Troy

Personally, I’m not so easily swayed by a pretty face or banging body — they are a dime a dozen. My opinion of the Guardian has been diminished a bit by their trolling of Twitter for tweets (they can’t get Candice in the phone?). Then they post a misleading heading line, but are clearer in the actual article. Candice actually said: “When do we deploy? Of course, I ask that in jest because we all know the real answer. What is happening in Australia under the guise of a virus … is federal overreach, tyranny, totalitarianism – the kind that gives birth to evil dictatorships and human atrocities,” Candice recognizes the U.S. is not deploying troops to Australia. But she also knows her inflammatory comments will get her the media coverage she needs to continue building a following. meanwhile the guardian is fanning the flames of hate and division, instigating dissent between the U.S. and the Aussies from London is the problem — all for a few more eyeballs. Candice should be a non issue. Like Trump the desperate media has given Candice a platform which she is exploiting brilliantly.

There has never been a shortage of celebrities, not just Black ones, willing to do anything to maximize their wealth. Is there any record of a Black person, in entertainment, who sought to darken their skin, or are they always trying to lighten it. We know white women have been known to seek to darken their skin. I don't Bey is "selling out" as in selling out Black people. I think she is an A-list celebrity and is behaving like one. Try to shoe horn our senilities on to her in an effort to understand her motivation is a futile exercise. I know I liked when i skin got tanned in the summer, in fact I prefer my darker completed self. It was a running joke in my family that I believe my skin color is really darker than it is 😉 I always said my Nubianess is coming out as my skin darkened in the summer. In Florida I was able to keep my Nubianess all year long 🙂 That is why we are not bazillionaire. The Carters not only know what to do to get super rich thet are willing to do it. Right on!

A rose by any other name... For real! Hey @Delano did you create this from scratch or leverage existing hieroglyphics (symbols)?

LBYR Contact: Marisa Russell, Executive Director of Publicity (212) 364-1548; marisa.russell@hbgusa.com Jerry Pinkney, Caldecott Medal–Winning Illustrator, 1939–2021 New York, NY (October 20, 2021)—Little, Brown Books for Young Readers is saddened to announce the passing of Jerry Pinkney, one of the most heralded children’s book illustrators of all time. The illustrator of more than one hundred books, he had the rare distinction of being the recipient of five Caldecott Honors and the winner of the 2010 Caldecott Medal for The Lion and the Mouse. He died at age eighty-two after a brief non-Covid-related illness on Wednesday, October 20, 2021. A titan in the publishing industry, Pinkney was in the vanguard of those depicting Black life in children’s books and a champion of the work of emerging Black artists and illustrators. He won the Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award five times and the Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor four times, and was awarded the 2016 Laura Ingalls Wilder Award for lifetime achievement (now known as the Children’s Literature Legacy Award) and the 2016 Coretta Scott King—Virginia Hamilton Award for lifetime achievement. He found great success in retellings that featured animal characters and was the creator of such acclaimed works as The Tortoise & the Hare (2013) and 2020’s The Little Mermaid, which the New York Times Book Review called “lovingly rendered with rich detail.” At the time of his death, he was working on a memoir with his wife, minister and author Gloria Jean Pinkney, his high school sweetheart of sixty-four years, detailing his childhood struggling with a learning disability and his path to becoming an artist against the odds, to be published by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers. “Jerry was a devoted husband, father, grandfather, and great-grandfather whose impact influenced the creative endeavors of so many in our family,” says Gloria Jean Pinkney. Megan Tingley, Executive Vice President and Publisher, LBYR, said, “Jerry’s indefatigable attention to and love of his craft was unmatched, and he never stopped asking for his work to be pushed and challenged. Everyone he worked with was touched by his infectious delight in the act of creation, which never waned, and his generous spirit of kindness and collaboration.” Andrea Spooner, VP, Editorial Director, LBYR, commented, “Jerry Pinkney was a true artistic legend of the children’s book industry for more than half a century, and it’s fair to say the industry today might look very different without his groundbreaking work. As someone who worked with Jerry for more than twenty-five years, I can say that every interaction with him was a meaningful one. He brought great joy, excellence, genuine personal connection, and dignity into every aspect of his work and being, and we will all miss him dearly.” A native of Philadelphia, Jerry Pinkney studied at the Philadelphia College of Art (now the University of the Arts). He began illustrating children’s books in 1964 with The Adventures of Spider: West African Folktales, and was also the illustrator of the original iconic cover of Mildred Taylor’s Newbery Award–winning classic Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry. He also illustrated the first eight Black History stamps for the US Postal Service, and served on the Citizens’ Stamp Advisory Committee. He was a member of the National Endowment for the Arts, was the first children’s book illustrator elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, was elected into the Society of Illustrators Hall of Fame, and was the most exhibited illustrator in American museums. In advice for children, Jerry Pinkney said, “For the young person who is struggling in school, never forget there are many different ways to learn. Be curious. Do not be afraid to try. Do not be disappointed when making mistakes. You will discover your own unique way of understanding the things being taught. Learn from mistakes. Everything that happens to you will frame who you are, and who you will become. Your path to success will follow.” Jerry Pinkney is survived by his wife of sixty-one years, as well as by his daughter, Troy, and his three sons, Brian, Scott, and Myles Pinkney, all artists, and nine living grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. In lieu of flowers, please donate to the Dyslexia Foundation (dyslexiafoundation.org) or the Teatown Lake Reservation Preserve and Education Center (teatown.org). About Little, Brown Books for Young Readers Little, Brown Books for Young Readers is a division of Hachette Book Group, a leading trade publisher based in New York and a division of Hachette Livre, the third-largest trade and educational publisher in the world. HBG is made up of eight publishing groups: Little, Brown and Company, Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, Grand Central Publishing, Perseus Books, Orbit, Hachette Nashville, Hachette Audio, and Workman. For more information, visit hbgusa.com. # # #

