CDBurns

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Cynique drops the microphone, yells, "Sexual Chocolate!" and exits the stage. In the end all of the qualities we attribute to those in an influential position are the same qualities shared by those who are not in a position of influence. I discovered a long time ago that it wasn't the White man, or a corporate entity that I was most afraid of; it was the robbing crew made up of guys in the neighborhood who had given up on life and only wanted what they could take. The result of capitalism is a society that looks to place blame on those who have made it, and to lay blame on those who have not. Honesty is a virtue only to those who value it. (enough of the cliches). Demanding more from those who are capable of providing more is a flawed system. I was asked today why I think politics is not the problem in the Black community? I responded that Blacks have never had any political power yet when we were more disenfranchised and not accepted by society we were more together than we have been in the last 40 years. So the solution to all of our problems is actually very simple: Black unity/support. I support Troy, Troy supports me. Someone recognizes the work Troy is doing and they decide to add a link to their website and a movement is begun. It is at the grassroot levels where change happens first and even at this level as Cynique said, there is corruption. Integrity is becoming the lost trait in our community.

Now this is the conversation definitely taking a turn towards something I hadn't considered at all. Tax breaks. I guess my opinion of tax breaks is based on Memphis which is distinctly different from Harlem in that Memphis is in the bible belt and is a primarily black city. In turn the people recieving the tax breaks are black people who are opening church after church after church. In Memphis if the simply removed the tax exemption from churches the money in property tax and business tax generated would make the city rich. Also in regard to poor neighborhoods, in Memphis there may be a Churches Chicken, and a McDonald's now, but that is a new trend. These places were never really in the black community. We had local establishments Lot-A-Burger and Jack Pirtle's Chicken. In my life I never saw a fast food joint until we moved to what was considered middle income neighborhoods. In my old neighborhood there still isn't a McDonald's within a five mile radius. So therein lies my inability to demonize McDonald's in the same way as others. I guess I can take it one step further and say that even on the dollar menu there are healthy options, but like you said, people aren't ordering that. I agree the crowding out of small biz remains the problem with corporations, but small black businesses also often fail to capitalize on the things that are available to them. More important, because when these people open places of business and they have failed to support other Black businesses, you are led to the chicken or the egg discussion. I've made this argument before and I guess because I witness this ridiculous exchange of money in the sneaker world, I have a bootstrap mentality in hoping that people begin thinking this way: If black people would simply find the best Black businesses and support those businesses in every city in America at least once a month, we would see the creation of millionaires in ridiculous amounts. The problem is, in Memphis, people would rather go to Applebee's national chain, instead of taking a longer drive to go to Deja Vu, a black restaurant. People would rather go to Kroger grocery store chain since it is everywhere, to get a cake baked instead of going to The Pie Folks, an award winning Black owned bakery. While I know how influential big business is, I hope that we begin understanding the importance of supporting each other. On the point of urban/street fiction as an underlying ecosystem, book buying is about disposable income. Those who have these crazy big bookshelves and buy books often aren't interested in walking into the bookstore to only see street/urban lit. We want to see an array of titles and balance. But, when we don't walk in and see diversity, we walk out. Maybe Black bookstores can't be solely about Black books, but books in general. I guess that goes without saying though. This is heavy stuff, but at least the dialogue can lead to solutions.

I've been thinking about that. Since the art gallery was going to be based on sneaker art, hip-hop and sports, I can definitely carry books. I think it would add to the multiple use qualities of the space. Yes that is the Urban Expressions store that I mistakenly called Urban Bookstores. Both locations closed over a year ago. They were both located in malls, which sort of makes sense since they were in "black" malls, but as you know malls are no longer the bastions of cruising for those with disposable income. The place needed to be in an artistic location that would allow it to host events without the need for the mall to be open, etc. So indeed the count is 53. It's such a sad thing to witness.I've gone out of my way to patronize locally owned businesses and write about them to help offset this, but it simply isn't enough. We need a JK Rowling styled book that reignites black readership. Oh and Memphis has always been a chocolate city. I'm surprised you didn't get that feeling when you came. Then again, the city is segregated and all of the projects were torn down and gentrified so that traditionally Black areas are now White.

