19 minutes ago, zaji said:

 

:: closing eyes and crossing legs :: I detach myself from my opinions, knowledge, information, facts and beliefs. Ommmmmm. Namaste...

Yes, Yes, Yes,! (I'm over here giggling -because I have to meditate on this All.The.Time. ) 

1 hour ago, Troy said:

Of course there are genes (and environmental causes), which explain the differences in the way people look. 

I believe it is well-documented that environment is factor in genetic mutation... the whole "Out of Africa" project details the mutation of the mitochondrial DNA to track how humans changed as they moved further away from the equator.  Geneticist classify modern humans in haplogroups to mark our movements around the world - "race" is never mentioned in the study but rather they identify the change in genetic code. 

Also @zaji points out the initial testing, the Cambridge Reference Sequence came a European woman and worked it's way back to Africa. Not all mtDNA results are derived from that test.  There are a few, one in use is the Yoruba mtDNA.

For example, my results came from FamilytreeDNA and they use(d) revised (rCRS ) and  RSRS  (Reconstructed Sapiens Reference Sequence)  The RSRS results are  based on the mitochondrial Eve's ancient genome.  

As I've mentioned here before, according to my results my haplogroup L3 is from Ethiopia   My halplogroup maternal ancestor was the progenitor of the Eurasian (European and Asian) haplogroup L, M,  who left Africa.

Today, they look different from Ancient Africans but that's due to their migration patterns.  If they came from the first woman in my line, my maternal ancestor  but left Africa this should stand to reason environment caused a mutation in their genetic code.  This would be the same way environment caused my genetic code to become different from the original modern human woman, mitochondrial Eve. I'm still her descendant but  my maternal ancestor's migration pattern caused my genes to mutate and for me to look different. 

  Also there was a recent article on early human - the "cheddar" man  who died about 10,000 years ago.  

Quote

Scientists said yesterday they were surprised to discover that the earliest Briton would be considered ‘black’ if he lived today. The research suggests the first inhabitants of the British isles developed white skin later on than previously thought
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-5362187/Social-media-meltdown-Brit-Cheddar-Man.html#ixzz56iYgNFv4 

But getting back to the thesis of this post, discussing what  "race" is or isn't" is actually trying to make sense of mentally-ill babblings.  We know there's no biological foundation for race.   In the same respect, there's no scientific basis for culture either.    Still I subscribe to what serves me - and that's doesn't mean I'm brainwashed - but rather I think  certain mental illnesses can be contagious.  Or borrowing Nietzsche phrase from  Beyond Good and Evil - 

• He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.

3 hours ago, Delano said:

 if my words haven't made you question your response.  i can repost some previous post that demonstrate my opinion

@Delano yes, that would be helpful. 

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A rich source of melanin is beneficial to those who need to survive the effects of radiation.   Some could ingest it because it's also found in fungi.   
Using melanin to determine "race" is a slippery slope.  I rather not be someone's source of survival in an aftermath of a nuclear holocaust  because I'm dark skin. 

14 hours ago, Delano said:

Which you don't do with Mel.

I dunno, @Del  this  assessment seems inaccurate.    I admire @Cynique 's thought process and construction.  So early on and now  I would seek clarification or ask her to expand on a thought.  Our exchange is psychoanalytic sans the resistance.      And I appreciate that Cynique "sees" me.  I appreciate our constructive exchanges.   

It's not a man vs woman thing.   Anyone who finds constructive criticism challenging, usually struggles with attachment.   Cynique has a gift of unmasking that thing we're attached to.   Maybe that's why our conversations go unnoticed.    I offer no resistance. I work to be fluid because I'd rather see if that thing is preventing me from achieving my goal of non-attachment.   

On 10/27/2017 at 11:34 AM, Troy said:

I just updated your link to reflect the AALBC.com button you sent (it will work the same way).  Now just to be clear when someone purchases the book are they send back to  a thank you page on your site or is the PayPal confirm the last stop?  

.  

If you create a customized thank you page I can show you how to use Google Tag Manager to determine where those customers, who actually purchased your book came from.  If fact, once you set up Tag manager you can give me limited access to your Tag Manager account and I can set this up for you.

