Troy

So @Pioneer1, you are saying the U.S. is using Covid as an opportunity to covertly kill Black people and that this explains why Americans, and Black people in particular, are dying at disproportionately higher numbers than the rest of the world? Do i understand you correctly?

I did not listen to the entire video, but a tried and true tactic is divide and conquer.

@Mel Hopkins I have no insider information on Apple’s pricing structure. They won’t even give me an affiliate program, so i have no incentive to sell their products (a gross error in judgement in their part). Amazon exerts near monopolistic power over ebooks and their ebook reader is basically the only game in town. We are in the midst of Amazon prime “day” and people are probably buying as much from Amazon today as they buy for Xmas. Apple ebooks sales are neglible regardless of royalties paid to authors. Authors should make their books available for sale on Apple’s l platform, but Amazon is where the sales and activity will be… unfortunately. Again this is why I decided to add back the Amazon links for ebooks.

Your mother must be something else, because Jenifer Lewis is 🙂. I thought the video she created was actually excellent. I saw it on Facebook, but nowhere else, so I put it on YouTube -- hopefully they will not come after me 😉 As far as AP is concerned, my comment was in the context of Pioneer's dismissal of them as if they were a fake news source along the lines of the stuff we may find in our social media feed. I heard in a speech a long time ago that if you are getting your news from a single source you are being lied to. I would supplement that sentiment and say, "if you are getting your news from social media you are being lied to." The consolidation in the media, the loss of local independent reporting, and the rise of web-based algorithms has created an environment in which we are more easily lied to. As a former reporter @Mel Hopkins you may not appreciate that the average consumer does not really have to time, energy, inclination, or even ability to effectively fact check news sources. Today you have operations like Fox News, Alex Jones and Steven Bannon's decimating outright lies on stolen elections and Covid hoaxes which is easily and understandably believed by many consumers.

