Troy

@Delano, think social media put on steroids. Business people are excited about it because there is a great deal of profit in monetizing control over people. I now understand why Marky Z is all in on this technology. The last thing I want is to give that guy is the ability to hack into my brain with greater ease. So, I will use the technology very cautiously and judiciously. Now I know there are people who will say "Oh not me, my brain can't be hacked. The metaverse is just a way for me to have fun with my friends." To me, this is a variation of the ideas that Covid is a hoax, climate change is not exacerbated by human activity, or slavery wasn't all that bad for the Blacks. This tech is great; it is the people who use it for perverse goals that make it a problem.

Yeah or was definitely a good look @ProfD if I had a publicist working for me that could have been parodied into more opportunities 🙂 @Pioneer1 it was a panel. me and the two women. one worked for Amazon curating content (I believe) and the other runs a small press in brooklyn. The panel was part of a much larger event called “The Future of Everything” They had exhibitors and i really got a good sense of what the metaverse and augmented reality is like.

Well that is because y'all don't read the Black Literature Forum: https://aalbc.com/tc/forum/4-black-literature/ @Pioneer1 it is good to know YouTube's algorithm is sharing some of my content. And nobody knows me like y'all do 😉 Thanks for sharing the video here!

Contact: Travis Hutchins, Baton Rouge Area Foundation, thutchins@braf.org, (225) 381-7081 or Sarah Gardner, Baton Rouge Area Foundation sgardner@braf.org, (225) 387-6126 Jacinda Townsend wins 16th Annual Ernest Gaines Book Award for Mother Country Jacinda Townsend’s novel Mother Country has won the 2022 Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence, presented annually by the Baton Rouge Area Foundation to support an emerging African American fiction writer. She receives $15,000 to support the continuation of her craft. A national panel of literary judges selected the winner from 25 eligible entries. The judges commended two additional books of fiction for the award's shortlist: Stories from the Tenants Downstairs by Sidik Fofaria and Nobody's Magic by Destiny O. Birdsong. The 16th annual Gaines Award will be presented to Townsend at 6:00 p.m., Thursday, January 19, 2023, at the Manship Theatre in the Shaw Center for the Arts. Townsend will read from her work at the award ceremony. The award is given to honor the late Ernest Gaines, whose stories gave voice to African Americans in rural areas. “[Mr. Gaines’s] A Lesson Before Dying was one of the books that most taught me how to weave searing social justice with the pleasure of storytelling, so it is a special honor to be part of this long tradition of excellence in African-American literature,” stated Townsend. “Writing is such a lonely enterprise for African-American storytellers, given that most of the industry's gatekeepers are not us. It's lovely to know that the community I started writing for, the community for which I will always primarily write, has read my work and found that it resonates. I am particularly looking forward to working with children in the Baton Rouge schools, as I am passionate about arts education.” Townsend is also the author of Saint Monkey, which won the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize and the James Fenimore Cooper Prize in addition to being selected as the 2015 Honor Book of the Black Caucus of the American Library Association. Townsend is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and teaches in the MFA program at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Recent winners of the Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence include The Sweetness of Water by Nathan Harris; Everywhere You Don’t’ Belong by Gabriel Bump, Lot by Bryan Washington; A Lucky Man by Jamel Brinkley, and; The Talented Ribkins by Ladee Hubbard. About Ernest J. Gaines: Literary legend Ernest Gaines was a native of Oscar in Louisiana’s Pointe Coupee Parish which served as the setting for many of his novels. During his lifetime, Gaines received a National Medal of Arts Award (2013), a MacArthur Foundation’s Genius Grant, and the National Humanities Medal among numerous others. He was a member of the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. His critically acclaimed novel The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman was adapted into a made-for-TV movie that won nine Emmy awards. His 1993 novel A Lesson Before Dying won the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction. About the Baton Rouge Area Foundation: The Baton Rouge Area Foundation improves the quality of life in Greater Baton Rouge and across south Louisiana in three ways. The Foundation connects philanthropists with the causes they care about, provides support to nonprofits and takes on projects for civic good.

