Troy

America's currency has not been back by a commodity for sometime now --think Tricky Dick took us completely off. It is back by our word. Yes they are printing money with reckless abandon. I don't really understand how this can persist unabated. There is not enough gold on the Earth to back the money out there -- we haven't even printed enough currency to reflect the "money" out there. Actually that is a completely different question. Why conflate the two? Why deny the families that have been wrong today because the US owes ADOS. Should Native American's be given back the land American's took before we are compensated? Dealing with the Mexicans is what we call "low hanging fruit." We can knock this one out and compensate these Mexican in their life times and continue to deal with Reparations it is not like the money we are giving them will make a dent in what they owe us. Again this assumes of course that you feel these people are entitled to compensation which it does not seems like anyone does.

Yeah, what else is new? Should this mean that anyone the U.S. has ever wronged should never be compensated until reparations are paid to the American descendants of enslaved Africans?

@Mzuri OK to be clear: This is a hyperlink: https://aalbc.com if you click it it will take you to my homepage. Amazon does not allow hyperlinks This "link" https://aalbc.com is merely text it is not a hyperlink. You can't click it and be sent to another website. Text is what you find on the page you referenced. Sure one can copy and paste the URL, but this is unnecessarily cumbersome, and few people actually do it. Amazon discourages people from leaving their website. All of the largest websites rum by Amazon, Facebook, Google discourage hyperlinks, as well, either through direct policy, as with Facebook's Instagram (save one's profile page) and/or algorithmically.

What?! Oh brother, so now we are referencing to some guy, a colonizer, from the early 19th century... Once you start mixing nationality with geography in the context of the artificial concept of race the topic becomes so sloppy as to be nonsensical. But it is an open forum.

Why, don't y'all "...even like the idea of it," or feel "...these people are entitled to NOTHING?" Is you lack of sympathy for the parents who were separated from their children for years, because they illegally crossed the board, because they are Mexican, because Black folks have not been compensated for the hell America has rained us, or something else?

Please, if I'm factually wrong contradict (correct) me -- always. Opinions are one thing, but facts are well... facts. Maybe Amazon changed something that I was not aware of. Can you show me an example of hyperlink to an external site on Amazon?