64 Bestselling Books for May/June - 2022 Our bestsellers list has been published continuously since 1998 and is the most visible list focused on Black Books in existence. Spread the word about our list; don’t let one or two lists, we don’t control, determine which books are important. Fiction: Sales were led by preorders for Running to Fall: A Novel written by Kalisha Buckhanon and published by AALBC Publishing (Sept 6, 2022) Essence magazine selected Running to Fall for their “18 New Books We Can’t Wait To Read This Summer” list. Nonfiction: The Enneagram for Black Liberation: Return to Who You Are Beneath the Armor You Carry by Chichi Agorom was the #1 bestselling fiction book. It was followed by the 2022 Pulitzer Prize winning memoir, Chasing Me to My Grave: An Artist’s Memoir of the Jim Crow South by Winfred Rembert. Children’s Books: Sailing Commitment Around the World with Captain Bill Pinkney is the top book in the children’s category. Written by Captain Bill Pinkney with illustrations by Pamela C. Rice, the picture book for early readers tells the story of Captain Pinkney’s historic solo sail around the world in 1990. Poetry: Collections by Mariahadessa Ekere Tallie, Ai Ogawa, Langston Hughes, and Nikki Giovanni make our list this period and ensure there is poetry everyone can enjoy. Check Out All 64 Bestselling Books ▶ AALBC Book Reviews Under the Skin: The Hidden Toll of Racism on American Lives and on the Health of Our Nation by Linda Villarosa “Since the first African enslaved men, women, and children reached American shores, there has been a Black-white divide in who survives, how they live, and who dies, from birth to end of life,” the author writes. “Despite decades of social, economic, and educational progress and what has unquestionably been the rise of a robust Black middle class, racial disparities have remained intact. Yes, something about being Black is creating a health crisis, and that something is racism. It is the American problem in need of an American solution.” Dr. Freeman said to look deeper, and Villarosa does this to startling effect, beginning with the tragic fate of the Reif sisters, who were taken from their Montgomery, Alabama home in 1973 and sterilized by a government clinic. It didn’t matter that Minnie Lee Rief was 14 or that her younger sister, Mary Alice, was 12. They couldn’t read or write. The author further adds that about 100,000 to 150,000 poor women, mostly Black, were sterilized with government programs over decades. More ▶ Post-Traumatic by Chantal V. Johnson Chantal Johnson’s debut novel, Post-Traumatic, confronts the emotional toll of sexual assault, a real-life survivor narrative, with the prickly residue of mental demons. Her main character, Vivian is a lawyer who advocates for those deemed deranged at a New York City psychiatric facility. This confidant, smart attorney, a hip 30-something, believes the state is the enemy of the people, convinced that profit and power are designed to keep patients off-balanced and helpless. Also, she believes the doctors and nurses want to keep the ill inside the institution and her job is to get them out, to provide expertise for them to avoid the iron grip of the hospital. Usually, the tough issue of rape is a staple of crime fiction or memoir, but this is the rare work of fiction that tackles sexual violence in the African American community, beyond the gritty streets of the ghetto. Black women are often the forgotten survivors of rape. More ▶ The Untold Stories of Reverse Racism by Rodney Cloud Hill Hill welcomes readers into a work of fiction based on historical facts, a work in which he adroitly flips the script—presenting racism in reverse. In this shift, the “dominant race” (Whites/Europeans) becomes the oppressed and the “inferior race” (Blacks/Africans) is now the oppressor. References, experiences, perspectives, and belief systems are flipped—hence, for example, the title Blackwash, instead of Whitewash. Names of individuals, places, events, laws, and so on, are altered to fit this fictional stage. However, the facts that shore up this imaginary scenario are only too real. More ▶ Recommended Reads Sister Mother Warrior by Vanessa Riley Acclaimed author of Island Queen Vanessa Riley brings readers a vivid, sweeping novel of the Haitian Revolution based on the true-life stories of two extraordinary women: the first Empress of Haiti, Marie-Claire Bonheur, and Gran Toya, a West African-born warrior who helped lead the rebellion that drove out the French and freed the enslaved people of Haiti. Gran Toya: Born in West Africa, Abdaraya Toya was one of the legendary minos—women called “Dahomeyan Amazons” by the Europeans—who were specially chosen female warriors consecrated to the King of Dahomey. Betrayed by an enemy, kidnapped, and sold into slavery, Toya wound up in the French colony of Saint Domingue, where she became a force to be reckoned with on its sugar plantations: a healer and an authority figure among the enslaved. Among the motherless children she helped raise was a man who would become the revolutionary Jean-Jacques Dessalines. More ▶ Carl Weber’s Kingpins: Brooklyn by Brandie Davis In the Eighties and Nineties, Wesley Evans, better known as Ruby, was Brooklyn’s wealthiest, longest reigning kingpin. Accomplishing all it took to make history, including rubbing elbows with celebrities and expanding his businesses out of state, he avoided all the bounties put on his head and NYPD’s handcuffs. Ruby set the bar in Brooklyn, and when he finally became a legit family man, he left behind rules that would ensure not only success, but also humility, for the kings who would follow him. More ▶ Subversive Habits: Black Catholic Nuns in the Long African American Freedom Struggle by Shannen Dee Williams In Subversive Habits, Shannen Dee Williams provides the first full history of Black Catholic nuns in the United States, hailing them as the forgotten prophets of Catholicism and democracy. Drawing on oral histories and previously sealed Church records, Williams demonstrates how master narratives of women’s religious life and Catholic commitments to racial and gender justice fundamentally change when the lives and experiences of African American nuns are taken seriously. For Black Catholic women and girls, embracing the celibate religious state constituted a radical act of resistance to white supremacy and the sexual terrorism built into chattel slavery and segregation. More ▶ We Are Being Targeted with Fake News, and it is Killing Us Truth Check Created by The Center for Black Health & Equity Black communities are constantly flooded with misinformation on social media in the form of hoaxes, false claims, and flat-out lies. With the simple click of a button — a like, a share, a comment — fake and harmful info in your newsfeed can spread out of control. Truth Check is about arming ourselves with the tools we need to stop the spread of misinformation. Jenifer Lewis composed a compelling song explaining the importance of checking your news sources Watch her Video ▶ Dear Troy, Your support is crucial to helping us improve AALBC..com. Your paid subscriptions, book purchases, suggestions, engagement on the site, social sharing, advertisements, and feedback help support AALBC’s mission of celebrating Black culture through books. Peace and Love, Troy Johnson Founder & Webmaster, AALBC.com Consider sponsoring our eNewsletter or a dedicated email. ★ AALBC.com eNewsletter – July 13, 2022 - Issue #363

