Troy

Now that was a response I did not expect from Greg. 😆 Pioneer, I have no immediate plans to ban Greg, indeed I asked ya'll for your thoughts on the matter and no one wanted to ban Greg. Indeed most enjoyed critiquing their arguments. Shoot, Greg even inspired @Cynique to share her rapier wit and scathing critique which many of us miss. Obviously, there are people who share Greg's worldview and some of them are Black. The Uncle Ruckus archetype, which Greg epitomizes so well, was not created out of thin air by Aaron McGruder. The reasons AALBC.com, at this point, does not enjoy being embraced by a much larger portion of the Black community are complex. One is that is a book site and despite the antics on this forum it is a relatively serious one, not high brow (thought some feel that way), but not trying to appeal to the lowest common demotivator with the kind of content that you can see on tiktok. @Pioneer1, the above speaks to your point about "...Black people were uninterested in serious issues and were more interested in having a good time..." This of course is not universally true, but... it is the reason there is virtually no participation on the literary forum. It is not like htey just dropped off the web, they are on Goodreads and Facebook discussing books. which leads me to the another reason: The white man's ice is still colder... It is a cliché, but it is one of the first lessons I learned as an entrepreneur... That said this site does not survive without the support of others. I end every newsletter with that message because it is true. The site survives because of the support of people of all colors and at all levels. If that ever ends the site id dead.

New book coming from AALBC.com.

ROTFLMBAO! @Pioneer1 I don't think you are like Uncle Ruckus in general, but on the subject of the history of racism, you two are no different. Like UR you through out something that is false and when challenged you fail to provide anything to back up your claim. At best you'll say prove me wrong. Evidence that is produced is rejected and the argument become pointless --again a Greg/troll-like characteristic.

Confusion is just a special case of ignorance. Information may have been relayed to you, but if you are unable to comprehend it because you are not intelligent enough or it was poorly explained you are still ignorant. Can one speak about something they are completely ignorant about? I don't think so. But speculation, pondering, and inquiry is what make life interesting. Now that is an interesting topic. You don't strike me a world weary as you still actively engage in the world. Your rebuttals to Uncle Ruckus took time and thought to craft and I think we all were both informed and amused 🙂 A truly world weary person would have simply ignored UR, indeed they would even be on here reading this silliness 😉

If you brought early and sold before the crash you made a ton of money, But the real money is in charging others to teach them how you made money. To me @Pioneer1 that is the real potential for scams come in. Of course there were some straight up crypto scams, but I don't think Bitcoin is one. Blockchain is probably here to stay, but like the WWW there needs to be some regulation otherwise people will get exploited. I don't even know how much my little investment in crypto is worth today. I use a cold storage wallet -- which I just came across after three months of not being able to out my finger on it (or my keys)... Maybe in 10 years the value would have increased. I'm treating it like a savings bond, albeit a very volatile one 😉

I guess you've been following the prices of Ethereum and Bitcoin. It would be interesting to know how many people brought at the wrong time and have lost a ton of money. I wonder how long it will take to recover this losses, or even if it will ever happen?

It does not look like much of an assault to me.

The system is jacked up. Choose the lessor of two evils, but choose. Dont let your vote not be counted -- especially if you are in a swing state.

No the checks from Amazon will never be as big as the ad checks. The links I added to Amazon were more a courtesy to readers and authors than a financial benefit to me. Amazon current pays a 4% commission on eBook sales to affiliates. Here is the revenue from a typical eBooks that I sold since adding the affiliate links: The Blacker the Berry: A Novel of Negro Life: A Library of America eBook Classic - 1 $2.99 $0.12 $0,12 (12 cents) is my affiliate commission for selling that ebook. I have to sell a whole lot of ebooks to make a living 🙂 But maybe over time I will sell enough of them to have a eBook bestsellers list. You have to look sideways an any real bookseller who sends people to Amazon to buy anything. By "real" booksellers mean an entity that directly fulfills book orders, as opposed to an affiliate site that uses another business to process their orders (collect payment, ship books, etc). For eBooks I'm now acting as an Amazon affiliate. I I've tried other affiliate programs for eBooks, but people simply don't by books via those programs either and they are technically more difficult to implement. @Mel Hopkins I don't understand your question. Are you saying that Apple's eBooks are less expensive and are asking me why people still buy Amazon's ebooks?