I guess I've seen so many athletes lose it all that I want them to maximize their money and get as much as possible. Is McDonald's so bad that the guy shouldn't advertise it? I don't think so. I've become extremely health conscious, but I still swing by McDonald's when I've been in the car all day. I make smart choices when I go there and Lebron is simply taking advantage of his stardom and that's okay. I guess with the McDonald's example, I know that all of the marketing and persuasion that goes into getting people to buy the different items is placing people on a leash, but I stand firm in my belief that people have to be held accountable for their decisions and when you walk into an arena, it's not Black folks sitting there, those are White folks. Lebron's influence has no boundaries and to limit his earning potential regardless of how wealthy he is because some people feel that McDonald's is the devil is not right. Now that I've gotten that out of the way, I'm laughing my ass off at Troy Johnson money! Are you telling me that if McDonald's wanted you to advertise their product on aalbc that you would refuse it? Probably so since it doesn't have anything to do with books, but I can't say I would. I may only eat at McDonald's twice a month. I know that many kids eat there daily, but preventing this would require a heavy infusion of training and teaching in the Black communities and I don't know if people would even pay attention. Considering how readily we are willing to dish out money on products that don't serve the Black GDP. Hell I don't even think we have a black GDP. You're right, we are definitely in the fields still, but your work is important. While it doesn't have the reach that it should, it is valuable and needed.

Damn, that video brings it all into clear focus. Maybe, maybe, just maybe my job is to actually open a book store here in Memphis. if I can give my life to sneakers and accomplish what I have I seriously need to think about doing something similar for something that I've given my life and studies too. I know I'm speaking from emotion right now, but damn.

Yes they were a part of Carl's network and the people he had running them changed so often that the primary issue with the business model was consistency. In Memphis there isn't any reason whatsoever not to have a thriving Black book store. The city is 65% Black! I have to sit stationary and watch that clip.

I remember the El Debarge era! LOL, but not really laughing because it was ridiculous and so is the current trend of the hypermasculine male being the attractive item right now. In regard to business, I'm not sure that companies bear any social responsibility to anyone outside of their shareholders. I think it's obvious that they should be more responsible. I had a long conversation, one of those ones I promised not to have on Facebook, last week with these guys that said Lebron James should be more socially responsible than advertising McDonald's to his susceptible fans. I thought this was complete hogwash. The guy is a professional athlete with a very limited shelf life. He just happens to be one of the lucky ones with a long career. But to ask the guy to not accept money that builds wealth for his family is rude and foolish. McDonald's doesn't kill people, greed and overeating does. McDonald's has clearly labeled all of their food and they go out of their way now to provide healthier options. To say that Lebron should turn down money because people are getting overweight, is wrong. I say all of that to say that the corparations should assume some responsibility, but why should they? They are created to make money. We are created to make decisions. If our self esteem and decisions are shaped so thoroughly by corporations and media then that's on us. I just came to this realization when I started ARCH. I used to sell at a local flea market. People would bypass my table where they could buy a pair of my shoes that I designed and made to go and buy a pair of fake AF1s or Nikes. I mean people would look like I was trying to sell them cancer when I asked them to come and check out my shoes. The look on their faces was like I had skunk juice in a cup. I eventually gave up on the idea of selling my shoes there and started selling Nikes and Jordans from the Nike Clearance Store. Even when I could verify that my shoes were real, people still walked by me and went to the Africans because they didn't want to buy shoes from me. These are black people not wanting to buy from a black man although I had what they wanted and it was real! I eventually moved all of my business online and my growth has been ridiculous and I know for a fact that the majority of the people buying are not Black. Should Nike make more shoes? No. Their responsibility is to keeping their brand hot and paying their shareholders. We have to do a better job of schooling each other and explaining how we can make real wealth in our communities. Waiting on a corporation to take responsibility is like Danny Glover waiting for a cab in your city Troy. lol.