There is your mistake my friend. There are things that our senses are simply incapable of perceiving. This is why you can't accept the fact there is only one human race. You are going by what you eyes can see and what the culture has taught you and it is not serving you well.

I not sure, you are a musician and may know more. The discoverability of the variety of music out there today (as with books) has become more challenging today despite the web and technology. So I don’t know what am missing. That said i mostly listen to music before my time. Sly Stone heyday was really my parents generation. A lot of the jazz i listen to was recorded before i was born. i don’t listen to the really popular music (on the charts) unless I’m in public. Much of the popular local music never makes the charts (like Black books). There is a gene of music i call it ”hole in the wall music.” A local, Tampa, musician who recently passed was Bishop Bullwinkle was fun. @Cynique house music was extremely popular in NYC when i was a young adult.

Hey @Pioneer1 Cube's rap was creative but I could not help but thing of one of the songs that was sampled, You Can Make it if You Try by Sly and the Family Stone Both songs are in reaction to oppression. Which song serves us better?

While the transgenerational epigenetic impact of slavery is apparently a thing, I seriously doubt we will ever be compensated for the evil of slavery. They won't even give us universal heath care, cover our education, or stop locking us up for BS... I have a glass of wine (or two) most evenings 😉

@Greg think for a moment. Where did human life begin? Where do the majority of people on earth live today? Consider your covid info; a better question to consider would be: The U.S. makes up 4% of the world's population but, despite our wealth and technology, why do we make of 16% of the world's Covid deaths? American's die at a far greater rate than people in China or ANY African country. If you look at the demographic make up of the American Covid deaths, and considered those relative to the rest of the world, you'd be forced to consider a a difference set of issues and questions. I don't really expect you to think too deeply on the subject, but others may be willing to consider these things in reaction to the data you shared (assuming it is even true).

This is taken out of context and is not the point of what I shared. The implication of what you have attributed to me is that all news is fake, what I communicated in my post was that we are being targeted by fake news. You called into question AP. I responded that you need to research what AP does and clarified that the source of much this fake news is sources from social media. To be clear statements like the "news" is fake, a Trump talking point, is unnuanced and one that I reject. I guess you never heard about Yellow Journalism? Again, no. Black people have been fighting against white racism in the media for two centuries. Black-owned and operated newspapers led the way. Today, Google marginalizes their websites and we don't subscribe to them. As a result, their efforts and impact are thwarted. Instead we get "news" from Twitter. @Pioneer1 in much the same way you support this site financially, and by your posts, we have to do the same for newspapers. We all need to pick a Black owned newspaper and subscribe to it -- I don't even care if you don't read it. Our support of what they do for our communities is important. To @ProfD's points it does not have to be that way. We as a people simply don't provide the same level of support for Black media, that we do for white media. All the way from investment to the consumer we just don't get the same level of support. Black people have to run around begging for support from Black people, talking about about FUBU, Support Black Owned Businesses, yada yada. White people have angel investors, the capital markets, inherited wealth, and the support of Black and white people and their disposal... You don't know much about the world Greg. How would you like to be living in any of the major cities across Ukraine right now? Is there a Black population there, we don't know about, doing all the killing and raping?