Y'all should read the article the dailymail used as a source for it's own article. Does it share you opinion at all (I assume noone actually read the DailyMail's article) I don't normally lift entire articles from other sites. Hopefully the WSJ will understand and won't sue me... U.S. in Talks to Pay Hundreds of Millions to Families Separated at Border Government is considering payments of $450,000 per person affected by Trump administration’s zero-tolerance policy in 2018 By Michelle Hackman, Aruna Viswanatha and Sadie Gurman Updated Oct. 28, 2021 6:03 pm ET WASHINGTON—The Biden administration is in talks to offer immigrant families that were separated during the Trump administration around $450,000 a person in compensation, according to people familiar with the matter, as several agencies work to resolve lawsuits filed on behalf of parents and children who say the government subjected them to lasting psychological trauma. The U.S. Departments of Justice, Homeland Security, and Health and Human Services are considering payments that could amount to close to $1 million a family, though the final numbers could shift, the people familiar with the matter said. Most of the families that crossed the border illegally from Mexico to seek asylum in the U.S. included one parent and one child, the people said. Many families would likely get smaller payouts, depending on their circumstances, the people said. The American Civil Liberties Union, which represents families in one of the lawsuits, has identified about 5,500 children separated at the border over the course of the Trump administration, citing figures provided to it by the government. The number of families eligible under the potential settlement is expected to be smaller, the people said, as government officials aren’t sure how many will come forward. Around 940 claims have so far been filed by the families, the people said. The total potential payout could be $1 billion or more. As part of a so-called zero-tolerance enforcement policy, immigration agents separated thousands of children, ranging from infants to teenagers, from their parents at the southern border in 2018 after they had crossed illegally from Mexico to seek asylum in the U.S. In some cases families were forcefully broken up with no provisions to track and later reunite them, government investigations found. The lawsuits allege some of the children suffered from a range of ailments, including heat exhaustion and malnutrition, and were kept in freezing cold rooms and provided little medical attention. Many of the lawsuits describe lasting mental-health problems for the children from the trauma of the months without their parents in harsh conditions, including anxiety, a fear of strangers and nightmares. The lawsuits seek a range of payouts, with the average demand being roughly $3.4 million per family, some of the people said. In recent months, lawyers for the families and the government have told courts overseeing the cases that they are engaged in settlement negotiations and hoped to reach a deal by the end of November. “President Biden has agreed that the family separation policy is a historic moral stain on our nation that must be fully remedied,” said Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLU’s immigrant-rights project and a lead negotiator on one of the lawsuits. “That remedy must include not only meaningful monetary compensation, but a pathway to remain in the country.” In his first weeks in office, Mr. Biden pledged to reunite the separated families, describing those actions undertaken by the Trump administration a “moral and national shame.” A DHS spokeswoman referred questions to the Justice Department, where a spokeswoman declined to comment. The Department of Health and Human Services didn’t respond to a request for comment. Some Republicans criticized the potential payments on Thursday afternoon after The Wall Street Journal reported on them. “The Biden administration’s promises of citizenship and entitlement programs have already caused the worst border crisis in history—a huge cash reward will make it even worse,” Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas said. The discussions about the payouts have taken place over the past few months among a group of dozens of private lawyers representing the families and government lawyers. Some government lawyers have viewed the payouts as excessive for people who had violated the law by crossing the border, the people said. One government lawyer threatened to remove his name from the case out of disagreement with the potential settlement offer, the people said. In another instance, a Department of Homeland Security attorney involved in the settlement talks complained on a conference call that the payouts could amount to more than some families of 9/11 victims received, one person said. Other people said senior departmental officials were in alignment on the amount and disputed the 9/11 comparison, given that the U.S. government hadn’t been responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The 9/11 victim compensation fund averaged awards to the dead of around $2 million, tax-free, at the time an unprecedented payout, the administrator of the fund has said. Trying to take the cases to trial would be unpredictable, with juries potentially awarding larger sums to the families, legal experts said. “Damage class actions in this kind of case are pretty rare, it’s hard to think of a recent comparison,” said Margo Schlanger, who ran the civil-rights office during the Obama administration at the Department of Homeland Security and now teaches at the University of Michigan law school. Ms. Schlanger said class-action compensation claims are more common in cases involving defective medical devices or other consumer products. “It is a complicated, complex piece of litigation” to try to resolve hundreds of different lawsuits at the same time, and “sometimes even more complex to try the cases,” Ms. Schlanger said, adding that it made sense to try to resolve them together. The Trump administration in May 2018 implemented a zero-tolerance approach, in which agents apprehended everyone crossing the border illegally, including those seeking asylum. That practice meant that children accompanying those adults were separated from their parents and put on a separate administrative track. The overall goal, the Trump administration said at the time, was to slow the number of people crossing the border illegally, but several of those officials have since apologized for the consequences of that policy. Immigration law gives children greater legal protections than adults, so while the adults’ asylum cases could be dismissed quickly, allowing them to be deported, children mostly remained in the U.S. in child-welfare shelters or living with relatives. The Trump administration also hadn’t built a system to track which children belong to which parents before beginning to separate them. A January report from the Justice Department’s inspector general faulted senior Trump Justice Department officials for knowing the policy change would result in families being separated, but pressing ahead without preparing for it. President Trump ended the policy through an executive order on June 20, 2018, following bipartisan blowback and global condemnation. Many of the families filed tort claims, a type of civil claim seeking damages for loss or harm, asking for compensation to cover mental-health treatment to address the emotional and psychological toll the practice took. Some of the cases were resolved under the Trump administration. In a 2019 settlement in New Jersey, for example, an adult and a minor received a total of $125,000. Most such cases remained pending at the start of the Biden administration. When Mr. Biden became president, he formed a task force to reunite the families that remained separated. Settlement talks are also ongoing in a separate lawsuit, known as Ms. L V. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, in which the ACLU has asked the government to provide families with mental-health and other services, along with a permanent legal status. Apart from talks over damages, the administration has already begun a process of locating deported parents and reuniting them with their children in the U.S. The administration has reunited 52 families and is in the process of reuniting about 200 more. The families are being given a three-year grant of parole, a form of temporary humanitarian protection that allows them to live and work legally in the U.S. but doesn’t offer them a path to permanent legal status. Write to Michelle Hackman at michelle.hackman+1@wsj.com, Aruna Viswanatha at Aruna.Viswanatha@wsj.com and Sadie Gurman at sadie.gurman@wsj.com Copyright ©2021 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8 Appeared in the October 29, 2021, print edition as 'U.S. Is in Talks to Pay Families Split at Border.'