From the 10/18/2021 issue of Publishers Weekly “Another Pandemic Surprise: A Mini Indie Bookstore Boom” PW showed AALBC some love by leading with a photo from my pop-up store on Black Wall Street 🙂 Please check out the article and use the social sharing icon to it with others.

Actually, it is our forum. Pioneer foots the bill (though he would probably never admit it) and I manage it. But it is pointless without participants and readers, both of which have increased due in part to YOUR participation. Heavens to Betsy, Mzuri, why do you care so much about my picking apart the article? I’m glad you posted it. I think it was great fodder for discussion. until you answered the question which you did finally, Please don’t hold your tongue on my account. Feel free to say what ever you want — often what is written here i disagree with or don’t know enough about (or care enough) to have a strong opinion one way or the other. What interests me is the ideas — even the ones i disagree with. I also enjoy the humor and learning new things. I enjoy the fellowship. I also enjoy being more honest… the time shifting allows me to express ideas more clearly that i might be able to on the spot. I’m also not constrained by visual cues that might make me hold my tongue in the real world. really? i did not know that until now. So who actually does it? How can the IRS enforce this? yes the record is public, but the transaction are anonymous. One could also transfer between alt currencies and really complicate tracking. the reward gets halved every 4 years but the value, if it continues to increase will continue to make business sense for the biggest players. They will be Ming going long after we are gone… please share the link to the article @Mel Hopkins I’m glad Jet was covering the subject in 2018. @Pioneer1 you are going off the deep end you only pay taxes when you realize a gain and depending on how long your hold the coin and what your income is you can minimize our eliminate tax liability. Is your money really stuffed inside a mattress?

@Mzuri I never said the article was "fake." I wrote the article was misleading and that tends to confuse people, because clearly two little kids do not have the wherewithal to profit from mining cryptocurrency. This is a important distinction, perhaps nuisance distinction that I'm apparently unable to explain. Did you read the white paper. No one group controls the the block chain which crypto rides on. That is one of the advantages of it -- just like the internet. Again what concerns me, are we going to fail to establish our own businesses or are we going to use white owned businesses. I know, but that was not what the article you shared discussed. But if you are speaking in general are you saying that you or I can make $100 (a day month) mining some other crypto currency today? Wait, what?! I know you must be joking LOL! I'm all about ownership. CNN, Fortune and the others can write disingenuous articles with click-baity titles to sell ads, but trust me the owners of these publications are positioning themselves to benefit from the crypto currently. We (Black folk) can not let this discourage us from understanding the technology for, like the Internet, we will all be let out in the cold. It is a fact that Black men provide most of the talent in the NFL, but despite some high profile wages, they share a paltry portion of the wealth. Don't even get me started on the athletes who spent their entire youth working toward making the NFL, entertain, mostly white folk and not even getting a college degree... Call it complaining the fact of the matter is we could develop our own league, but we will not because collectively we have been trained -- brainwashed -- to into be workers not owners. We also have been trained to believe that the white man's ice is colder, which may be true, because they get all of our support, and we serve at their largess...

