneer1Well, i hope you've learned your lesson. But i doubt it.
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  14. I love it when a good plan comes together. Many who are dazzled by the media and may have missed the plot. We must remember, we're a civilization rooted in story-telling. We share information filled with iconic imagery, symbolism, and sounds. Celebrities are no different. They use the media to tell stories that voice their platform position or opposition. Case-in-point, On December 5, 2017 "Beyoncé surprised free-agent quarterback Colin Kaepernick with Sports Illustrated‘s Muhammad Ali Legacy Award." Here's the backstory for those who missed it. Beyoncé became Enemy #1 when she performed "Formation" during the 2016 Super Bowl. SUPER BOWL 50. It was the only time the NFL ditched the Roman numerals. Like a Trojan Horse, Beyoncé and her Black Panther styled-warriors marched out on their field. She resurrected Malcolm X and gave corporate America the finger. Without those who sound off every time a celebrity offends their sensibilities, we'd miss the story unfold. White folks screamed bloody murder and cops threatened not to provide security for her upcoming concerts. Butthurt. Now, 45 and white America are butthurt because Kaepernick took a knee 7-months after Bey danced into Formation. For a protest to be effective, you got to surprise them on their battlefield. Awarding the Sports Illustrated Muhammad Ali Legacy Award to Kaepernick is nearing the apex of consciousness raising. If this were a monomyth, also known as the Hero's Journey; it would be where the Hero gets the gift from the Goddess right before he returns from his journey. Together, whether it was planned or not, they used their platform to bring attention to police brutality and state-sanctioned murders. Beyoncé and Kaepernick didn't level a gun. They waged protest in an arena the military used to raise support. Raise. Support. For. War. Maybe like me, you weren't aware of how the National Anthem and the NFL wedded at the conclusion of World War II. The Washington Post shared that part of the story in September. Up until 2015, the Department of Defense contracted with the NFL using millions of taxpayer money. I never had a problem with military pageantry. I do have a problem with hypocrisy. Neither Beyonce or Colin Kaepernick used taxpayers money to advance the cause of bringing attention to police brutality. They told a story through their actions. Proving once again; a storyteller's wheelhouse is winning hearts and minds.
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