Troy

No. But that is because the issue is the distrust is in our government and media. That has not changed. 45 is justing benefiting by exploiting this distrust. Now it is pretty clear I will win our 2nd bet. Would you like to bet, double or nothing, that 45 wins a second term?

What a strange interview. That was not Vlad speaking off camera. Sounded crazy and said crazy things calling Bill a necrophiliac. John Amos was always a class act. I bet he regretted sitting for that interview.

I don't think it is me seeing clearly it is a matter of level of trust. If you don't trust white doctors because they experimented on Black people there is little they can say that you'd believe, and you're prone to believe any alternative story -- no matter how implausible. People believe 45 for the same reason. They distrust mainstream media, not so much for their lies, but the threat it poses to their "way of life," when heterosexual white men ran everything. Amazingly white people, without a pot to piss in, buy into 45's fake-news- witchhunt rhetoric wuthiut reservation. The fact that so many white people have loss their jobs and are struggling will make little difference, because it is the fault of a liberal media, Mexican immigrant, Black people whatever... Even the fact that poor white people dont have or lost their health insurance during a global pandemic, they will still fight against universal single payer health care. 45's approval rating has not crashed. Indeed there was a bump as people rally behind a president during a time of national crisis. If is why that nut Giuliani was popular during 911 and why they are calling for the NY governor to run for president.

Sorry to hear that Del. I think everyone from NYC knows someone who has fallen ill or passed as a result of Covid19, which has already claimed more lives, in NYC, than both world trade center attacks.

OK here is some actual data showing Black people are not immune to Covid-19. Anyone who continues to say that Black people are immune is trying to kill Black people -- full stop end of story. Propublica: https://www.propublica.org/article/early-data-shows-african-americans-have-contracted-and-died-of-coronavirus-at-an-alarming-rate As of Friday morning, African Americans made up almost half of Milwaukee County’s 945 cases and 81% of its 27 deaths in a county whose population is 26% black. Milwaukee is one of the few places in the United States that is tracking the racial breakdown of people who have been infected by the novel coronavirus, offering a glimpse at the disproportionate destruction it is inflicting on black communities nationwide. In Michigan, where the state’s population is 14% black, African Americans made up 35% of cases and 40% of deaths as of Friday morning. Detroit, where a majority of residents are black, has emerged as a hot spot with a high death toll. As has New Orleans. Louisiana has not published case breakdowns by race, but 40% of the state’s deaths have happened in Orleans Parish, where the majority of residents are black. The early data provided above is not at all surprising to any semi-woke Black person -- of course Black people would be disproportionately affected by Covid19 in America. “We are not in the same damn boat.” Read Obscene Rhetoric by Frederick K. Foote, Jr. https://aalbc.com/content.php?title=Obscene+Rhetoric+by+Frederick+K.+Foote%2C+Jr.

@Chevdove I ditto that. Please don't edit youself cause two old fuddie duddies don't share your sense of humor. @Pioneer1 i always said the culture wants to feminize men. The more you can get men in the salons buying products and the stores buying trendy fashions, getting piercings and fancy hairstyles and their tie nails painted the more money you can make of them. The ideal of what is feminine is a white man's construct. This ideal is the one that you embrace @Pioneer1. Things changed substantially for white women as they gained more rights. Black wpmen benfited too but were never really considered the feminine idea... by the larger society.... but that what Black men are here for 😉

Knee Grow you are too much, ROTFLMBAO! Man the was the longest nonanswer I've read in a long time. I can agree with what you wrote, but do you think the Brother was an "agent" or not? I appreciate what posters write on this platform can be construed to represent the entire the platform, but I can't be worried about those too stupid too tell the difference between one man's fleeting posts and the 22 year old site the posts appear. I think the dialog where his conspiracy theory on covid19 are effectively challenged might help others understand that this is not a conspiracy -- even if it is, it us just crazy to say Black people are immune when they are dying all over the country. Again I'm leaning toward agent. Now if he got one or two to buy into his hairbrained theory he would still be here posting. Actually @Pioneer1 i though Kareem had turned you 😉

Hey Guess A Reader. Jet Magazine's website has been down for sometime. Where did you find the article? Please post a link -- thanks!

May Bill R.I.P. The last guest's comments were most sensible. Bill's life should not be defined by his relationship with Nichols nor be ignored for all the experiences make the man. After skimming this conversation I realize how much I miss conversations like this. I almost forgot about @careycarey. @Xeon pops in every blue moon. @ABM and @Cynique are a couple of my favorite contributors to this forum.