Add to that both locations of Urban Books here in Memphis and this is definitely out of control. However, we only have ourselves to look at. In today's climate any place that opens has to serve multiple markets. With the amount of food trucks out there now, if a local bookstore opened (Black owned) they would have to do what B&N does and offer food. They would also have to work to promote literacy through poetry readings and events on the Friday nights and weekends. It would also benefit the locations to offer Wi-Fi and allow for small business people without offices to operate out of the business like a small urban workspace. Just being a bookstore, or any kind of store solely is not a viable business. I'm considering opening an art gallery because I love art. However, it will also double as a retail space for high end apparel and footwear. I will also potentially carry books and I will most definitely host open mics and various events as well as create a room for incubators. I know I have to do this because simply opening an art gallery space would not generate enough money. This is terrible though, just terrible.

Insert Cameo's "Skin I'm In". Here in the south that is still the way things are Cynique. Moving from California where there were so many interracial people back to the south where people are still colorstruck, was an adjustment to say the least. Although I lived here when I was young, not experiencing Colorism while living in Cali was a good thing. Was there racism and colorism there? Yes there was but not to the same extent that Black fraternities here in the south still maintain their lightskin for AKAs and Kappas, Dark Skin for Zetas and Sigmas, etc. It's so ridiculous that you can still find HBCU homecoming courts that cater to the light skin is the right skin concept. It's so deep here that Memphis has a first family of politics of complete F ups in the Ford family. Those guys and girls can run for office here and win even after they've been convicted of crimes. Now I will add this, men are not held to this same standard. Light skin is not "in" for men. I guess we can thank Idris Elba and Morris Chestnut for that... then again, it's always been like that except in politics and religion. The darker a politician is the less likely he is to win and the darker a preacher is the less likely he is to get a mega church, in Memphis at least. The more successful churches tend to have lightskinned pastors. I guess the crazy thing about footwear, and clothes in the black community is that for a people so fixated on style and looks, we are so eager to give away our money and power to other cultures.

We used to call them bo bos and bubbleheads. We even called them zippies, but when I was really young, no one snapped on any one else because there was only one kid in the neighborhood who had enough money to have shoes that weren't talking. Which means that the rubber had separated from the upper, or split so that when you walked your shoes made a slapping sound, lol. I wore some shoes until the sole had a hole that you could put your finger through. This didn't change until I was playing in an area we called the jungle and a rusty nail went through my shoe into my foot. Even then, the shoes I got were Kangaroos which were cool because Walter Payton wore them... Shoes though are and always have been a status symbol in the black community. Just like style has been important. When you have a group of people that are oppressed to the extent that we were, everything becomes who can look the best when we get the chance. But in the past 30 years, sneakers have taken on a completely different beast altogether.This began with, like you said, Puma Clyde/Suedes. B-Boys in particular the Rock Steady Crew was featured in movies like Wild Style and Beat Street and all of sudden sneakers became street status symbols and this was further enhanced by Run DMC and My Adidas. In 1984 though, Nike had been paying players and olympians to wear their shoes but it really wasn't taking off until Carl Lewis did what he did in 84 and Sonny Vaccaro told Nike to sign Michael Jordan. The rest is history. Your link to the shooting is an unfortunate aspect of sneaker culture. So is this which happens every year at Christmas This is an annual thing. This past year I had to put the door back on for a local store after a crowd stormed the store. After you watch this video, this is what is shocking, they aren't limited edition. The demand is just so ridiculous that people feel that it is life or death to get a pair of kicks. I'm a part of this culture and I used to feel kind of bad about how much money I made from selling kicks. Then I realized, that I wasn't taking advantage of anyone who hadn't decided they wanted to be taken advantage of. Get this, I was an educator... I stopped teaching to sell shoes. (That's ridiculous isn't it?) It is until you realize that in the past two years I've been able to take my family on vacations from New Orleans, to Orlando, to San Diego to Nashville, to Washington D.C. and I didn't even wink when I had to pay the bills. When I was an educator, we hadn't gone on vacation in over 10 years because we couldn't afford it. There is so much in this that I could talk about but I will leave you with this for the moment. On Tuesday I bought three pair of Kobes for about 550.00 dollars. I sold those three pair of Kobes for 350.00 per pair and they sold in one day. I own my own shoe company ARCH. I've said this before on here, but I'll repeat it. Of the 600 plus pair of shoes I've made I can say 90% were purchased by people like you Troy. People who buy shoes not for the cool or hip factor, but to use them for what they were made for. The thing is Troy, the people like you tend to be white. But at the same time, the people who are buying the shoes at the crazy resell values tend to be white and not black. This is a generalization, but is basically true. Is there a problem when Black folks feel that their status is created by their shoes, yes. But, who do you blame? There has to be some personal responsibility in this. America is a capitalist society with an economy based on selling things to people, not making things, but selling things. In order to sell things, companies have to create a wow factor: Limited Edition, The Newest Model... The whole world of marketing is setup to create feelings within people of self worth based on these things. If people stopped buying, the economy in America would crash. Is this an excuse for the ridiculous things happening with sneakers, no but it definitely explains the amount of money pushed into making these things cool... and who doesn't want to be cool?

