Troy

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As a long-time Florida resident, I must take issue 😉 Florida does not exactly corner the market on harboring white racists, miscreants, and other ner do wells. Florida is a massive state that covers two time zones and roughly 7% of the U.S. Population (basically one out of 7 Americans live in Florida). It is a very diverse state that has a higher percentage of Black people compared to the rest of the country. I've been called nigger in North Carolina and have had racists hurl rocks at me in Brooklyn. Racists come to Florida for the same reason I did -- the weather is great and the livin' is easy 🙂 Though the worsening economy is making the living less easy -- even for racists

Perhaps, but many of us have been inconsiderate and unwise from time to time. However, we view her statement as the media is holding her to an unfair standard -- just because she is a celebrity. Why the media choose to make this newsworthy is why we are so dumb as a culture. Yeah, @Stefan Envy is often the root of anti-(fill in the blank). I see we all agree we need to focus on ourselves.

That is an interesting interpretation of your dad's allegory. I think it means that if you are feeling sorry for the sheep by shearing it, not shearing it only means we will not benefit from its wool and the briars are going to take the wool anyway -- so it is better for us to take it rather than for to go to waste in the briar patch. Actually, this was a massive storm even by Buffalo's standards. Buffalo is well equipped to deal with snow, but this was a massive storm, and if people can't be bothered to stay home when these storms hit. They will get trapped in their cars a die. The national guard can not protect every store, apprehend very criminal, and ensure that every citizen stays home with sufficient provisions. Yeah, pretty much, or you can live in China where they can easily force your monkey a-s to stay off the streets. 😉

Kenneth, are you implying that what Whoopie said was anti-Semitic? I have a slightly different take on what @ProfD is saying. I don't think when should be "indifferent" to the plight of other groups. We can learn from, sympathize with, and even support other groups, but our first priority has to be our people. As a Black man promoting Black culture through books, when people are people start talking about "diversity" in this context it is not the same thing and in many cases undermines the advocacy of Black people. "Diversity" has come to mean everyone except cisgender white men, who are not impoverished or addicted to drugs. Any "diversity" effort purporting to support Black people is just as likely to support white women. AALBC profiles Jewish writers, as many have had a significant and profoundly positive impact on Black people. But of the 6,000 authors profiled on the site, less than 1/10 of 1% are Jewish; 98% are Black. Black people are my first priority, Jewish writers have a great number of resources to promote their work and to tell their stories. Black people are the ones in desperate need of support and we should be our first and best supporters so that when others want to lend a hand we can more easily identify agent provocateurs and others who would undermine us deliberately or unintentionally.

No, that would be you setting up another strawman; I know the difference. It is odd that you see the Civil War as an example of unity. I think everyone else would view it as a prime example of disunity. Have you been following the news about the "opioid crisis?" We have big pharma (run by white folks) killing 100K folks (mostly other white people) a year. Are white people trying to destabilize white communities, or are you going to tell me it is still an attempt to destabilize Black communities and the white deaths are collateral damage?

The video says she self-identified as Jewish Aw shit, you in trouble now! 😲

Some people prefer to watch 👀 @Pioneer1

It was stated at the end of the video that Whoopi was "minimizing" the holocaust. That is ridiculous. This is yet another reason why the human-conjured idea of race is so ridiculous. What Whoppie seems to be trying to convey is that practitioners of the Jewish religion do not constitute a race. You can not look at anyone as tell that they are a Jew based upon the way the look. This is a simple fact. Now if the Nazi's considered people of the Jewish faith a "race" and tried to exterminate those people based upon that racial designation rather than their religion, then that would be news to me. If that is true it seems extreme to rake Whoopie over the coals for it. Just point to the history and teach her indeed anyone who des not know something. Or as Dave Chappelle says, "...There are two words in the English language that you should never say together, in sequence and those words are 'The' and 'Jews.' I never heard someone do good after they said that."

Really @frankster? Given the popularity of this thread, why do you think no one else (that I know of) has contributed to this conversation or joined the forum? Do you remember how you discovered the conversation? Back to the conversation which, surprisingly I have not contributed to... "The FBI reports don't lie." That is laughable on its face, as there are documented instances of the FBI, indeed all government law enforcement agencies, lying. "Blacks commit 60% of all violent crime." I could not find any stats to support this statement, but we'd need a definition of violent crime if we include homicides and assault, I would not wager that this is not a "true" stat. But we know a few things about law enforcement in America. The Black community is hyper-policed, so if there is a bar fight The Brother will get arrested and convicted much more quickly than a white boy. White people are arrested and convicted less frequently for all offenses. We also know there is a correlation between poverty and crime. This country with its history of racism has created an environment in which Black people are disproportionately living in poverty. If we controlled for poverty alone I suspect violent crime rates would be comparable -- even ignoring the fact white get off more frequently. Throwing around stats without context is misleading at best and dangerous at worse.

I’ve owned a keyboard for all of my adult life, with the hopes of learning to play. It has not happened yet … lack of discipline i suppose. I envy people who can play 🙂

Most new posters are people looking to have their book reviewed. but you can answer that question for yourself @richardmurray if you look at this link: https://aalbc.com/tc/discover/, It will show you the most recent activity (posts and Comments). this is The link i use to see what has been recently posted across all the forums.

