Troy

No, not at all. People make up stuff all the time. That does not mean what they make up exists. If you simply thought about it for a few minutes, rather than digging in you heals, you could easily think of many examples.

Thanks @Milton! Amber and the Enchanted Sword is now available on AALBC 🙂

Variation within the RACES...again, implies that there are multiple race. Here again, Pioneer, you have quoted a sentence that refutes your belief about race, but you have somehow managed to contort it to mean something completely contradictory. You really can't see it can you? Do you have any idea, for example, why the word race is bounded by quotes? @Delano here is evidence that "reading" requires active mental engagement.

Dude, just use a throw-away email address like everyone else. Well, no one I ever spoke to, past or present, refers to herb as dope. Dope as in "dopehead" or "dope fiend" (are you familiar with these term) was restricted to people who were on narcotics not weed. Would you refer to a frequent user of marijuana as a dope fiend?

I agree wholeheartedly, but would ask you to reconsider associating the active of reading with a "low involvement" activity. Reading is not a low involvement, because it requires active mental engagement. Reading is not a passive activity. If it were, far more people would be doing it. Watching TV, on the other hand, is a much more passive and low involvement activity any one can do it. You can do it while inebriated, high, tired, and even while engaged in another activity.

Since forum users have not spoken up (I know some use Libro.fm). I actually have a paid Libro.fm account myself. I have only listened to 2 audiobooks, but I have 8 "credits" (the ability to download 8 more audiobooks without paying for extra for them). Members get one credit each month and we also earn a free audiobook with each referral. I'm actually going to put my Libro membership on hold until I have caught up and listened to 8 audiobooks. The good thing about Libro.fm is that, unlike Amazon's Audible, your credits never expire, even after you put your membership on hold or cancel it. With Audible, "Credits expire immediately upon the cancellation or termination of your membership unless used prior to cancellation or termination." That sucks 😞

Slave Catchers, Slave Resisters is a two-hour History Channel documentary that depicts the system of slave policing—enforced by militia, armed community slave patrols, paid slave catchers, and federal law. The stories are set in both the South and the North, from the mid-1700’s colonial era through the end of the Civil War and its aftermath, and told through archival material, scholar interviews and recreations. While the stories show the brutality of the slave system, they also reveal another, often-overlooked side of the history—the strength and ingenuity of the enslaved. As historian Peter Wood observes, “Would they [the enslaved] go willingly into a situation of perpetual racial servitude? No way!” In the South, we portray slave hunters and their bloodhounds, who sometimes lost against the intelligence and fight-to-the-death courage of the enslaved. And in the North, we show slave catchers who were sometimes blocked by an organized—and armed—black community. Historian James O. Horton comments: “Boston is not a safe place for slave catchers to operate… Blacks—and sometimes whites—formed as groups to protect fugitives.” Even in the South, plantations were like pressure cookers, as our film illustrates. Sometimes they exploded into full-scale rebellions—like the 1739 Stono Rebellion in South Carolina or the 1831 rebellion led by Nat Turner in Virginia. But, more often, they were plagued by the low-level simmering of individual acts of resistance. One Philadelphia company even refused to issue fire insurance policies in slave states because of the high incidence of arson. However, as we make clear, the main problem for slave owners was not rebellion, but runaways. Historian Loren Schweninger notes, “A minimum number of slaves per year that ran away was 50,000 and probably many more… It was almost routine.” Most ran simply to be reunited with family members who’d been sold away. During the Revolutionary War, Thomas Jefferson noted that thousands of slaves fled Virginia plantations alone, including some from Jefferson’s own plantation. One of Patrick Henry’s slaves took to heart Henry’s cry of “Give me liberty, or give me death”—and fled. Even the power granted the slaveholding states in the new Constitution could not stop slave escapes. Historian Sylvia Frey states, “The enslaved population had waged a desperate… but unsuccessful struggle for freedom, [but] the impetus that the Revolution provided persisted.” To stanch the flow of escaping slaves, plantation owners used a variety of methods over time: an elaborate system of slave patrols with rigid rules, Negro Acts and other legislation, “Negro dogs” especially bred to track runaways (including some bred by a future U.S. president), and slave catchers hired in the South and the North. Our documentary tells true stories of slave catchers and escaping slaves that have never before been portrayed on film. And threaded throughout these unusual and little-known stories is information about the tools slave hunters used to bring back runaway slaves, the strategies used by the enslaved to thwart their pursuers… and the lengths to which both would go to achieve their goal. We close on the aftermath of the Civil War, as the newly freed people work to build their communities, with farms, schools and churches. But the system of slave police has not disappeared—it is soon reborn in an even more violent form: the Ku Klux Klan. As historian Sally Hadden, author of the definitive book on slave patrols, explains, “The Klan is an extension of slave patrols in most direct, obvious ways… they’ve changed the names from patrols to Klan, they’ve put on sheets, but the activities and the purpose remain pretty much the same.” Yet, while these stories acknowledge the brutality of slavery, they reveal something much deeper: that within the darkness, there was also light. For, even during the darkest days of slavery—even when freedom seemed no more than an illusive dream—the enslaved and their supporters continued to struggle against overwhelming odds…and sometimes won. Produced by Judy Richardson of Northern Light Productions. Judy Richardson is also the filmmaker for Scarred Justice: The Orangeburg Massacre 1968, series associate producer of Eyes on the Prize, and co-editor of Hands on the Freedom Plow: Personal Accounts by Women in SNCC. --Judy Richardson, Producer