I assume I'm ignorant in most cases. One can not know what they do not know. We are all ignorant about something and ignorance is relative. Sometimes you can tell when you are more ignorant than someone else. But you can be so ignorant on a subject that you don't even know when you are being feed a lot of bullshit, from someone even more ignorant. I never comment on The conversations @Pioneer1 and @Chevdove have on the Bible, I don't know enough about the subject to even step foot into one of those conversations 🙂

I know uncle Ruckus did not know, and does not want to know, but pioneer we’ve gone over this many times before, so you can’t claim to not know. You simply refuse to accept the truth. Unfortunately, on this point? this makes you no different than our our friend UR. still if you can find a case of racism over 1,000 years ago, I’m all eyes.

I strongly disagree with this. The media give trump attention. Many people seek attention indeed a lot of them pay for it and don't get nearly has much. Think about the presidential election. Trump got more media attention than all of the other candidates combined. As you suggested @Stefan I don't believe the people wanted all of this attention heaped onto trump, but if you've even driven a car on the highway you know an accident draws attention. Even the people pissed off for the delay will slow down and look. Not necessarily Professor, I have to side with @Stefanon this one: despite the electoral college, the gerrymandering, the changes to the election laws, and BS calms of voter fraud, if everyone person who did not want Trump in office voted Trump can not win. But the problem is too many of us spend to much time online and have become convinced that our vote does not matter, so we sit out elections especially the midterms. VOTE it matters.

Pioneer, Uncle Ruckus, how could racism have been around longer than the concept of race? Do tell.

...most importantly the capital markets choose winners out the gate. Wow! LOL! What does Facebook know that you might not know ... yet? 😝 "brag" Interesting word I was not aware that I came across that way. At any rate, there are other sources of information that TV or even the world wide web. I simply do not consume news from social media or some of the site designed to attract visitors versus providing information. For example I just finished reading a scathing account of the trump white house and steve Banon's impact it is eye opening, but you are simply not going to red that on Facebook. The article was in The Atlantic they take the time and space to cover subjects with the nuance and depth you will rarely find for free on the web. I actually agree with this statement, but that is a very different thing than saying that all republican or trump supporters are racists, which I disagree with The other thing we really should look at is what is to be a racist? There are Black people who are afraid big dark skinned Black men. This is because they live in America and are fed a steady diet of the crap Uncle Ruckus has been sharing here-- the web has just made this worse. A white person subjected to the same nonsense and who feels the same fear of Black men is racist. Racism is profitable. Trump is profitable. Our free web-based news spends a great deal of time talking about trump and racism -- fanning the flames. This attention gave Trump the presidency and it also makes some people believe racsim is worst today than it was in the 19th century.