Not funny at all. People should be more offended by crappy comedy, lol. It's a non issue and will disappear by midnight.

Yo, I honestly don't think what he was doing was that serious. He is following a long tradition of comedians in putting on the "white" look. Eddie Murphy did it on Saturday Night Live. Jamie Foxx did it on his show. Dave Chappelle did it on his show and Nick Cannon's make up looked exactly like those actor/comedians. It was a joke and one that has been done a number of times. Also, I'm a San Diegan. Nick Cannon is from San Diego and lived in Serra which is basically a white community so he grew up around whites and is comfortable catering to them, but the guy is proud to be Black and actually does a lot in getting new entertainers exposed and starting careers. Katt Williams, Affian Crockett, and a host of other comedians jumpstarted their careers on his MTV show. I think you are overreacting to this one. Look at the name of the album and then realize that White girl wasted is actually a term that is celebrated in the white community although it was started by Black folks. This is a non issue.

LOL! I don't have any orange shoes at all. Those are a bit too much for my taste. I don't even have my ear pierced, but that comes from my mother explaining that men with their ears pierced were acknowledging their servitude in the bible. This has definitely moved away from the main topic but it's valuable dialogue all the same.

Time to start a new thread. The stories I could tell you about the fashion/footwear industry would align perfectly with this discussion on sistas and Jewish men, because this discussion is all about wealth and the perception of all Jewish men being well off. That's what this lady based her book upon. While I'm sure the percentage of successful Jewish men is much higher than Black men, the perception of success is a trick that this woman writing this book is playing into. I think this is what all of this is about perception. You have Black women that want to be seen as better off and happy. (Also on shoes, oddly enough the Jewish stores are the ones that had the original Nike accounts in NYC. Til this day, they only wholesale to other Jewish stores and will often pass up money in their face to do so.) Togetherness is a beast in business. I have to think that when a Black woman is with any other man, there is that lingering in the subconscious and those questions and stares that are always creating tension sitting there like the elephant in the room. While that's unfortunate, I just know it is the truth. In regard to the metrosexual, only in a fashion sense, and I sell them so I look sideways at people who actually pay the price that I sell the stuff for. I don't get manis or pedis, lol. I do like fashion though, but I have to; to try and conquer this sneaker world I'm in. You brought up the status symbol in shoes and I used to feel bad about how much I could charge people for a pair of kicks. I stopped feeling that way when I made my own brand and found it difficult to sell them to my own people. Of the 600 pair of ARCH brand shoes I made, my brand, I can honestly say 90% were purchased by white people. Which brings us back to the discussion of women and Jewish guys and black business. (Another aside, my Kickstarter was primarily funded by white people also). I don't know if Blacks are being victimized. We make a conscious decision to support other people. This is a recent trend though that I think has occurred since the end of the Civil Rights movement. Again, this is a completely different discussion, but I will tie it back into the BW and JM (Black women and Jewish men). Black women are the least likely of any racial group of women to be married. If they are married and divorced they are the most likely to never marry again. If this woman says look for love somewhere else, then I can't blame her. No person should have to live their lives alone waiting on a group of men to wake up and smell the money.