No More Lies: The Myth and Reality of American History by Dick Gregory Hey @Pioneer1 this books seems right up your alley. Send me your address (a mailing address) and I shoot you a free copy! Hopefully the rest of y'all (including you lurkers) will buy a copy from AALBC. In fact, I'll give lurkers a 10% discount on all orders from AALBC until the end of the month know as Black History Month. Use discount code: lurker10 (good for one use) 🙂

Brilliant, I will used that one. You did not read (or comprehend) the article I shared. If you had, you would not have made that statement. But even if we were to pursue the flawed statement Malcolm X had read hair was he "probably a Caucasian" too? Have you ever taken a DNA test, like the ones offered by Ancestry and the like. Have you ever wondered why, with all the information they provide, they never say anything about anyone's race?

Where did you grow up? Smack yes, Mary Jane no. I was told you may watch JUDAS AND THE BLACK MESSIAH for free here: https://thrpresentsjatbm.splashthat.com/ Enjoy (and don't forget the weed 😉)

I like the folktales on your website @MissKorang

Wow you know who your African Ancestor is. Did you know did you know your grandfather?

OK, think of it this way; when did governments start tracking people by race? NOOO! You inferring things that were not written. Do you actually know what the genetics referenced in the article did? Again, THERE IS NO GENETIC TEST FOR RACE, other than the one that determines you are human a member of the human race. Try reading this: http://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2017/science-genetics-reshaping-race-debate-21st-century/ for some additional insight.

I saw it in a drive-in. But stop being a pu**y. Wear a mask and stay 6 feet away from people other people -- you'll live. But I bet you can see it on a streaming service. BTW: Herb is not "dope." Who told you that?

Here is a better link 😉: https://libro.fm/aalbc

Those "poor Caucasians" were flimflammed, bamboozled, led astray... This is SO much easier to do today than ever before. If white folks were so happy why are the complaining so much? Why did they vote for Obama and then turn around and vote for Trump. Why did they storm the Whitehouse? Those "poor Caucasians" are suffering. life expectancy is lower, suicides are higher. Look at Texas right now millions of people without power and water because the weather is unusually cold and the privately run power grid can deal with the spike in demand. The roads go untreated and there is a 100+ car pile up. The city of Houston gets flooded with a heavy rain. Texas is no better than a 3rd world country. Do you think white people really want to live like this? But ask any of them and they'll proclaim how great Texas is -- it is CRAZY! This is why books like Heather's are so important. But I already know the people who need to read this book the most will probably never learn about it -- they are not visiting AALBC or listening to NPR. Texas Senator Ted Cruz is in Mexico.