@Chevdove Hebrew to Negroes will be a bestselling book when I publish my next list in a few weeks. There are actually four books in the series. I'm not a Biblical scholar but I know a little about African History and I think it is obvious that Europeans don't have a lock on the religion. I've heard prominent Black scholar Dr. Ben. say he was a Jew. When he said that it seemed odd to me, but this was decades ago and what I knew about African history was from the European perspective, which is to say I knew less than nothing.

Ending remote work and asking for more effort is not exactly tyrannical 😉 Musk reminds me of Trump the media can't get enough of him -- they really can't help themselves. Since Musk took over traffic to twitter is actually up a bit. They are one of the most popular sites on the web ranking #11 by SEMRish's estimates. Spending virtually nothing on Google ads -- why should they the media is their best promoter. For comparison purposes AALBC ranks number 31K.

@Pioneer1 I guess the problem in catching the sarcasm in your title is that most people expected Twitter to be different under Musk -- mostly worse. Were you trying to imply that people would think it would be different, but that nothing has changed? I suspect I'm the only one in this conversation that uses Twitter and I go in there with blinders and post things to promote AALBC and react to any comments. The only recent exceptions was to find Kyrie's "antisemitic" post and look at Musk's page. Both activities were a waste of my time,,.

That is just what I was thinking that too! I am surprised Black people support tRump, but I guess they support himfor the same reasons some white people do. Dave Chappelle described a couple of reasons in his recent SNL monologue. I think labeling all Trump supporters as racist is simplistic and inaccurate. His Black support should make that obvious. I don't want a Republican in the Whitehouse in 2024 -- period. It will be some version of Trump the way the party is going.

This is true, but it is not just us, it is the culture. But like everything else we suffer more as a result. The elections themselves don't have to be rigged. Gerrymandering, the electoral college, and voting rules have created an environment in which our representatives do not represent the majority of people. This is true. Individuals may be able to improve their lot by running somewhere else, but thrive as a people, we have to do what ProfD wrote, I don't know enough about the sister from Cali, but in general, I tend to agree with Stefan, "Any election victory for a Black face that is not shoved against Trump's backside is a good for our people."

Now that is very interesting.

@harry brown informed us about this book five years ago! I only discovered this post looking for our more recent conversation about Hebrew to Negros. I had completely forgotten about this book and the film. Kyrie Irving in his tweet (image below) has prompted the media to heap a great deal of attention on the film which is a top streaming film on Amazon and the book. Kyrie is blamed and punished for simply tweeting a link to Amazon who is profiting from selling and streaming the film. Kyrie is called "antisemitic" for sharing a link, but what about Amazon for making now a lot more money for selling it. Kyrie is blamed for promoting the film, but the media is really responsible for bringing the book to the attention of the general public -- most of whom are not on twitter. Seriously who is on Twitter reading Kyrie Irving's every post. yeah I know he has 4.6M followers, but those numbers don't truly reflect the number of human beings who read the tweet about the film. The tweet has been removed, but the media continues to share it which is how I found it. As I said before beating up on Kyrie or any man who share a link to Amazon is unfor and just plain stupid. The first book will be an AALBC bestseller when I publish my next list. Yesterday someone asked about all four volumes. I did not know there were 4 volumes! But I have added them to the site. @Chevdove and @Pioneer1 this material seems to be related to the stuff you all talk about. I had no interest in the film or book, which why I did not react to Harry's post back in 2017. Clearly, there is interest in the subject matter, but if you think there is something I (we) should know please share.

Deep. I'm sure so much knowledge has been lost... or maybe it is hidden, kept out of public view. Well, they had something, and I don't think we know what it was. They also had knowledge, that we don't have, which allowed them to build elaborate pyramids. @Delano what do you think of John Dee and Edward Kelley?

Sounds like a sad and pathetic Brother. So in all your conversations, you did not pick up on this trait and the resulting behavior? Now I've heard of brothers doing nothing to help another brother advance, as not to appear to show favoritism to another Black person (I assume), but I have been fortunate enough not to witness someone actively trying to harpoon another Black person. I have heard of this though; the mentality is that there can be only one, and maybe there was a time this was true and it made sense to make sure if they had to have one negro in the big house that it better be you. I just watched that video @Boxingfan posted. That was an interesting story, but what is it supposed to prove -- that white can be nice to Black people. Is that supposed to be revelatory?! Did boxingfan feel like he was enlightening us to the obvious?! Then he had the nerve to call folks here racist. He sounds just like the white liberals he complained about being racist. People are very interesting.