Agreed when I get emails I'll sometimes reply the reaction is universally positive. People say they understand, but I'm not sure if it translates into changed behavior. Actually I had not considered the fact that the post was straight up spam (I did not check). I usually allow these posts if the book looks legit (book cover image and useful description, but I'll remove the hyperlink to Amazon. Did y'all know, that Amazon does not allow links to other sites? Did y'all even notice? Amazon is the antithesis of the what WWW was supposed to be.

This is true, in fact I'm one of these people and have been living this lifestyle since 2008. I still teach a college course in New York City and have not set foot in Camaous since March of 2020. In the program I'm in, here in Oklahoma, Tulsa Remote, one of the requirements for participation was being a remote worker. There are about 1,000 people in the program today. There are programs like this all over the country. The pandemic has only accelerated this lifestyle. Who knows, but the percentage of people who are doing this is probably much higher than you think. There is also a percentage of people, who would not like this lifestyle and would never do it. But it is indeed a lifestyle that is continuing to grow. Imagine having a silicon valley salary but living the Tulsa.

Guest Franklin, what would it take for you to send people to a Black-owned bookstore to buy your book? Imagine if I went to your business and told people to go, not just to a competing business, but a competing business whose mission it is destroy your business. How can we talk about Black Excellence and do what you have just done? How about: NO more going to Black-owned Bookstores and telling people to go to Amazon How about that dear Brother? ------------ Sorry about that y'all, but I said that to illustrate a point. I get an email or a post like this every day. I even disallowed the use of the word Amazon this site (in "*" in the word Amazon is inserted by the forum's software) Even Black people who are purportedly supportive of other Black people, don't have a clue on how to do it. We have so much work ahead of us...

I would think this number would be higher, but since I'm most familiar with the Black community I realize my perspective is biased based upon my experience. The US Census Bureau reported that the official poverty rate in 2020 was 11.4 percent. For Black people it is 19.5% which sounds about right given my personal experience. The idea that 1 out of 5 Black people, in 2020 America, are living the poverty (using this government's own definition) is ALARMING! The question is what are we gonna do about it? Mzuri as you might imagine I'm now resultant to check your sources, because they have not panned out this far. I can see that you posted a link to the Census Bureau, a valid source. I read the page. Based upon your statements you clearly do not trust the government on any level. Your interpretation based upon how you shared their information, on how they count people is reflected by this world view. Again, it is obvious that the numbers are not perfect, but given the things they are doing I'm not getting the impression that they are trying to deceive or missing large swaths of the homeless population. The numbers they are already sharing regarding Black poverty are dire enough. If they are trying to fudge number to make things look better they are not doing a very good job. At the end of the day, this is what we must do. The question is will we do it. There groups in in Tulsa trying to just that very thing. There are also groups in NY City as well. The problem is the masses are not doing very much to help. They largely support white businesses -- to a fault. They buy everything from Amazon. They can be bothered to support a Black owned business. They give Facebook all their information and spend all day on the platform, and won't even signing up with a Black site. We enrich white sites with our money and time, while at the same time complain that Black sites are not as good?! Now I'm obviously not talking about anyone reading this right now, but y'all represent a small fraction of what is possible.

I have to stop lecturing and getting bogged down in the wonky details. It was interesting to hear her describe the fact that you can learn from anyone and that everyone is a an expert in something. I always believed that that is one of the reasons I want to hear other people opinions. I hear you. In the real world this is easy to do because these are boring conversations.

Interesting. In space where can move in three dimensions. The arrow of time for corporeal beings appears to only run in one direction. You seems to be suggesting that we can move in time the was we do in space. Are you talking about our physical beings or spirits? Or am I misunderstanding you altogether.