There is a new book that has been getting plenty of media coverage, The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together by Heather McGhee. I learned about the book on my local NPR affiliate. The author makes the case that racism, in particular racist legislation actually hurts more white people. Predatory loans in the 1980s originally targeted Black folks, but millions of white people ended up losing their homes. College only became prohibitively expensive when Black people started attending in greater numbers. The author acknowledges despite the harm done to white people, Black people, collectively are hurt even more. This made me think of @Pioneer1 who has consistently argued that white people are more than willing to be hurt if Black people will be hurt more. That is concept that I personally reject, simply because it seemingly defies reason. Sure there might be some nuts out there willing to lose a home, go without health care, and not send their kids to college if it means that Black people will not enjoy these benefits too. But these are not rationale people. Then again racism is irrational. Maybe white people are willing to "take one for the team" if Black people are hurt even more. As crazy as it sounds it probably is worth really looking into.

This video was shot during the Self-Publishing Symposium back in 2008. A lot has changed since then, but the video holds up 13 years later. Don't ask me why the video is smushed, blame Google 😉

@Pioneer1 moving forward I'm not going to read any more of the articles that you link to. The reason is that every single time I invest in reading your articles one of two things happen; either the article actually refutes the point you're making, or it doesn't support it at all. Now this article does not support a genetic test for race. Perhaps I missed it. If so, would you be kind enough to copy and paste the paragraph that shows proof of a test to determine one's race.

I guess you'll need to watch the film, before you can formulate a valid conspiracy theory. Among other things it was a love story, a love story between a man and a woman, between a man and his community, and someone, who only loved himself, helped destroy it all. If you go into any form of art with a wide variety of preconceived notions you'll fail to really appreciate it. That is not to say that we don't all have biases we do. But when you are already working so hard to figure out what something is trying to be before you even see it you are already setting up walls that will prevent you from truly "seeing" the film. I hope you smoke a blunt, relax and enjoy the film. The young people who put it together did a fantastic job.

Sure they can. It was done for the majority of time that governments have existed. @Chevdove , @Pioneer1 if race exists, can you tell me why there is no genetic test for race? I'll wait....

So you missed me! 🙂 Yeah I just been pretty busy. Socializing, starting new semester, and obviously the work of AALBC. (Just don't tell @Delano, I don't want him to think that I don't have any "free" time). Yes. Technology has brought us closer together. As this continues we have no choice but to become one global family. Whether it's covid-19 or climate change we have to behave as if we have our all of our best interests at heart --otherwise we will not survive as a species. The whole notion of "race" just divides us unnecessarily. It won't be long before people who think of race in the way that you do will be dead and conversations like this will be unnecessary. In much the same way that we look at laws that prevented so-called Black people and so-called white people from marrying each other, we will look at statements like yours @Pioneer1 in the same light. Belief in race leads to anti-miscegenation laws and to the disdain of the so-called mongrel mixing of the races. This is the logic that flows from a belief in genetically defined racial differences in Humans. I'm assuming you agree it is okay for so-called White and so-called Black people to marry each other.... right? Is Kamala Harris and Barack Obama Black, in your book? I know you've called Barack Obama mixed race, but what race is that? The term mixed race is inherently unclear and therefore relatively meaningless. What race would a child between Barack Obama and Kamala Harris be? For that matter, in your book, what race am I?

I actually did quite a bit around Zora Neal's hurston's book. I visited Africatown. It was even a book club selection or online book club.

The video is the better part of two hours. I skipped around but really couldn't figure out what was going on. Presumably you were trying to warn me, but whether the office space is shared or belongs to a single organization is probably immaterial when it comes down to how people are being treated. That said my office space is actually pretty cool. I have 24-hour access a parking spot and nowadays with the crappy weather and the pandemic there's often only a handful of people in the entire building.

I saw this film at a drive-in theater a couple weeks ago. The guy who played Fred Hampton deserves an academy award nomination.