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Well, we were acquaintances, not friends since we did not run in the same circles because she was, as we used to call them, "sanctified", a member of the Church of God in Christ which back then forbade its women to wear lipstick, and frowned on drinking and smoking and dancing and playing cards. So her life was pretty much what it would've been had she been raised as a member of the NOI. Her name was Beatrice and she was an attractive girl and a choir soloist with a beautiful singing voice and a pleasant personality and was cherished by the congregation of her father's church. But her life took a detour when she was not only whispered about for being a daughter of Elijah Muhammad, - something that didn't come out until we were in our 20s when the black Muslims had become well known - but for what happened later when she again became the subject of more gossip after she was left "standing at the altar" in her white wedding gown because the groom never showed up for the rumored reason of being gay. She never wed and became an evangelist and died young, in her early 50s. i have no idea how she felt about the circumstances of her birth but she did have kind, loving adopted parents. There were a lot of little interesting back stories and skeletons in the closet among the black population in the small town where i grew up...

So I'm watching a 3 hour interview with Walter Mosley, 'cause that's what I do for fun, and he actually shouts out AALBC.com. He even got the site's awkward acronym out (you could see it was a little tough but he did it!). At any rate, this is what we have to do to ensure the viability of our institutions; acknowledge, recommend them, and patronize them. Stay tuned...

If I follow Pioneer's logic then if you are a leader your followers should give you access to their children. What if it were teenage boys. Would your position change. @Pioneer1

https://www.thedailybeast.com/word-is-bond-an-ex-con-explains-the-5-percenters

Ahh I'll inform my young friend! Yes I read Our Kind of People and the novels of his wife Pamela Thomas-Graham. It was these books, working on Wall Street, and increasingly moving in circles of people who were in this world that opened my eyes into it. I know people who have had homes on the Vineyard for generations and I have vacationed there myself on a number of occasions, but vacationing there and being part of the culture are too different things. ROTFLMBAO! When I wrote about my thought on Lawrence Otis Graham I wasn't gonna say it, but I hated the who pretentious of the Black elite culture (of course I don't mean everyone). But you see it anywhere the English dominated Black people. The Black elites, the strivers seemingly adopt the mindset of the White elite which includes contempt for the Black underclass. Melvin was important because he was doing his before anyone else. Mario, Spike, at al success was made easier by Mario breaking barriers. Speaking of Melvin did anyone see his film, Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song? Speaking using my Blaines Edward voice (from the Men On Film routine from Living Color) -- Hated it! I guess comedians can not do routines like this and expect to host the Oscars.

@TroyCould you be more specific about where 13, 14, 15 year old girls can get married? Speaking of keeping things in perspective, we are are talking about single young girls being taken advantage of by sexual predators, not teen-age marriage via parental consent,

Its better to be silent and let people think you a fool. Than to talk and remove all doubt.

I am posing questions. In case it wasn't clear. Malcolm and Martin sex life is conjecture and even if it was true it doesn't change how I see them. That was the question. So now I have answered my own question. Instead of assuming I am slandering Martin and Malcolm you could have asked. No you prefer not asking the person their views. @Troy @Pioneer1

Cynique They can't even sort out their own sexuality. They are the ones who have determined that sexual orientation is present at birth Well that sounds like a major contradiction in your observations. Whether their conclusion actually has valitity or not....how can someone who has DETERMINED something be confused about it an unable to "sort it out"????? Chev For decades Neely Fuller Jr. has been predicting how they were trying to promote homosexuality and gender neutrality among AfroAmericans to reduce the population and create confusion and fighting among the men and women over gender roles. ...even back in the 60s he was saying this. Check out this 4 minute clip of Neely Fuller breaking down precisely how they are trying to destroy the Black community through sexual confusion: https://youtu.be/a3qUE8GGDvk This man was the late great Dr. Frances Cress Welsing's (The Isis Papers) mentor and he's still coherent and sharp as a razor at 90 years old giving interviews. You should really check out his work and his lectures.

Yeah, after puberty is 12 or 13 -- a Child! @Pioneer1 This is horrible. A man saying that 'he didn't force himself on a 12 year old' -- AND WHAT IN THE HELL COULD SHE SAY TO DEFEND HERSELF AGAINST A GROWN ASS MAN, SAYING THAT SHE WOULD HAVE AGREED!? This makes me sick. I don't think the age of consent is 12, 13, 14 or even 15 and ? His wealth of deeds is about him having sex with teenage girls. That's where the buck should have stopped...he should have been confronted by Sister Clara Muhammad, and the government. That is what the Supreme Being did, give governments a chance to intervene and do their job! Having sex with a child can be deemed the worst thing in the world!