Frustration might be a strong description, but what makes your arguments weak is that you based them solely on your personal anecdotes. When you do cite a source to support your argument it is either does not in fact support your argument or the source unreputable. The idea that, "Between 1990 and 2020, black folks living below the poverty line has gone from 29.3% to 16.8%." take at it's face is a big win. I don't know enough about the poverty statistics to know if they are meaningful. For example, during that 30 year people incarceration rate increased are people in jail counted in the poverty rate calculations? Removing a large section of the population, who would more than likely be Black and in poverty would make the number look better. How has the poverty level changed over past 30 years? How has the level changed relative to the inflation rate has it kept pace? Is Mzuri point accurate? If that is true then the numbers would be little better than a guess, so I doubt the number are collected in such a rudimentary fashion and certainly would not be expressed to the 10th of a percent accuracy. I suspect the numbers were taken from census data and a variety of other sources like income from tax returns. No one thinks the government's numbers are perfect -- perfection is impossible. What is odd, to me, is that folks would completely reject the government's numbers in favor their clearly limited personal observations.

Again one reference would have sufficed (simply because I'm not going to check them all). Again taking the first one on your list. It is an article, that I'm sure you did not read, because it does not answer the question. I just checked the subject of the article about Regions Banks and their domain does not expire until 2024: https://www.whois.com/whois/regions.com It is not clear why you shared that link. You are are not taking this seriously. I just watched an interesting video which helps me understand why getting people to think differently is extremely difficult. I have shared the video here.

Celeste Headlee If you have the time this video is worth listening to.

Valiant attempt but that tactic never works.

That explains your inability to comprehend what is written. More importantly, it also explains why you site sources that you clearly have not thoroughly read. Of course not, but I asked you to cite a reputable source to back up what you were saying. You failed to demonstrate a basic level of being able to discern what is reputable. I shared some tips to help you, but your obviously do not care about this. I asked you to tell me why you thought the source was reputable, but your ignored the question. Clearly you don't care about the reputation of the sources you chose to get information from. I do. I guess you should have read more carefully what Pioneer wrote before you rushed to his defense with your specious sources. Now I see what @Cynique calls you "Mionner" 🙂 Still the problem is that you need to take more consideration in the sources you choose to believe and share with others. The site you shared, royalhealthpilot.com is trash. Rather than acknowledge this, you say you can't understand what I wrote and that you speed read. Worse still you wrote, "Lots of companies renew their domains from year to year." That is bullshit. Name one reputable site that registers their domain on an annual basis? I say bullshit, because you wrote this without even checking. But since you've already demonstrated that you do not know how to identify a reputable source, you really can't check can you? So I will give up trying to convince that taking the vaccine is a good Idea, that there are no biological weapons able to target anyone based upon the social construct of race, or even how to identify a reputable source. Continue to believe what you will, but don't expect not be called out on bullshit -- especially when Black lives are concerned. As you may know so called Black people die at a disproportionately higher rate from Covid and part of the reason is because people believe the falsehoods being spread on the web.

Somehow I missed this and will check it out very soon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVTSXfB0Q7I Because of age restrictions YouTube will not me embed this video

@ProfD talk about side tracking a convo LOL! @Cynique We need your voice, don't let Mzuri or Pioneer impact your decision to stay or go. Think about Del, Mel, ProfD, and me 😞 Your brief return has renewed the energy of the forum. Some personalities have that power; yours is one. If I was Mark Zuckerberg, I would use my algorithm to prevent you from seeing Pioneers posts, but alas that is not possible. No matter what you decide, it was great reading you again 🙂

WHAT?! Negro, you have the nerve to accuse someone else of creating strawman arguments. You are the strawman master! Dude you wrote: "Heterosexual Black men of ALL classes tend to like women with big butts and wide hips." This is a very different statement than your second version: "It's been my experience and observation that MOST Black men like women with wide hips and big butts." Do you understand the difference? The first is a declaration that would require support to substantiate, as it can be easily refuted. The second statement is based upon your observations which I'd never question, unless I though you were being disingenuous or lying. Your strawman argument is stating that I disputed the 2nd statement, which was not the statement you originally made. Do you understand?