I was raised much like you Troy, but I really like Scandal and I wear my colorful Cole Haan shoes. I am also a huge fashion junkie... which is funny because as a basketball coach and educator, I couldn't wear any of the things that I wear now because I wanted to maintain a conservative appearance to my students. As I moved back into the college ranks of teaching, my dress mimicked my fashion aesthetics and distinguished me from my peers. I guess with fashion I'm okay with that and as far as Scandal is concerned, I actually enjoy the show. While the "sister chasing the white guy" approach does bother me, I like the writing. I like the "proposed" insight into Washington and conspiracy theories. I am also getting a kick out of the camera angles used to hide homegirl's pregnancy! But I guess this is because I was raised by women and watched soap operas my whole life. In regard to Facebook, people are given a way of voicing opinions they would never present in public, face to face. My opposition to Facebook should not even be targeted to Facebook. It should be aimed at the people who no longer browse the web. With so much time available to us now, our spare time seems to willingly occupied by only social media. This has hurt the ability for my blogs and other businesses to attract people without constantly making people aware that my site is waiting for them. I mean, I hate the idea that the only way I can get someone to interact with things I write is to be either on the attack or ridiculously critical. But at the same time, social media does allow for me to get information out there where the people are spending their time. The thing is the follow through sucks and the repeat visitor is no longer a certain thing after getting someone involved initially. I will tell you this, the best interaction I get from my website is when I write a Memphis Hi-Lite and share the article with the business on Twitter. If I posted a daily "Hi-Lite" targeting other businesses my unique visitors would spike, but I don't have the time to do that. Which leads us to a completely different discussion doesn't it.

Now that was a carefully drawn analysis of this whole situation. In regard to the Jews and slave trade, I would be surprised by who wasn't involved in the slave trade. If we create a discussion for marriage based on the cultures that didn't trade slaves then we would be back to square one marrying ourselves, but even then we all know about the slave trade on the West Coast of Africa and how it was our own betrayal in many instances. I'm saying this to state that basing marriage on how we were treated by people is very shaky, unless the intent is to show the importance of promoting Black empowerment. Cynique your insight might be better spent developing a book on self reflection. Your writing here has a personal voice that delivers both entertainment and personal history that feels genuine. (That is if you aren't working on one already.) I think your insight that Facebook allows for a daily soap opera written out by its users is the best description of the service that I've seen. It also speaks to why we won't be able to move people away from it. When you can narrate your own drama it becomes a drug.

I will write you when I'm ready to get started. I have to finish up this Kickstarter campaign first which is actually a very daunting task since the product was paid for by the masses. More than likely the book will be Archie's Psalm since it is unlike anything else out there. I will e-mail you to begin the strategy, but it won't be for another few months.

That's crazy. I had a dialogue on Facebook yesterday like I said and I told the person to join me on my website. She no longer responded after she wrote I decline to join your site. Black empowerment is an illusion beyond the realm of the people who realize how Facebook has impacted unique visitors. As far as the book clubs, there was once a time when you had a list of every book club in the world it seemed. People could use your site to click through to sites and try to create relationships. Having that as an option was good, although by the time I decided to use it all of the book clubs where charging to read self published books. I've stopped posting on Facebook considerably outside of random Happy Birthday posts and basketball stuff. No one has noticed, which is very telling. My website traffic only spikes when I write a story about a local eatery or business. That is because I use social sharing buttons and forward it to twitter and Facebook. The funny thing about that is people are sharing the stuff and not reading what I wrote. I actually did a poor review of a restaurant and they shared it and liked it! Talk about insane... I can see why the women loving Jewish dudes wrote the book, that's how you win. As far as the foreign writer thing, that has always been the trend. Writers from outside of the US are always taken more seriously. I think I'm going to try an experiment. I've never really promoted any of my books outside of random drops on your site. I'm going to write out a business plan for the promotion of one of my books or all of my books. I'm going to put some serious money into it marketing through AALBC, Google Ads, Facebook Ads and Amazon Ads. I will leave my Facebook page with the black banner and only respond through CB Publish. I'll create sticky blog posts for my books and place them on the homepage. As a matter of fact I think I will work on a static page right now for the books. Something has to give.