@Pioneer1 What a ridiculous statement. Where do you get the idea that white people think having sex is the worst thing in the world?? Whites didn't praise their conquerors for pillaging or condemn them for rape, They just ignored both of these atrocities. I guess you think white slave masters should be given a thumb's up because what they were doing to their black female slaves was merciful. SMH This issue is not about race. It is about a female of any age and color having a right to not be sexually taken advantage of by a horny pussy monger. Many girls reach puberty at 12, so according to your standards, this makes them sexually "eligible " for the lust of predators, an attitude which also includes your thinking that black people are more prone to indulge in wanton sex and this is something to boast about. Even in the animal kingdom, the female of the species selects a mate from all the males trying to impress her, and her choice is the one she discerns would be a good sire for her offspring. But not in your world where it's OK for black folks to just indiscriminately indulge their insatiable desire to copulate because this and the resulting babies are what comes natural to them.

African. American. Christmas. Stories. By. Betty Colliers. -Thomas..A,Collection. Of Christmas. Stories. And. Poems. By. Black,Writers,Journalist. And. Activist....

Neely Fuller has said for decades that the biggest and LAST trick of White Supremacy....is to try and fool people of color about their sexuality and get them sexually confused.

@Cynique LOL I agree. And, I do not want to be idolized and have no intention of idolizing any man. @Delano WOW! Thanks! Very informative link! https://www.thedailybeast.com/word-is-bond-an-ex-con-explains-the-5-percenters I've learned a lot today. From this article, it seems that this 5 Percenters group stems from prison!? That is kind of depressing too, in that all of this rhetoric comes from mostly Blacks who are stuck under the American prison system. They are stuck under the Slave Master, and all the while trying to come to terms with their existence.

The entire point is that they don't know me. It similar to racist white people's perception about people they never met. The point is I am not worried about perception over truth. You and Troy give me stick for siding with women. I don't give either of you a hard time for being dismissive about women's issue and their perspective in general. I feel I have succeeded in having a position that is more neutral. I was disappointed by Pioneer1 saying he didn't care about Elijah raping girls and he would smile. What was the reaction from the men. We can't even defend the honour of teenage girls with a word or two. Yet you wonder why women don't feel protected by Black Men. The fact I have to repeatedly say this is what makes this conversation so depressing. Yet you talk about Black unity, maybe start with listening and respect. No wait that's not important in your struggle. I heard a Black Woman rapper say bring a black woman was like being black twice.

Firstly I am not certain why either of you can't conduct your own search. Especially since Troy can do it in 5 minutes. You not being aware of things doesn't invalidate them, for example Martin Luther King's affairs, Malcolm Little being a pimp, Elijah Muhammed's preying on teenage girls. What's interesting is that when Cynique verified the statement you were silent. Furthermore you seem to think I am your secretary. You can argue without having a look or you can check for yourself. A while back K2 made a very long post about Astrology. You just accepted what he said. Even after I said it was plagiarism you didn't check. You sell books and you can't recognise something as being plagiarised. Maybe you should go back to Facebook it's good practice for vetting fake news. Like the John McClain story. Perhaps Cynique can refresh your memory. You seem to listen to her unless the topic is about women. Which is rather interesting from a psychological Pov but this thread is already pretty long. I am not sure you will read it all. That isn't why I wrote it. In addition you make statements that could be checked but you don't bother. You ask for the source. Even when you doubt what I am saying, you don't verify it for yourself. Here's the main difference between you and I. I will search a topic and look for pro and con arguments. I am not telling you to follow suit. Nor am I following your directives. You totally missed the irony of me posting an article from Facebook about Black Women Writers. It's your field and your nemesis. The other Facebook post was a few Black Book industry people praising you on Facebook. Which is also ironic because you periodically cry about Facebook and not being appreciated for all the work you do for Black Women writers, the reading public and the industry. I can empathise with your frustration. However your positions about Facebook and Google don't make sense to me . They both take business away from you. You continue to use Google for your personal searches yet you drop Facebook. I suggested that you sue Google. I ended up asking a mutual acquaintance on your behalf. Who is a lawyer and handled business in the past re AAlbc. And you didn't want to write a cease and desist letter. I am not writing this to change your mind about any of this. Adapt or die. You sometimes sound like a cranky Don Q. I am going to chill out at the Villa. Sincerely, Pancho.

@Cynique obviously not. MANY people don;t have a clue who Zora Neale Hurston is. I'm going to start a new conversation about this. Every day I delete (don't approve) seemingly innocuous messages posted by people looking to get an account approved so that they can spam the forums. This message almost did not pass my sniff test. I tend to err of the side of caution.