GTS: Google That Shit 11 and 33 are master numbers, What is a "master Number" 11 is a prime, but 33 is not. It can't be doubled numbers because 22 is apparently not one as no one mentioned 11/11 2:22 as being anything special. What is the next master number 55, 99? Also why p.m. and not a.m. too? I guess I could just GTS, huh? 😉 Honestly, I'm tired of using Google and subjecting myself to their advertisement engine, which use to be a search engine.

In a text to me a couple of minutes ago: "...today is the best day in the entire century to manifest ... so put your dreams in the universe. I say waddya have to lose? Del are you aware of this and the reasoning behind it (I have not attempted to GTS I came here first 😉

On this we can can agree 🙂

It was probably part of the plan to gin up demand for the movie. Amazon is selling Hebrews to Negroes: Wake Up Black America for $50 bucks! If the film is for sale anywhere I can't find it. Kyrie is not profiting off this film, but it is all his fault, SMH! The reviews (if you can trust these on Amazon at all) were excellent. And we are unable to protect him, because we don't pay him. The entertainers in the NBA are virtually all Black. Imagine if they just said "We're out" and set up their own league. Then people like Kyrie could voice their opinion without repercussions. These ball players will not make as much money as they do now, so creating our own league is not within the realm of possibility. I also found a book: Hebrews to Negroes: Wake Up Black America! by Ronald Dalton Jr.

I assume you concede the point about "pari-mutuel payout." Since that describes how the jackpot is determined, not how the prize is paid out, and does not factor into the these calculations right? Now you are assuming a 37% tax hit every year for 20 years which not an assumption I'd make. There are a variety of ways to avoid and minimize tax liability. You are also assuming the money is gonna be stuffed in a mattress somewhere and not invested or appreciate in value. But the question boils down to this: Is $600 million today worth more or less to you than $2 billion paid out over 20 years virtually riskless?

I don't follow your math on how a payout of 1.9B gets down knocked down by a whopping 1.3B due to taxes. Of course, but that payout has been announced. Are you saying the payout is different than what is being announced? Someone won the Lotto -- 2 billion dollars -- Can you imagine! @Cynique The democrats did not do badly in the midterms. 🙂

@ProfD One think Kanye would understand that. I really have not been flowing kaynes musings. Is he expressing remorse or doubling down. The crazy thing is Amazon has been selling the movie for years and no one is trying to take Bezos’ money. Kyrie just mentions the film and he is vilified. Explain that to me.

@SarahBelle Selig sure send at copy. please keep in mind we don’t review at lot of books at no cost to the publisher. Also can you provide a headshot of Sifiso and let me know which other books isbn and title are appropriate for the site: https://aalbc.com/authors/imprint.php?imprint=Catalyst+Press

Hi @SarahBelle Selig I missed this post. Impressive resume. Does Bridget self-identify as Black? We would still consider the book for review, given the content.

I would not have known anything about the movie Kyrie was touting, now I wanna see it. If white folks want to hide something so badly then it must be something that Black folks need to see. 😉 It is amazing every word out of Kayne's mouth is dissected, evaluated, judgment is passed, and public punishment meted out. I don't like it. If half the shit we wrote on these forums was subjected to the same scrutiny almost all of us would be in trouble -- but that is the price of celebrity I guess...

I'm free now. So it depends on how you define freedom because more money does not make me less free and if it does -- gimme the money. If the odds are 292M to 1 and I take all 292M chances, explain how I would not win? Oh, OK I assumed it was $1 a ticket. Thanks for the explanation Mel. Still, if I needed to spend $600M to win $1.5B -- i'd take that bet every day of the week -- even with taxes. I'm also assuming that the stated prize pool is $1.5B for person who picks all the numbers. The only other real risk is that someone else pick the correct numbers too forcing you the share the prize. Still given the odds I'd still take the bet. If I shared the prize with someone else and only win $750M I'm still ahead. While gambling winnings are taxable, gambling losses should be tax deducible. @Delano do you still think it would not work? Me neither! This is not a factor, in my reasoning, as it just describes how the size of the prize is determined, not the odds of winning.

Well, Twitter will be different, but it will not be so different as to serve Black people.