Troy I know for a fact that is why I never "Blew up". When I got my first agent, it was right out of the MFA program. Renee Swindle had capitalized on the sista girl fiction and since she had come out of San Diego State everyone thought I was next in line to be the new Eric Jerome Dickey or Omar Tyree. Everything was great until my agent actually read the novels I'd written. Although they started like those writer's books, the evolved into very serious texts. I had an offer from a publisher and my agent told me to change the ending of my book. I refused because I said it would change the whole idea of the novel. I lost the little deal she had worked out. She told me to start writing a street lit novel and I refused. She basically told me she couldn't represent me if I wasn't interested in making money first. That was over ten years ago. This feedback on Facebook is incredible. The ability to move people from Facebook is a losing battle. I had a lady (bible thumper) who confronted me on a thread today about Scandal. She said it was the most immoral show in the history of television. That's why she can't watch it. Another guy said it doesn't do anything for his soul. I'm thinking to myself, it's effing TV!!!!!!!! I tell her that while it's hard to see a sister throw herself at a married White president, the show isn't bad at all. I also state that if you analyze that it's written by a black woman and has a black female lead, simply stated the show is ground breaking and is creating more opportunities for Black women in Hollywood. You have Taraji on Person of Interest, beherre on Sleepy Hollow and Scandal has allowed Gabrielle Union to have her own show albeit not on a major network, but Scandal is important and it's good. I'm rambling, but you know what I mean. We are breaking our necks to get people to move away and it's just a struggle that is falling flat. In the terms of the 5% we are basically the 5% that understand what is happening and there is 10% that is aware, but lost in the jungle and the 85% are deaf, dumb and blind.

I'm jumping in on this one. I have heard about the Big Bang being verified as actual truth instead of just hypothesis. The Higgs Boson, believe it or not I really hadn't followed until I read Dan Brown's Angel and Demons. Of course I had heard about it a while back, but it didn't get my attention until that book came out. The idea of the God particle is amazing to me, but this recent Big Bang discovery is incredible and will probably push the bible thumpers to the extreme in their battle for Genesis. Cynique, congratulations on knocking out that rewrite. It's interesting that you will only do it as an e-book. It doesn't cost anything to make it a paperback also, so you might as well go for that. I don't watch either of those shows, but I know for a fact that these single folks out here are losing their damn minds, spines and behinds. I have a cousin in law. A big country, thug looking dude who takes selfies of himself crying! It drives me nuts. Dudes out here asking women, "Write down what it is you're looking for in a man, and I'll be that." I mean, dudes don't have any 'game' or self esteem anymore. It's hard to watch.

I know it! We just can't seem to work together. If I start a rap label everyone else wants to start one. If I can publish your book, no one wants to work with me, they want to do it themselves. We just have a level of distrust that is ridiculous. Cynique hit it on the head, we just don't have an attachment to the world of capitalism and business. We have not been taught our history in regard to the development of Black Wall Street. We feel that we have to fit other races idea of success. We just don't get that building our own networks will develop the foundations we need. It makes you want to give up on trying to hip people to creating a unified front for literature or for anything.