@richardmurray, product reviews are largely useless in my opinion. First, they are rife with bogus reviews (paid reviews, reviews to harm a competitor, etc); and second, the vast majority of people do not leave product reviews, so the sample size is not representative -- even without the paid/bogus reviews. They persist because people believe they are valuable. @Delano, I'm sure screens have a larger percentage of our time. Some engage actively, but most engage passively. Obviously, we are all in the former category. When the WWW first because commercially available it was an exciting time. Bloggers were popping up everywhere, but now, for a variety of reasons we have fewer indie bloggers and more social media "influencers." Social media is touted as the be-all and end-all, but I would not trade my email list for 10,000,000 likes on Facebook. Email is still powerful. A website can still be powerful. A discussion forum can still be powerful. But a discussion forum is only as powerful as the people who use it. @Pioneer1 to answer your question: the period between Xmas and New Years is when the site has the lowest amount of traffic compared to any other time of the year, so participation will be naturally lower. If it is any consolation theyear'ss lull in traffic did not occur and the next few months are usually the busiest of the year 🙂

13 years is not a long time to build a school from scratch, but I'd be really surprised, pleasantly, if it ever gets built.

Well, this is apparently true of this forum. I dunno if TV and other screens have anything to do with it -- maybe it is just human nature. Here is the result of some research on the subject.

The 90-9-1 Rule for Participation Inequality in Social Media and Online Communities "Summary: In most online communities, 90% of users are lurkers who never contribute, 9% of users contribute a little, and 1% of users account for almost all the action. By Jakob Nielsen on October 8, 2006" Another interesting comment: "Signal-to-noise ratio. Discussion groups drown in flames and low-quality postings, making it hard to identify the gems. Many users stop reading comments because they don't have time to wade through the swamp of postings from people with little to say." This speaks to the need for moderation which would reduce the Signal-to-noise ratio, but increase the perception bias and furthure reduce participation. While this is old data it holds true based on my experience.

This post continues to be the most popular conversation on our forums over the last 30 days -- viewed over 9,100 times and more than 7,600 unique visitors. What will it take to get more people to comment? Even 1 percent of visitors shared their thoughts that would be 76 additional posters. When I allowed guest posts (posting without creating accounts) there was more participation, but that opened the floodgates to spam, so I had to shut off guest posting. @Pioneer1 here are some conspiracy theories for you 🙂 : (1) I believe "big-social" is behind the spamming of discussion forums. The know spamming forums make them harder to manage and forcing administrators to require logins. This reduces participation and therefore competition. (2) Racists troll Black forums to prevent Black forums from thriving while sowing dissent in the Black community. (This one I'm actually inclined to believe, as there is ample evidence of it)

This conversation is one of the most popular conversations on our forums over the last 30 days -- viewed over 9K times and more than 7,500 unique visitors.

Umar's argument against the film is silly. Black Panther is a Marvel flick designed to make a bazillion dollars -- globally. Any conscious aspects are purely accidental, coincidental, and otherwise incidental. Obviously, Marvel was trying to appeal to Mexicans and women but they also had to do this without alienating the broader global audience. Marvel clearly succeeded at this -- they have this down pat. Now I disliked the way some Black people embraced Black Panther as if it were part of our cultural heritage -- when it is a story dreamt up by a couple of young white boys. But as a movie, designed to entertain a large number of people, I think Black Panther (I) did a great job while Black Panther II was adequate. Besides, whatever happened to Johnson's school and all the money he raised for it?

I hear you. Arguing, debating, or trying to convince someone to change their point of few is difficult. I used to think this was because I was lacking on some level; my argument was weak or I was not being persuasive enough. But I've learned there is often resistance to seeing things differently. If a so-called white person believes Black people are genetically inferior. Convincing them otherwise is very difficult especially if they were raised in a white racist society like America. Even when geneticists tell us that a Black person can have more in common, genetically, with any given white person, than another white person, people will still cling to white racist ideas. When you say "true of them," I'm sure you will acknowledge that this does not have to match objective truth otherwise known as reality. White superiority is a lie, a point I still think is worth arguing. 🙂

This is a false statement. Man white people -- even Republicans are completely against Trump's voter fraud conspiracy theory and others were convinced enough to store the Capitol -- not exactly a picture of unity. Alex Jones will almost certainly go to jail because of his false claims that the school was a hoax. White folks in the country have never been "unified," the blood bath known as the civil war demonstrated this quite plainly. The race-wide unity for Black folks you desire is a pipe dream. The social construct of "race" has nothing to do with the people themselves; expecting it to be some unifying factor is naïve. That said, we can certainly rally around the cause of defeating racism. The people unified around this cause can be of any so-called "race."

I could ask, but historically no one replies to my direct out reach. Maybe people who register but don’t post really don’t create accounts with the intention of posting… i dunno Maybe we can ask @Don who signed up this week.

@richardmurray I'd have to create a report to get the answer to your question. If I had to guess I'd say the number of new members was about the same or slightly down. I do know that the number of visits to the forums is higher in 2022 than it was in 2021. But the issue is not really new members -- we have plenty of those. It is the lack of posting those new members. Welcome @Rick, who signed up Xmas eve.

This is true only when the individual believes it is to be true. We determine when we are successful; the rest of the world can embrace it or not... but it is cool when the world does embrace your definition of success 🙂 Me too. I seek out judgment, but I find judgment, as you suggested, is more about the judger than the judged. @Cynique it is always a pleasure to read your words.

Interesting observation. Not all white folks will do this. Some white folks will go in and buy that house, in a red-lined location, for a Black friend undermining the racist whites. Other white folks will buy houses from white folks telling them that the Blacks are moving in, which depresses home values, These same people then buy those houses and sell them at inflated prices to Black people. Again, white folks undermine other white folks for profit, buy taking advantage of their racism. Race is a motivator in so far as it is profitable. I agree with this 100%. This is the only way anything can change in a country as heterogenous as America.