@Cynique Same here. It becomes an insufferable bore because of what’s NOT being said. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve found myself in a “pearls-clutching” scenario either because of what I said or did. My bestie could hang;, her “extensive” training left them groveling and in tears when necessary - she didn’t play. @Delano yes! I’ve followed Mario’s career and his daughter played in his SyFy show “Superstition” . The narrative rivaled Neil Gaiman’s “American Gods” because it resurrected the African Gods and Goddesses of old and wrote and produced a TV series around them. I don’t think it was renewed but it was excellent. Maybe someone will write a book based on it.

@Mel HopkinsOK, in Chicago, there's an organization referred as The Assembly, which annually hosts a kind of mini-pan hellenic gathering during the Christmas holiday season and some people loosely call it "boule". All of this is too "chi-chi" for my taste but my in-laws were on the fringes of it. Just out of curiosity i checked the definition of the word "boule" which i assumed was "French" in its origins. It is, and one of its 3 definition is: "Boule In cities of ancient Greece, the boule was a council of citizens appointed to run daily affairs of the city." So, that makes sense. @Del Melvin's son Mario has an equally impressive resume that rivals his father's.

@Cynique This is still true although “Boule” in this context refers to the biennial meeting of my sorors of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. “The Boule’ (Sigma Pi Phi) the organization of Black Elite Men is still strong today with an estimated 5000 members who contain some of the same Black men who have chaired or still sit on the boards of the largest corporations, serve in the U.S. Government ; executive level of the nation’s top universities such as Gregory Vincent https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregory-vincent-681232b/ The fraternities of the Divine Nine still have the same mission - Of course I’m not a member but last year an A phi A friend of mine called, seemingly, to make sure I’d put in a word with my Kappa baby-daddy because he wanted to host a party at my baby-daddy’ and his powerful attorney wife’s martha’s vineyard home for a New York political candidate. It happened. I’m a degree away from the “elites” and their power moves; but to be honest, I never felt comfortable in their world , choosing not to even marrying into it when the opportunity arose. @Troy Lawrence Otis Graham wrote a book on “Our Kind of People” and that book just scratched the surface of Old Money Black Elite... but it’s not fiction or old news. One of my best friends, I met at Tech, came from that world. She was kind of a rebel; graduating from Ethical Culture Fieldston School before attending and graduating Tech, from Mount Holyoke, and from Cornell with a JD/MBA. She was so “fancy” she opened a literary gallery in SoHo prominently featuring bchildren’s book black illustrators... I went to the opening it was fabulous! Never seen it duplicated. But I digress. That world exist and hasn’t lost its steam or exclusive membership. While not at the level of “The Boule” in political power, but in numbers, recently, the Kappas came out to support their frat Colin Kaepernick. These black men still congregate but maybe not to “chit chat” but with an social political and economic agenda. Anyway, to Delano’s comment I guess there’s no “fighting, egoism et al in the upper echelon of society because they’re the folks who throw away the scraps “we” fight over. @Delanoas for “Sweet, SweetBack, Badass Song” Director -I have no opinion but in the late 90s he told a reporter he didn’t have a PHd in Negrology and I’ve used that line ever since.

@ChevdoveWell, when you announce in a public venue how you intend to raise your kids, and what you say is offensive to a minority group, you should be prepared to be censured by the people who have hired you for a job. It is comparable to the announced host for the Oscars being white and him vowing that if his daughter married a black guy, he would put her out the house. Nobody is suing Kevin about what he said and had Kevin honored the Academy's request for him to apologize again, he'd still be emceeing the show. Welcome to the 2018 world of political correctness.

Political correctness is becoming as stifling as those it targets. It is totally shutting down comedy and satire, forbidding people to laugh at the foibles of the human condition. But this was inevitable as the pendulum swings from one extreme to the other, and times change.

@Troy , please tell me you are making a facetious statement here - Please tell me you do know what illegitimate means within this context ...🙄 @Delano I rest my case as it relates to the previous thread. So much for being a leader when you can't even handle your own family business.

@Pioneer1 Del, hell. MLK's extra-curricula activities were circulating when he was alive. I happened to have been around during King's era when all of the stories were current, and they did not totally emanate from J. Edgar Hoover's report although it was fairly accurate, especially the part about King and Joan Baez, the famous white folk singer. But the most damning of all, was the book written after King's death by MLK's trusted right hand man, Ralph Abernathy, in which references were made to King's affairs, a book for which Abernathy took a lot of heat. As for Coretta, she was a faithful partner who relished her position as the wife of America's premiere black Moses and then widow of its martyred black Messiah, and she chose not to besmirch her husband who she undoubtedly loved.

Often I complain about how the NY Times covers Black people -- but this, this right here, is great!. Now people will argue about the authors NOT included and that is fine, but these presentation is spectacular. You all know how often I lament the invisibility of Black men. This is the opposite of that. A artistically grand presentation of Black men -- covering broad full spectrum of manhood (from an earlier discussion 😉 ) Follow this link to read the article and watch the video. Enjoy.