 

I'm currently working with others to do this, but I'd be at you to the list.

 

Turns out I don't have the time, resources, and energy to corral the entities together to make the indie affiliate program work.  Still I think it would be a much better long term strategy, but the coordination required is too much for me. 

 

@Troy

I agree it would be better for the long term.   In fact it would allow every independent book publisher, self-publisher of books for and/or by African-Americans to become a sustainable distribution network.    Imagine #readingblack.com becoming a large independent book distribution network.    

In fact, if you or someone would show us how to track our books for sales, distribution and dispensing advertising fees we all in the blackbook eco-system could actually sell each other’s books too.   Not only would each make money we will support true independent distribution network.

1- we'll have a mechanism to get an advertising fees for books we don't have to stock - and

2- we, independent publishers and self-publishers will have learned another piece of code that will allow us to track the books we sell through other websites. 

Btw, this comment also belongs in

-->and it will definitely be welcomed in #readingblack.com Strategies <- and if you can help me understand this process will help readingblack.com become a distribution network.

2 hours ago, Cynique said:

Black folks should do some manipulating in order to stop the self destructive behavior and the baby daddy/baby mama life style that has destroyed the black family 

@Cynique Would that be to maintain the wealth such as Jay Z mentions in his song "Family Feud"?     Because even as a divorced mother who also has a baby daddy  I can see how this is definitely a strategy if our goal is to maximize wealth in the black community.   Jay Z even has Beyonce listed as songwriter on this track - so again the intellectual property money stays in the family.   

Nah, I can't see your statement as negative - I see it as strategic and adds to the motif of "focusing on culture to take us forward."   

4 hours ago, Troy said:

Turns out I don't have the time, resources, and energy to corral the entities together to make the indie affiliate program work.  Still I think it would be a much better long term strategy, but the coordination required is too much for me. 

 

@Troy

I agree it would be better for the long term.   In fact it would allow every independent book publisher, self-publisher of books for and/or by African-Americans to become a sustainable distribution network.    Imagine #readingblack.com becoming a large independent book distribution network.    

In fact, if you or someone would show us how to track our books for sales, distribution and dispensing advertising fees we all in the blackbook eco-system could actually sell each other’s books too.   Not only would each make money we will support true independent distribution network.

1- we'll have a mechanism to get an advertising fees for books we don't have to stock - and

2- we, independent publishers and self-publishers will have learned another piece of code that will allow us to track the books we sell through other websites. 

Btw, this comment also belongs in

and it will definitely be welcomed in #readingblack.com Strategies

17 minutes ago, zaji said:

And all discussion should focus on how to protect ourselves against their psychosis,

Yes!  I would gladly host and participate in this discussion because damn, lawd knows these "yellow shirt" hating folks spend an inordinate amount time figuring out ways to harm us  and take our "lunch, and lunch money" !!!

@Troy , I attempted to update my about me section on my profile and it returned an error.  Itwon't update.  Also I used the promotion tool on one of my discussion posts - and it also returned an error - it used to work but now there's  a bug.   

Ok enough of the housekeeping. 

Is there a way we could save the books we'd like to purchase to our profile? 

Also on the books for purchase - do you get credit if I purchase the book from amazon?  I rather purchase books directly from the authors' or their publishing companies. I know you were working on a way to get advertising fees for books sold through aalbc from author/publishing company's websites - have you decided on a plan (that is easy for us lowtech folks) ?

32 minutes ago, leonceg said:

No one is suggesting that we ignore race, just that we refuse to submit to it. 

This is where I think a lot of folks get confused.  For example, I don't ignore "gender" constructs; I simply refused to submit to it.  In fact, when I hear someone discuss gender, I give them the side-eye and keep it moving. Those who embrace constructs and labels as if  it's a badge - tell me all I need to know about their level of engagement. 

On 2/3/2018 at 11:21 PM, Delano said:

I read about Dorothy Parker because of the Prince track.  I read the autobiography of Malcolm X because of the Spike Lee movie. Found a few through The New York Press newspaper

@Delano  I find a lot of my books through mainstream and alternative media too!  This is yet another strategy, many authors should put into their marketing - media relations activity for books.