It is just theory @Chevdove the giveaway was the abrupt departure and the nature of his posts. There are not very many platforms like this one that speak about Black issues (if anyone knows of others please share), so AALBC would be a good target for these times 3if trolls. @Pioneer1 used to warn me about this, so I'm curious to read what he thinks of my theory on "Kareem."

email me your mailing address @Maurice and I'll let you know what it costs to mail a typical book. Generally it will always be cheaper to purchase your books domestically. Now if there is a book that is not available domestically (has not been published in the UK), then I can help in those circumstances.

https://allthatsinteresting.com/maps-that-explain-america Most of the maps were much more serious than the one I shared below. The maps showing various the demographic breakdowns of America is particular interesting to me.

I was joking about dropping the likes of Sluder from the gene pool. It is very possible that he can give birth to the person who cures cancer. Traits like intelligence, while inherited, has not been pinned down; there is no one gene for intelligence. I'm sure the environment's influence on gene expression relative to intelligence is not understood well either.

"Interesting" is one way of putting it. I used to think our generstion was truly fortunate. No one under 60 was ever forced go to war and die. We never suffered overt, government sanctioned racism, we never knew starvation (shoot most us are obese) or pestilence. We have freedom of press and can pretty much do what we want with liitle restriction relative to every generation that proceeded us. Today I'm afraid all of that is in jeopardy. I too lament the lost of Ebony, but it did not happen overnight. Perhaps covid19 accelerated the inevitable. Given all I'm dealings with in the context of this pandemic it is hard to muster empathy. Perhaps once the pandemic is over I can properly mourn Ebony's loss. Jet's site is down too. I just removed them both from my list of The Top 50 Black-Owned Websites.

Cynique writes, "Tell all of my AALBC 'frienenemies' I said, "stay well." I know we all (at least I have) have been jonesing to read something from Cynique about the passing scene: “Welcome to 2020! I always knew things would catch up with this country, but I never imagined that I would be around to see it. Unlike some, however, i don't believe a conspiracy theory is at work via the new world order; the inevitable has just come to pass. I don't think the USA will ever be the same after this pandemic, and the shit is really gonna hit the fan come election time. But, whatever. I'll be doing good to even be around in November. So far, i haven't exhibited any corona symptoms and like everybody else, I'm social distancing myself on voluntary quarantine. If the virus doesn't get me, my intense loathing for Trump might bring me down. I.DESPISE.HIM. I can't believe how the Universe has put him in place as a leader during this time of crises. But with his luck, he might just emerge smelling like a rose when this new flu proves to be much ado about nothing and that the real disaster was our overreaction to it. Me and my cynicism do find the way the media is handling it to be a bit much. Yet, I have mixed emotions. In addition to the radiation being emitted by cell phone towers being the origin of the virus, another one of the theories out there on FaceBook is that if your ears are ringing, you are getting signals from unseen forces about to take over Earth, and my ears are really picking up a lot of static! Oh, well, i always did think I was an alien. And the bizarre supernatural activity that continues to occur within the walls of my bedroom in the middle of the night are very unnerving... “

OK it must be a feature of a "club" which is slightly different than the discussion forums.

That is what I think about myself. A friend once told me that I need to turn my brain off, relax and just enjoy the nonsense. I'm just not built that way fortunately there is a pretty of stuff that I do find funny. It is not that stereotypes are not funny, it is just the gratuitous use of them is not funny to me. I thought for example that The Boondocks satire was funny and at times brilliant -- which is particularly remarkable coming from the brain of such a young man (at the time). @Walkman93 please email or message me the name of the the channel I'd like to check out one of the book reviews.

@Delano we used to say "psyche" too but I thought saying the entire phrase would avoid the miscommunication you described. I don't think. It is an obscure phase that no one I know used sort of like "flat leava," you know what Cynique did 😉 I almost never communicate to anyone via private messages. Any issues I had with kareem I would share publicly. Speaking of that, @Pioneer1 what do you think about my theory that Kareem was a troll. You know the kind you find on Facebook formorting controversy and descent. I mean think about it, if you listened to Kareem you would have nothing but hatred and contempt for the United States. Think about some of the things he wrote about stockpiling weapons and going out in a blaze of glory... Look, you'd be a fool to completely trust our system, but Kareem had zero trust. If I take him at his word (i.e. not a troll) some of his beliefs were simply irrational. If you believe Black people are immune to the virus, you are irrational, because you'd have to deny the fact that Black people are dying everyday from the virus. Did you not watch very short video explaining the nature of Covid-19 and how it originated or did you simply not understand it? OK I see it is not my in ability to explain it is your unwillingness to believe. When I was really young I recall trying to explain to one of my little playmates why Santa could not possibly be real. We lived in the projects and I remember waving my hand across the landscape trying to help him understand how it would be physically impossible for someone to deliver presents to everyone in a single night -- we did not even have chimneys. He refused to accept it. I mean we were little and this conversation took place 50 years ago, but I just could not understand why he could not accept that Santa could not possibly be real. @Pioneer1 you remind me of my young playmate. I heard he became a minister ... a field in which faith in the impossible is required.