I previously replied to this post from my phone, but I apparently did not hit submit. Yesterday I reintroduced Google ads but greatly reduced the number and eliminated the most intrusive one like the interstitials (the ones that pop up in between page views, the and crawler ads (that appear at the bottom of the page), and the really large ones that appears at the top of the page before all the content. These of course are the most lucrative ads. Hopefully the ones that remain are much less intrusive. @Delano Google ads are targeted to the viewers online behavior if you are seeing, "buxom Christian Singles" I cant imagine what your browsing history looks like 🥰 @richardmurray I actually do have my own advertising system: https://aalbc.advertserve.com/advertpro/servlet/control/welcome and have for well over 15 years. This is what I use I to sell ads directly. There was a time when I was serving ads on other Black websites. But the problem is there really are not that many sites with enough traffic and willing to work with me. Site with sufficient traffic sell their ad inventory to bigger networks like Google. Monopolies are a bad thing. I've been experimenting with another ad network, so far it is not going very well... @Cynique Of course hate who you want, but I think there is a difference between your hatred of the republican party and my so called hatred of Amazon. For example, I don't hate users of Amazon. I completely understand their motivations. What I dislike is Amazon ability to create a monopoly and manipulate the general public into believing it is a good thing. Cynique, you seem to paint all republican with the same broad brush. From your perspective; You hate Trump. Trump is a Republican therefore you hate all republicans. Others assert that all white racists are republicans, therefore all Trump supporter are racist. Both arguments are flawed, but they are emotional and you never convince anyone that some can find trump appealing and not be a racist or even a republican for that matter. The fact the many people who voted for Obama (twice) vote for Trump casts doubt if not disproves these notions. @Mel Hopkins I don't need to tell you that you are in the minority when it comes to buying your eBooks from Apple. As with online physical book sales, Amazon sells more ebooks than all other competitors combined. Many Black authors give Amazon exclusivity so their ebooks are only available from Amazon. Also, because of Amazon's tech It only took me a few minutes to provide links to Amazon, for ebooks, for every book on my site. No, I do not like feeding into Amazon's monopoly While Meta's Facebook and Instagram are dominant -- as a book seller I don't have to use them. Amazon is virtually impossible to ignore...

PULL!

Uncle Ruckus demonizing Black men again... No one here is buying into your crap.

Nah, the only motivation of the media is the profit. If we are served in any way it is purely incidental.

This forum is actually several forums. The very first forum was a Black book discussion forum. This forum the race, culture forum came later after conversations on the book forum often stayed away from books. Immediately participation in on this forum easily eclipsed the book forum. Here I moderate with a very lightly. The book forum is very different and i moderate they’re very differently. If post is not about books I move it or delete it. The problem is very few people post on the book forum. the reasons are plentiful, but a the consequence is that collectively we don’t support our own platforms. people tolerateva lot more from the bigger platforms. They’ll give Facebook all of their information, but balk at providing a real name and email address here. This is so important and is scary. People believe the stuff they read on Twitter and their world view is distorted. It is like someone coming here and believing everything @Greg posted. On Twitter Greg would easily find their tribe and and have their misinformation reinforced and sucking in other people along the way. Sure social media is not all bad, but for me the good does not outweigh the bad, so i limit my use to posting about AALBC and reacting to those posts. Facebook wants to be the WWW so their algorithm is essentially anti-website and has largely become unusable to me. But people post there because that is were people go. They’ve been manipulated by likes into posting. They are looking into people personal lives a feel they are getting a true picture; it has changed the nature of some friendships… people are getting depressed looking at other peoples fake lives, through Digitally optimized photos, and filtered through Facebook engagement algorithm.

It always about class. The race BS was all about dividing the oppressed people. Greed. This is why our university system is so *ucked up when it comes to serving anyone who is not rich.

