Pioneer1

Yeah......that fake weed they're smoking...lol.

I'm a HUGE supporter of Booker T. Washington (I used to use his picture as my avatar if anyone still remembers) and a proponent of most of his philosophies. I think we should be accommodating to a CERTAIN EXTENT as long as we are in society where we don't have much power and control....until we get some. Even then, this being a multi-racial and multi-cultural society we have to accommodate to get along with other people anyway. It's not about going to one extreme or another, but about BALANCE. What I really like about Booker T. is that he taught self-reliance and stressed that we as AfroAmericans need to develop the skills and attitude necessary for indepenence and building our own schools, banks, and other institutions. Our own towns, universities, etc.... It's funny how today you have a lot of pro-FBA people echoing his very philosophy all over the internet saying we should focus less on politics and more on finance. Stop wasting time and energy trying to get Democrats or Republicans elected to office hoping THEY will change your reality once they get in and focus more on building schools, banks, credit unions, establishing businesses....then it won't matter WHO gets elect....you'll be secure.

Nailed it.

Naaaawww naw, I ADMITTED that I wasn't sure!!!! I said "I'm a little confused.....I THOUGHT Hakeem was supposed to get that position". I came up in the room with an attitude of HUMBLENESS ready to be corrected if I were wrong. I wasn't all cock-sure about it and preaching down on somebody like Cynique was up there....lol. "No....see...uh uuuuhhhhh. You don't know shit cuz He 'posed to be the Minority Whip You know! The guy who 'pose to lead the Democrats and shit!" Call herself trying to "correct" somebody. Come to find out that girl was wrong as hell.....lol.

So in other words.... Cynique didn't know what the hell she was talking about. As usual....lol

Uh.......the Republican party is a RIGHT WING party and the Conservatives are fighting the Moderates for positions of power. Why the hell isn't the SAME kind of fight going on in the Democrat Party? Why aren't the so-called Liberals/Progressive fighting the Moderates and forcing themselves in seats of power in order to enact more Liberal social policies???

Who said we ever accepted your behind to begin with?????

Lol....you really want my attention don't you. A simple "hello" would do.

I have a "Conspiracy Theory" that many will REALLY think is waaaaay out there, but there's certainly some evidence to support it. It's said that society is getting smarter, more advanced not only technologically but intellectually. They say the IQ of the average person is much higher than it was 100 or even 50 years ago. They point to the fact that there are far less agricultural and manufacturing jobs and more IT jobs, professional jobs......jobs that require more education and thinking. My theory QUESTIONS whether or not human beings are actually getting smarter and more intelligent and posits the belief that this system is really WEEDING OUT most of those with average and below intelligence from the general society through various methods leaving the remainder of only those WITH the intelligence and smarts to actually maneuver through an extraordinarily complex society. In other words...... Perhaps a society has been formed that is so complicated and complex (unnecessarily by the way) demanding so much education and intelligence to pay the bills, stay out of trouble, and in many cases simply SURVIVE.....that even most of those of average intelligence are ending up homeless or in jail or victims of depression and suicide or on drugs trying to cope with the confusion. There are millions of people in prisons and jails in the United States. How many of them are there simply because they couldn't make a living on the outside? Further, how many probably would have been free and doing just fine with a house and family if they had lived in some other time in U.S. history when things were simpler?

Troy I told you the reason for this. Years ago. The AfroAmerican community has been going through an INTELLECTUAL DECLINE for the past 40 years or so! While many of our brothers and sisters are thriving.....much of the community is simply getting dumber and less educated.

Something about that parade seemed a little eerie. I can't put my finger on it, but it seemed almost a bit spiritually negative.

Looks like McCarthy is in there now. I'm a little confused about something though. I thought a BLACK MAN named Hakeem Jefferies was supposed to get that position.

That Asian Hate-Crime Bill passed easily in Congress and they didn't need to establish a "study" to waste time. They just immediately passed the bill almost unanimously to protect the Asian community from racist targeting as well as give them money. They know how to waste time when they want to.

Who cares? Well....somebody cared enough to change it and establish it as a holiday FORCING others to celebrate it as well. The question reminds me of when it's pointed out that Jesus couldn't have been White but Black or Brown because of the region he grew up in......often times a person would say, "What difference does it make what color Jesus was??? Does it really matter????" The reply from me would be, "Ofcourse it matters to somebody.....because they took time and effort to CHANGE him from being a Black man to a White man with blonde hair and blue eyes. If it didn't matter, they would have left his image alone".

Troy You're letting the politicians and legislators off the hook a little too easy. Like I implied before, if Germany and Canada can do it....the U.S. can do it too. The U.S. Army Corps Of Engineers can go into the middle of the desert over in Iraq or Afghanistan and build an entire modern CITY from the ground up complete with plumbing, fresh water, fiber optics, etc.......so heated sidewalks in an already established structure shouldn't be too much of an engineering feat to manage. Save some of the money we're giving to Ukraine and elsewhere and invest that money back into our infrastructure.

When you put it that way, yeah.....I see your point....it has changed. But I'd simply call it a CHANGE....I wouldn't say it "evolved" because evolution implies improvement.