Unfortunately Troy this does not surprise me. We've had this discussion before. Black people have a defeated mentality in business. For us, it's all or nothing. We have no working concept of understanding how helping other people helps all of us. I know i always revert to sneaker talk, but that's my bread and butter and my experiences there highlight many of the issues in trying to rebuild the Black book market and improving the culture. What we think is that giving shine to someone else will direct attention away from ourselves. In other words, allowing aalbc to post on our site about a topic we are addressing will remove people from our site. In a simplistic person/business mind this seems true. But let's analyze in terms of restaurants for clarity. Recently an Applebee's Restaurant opened right next door to the Happy Mexican Restaurant. It would seem that the Happy Mexican would be upset about this. The actual fact is that Applebee's can only hold so many people and those people going to Applebee's would probably have never gone to the Happy Mexican. However because Applebee's is often overcrowded, those people who were looking to go to Applebee's can simply move their party of people next door. The Happy Mexican is now being introduced to a customer that may have never considered them as an option. Competition increases traffic. Once traffic increases, people begin to patronize the other places near that new restaurant. This is what Black businesses don't understand. They see more people as a threat. Where white people actually like the idea of more businesses in an area because it will generate more traffic. Consider this, I recently started looking for a building to open an art gallery. I went to the one area of town and spoke with the businesses in the area and each one of them got excited by the prospect of a new business opening. One of those locations was an art gallery that is right next door to where I'm looking. They were the most vocal about me getting the space. Out business savvy and understanding is so low it's not even funny. This is why Black websites don't have ads for other sites on their site. They think it will take people away from the site. That is a very simple way of thinking. It lacks any real understanding of how businesses thrive when there are other successful businesses around them. The same works for the internet. I have had an aalbc.com link on my site since before I ever signed up to start chatting on this message board. I understand that this makes my site a lot more interactive and a source for information across the web. You are very right, we have a looooooooong way to go. In sneaker terms I explained to a lot of "sneakerheads" that if they simply supported a new sneaker line, instead of blindly giving their money to Nike, there could be a ton of new millionaires a year in the sneaker industry. This will never happen though. That's unfortunate.

LOL! I'm telling her you said that, because it sounds very familiar! Yes the show is named resurrection and it begins next week. I'm actually looking forward to the show and I'm glad Omar is back on television. I haven't seen him since House. I think Jason's book is exactly what I was saying earlier. It is a book that has the ability to crossover. I don't think a book has to cater to white people for it to succeed, but unfortunately for a major network to pick up the narrative, it has to feature white people. What I want though is for the Black networks and film producers (Ava Duvernay, etc.) to begin mining Black literature because the movies/television shows will stimulate interest in literature. I think this is just the world we live in. I honestly hate that I'm not a teacher anymore. My final class that I taught, I hosted discussions and updates on my blog. More importantly I was able to introduce a ton of writers to my students and they began to develop a deep appreciation of literature as they learned how to analyze it an academic setting. Here is a link to those articles. It was my intent to begin teaching all of my classes this way, but this was the last time I accepted any classes. Reading appreciation comes from an actively engaged teacher and I was able to get students at every level engaged at the "worst" schools, with the "worst" students. Here is the link: http://www.cbpublish.com/?s=African+American+Literature

I'm joining Black Bloggers. I will be writing an article on my Kickstarter experience which is actually going to counter a lot that I've written about Facebook. I do have an article that explains why my Kickstarter tells a different story and I will link them all right here. PR & Marketing for the little guy PR or Public Relations as defined by Howstuffworks.com is, “A basic definition of public relations is to shape and maintain the image of a company, organization or individual in the eyes of the client’s various “publics.” What is a “public”… Read more → That’s Not What It’s For: Another Facebook Article by CD Burns • July 27, 2011 • 0 Comments  Like John Coffey, I couldn’t hep it  Common mistakes that come with the comment “That’s not what that’s for,” are all over the place. When you decide to work on a car and grab a flathead instead of… Read more → Is Facebook Really Good For Small Biz? by CD Burns • July 22, 2011 • 2 CommentsSocial Media, for those who aren’t keeping up, consists of any form of media based in technology that allows you to maintain contact with people at anytime you feel like reaching out and touching someone. The old adage from the…