Well you are indeed the better man 🙂

National Book Award-winning and New York Times bestselling author Ibram X. Kendi (How to Be an Antiracist, Antiracist Baby) returns with a new picture book that serves as a modern bedtime classic. As children all over the world get ready for bed, the moon watches over them. The moon knows that when we sleep, we dream. And when we dream, we imagine what is possible and what the world can be. With dynamic, imaginative art and poetic prose, Goodnight Racism delivers important messages about antiracism, justice, and equality in an easy-to-read format that empowers readers both big and small. Goodnight Racism gives children the language to dream of a better world and is the perfect book to add to their social justice toolkit. Buy Now ▶ AALBC Book Reviews Miss Chloe: A Literary Friendship with Toni Morrison by A.J. Verdelle “Miss Chloe is an important book, dealing with the friendship of A. J. Verdelle and Toni Morrison. It's about the close bond between them as women, writers, and creative artists. …it's also a clinic about creative writing, publishing, and inspiration.” —Robert Fleming, AALBC Book Review and Author of Evil Never Sleeps Verdelle describes Toni Morrison aka Chloe A. Wofford, the wise, reflective woman from the small town of Lorain, Ohio. She had been a faithful reader of Morrison’s complex, enlightening novels, notably The Bluest Eye and Beloved, so the inevitable meeting occurred at a church function in Boston. Her rendition of the meeting with the legendary author is priceless and the rest is history. More ▶ Noteworthy New Books She Memes Well: Essays by Quinta Brunson From comedian Quinta Brunson (creator and star of Abbott Elementary) comes a deeply personal and funny collection of essays about trying to make it when you’re struggling, the importance of staying true to your roots, and how she’s redefined humor online. Quinta Brunson is a master at breaking the internet. Before having any traditional background in media, her humorous videos were the first to go viral on Instagram’s platform. From there, Brunson’s wryly observant POV helped cement her status in the comedy world at large, with roles on HBO, Netflix, ABC, Adult Swim, BuzzFeed, the CW, and Comedy Central. Now, Brunson is bringing her comedic chops to the page in She Memes Well, an earnest, laugh-out-loud collection about this unusual road to notoriety. More ▶ Game: An Autobiography by Grant Hill Grant Hill always had game. His choice of college was a subject of national interest, and his arrival at Duke University cemented the program’s arrival at the top. In his freshman year, he led the team to its first NCAA championship and three championship appearances in four years. His Duke career produced some of the most iconic moments in college basketball history, and Coach K proved to be a lifelong mentor. Later, as one of the NBA’s best players and a new face of the Detroit Pistons franchise, Hill was the first person with the potential to give Michael Jordan a run for his money, not just as a player but as a brand. His $45 million rookie contract was almost the least of it. He turned down Nike for Fila, and soon Method Man and Tupac Shakur were wearing his shoes. More ▶ Under the Skin: The Hidden Toll of Racism on American Lives and on the Health of Our Nation by Linda Villarosa In 2018, Linda Villarosa’s New York Times Magazine article on maternal and infant mortality among black mothers and babies in America caused an awakening. Hundreds of studies had previously established a link between racial discrimination and the health of Black Americans, with little progress toward solutions. But Villarosa’s article exposing that a Black woman with a college education is as likely to die or nearly die in childbirth as a white woman with an eighth-grade education made racial disparities in health care impossible to ignore. Now, in Under the Skin, Linda Villarosa lays bare the forces in the American healthcare system and in American society that cause Black people to “live sicker and die quicker” compared to their white counterparts. 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. What happens when these rules are not followed… More ▶ Dele Weds Destiny by Tomi Obaro “Fast-paced, glamorous, and bursting with emotion…. The bonds between women—as friends, and across the generations—are the jewels that make this story shine.” —Tayari Jones, author of An American Marriage The story of three once-inseparable college friends in Nigeria who reunite for the first time in thirty years at a lavish wedding in Lagos for one of their daughters—a sparkling debut novel about mothers and daughters, culture and class, sex and love, and the extraordinary resilience of female friendship. More ▶ Troy Johnson Appeared on Black Authors Matter TV Black Authors Matter TV Black Authors Matter TV is a weekly, live-streamed program where authors, publishers, bookstore owners, book club facilitators, book marketers, and other movers and shakers in the African-American literature arena are interviewed. BAM TV is live-streamed every Tuesday on the National Black Book Festival's Facebook page from 7 to 9 pm CST. On May 24, 2022, Troy Johnson, Brandon Massey, and Mary Monroe appeared on the Black Authors Matter TV podcast. Listen Now ▶ Dear Reader, 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 This message is sponsored by Kokila. Consider sponsoring our eNewsletter or a dedicated email. ★ AALBC.com eNewsletter – June 28, 2022 - Issue #362

Throwing up my hands, completely exasperated. 🙄

This is what I mean by troll-like behavior. Now you accuse me of lying -- an unfounded accusation that you throw out there just to be a pain or for fun. I have not idea what motivates and informs your statements particularly as they relate to me, but they are often not intended to advance dialogue or to learn anything... Trolling

Thanks Denise we go way back 🙂