OK Pioneer, given. my clarification, Del's correction, and your apparent understanding what he meant, why continue the rigmarole? Just answer the question, if you care to 🤔

@Pioneer1 it does not sound like you understand what AP does. You should consider researching what they do, I suspect you'll come away with a different impression. To your point, sources do matter. Main stream news, or rather where most people consume news is often derived from social media. It is not uncommon for me to read something sourced from social media only to discover that it was taken out of context and spun. If it is information that matters, you have to track down sources, as Jenifer so eloquently sang. The reality is most people don't do this -- who has the time and energy? It is much easier to have "news" algorithmically curated to keep you engaged, pushed to you in your feed., rather than having to seek it out. Collectively, this is to our detriment. The clearest example of this is reflected in who we vote into office. Given the outcomes the best people are discouraged from running and the quality of who is left continues to decline, along with new laws, appointees, and confidence in our government..

Pioneer consider the set of everything you believe. Lets say you are provided with additional, new information, outside your set of preexisting beliefs that says none of your set of beliefs are true. I already know what you will do. You will reject the new information and hold, even more firmly, onto you previous set of beliefs. Consider your stance on multiple races and the genetic basis for it as an example. But lets dispense with with your argument for a moment; do you understand the spirit of Del's question, or do you reject that notion too?

Hey @Delano are you up on this: https://www.jovianarchive.com/get_your_chart? If you plug in your information can you make heads or tails of it? If so does it seem accurate to you? Here is my chart:

A public service announcement from Truth Check, featuring Jenifer Lewis. Truth Check was created by The Center for Black Health & Equity

Says the Troll... Trolls also contiguously repeat false even absurd statements (ex Troy denies the existence of white racism). As far as labeling you a troll. Any one who has been here more than 5 minutes knows calling someone a troll is not something I do lightly. I call 'em as I see 'em.

I would be amazed and filled with wonder -- seriously.

Here we go... Again more troll-like behavior on @Stefan's part. Stefan, troll or not, you exhibit troll-like behavior from time to time. I'm not involved in the conservation, why drag me into it? Did you tag me by mistake, or are you simply engaging in troll-like behavior.

This is true, but there is value is in remaining opaque.

Depends on how you look at it. I could give concrete example to the contrary but that would force be to put people’s business street. One thing i will say or that while crooked people can more easily rise to greater heights it usually catches up with them. But sometimes it doesn’t… think Marlo Stansfield from The Wire 😉

That would be a “yes” for Jimmy. By the time i came around the faux nobility of the Kennedy’s had worn off. Monroe, Chappiqudic (too lazy to look up spelling), old man Joe’s bootlegging… Still I remember a few Black homes where Kennedy’s photo was displayed along side MLK’s and white Jesus. All things being equal people who are willing to say or do anything will often do better in not just politics but in life.

Clinton’s repeal of rules governing Wall Street was a boon to the wealthy but those changes ultimately lead to the derivatives debacle which caused a housing crisis in which many people lost their homes. We never really fully recovered from that….

This is high praise indeed. Nah that is not it. Anyone who have been online for as long as I have knows it is not as simple as that. A review of this forum's archives will tell you that. Oh brother... come on now. My allowing this statement and many others you have made should tell you otherwise... But to @Stefan's point. One of the well know strategies of the Republicans is to overwhelm the media with lies. Apparently it doesn't even matter if the lies are not believed. Just getting them out there is enough to benefit the Republicans. The fact that this site is a target of such a campaign simply means it is, presumably, significant enough to make a difference. Personally, I agree with Cynique overall assessment of Greg, and I think I and others have offered adequate responses to their posts. If there were 50 Greg's bum rushing the forums with the same type of posts I'd have to do something, and that means better understanding the nature of the posts, where they are coming from, are the using a VPN, are the accounts used elsewhere, etc.?

I can get with that 🙂 this is not incompatible with with del’s statement. Though in your case one does not have to be agitated, they are just comfortable not knowing what they don’t know… until some one challenged them with greater knowledge, which can cause agitation especially if the new knowledge requires changing an existing belief. religion is not really a good example, because it is based upon faith not “knowledge.” Knowledge exists beyond and is independent of what someone believes. My belief in Santa Clause bringing me presents every year in sleigh from the North Pole is confusion but most of us accept the knowledge that our parents put the presents under the tree.