Again, that depends. One's moral code defines what is right or wrong they are not separate. Here is question for you @Cynique (or anyone). If the police call you in to question you about an illegal activity (say selling small quantities of marijuana) that you know a family member engaged in; is it right or wrong to tell the police about your family member's illegal activity? It does not matter very much as the wealth gap has only widened. Plus I'm pretty sure the educational system was better in your day Cynique that it is today (what do you think). Of course quality of education impacts life outcomes and class. Again this is relative. Have you ever be a victim of a violent crime? Have you ever committed one. Have your even done crack, heroin, or any of the harder drugs. Have you ever turned a trick? The questions were rhetorical, asked to make a point. True, everyone who has ever posted here, including Cynique, is guilty of making typos. On an informal discussion forum like this one there is no expectation for perfectly written posts. If the typos make something unclear, one can easily ask for clarification. This is a low class, as our media focuses on appealing to our lower, baser selves, as it is more profitable, this contributes to the dumbing down of our country. To the senior people reading this like @Cynique, or any lurkers who'd like to contribute, do you think the culture is dumbing down to the point where intelligence is no longer valued?

Dude, again if native Oklahomans disagree with you that should tell you something. But you can check out this Forbes article on the Brother's company. Forbes i a good white-owned company that you can believe, since you won't believe me 😉 Yes, food is regional and impacts the culture as more than state boundaries. Southern Texas' cuisine is much more influenced by Mexico that the northern part of the state. Tulsa has more in common with Kansas City Missouri than it does with the OK panhandle. It is also physically closer -- state boundaries be damned.

I wish these anti-vaxxer and china conversation were separate from the acknowledgment of Powell's death, but that is the nature of the forum digressions. @Mzuri I asked for one reputable source. You posted two. I looked at the first one you shared royalhealthpilot.com, does not strike be a "reputable." What makes you believe it is reputable source? Here are a few reasons the site is questionable to me -- even before I've read the article. Domain Name Characteristics The domain (https://www.whois.com/whois/royalhealthpilot.com) is expires in less than a year and is created in 2018. Reputable sites are typically much older and their domains do not expire in a year. Consider AALBC as an counter example: https://www.whois.com/whois/aalbc.com Next the site gets FAR less traffic than this discussion forum (see graphic below). The site doesn't even have an Alexa ranking. Article Characteristics No Author Cited Next I look for the author of the article. The is none. This is a red flag. Interesting the article end with "Guardian News" this is a SERIOUS red flag. Based upon what the link @Pioneer1 posted. Article Has Typos The article need editing: "Deoxy ribonucleic Acid (DNA)" is an error in the first sentence Article is stuffing Keywords The article is poorly written because is over using specific terms in an attempt to rank well in search. For example the term. "biological weapons" is used 14 times without relating new information. Sources Not Referenced There are no links to sources. The Cambridge University’s Centre for the Study of Existential Risk is referenced (not linked), but no where on the Cambridge's site can you find any reference to any reports or articles claiming, as the article claims, "humans should be worried about being wiped out by a killer pathogen that is specifically designed to kill people of only a particular race." Factual Inaccuracies Again, the claim from the article that "a killer pathogen that is specifically designed to kill people of only a particular race." is simply false. It simply can't be done because there is not genetic basis for race!! Since @Mzuri and @Pioneer1 have both cited fake Guardian articles, I'll do everyone a favor and share an article from the actual Guardian, "Why racism is not backed by science." If you are truly serious about learning the truth, I suggest you learn how to discern reputable sources from bogus ones and confine your reading to those sources. If you read and understood my response you can no longer say that you do not know -- ignorance is no longer an excuse. There are a variety of other words to more accurately apply to someone who rejects the truth in favor of bullshit sites? Will you continue to be one of those people?

Here in the "midwest" (winking at @Pioneer1) and more broadly the south it is harder to be as optimistic -- and I'm a natural optimist. People are stock piling weapons and ammunition. The boys down here are not playing. Just think about the environment it takes to get hundreds of adults to storm the white house... People truly believe the election was stolen and that Trump actually won. As with anit-vaxxers the truth does not matter. They are operating with completely different information, "alternative facts" and believe what they are doing is right. Again the web's ability to create these filter bubble and quickly spread lies is a major problem for our culture.