1 hour ago, Troy said:

I looked for your piece it seems quite substantive.

@Troy  thank you for posting!  @zaji  you have a new follower on wordpress. 

@Troy 

my parents raised me to think this way.  Before cross-cultural awareness was a thing - it was how I viewed the world.  First from my immediate cultural perspective then how others' behavior informed their culture.   So yes, that's it.  I don't see race, per se and I never have. I see culture and subcultures in humans. 

Here's my backstory: 

My dad was stationed in Frankfurt, Germany and that's where my public education began. Since the school was affiliated with the U.S. Military - I didn't encounter "race" indoctrination.  When we returned to the states, I was a cosmopolite. Yes, 5 going on 6 and I was already a citizen of the world.  By then it was hard to talk me off my foundation.  When I was confronted with race and the civil rights movement - my mom told me humans were all the same.  I remember using the word nigger when I was in the doctor’s office looking at a magazine.  It was Jamaica travel ad and I remember saying the little girl in the picture looked like a nigger.   My mother said when retelling the story that a "pink" woman in the office smirked.  My mother quickly corrected me right there. She said people were fair-skin some were brown-skin and everything in between.  What's weird is looking back, the little girl looked just like me.  I was under the influence of grown folks’ conversation.  I used their” nigger" label and depiction of a girl who looked like me.   I made a note to younger self that would be the first and last time I let the national conversation influence my concept of me, my culture or any culture.  I kept that promise too. 

My mom indoctrinated me to her concept of beauty and that's been hard to shake. If I'm not slim-trim, well-dressed and hair perfectly coiffed I'm not fit for polite company.  But that too is part of my culture (or sub-culture.)

My mother never said whites, negros or coloreds, it was fair-skin, brown-skin.  I would later learn that my father wanted to share the harsh realities of "racism" with me, but my mother said "no" because there were more important things I had to learn.  She is an education advocate and I still have more books in my library than I can read in this lifetime.

But get this, my mother uses the most derogatory terms when it comes to cultures.  She didn't when I was young, nor did she use those terms when my daughters were in their formative years.  
  
Aside: She didn't tell me about her battle with colorism within the family until I was older.   Her skin color was the darkest in the family. The women of my maternal line are light brown to fair-skin with light colored eyes and jet-black hair.  My great great-grandmother's father was native American, her mother was from Ethiopia, East Africa.  We think she was a free negro since we can't find any enslaved people in my maternal line.  We are from the north - most of my maternal family live or are buried in West Virginia.  I empathize with those who were enslaved in this country. I hold a harsh opinion of those who did the enslaving.  I give a side-eye to those who sold off or let Africans be captured.  None of it defines me.  

 Case-in-point, a boy called me "nigger" when I was bussed out of my middle-class to upper-middle class black West Indian and Jewish neighborhood to go to a school in an Italian American poor to working-class neighborhood.  Yes, that was NYC bright idea of diversity back in the late 70s lol.   By then I already knew who I was in relation to the world. So instead of internalizing it; I beat his Italian-azz.  It was no different than him calling me out of my name.   My euro-Jewish teacher tried to chastise but I was "eff you too".   

You already know about our high-school - it was about as diverse as any public school could be - except we were the talented tenth of all cultures in NYC. 

It wasn't until I got to St. John's University did I have to face the reality of” racism" and clash of the cultures.   In college, you realize the clash is more about competition and folks will use anything at their disposable to graduate top dawg to get that head start in the rat race.   

But it was social media that blew up my cultural reality.  I learned that everyone doesn't have the same understanding of the game.   I learned there was a difference between blacks - almost the same as what WEB Du Bois revealed in his Social Studies report in 1901 ... There was a difference between southern and northern blacks - there was a difference between free negros and newly freed enslaved blacks.  True to that 1901 report my mother. a northerner married my father a southerner.  His family were sharecropper but had to escape the south because someone had a hit out on his father.  My grandmother with her 9 children made it to Brooklyn but her husband did not.  My paternal grandmother had to start all over.  It took them just one generation to become lower middle-class and the next generation (me and my first paternal cousins all got accepted to BTHS (wild, right?) one of my first cousins is a millionaire.  I think what saved them was cultural assimilation. The sisters and brothers left their southern culture behind and quickly assimilated and all married northerners. 