In my mailbox today. I don't see how calling yourself a "New Afrikan" describes and describes you as a citizen of both the Republic of New Afrika and the United States of America. Anywho, here is the original email: --------------- The term African-American is disparaging if Black People use it to indicate they are citizens of the United States. Citizens of the United States are called Americans; a hyphen indicates you are not all the way there. Over the years people have used a lot of terms that did not properly represent who We are. African American is as much one of them as Afro-American, Negro and Colored. Recognizing yourself as a New Afrikan universally eliminates the element of inequality that terms like African-American carry. Recognizing yourself as a New Afrikan makes you a whole dual citizen of both the Republic of New Afrika (“New Afrikan”) and the United States of America (“American”). Visit my website at www.asetbooks.com and my youtube channel at https://youtube.com/channel/UC7fEkUP01ViblCH1W6XkGTA for more of what We need to be aware of. We are Black People, We are New Afrikans. We are not dark-skinned white people. We need a nation of Our own. Mba Mbulu

I don’t agree with this. I have contempt for the behavior of some people, but would stop way sort of indicting a group of people simply because they have less melanin. As you know race is a social construct, other than having less protection against the sun, they are no different than anyone else. Of course their are cultural, class, ethnic, religious, political, and other differences, but they have little to do with skin color — other than the differences we impose.

Use of the word “nigger,” like any other word, should be used when appropriate.

Then we are operating on different definitions of the word earn. If your operating expenses exceed your revenue then you have earned nothing which was not what the article said. You obviously have a strong opinion in favor of the article and feel the need to defend it. I feel I’m a bit more objective regarding it and I’m just trying to explain why some people will look at it as hype. Even the language are used to defend it is not exactly encouraging; “A couple of thousand is simply a figure of speech.” What did that mean? or “So it might actually be an initial investment of $7,000+” Really? That is a stretch based upon what was in the article. The video you shared made my point regarding the effort to really profit from bitcoin mining. So, you are saying that one can make $100 (daily?) bitcoin? I know this comment was directed to @daniellegfny, But I think it was directly related. I mentioned in my opening statement in this conversation that I am getting into the NFT space. I’m even considering creating a marketplace for Black creators. My biggest concern is the black consumer. @daniellegfny Is an early adopter I am not sure how much demand it will be for his NFT and it will not sell itself, so he will need to promote the NFT — which he doing as we all now know about it. I think it is an interesting experiment and it won’t cost him too much to test out the waters. I was involved in the Internet since it’s inception selling books on this newfangled thing called the World Wide Web Black people were afraid to enter their credit card information on the web to buy anything. Of course all that is different today but I recall the black community lagging behind in the space. When we finally caught we up supported the larger white owned and corporate sites, and as a result today Black ownership is severely lacking on the WWW today. As I said at the beginning of this conversation I think cryptocurrency is the future and my concern here is that we will fall behind fail to adapt to technology and run businesses for fear of scams. It would be the 21st century equivalent of storing your money under your mattress.

I read the article, so why lead with "These 14- and 9-year-old siblings earn over $30,000 a month mining cryptocurrency" or your paraphrasing "14- and 9-year-old siblings earn over $30,000 a month" when it is not really the truth. You admit the articles says the dad took out a loan (how much money did he borrow), and that they are renting space (how much space how much does it cost?). Neither of these things is something a 9 and 14 years old can do on their own -- no matter how precocious they appear in the interview. The truth of the matter is it takes a lot more than a few $3K graphics to mine bitcoin. You need large scale operation with dedicated computers optimized for mining to make this profitable today -- and they may actually have that, but don't try to tell me that a couple of kids set all this up. Look, I know media use click-baity headlines. "...9-year-old siblings earn over $30,000..." to attract eyeballs to serve ads, but all this does is confuse people. The fact that you came away from the article with the notion that: Makes my point. Others see the whole space as Ponzi scheme because the reporting on this subject is so poor. So I'm not surprised that @Pioneer1 would have that impression you really have to dig and do a lot of filter to begin to understand what is going on. Most people do. Again, I rarely use paper currency, the desire to reduce the number of touch points during the pandemic has only increased this. The US lags most industrial nations with it comes electronic transactions. I guess it depends on the product you are pushing and your tolerance for selling products lacking in, or of dubious value. I can see what you would feel this way, but if your frame of reference is paper money, the paradigm shift my be difficult to wrap you head around (sort of like the issue of race 😉) Read Satoshi Nakamoto's white paper, "Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System." It is only and you can review the section on "Privacy" and see why the IRS can't trace it.