We lived in them just fine from the 1920s all the way up to the mid-80s when the good paying factory jobs were plentiful. When Black folks in Detroit and Flint were making $25 an hour plus benefits back in the 70s......no one was complaining about the cold and snow, lol. They were coming in from the hot deep South by the MILLIONS, and adapting to the weather just fine. That's a recent thing now where Black folks are moving back down South because they CLAIM they can't stand the cold and all the snow. Plenty of Mexicans who come from places much hotter than anywhere in the United States are moving up to Michigan by the THOUSANDS and they don't seem to have a problem with it.

My my my......where do I begin....lol

Troy I knew you would bring up the Freeway Rich Ross stuff. If you actually read the article you shared you'd know that the entire fiasco was about funding the contras in Nicaragua. Are you telling me that the United States government needed to "sell dope" to poor Black folks in the ghetto in order to RAISE MONEY to fund some mercenary group in a Central American jungle??? Do you seriously believe that? The destabilization of the Black community was a terrible consequence, but it was again not the goal. Like they didn't already know that would be a result. Stop playing Troy, lol. You do realize white folks used cocaine and crack during that period right? Ok? Even if destabilizing the black community was the goal, who was responsible for cutting, distributing, packaging, marketing, and selling the drugs -- not to mention using them? The answer is obvious. But shifting the focus doesn't erase the blame. You know most of the people who died from HIV were white. Are you sure about this one? You know TENS OF MILLIONS of Africans have been diagnosed with HIV since the Pandemic began in the 80s. Not to mention the Caribbean in places like Haiti. They claim that over 25 MILLION African currently have HIV! But you say most of the deaths were White?

Troy My experience differs from yours in that black men generally have an advantage when it comes to black women. How? Since the days of American slavery and even before among the Arab enslavement of Black people....Black women have been the preference of Caucasian power OVER Black men. There are countless examples of wealthy men reaching down to establish sexual relationships with women of lower social/financial status.....how many wealthy women reach down to establish a sexual relationship with a man of a lower social/financial status? Go into any club, bar, or public arena and if you observe both Black men and Black women.....you tell me who gets "hit on" more.....the men or the women. Based on my observations, one of the only "advantages" Black men currently have over other men to Black women is PROXIMITY...generally speaking. More of us tend to live around them than men of other groups for obvious reasons.

Apparently some of you have the wrong understanding of MY idea of "Black Unity" Apparently......some of you believe that when I talk of and promote Black Unity, I'm speaking of uniting ALL Black folks (or a majority) under one belief for one purpose. Like Harpo said in The Color Purple: "Naw......n-n-n-no such thang!" Not only wouldn't I expect most Black folks to come together, I wouldn't expect HALF or even just 25% of them to! It COULD happen, ofcourse; but it would take a Miracle. I mean a LITERAL Miracle of Divine origin for that to happen. Furthermore, there are a LOT of Black folks I have absolutely NO desire to unite with anyway. I don't wish to unite with rapists, pedophiles, serial killers, crack addicts, etc...no matter how Black they are. When I speak of Black Unity I mean all Black people who BELIEVE and SUPPORT a set of principles, values, and goals....to unite with eachother around THEM to achieve specific goals. For example....... Those AfroAmericans who support cash/land/and other forms of Reparations for FBA/ADOS should unite around THAT goal until it is achieved and instituted into perpetuity. Then that unity is dissolved and the energy is focused on another project. My idea of Black Unity is DYNAMIC....not STAGNANT. It continues to move, change, reform and redefine itself based on time, place, and need.

Just like good and bad are often subjective, so is much of what we call "evil". We look at an ancient society where they conquer a village, kill the men and women outright, enslave the children....and we call them evil. However for hundreds of years instead of just killing the people they conquered outright, this society enslaved them and forced them to live through the humiliation of seeing themselves and their offspring suffer the same fate generation after generation....is that not more evil? We look at the ancient societies and say they were evil for sacrificing people to a particular deity. However we live in a society where people who are in serious accidents are often put on life-support and forced to live through their suffering whether they want to or not...yet we don't call THAT evil. Our entire sense of morality needs to be re-examined and re-considered

When people talk about "holy days" and special days, I ask them do people still get sick, into accidents, and die on those days. If so....why is it "holy"? They are often dumbfounded. Days are just days and the significance of them is what we choose to make of them. Having said that, I did like what Minister Farrakhan attempted to do back in 1995 which was make October 16th our own special "Holy Day of Atonement" for AfroAmericans. Just like I like the idea of Kwanzaa, although I personally don't observe it. We need to establish our own culture and traditions even if the foundations aren't well defined and the roots aren't very deep.

Chev I used to believe it could get so cold it couldn't snow.....until we experienced the Polar Vortex of 2013-14. In Michigan it was 30 degrees below zero (actual temperature not wind chill) on a regular basis for weeks and STILL snowed! I mean HEAVY snow! Up until that time, even since childhood....it was my understanding that once it got below a certain temperature, it was simply too cold to snow and others would say the same thing. That Winter turned that theory up on it's head....lol

How many people STILL celebrate their birthdays after 30?? Not sure about your milestones, but I wasn't as happy with my first grey hair as I was with my first erection.....lol