So that's a snippet of my back story and how it informed my cultural view of the world.   

On 2/3/2018 at 7:01 PM, CDBurns said:

building old school webrings

@CDBurns  This ^ is the term I was trying to remember! Thank you!  Yes, please share a video in strategies ! 

1 hour ago, Delano said:

Althoug we each have our own worldview , that doesn't make it the world's view. Nor does that mean our view or the world's view is correct. 

@Delano

8 hours ago, Troy said:

Virtually everyone there hides their identity behind pseudonyms and avatars. I guess this gives people the freedom to say whatever they want. I never was a fan of this because when you are truly free you can always say what you want without hiding behind a fake identity. 

@Troy  Ditto " Facts

On 2/1/2018 at 3:29 PM, Cynique said:

You plant little "that's-the-way-it-is" scenarios in your head, and they take root amidst an environment where your brain is on lock down, imprisoned in an ego-centric cell where the bars are forged from your myopic mentality. 

@Cynique

Daaayum! This is fabulous!    I need to post this on my pc - so that I'm always reminded not to do this!  All learning stops at this level. 

@Delano  Welcome, my psychic brother!  Thank you for joining this one! 

How do you find books to read?  Or if they find their way to you - how does it happen?  

1 hour ago, Delano said:

Nude Model

@Delano And this one... how long did it take you to stop being self-conscious?  

11 hours ago, Troy said:

I'll just reply to one aspect of what you've shared here.

@Troy  Thank you!  Sharing thoughts with each other is the only way we are going to get the best into action!  

15 minutes ago, Troy said:

all the replies were posted on the social media platform themselves.

@Troy  

@Cynique  I recently heard (or I think I read) why some people disagree on everything... and I even pondered  it and thought wow that's me.  Now I can't remember LOL!    

As for me, I suspect Pioneer is a composite.  I think more than one person writes his responses. Or Maybe there's a Pioneer1 but others chime in on his account.  I'm not saying that he's "sybil" with split personalities but I look at the archive conversations at times  and when I read his old responses I  get the sense we are not always communicating with the same person.  In fact, I quoted something he wrote and he didn't seem to remember it.    There are phrases that Pioneer uses at times that gives me the feeling he's from a country/island like Guyana.   I'm no expert in forensics linguistic but every now and then I'll read text and it feels either foreign or he's from a place that time forgot.  But there's a pioneer from Michigan but I don't think he always responds in this forum.

So maybe you disagree with him because  it's your way of unmasking him.  

Or maybe this entry can go in my blog "careful, or you'll end up in my novel 

says, Jeff Bezos in the CNBC article How Amazon founder Jeff Bezos went from the son of a teen mom to the world's richest person 
 

I'd agree. We want someone to make and serve up something to us even before we know we want it.

Just the other day, I was wondering how to get a server that's cheap and easy to operate.  I don't want to worry about a platform like Myspace deleting all the blog postings.   

I have a Google alert set for black philosophers.   Or how about a catalog of business books written by black authors? 

Bottom line: I need a personal shopper who will cater to my consumer whims minus unsolicited pitches.  Junk mail is annoying because the proprietor sends me what s/he has which may or may not have anything to do with my desires.  I want someone to take the time to know what I like and offer a curated selection.
 

Bezos intuited that we have thousands of thoughts like this in a day.  He built an online business to offer whatever comes to mind. 

What I find exciting is we also pay for his research and development.  Bezos says, in the article, he's not afraid to be wrong.      

You can't beat a fearless man. 

There's a saying:

Quote

"if you can't beat them join them." 

The quote, in this context, doesn't mean work with or for Amazon.  Or sell your books on the website.  It means to emulate the competition.  And from And from Bezos own words, he runs a customer-centric business.

Everything Amazon does serve the whims of the customer.   