I read the article, so why lead with "These 14- and 9-year-old siblings earn over $30,000 a month mining cryptocurrency" or your paraphrasing "14- and 9-year-old siblings earn over $30,000 a month" when it is not really the truth. You admit the articles says the dad took out a loan (how much money did he borrow), and that they are renting space (how much space how much does it cost?). Neither of these things is something a 9 and 14 years old can do on their own -- no matter how precocious they appear in the interview. The truth of the matter is it takes a lot more than a few $3K graphics to mine bitcoin. You need large scale operation with dedicated computers optimized for mining to make this profitable today -- and they may actually have that, but don't try to tell me that a couple of kids set all this up. Look, I know media use click-baity headlines. "...9-year-old siblings earn over $30,000..." to attract eyeballs to serve ads, but all this does is confuse people. The fact that you came away from the article with the notion that: Makes my point. Others see the whole space as Ponzi scheme because the reporting on this subject is so poor. So I'm not surprised that @Pioneer1 would have that impression you really have to dig and do a lot of filter to begin to understand what is going on. Most people do. Again, I rarely use paper currency, the desire to reduce the number of touch points during the pandemic has only increased this. The US lags most industrial nations with it comes electronic transactions. I guess it depends on the product you are pushing and your tolerance for selling products lacking in, or of dubious value.

Then, by your own definition Cyrptocurrency is real. @Pioneer1 it is not clear that you no enough about the technology to make such rigid declarations. I used to believe this, until got a job on wall street and really got a glimpse into how wealth is really created through the capital markets. It is like thinking Amazon created wealth by selling books... I find this type of reporting very misleading, as it gives the impression a 9-year-old can mine bit coin, surely anyone can. Of course they do not relate the entire story... From everything I've read it is no longer practical for an individual to mine bitcoin the competition is just too stiff and the barriers to entry are too high today. Of course for people like @Pioneer1 (and even myself) this makes the entire space seem overhyped and scammy.

No, because there is only one race. But even if we played the silly race game, when did “Indian” become a race? Presumably you are referring to the people on the land mass known as India. Those people have a wide range of complexions given that fact how are y’all defining Indian? Percentages are meaningless in terms of people’s phenotypical characteristics.

What real money are you talking about? The money we use today is not “real.” Indeed all money is based upon a fiction we create and choose to believe. Today I rarely use currency. Why should I? This morning I threw away a penny. It is worthless and i have no reason to carry it around. Why they continue to mint those things makes no sense to me. They probably cost more to make than they are worth. Cryptocurrency really is the future. Because there is no central authority controlling it, making it far more secure and efficient It is global and virtually unhackable. As far as NFT I’m looking into getting into that space, but I’m proceeding with caution because … well you know our people….

Interesting Idea, I did not red the newsletter that was sent to me, but I'm sure Outlook is not that smart. That law seems unenforceable. What do they mean by "defamatory," I wonder. I also consider myself an optimist. However it is not a choice, but my nature. I believe people have characteristics that they are born with some people are tall, some have type B blood, most are heterosexuals, while other are optimists. It is just as hard to take a heterosexual make and make him gay as it is to turn a pessimist into an optimist. I believe a community need all types. A world full of optimists would probably not adequately prepare for tragedy or retirement...

@ProfD Try it again. If you use a VPN (it does not look like you are) but it will be a challenge to help you if you are. Some people feel forced to use VPN's, rather than a static IP address, because corporate sites would exploit your and your data. AALBC is not one of those sites. Also thanks for elevating the level of discussion. To use an over used cliché, you have been a breath of fresh air 🙂