Here is a link to a page on AALBC's my bigcommerce site: https://aalbc.store/9781982126674/ One can create a wishlist here, with the account that you create on my store. But roughly half of book order are made by "guests," people who don't create accounts. Again, I only use bigcommerce for my the buy bitton on my book page: https://aalbc.com/books/bookinfo.php?isbn13=9781982126674 which is dynamically generated when I add a book to the site. Now a developer could probably figure out a way to pull the wish list over here, but that really would be in the realm of companies who create their own custom shopping carts and discussion forums. That is were the real value comes in. That level of development will be the next phase of AALBC. 😉

You mean a wish list on the profiles here? OK here is the thing; my shopping cart software is run by Big Commerce. The website is by Troy Johnson, and he discussion forums are by Invision Power. three separate databases. AALBC is really quite unique in that it is built by me. That offers many advantages and some disadvantages. Most web based book sellers use software from companies like Big Commerce to run their entire website. This provides the ability for anyone to run a bookstore but much less flexibility than a custom website. Software like big commerce is more likely to have a wish list feature because that is a popular feature for ecommerce sites. Since the forum and my shopping cart are developed by two different vendors tying these features together would be tough. Other platforms used by online book stores include shopify (which I can't use because it really is not designed to integrate easily with existing websites), and the platform provided by Indiebound for ABA member brick and Mortar bookstores. I'm not aware of another web based book store using a custom designed website and database, as AALBC does. Most websites running discussion forums use discussion forum software to run the entire website. I thought about tying the logins created here to the rest of the website, but now that I'm collecting customer information through bookstore sales, it might be better to use those logins. I;ll look info it -- thanks for the idea @Mel Hopkins

Thanks for helping to spread the word Wendy that is the only way the site can grow.

You beat me to the punch @Wendy Jones i was gonna share this today. Amazon's effective monopoly over the sale of independenly published Black books is now they can decide when it is important to stock, sell, and ship them. As long as USPS, UPS, FEDEX, and any number of other delivery services are out there AALBC, nor any other bookseller, has to slow down your book delivery. Amazon stocking fewer books and delaying delivery is only a problem for authors because they put all their eggs in one basket -- Amazon's I'm still doing three day delivery on the books in my store and im getting more customers everyday.

I basically agree @Pioneer1. I did not find the first video very funny because it used worn out stereo typical Black tropes and the acting acting was bad. For that reason i did not watch the second video. It is why i don't find Madea film very funny. If you've seen on you've seen them all. But i get why owople find this stuff funny, so I dont try to kill anyone's "buzz."

Plus they lock poor people up when they can't post bond. New York City has hundreds if not thousands of people locked up awaiting trial because they can't make bail. Kalief Browder spent two years, most if it in solitary, because he could make make bail of $500 (i think it was $500 but it was something small). He was ultimately found innocent, but ended up killing himself because the experience drove him mad.

This short video does a very good job of explaining why Covid19 is so much more dangerous than the seasonal flu. When Kareem posted the link to that error ridden article calling into question the seriuosness of the pandemic. I called it out as such and pointed out a fundemental flaw in the article's reasoning. Interestingly, after doing that Kareem stopped posting. @Chevdove you were surprised by his reaction -- indeed I was too. But in hindsight I'm beginning to think Kareem was a troll, a sophisticated one, but a troll nonetheless. Trolls do a number of very bad things; one is spreading misinformation. If you go to a Black website and constantly assert that covid19 is a hoax, and if you get folks here to buy into that false belief, and Black people die, who does that serve? There are Black people in America who believe Black people are immune. This should be absurd on it face, but it is not to many. Troll's like Kareem who spout this nonsense then point to serious looking sites with articles supporting this bullshit not only confuse people, but puts them on serious danger. What makes what Kareem did so dangerous is that people will die as a result.