Amazon has access to every book in print.  If it's not in the warehouse, they will print-on-demand and send it to you and waive the shipping and handling fee.

If they can't print it, they'll send a digital version to your Kindle (if you own one) or your PC. It will be lickety-split at a price that's easy on the wallet.  

So, how can we as independent authors, self-publishers, engineers, etc., become the reader's advocate?  

How can we become reader-centric booksellers? How can we help them help us help them?   Can we make it easy for book lovers to acquire our books?   

Please post your suggestions, ideas and comments.

Update:  I wrote an article to discuss this post in detail.  Link:  melhopkinsdotcom: 5 STEPS TO FINDING A COMMUNITY FOR YOUR BOOK

Love it and the hashtag #readingblack.com - It's really easy to use when you're on social networks and espeically when you are sharing an article written by someone black about a black issues .  Although the .com drops off - I still include it for the curious who will actually look for the site.  

Please let us know who you are. What you'd like to accomplishment.   How we can help you get the most out of this club? Provide your goals, expertise and even your expectations.  Share as much or as little - and add when you feel  comfortable.   

Thank you for being part of #readingblack.com movement and we want to make sure the movement serves us all.  

As for me, I read as much if not more than I write.

So far, I've written, published two fiction titles and I’m working on a memoir.  The former got me a full-page feature in a major business magazine; the latter is proving to be difficult to format. 

On the digital front, I've acquired several domain names currently valued at $10K. From those highly-coveted names, I’ve launched a personal website, a news magazine website that is growing in popularity due to the strategic alliances I’ve built with AALBC.com and PRNewswire. com 

I was half of a two-person start-up team who created and developed a popular lifestyle website and a weekly live 2-hour radio talk-show.  With sweat-equity, and free social networks such as Myspace, Facebook, and BlogTalkRadio we built an engaged community for the website. 

By 2008, the Facebook page had 100K fans.  We invited the most loyal fans to write for the site.  In 2010, the website had a global ranking with an estimated value of about $35K. If sold, it would have been nearly 100% profit.   

The co-founder changed the format and pushed me out.  The website lost 90% of its value after the community dwindled.

Since 2002, I've consulted in Media Relations with a focus on building communities and creating strategic alliances. I've accumulated millions of dollars in earned media for myself and clients in publications with a monthly multimillion readership.    

Before building a media consulting business, I was responsible for corporate communications of several multimillion-dollar funded high-profile nonprofit organizations.  I took those skills to work for a large customer-facing financial institution where I worked closely with marketing to handled internal communications and special projects for the Community Reinvestment Act department.

As News Anchor and Managing Editor, at a CBS network affiliate, led a team of editors, photographers, reporters to produce #1 rated weekend newscast that gained 27% of market share. As AM drivetime news anchor/reporter for iHeart (formerly Clear channel) Radio Station 1170 AM WWVA acquired Associated Press credits for contributing breaking news resulting in an AP Radio Partner Award.  Several national magazines and newspapers have published my features and opinions.    

Prior, I worked for trade book publishers, G.P. Putnam's Sons and Penguin USA (before the merger) in Special Sales, and Academic Marketing & Sales from 1987-1992.  

Oh, did I mention I spent 8-years flying the friendly skies for a major U.S. commercial airline?

It can just be difficult trying to get traffic to your site or give people a reason to visit it.

@A.J. Williams  glad to have you here!  Please share your bookselling strategies with us here too...you're an actor which means you have to sell yourself daily.  So you'd be surprised how many good marketing ideas you have that will sell your book. 

If you want traffic to your website - set up a blogger website and link it to your website ...  see if flamesofretribution.blogspot.com is available and set up a google group too for black women superheroes that link to your book and website. 

Also,  with your subject matter - you probably wanr to write (blog about) about vigilantism in mainstream media - there's currently a show called black lightening on the CW channel - and last night they had a scene where roland martin appears and says something like "why are black superheroes called vigilante and white superheroes called heroes and saviors.".. You can tap into the superheroine vibe with your character... you can start marketing your book as the black woman superhero - and write about her and otheron your blog - and share on social media too.  Just a thought...