I started think more about this subject over the last year or two as I started noticing that Google's ads have become increasingly irritating -- especially on these forums. The ads are embed in some posts; popup as you go from one page to the next (often without clear way to close them); and the ones I hate the most, the super large images that appear at the top of the page forcing visitors to scroll to see the pages content. These are the worse, because if you are new to the site, it makes it very confusing to know what to do next. Google AdSense allows webmasters to place advertisement on their websites. Advertisements are sold, placed, and administered by Google in exchange for to payments to the website. I've been using AdSense since it was invented. Payments have range ranged from roughly $20 to $3,000 a day. Google asserts that they like sites which serve quality content and that are uncluttered with advertising. However when I allow Google to serve ads on my site they tend to make my site's content look very cluttered. To combat the problem of cluttering a website, visitors are increasingly using ad blockers -- which blocks ALL ads -- including the ones I sell directly. This reduces revenue, which reduces resources to produce quality content, which reduces traffic, and a death spiral ensues. Of course, I could go with another ad network or sell my own advertising. Indeed I had to do that after Google's Panda update, in 2011, which reduced my website's traffic by 75% overnight. Google mortally wounded many websites with that sledgehammer approach to website ranking. Google's near monopoly power make it very hard to simply ignore their ad network. That would as foolhardy as failing to optimize one's site for Google's search engine. When one company controls both the discoverability of a website AND their ad sales, the result does not server anyone, other than Google. If Google simply talked to their webmasters maybe they could help improve the quality of the WWW rather than merely extracting wealth from it. I know Google owns YouTube and can bury this video and hide this post in search. I also know Google can bury my entire site in search, as they did this with their Panda update (which took 5 years to recover from). But I'm tired, and I don't believe everyone at Google wants to continue killing and hamstringing websites... but I could be naïve.

@Cynique Basically the fix is that I whitelisted your IP address (basically tell Godaddy not to block your posts). This has actually happened to me a few times! There is no reason that I can discern for why some locations are blocked. @ProfD and @Mel Hopkins you both should be able to start conversations now. Unfortunately this is a major problem with the the web, carriers, service providers, web hosts have to be extra precautious for fear of being hacked. I can't say that I blame them inconveniencing some users is MUCH better than having you site taken for ransom. Again the little guy is always hurt the most... I've been sending a newsletter out for over twenty years and I discovered about a year again that Outlook is putting my own newsletter, sent from me, into my junk folder!?

Oh I'm well aware as I wrote "...and his team of attorneys..." Indeed, they are the ones as well, as a cadre staff, who actually do the work. (or so I've been told). OK @Cynique this is helpful info. Give it a try now.

The winning number are 18, 17 & 13 here is how they were selected: This this is a contest I've run with my text messaging subscribers (get our text messages). "Win a free copy of the #1 New York Times bestselling book, Change Sings: A Children’s Anthem by Amanda Gorman. Reply to this text with the big red number, on the page for the book, on AALBC’s site. Three winners will be randomly selected from reply made before midnight tonight."

Ben Crump is getting paid huh? I saw him, here in Tulsa, during the centennial commemoration for the Race Massacre. The Lacks family, in my opinion, deserves compensation based upon the limited information I have. I don't know who is gonna pay a quarter of a trillion dollars, but hey if they pay 1%. That will probably be fair... I think. I'm sure Crump and his team of attorneys will be happy with a multi-billion dollar settlement.

Agreed. This has less to do about helping gay people "see themselves" reflected in comic books and more to do with increasing notoriety through controversy, a common tactic today. Again, the media laps this stuff up, on cue, spins it for al the controversy it is worth to get more traffic, to serve more advertising to us, to get us to buy more shit we don't need. The reality is that it is not Clark Kent who is gay, but his son that has come out. Again, making it seemed as though "Superman" is now gay was done to create more controversy. I only know that beside I heard a more complete story on NPR... My default is to ignore most of this stuff. But if you are online, it is hard to ignore this nonsense as it is virtually force feed to you. As a result I did see an image of Superman's son locking lips with another dude. I don't ever recall seeing lark Kent lock lips with Lois Lane in such a fashion. But again, this is more about generating revenue than serving the LGBTQ+ community. In fact, this whole thing will just exacerbate relationship with the "community" in the same way "critical race theory" has with the Black community.

WFT? Jerry Craft has been publishing humorous comics and graphics novels, longer than I have been running AALBC -- almost 30 years. In the last few years Jerry has "Blown Up" winning major awards and selling a bazillion books. It has been great to witness his hard work and diligence pay off. Craft's story is truly the "American Dream." This aspect of his story has been completely obscured. The idea that his books would be banned over the controversy surrounding critical race theory is absurd. None of the news articles I've read addressed this issue in a substantive, or nuanced manner; they are just playing up the controversy. It is sad. Rather than the public being informed, they are riled up over a controversy that the media (especially social media) have thrown gasoline on and ignited -- relentlessly driving a wedge between the Americans. I was going to share links to articles but decided against it since they don't serve Jerry or the readers he has served for three decades. The only saving grace is that his controversy will help raise Jerry's profile and possible drive more from those curious to learn why Jerry's books are so controversial.