Troy

There are already good people working for Google, they just hold little sway when the company's prime directive is to maximize shareholder wealth. besides Goolg is already know for hiring very few Black people. I guess that depends on how you define "harm." How many people have to die or become impoverished first. How long did it take for the government to deal with the tabacco industry, the NRA, the Sackler family, or financial institutions? Yeah, we pretty much are. We don't, not really. The Montgomery bus boycott took place almost 70 years ago. Those strategies are no longer effective. What tools do we have at our disposal today?

I think if you looked at war and poverty anywhere on Earth you will find a direct line to Western culture or "modern culture" Given our country's wealth, productivity, and resources we should be the happiest place ever. Dude white men are killing themselves in record numbers! That presumes that remaining on earth, bound in this meat sack, of ours is more desirable than the next stage. Maybe I don't know. That presumes violence is the answer to the problem.

Careful @Pioneer1 this is the Black excellence forum! Mutton busting is when toddlers ride sheep, the way adults "bust" broncos. It is the cutest thing

No, I wouldn't @Pioneer1. He IMHO has distorted, perhaps permanently, his natural beauty. I also believe beauty comes from within. Haven't you ever met a sista that once you got to know her appears far more attractive, than when assessed based solely upon her looks? Similar really attractive people can become very "ugly," repulsive even, based upon their behavior. I don't know Jay-Z but what little I know of him, oputs him on par with Idris ... now that Little Wayne is a 'hole 'nother story

The 22nd Annual Hurston/Wright Legacy Awards Show Troy Johnson, accepting the Madam “CJ” Walker Award for Merit from the Hurston/Wright Foundation Is it too self-serving to put yourself in The Black Excellence Showcase?

sure you are, this is just what you’ve been doing with regard to Jay-Z. Now I’m no judge of what women think of men looks, and I won’t make believe that I am. But, in my book Hova is on par with Idris Elba. if I had to pick a son-in-law, I would pick Jay-Z every day of the week

III seems most non western cultures are more spiritually in tune than our western one. There is a keen desire to be in tune, but we thrash about ignorant on how to accomplish it. There are plenty of scam artists willing to separate us from our money to reach the goal but most are just ripped off and remain unfulfilled. Some seek spirituality, or to communicate, with a higher power through the use of drugs, but the man-made ones generally bring overdoses and dependency doing more harm than good. Indigenous cultures, use natural plant-based things to achieve an altered state of reality, which I understand helps one transcend their own individuality, and enter some type of universal plane which I imagine is comparable to communicating with God. others meditate. I do believe when it comes to spirituality. Most of us are very superficial or entirely misled. Perhaps this is our culture’s biggest problem….

An Open Letter from Participants in the Palestine Festival of Literature Ta-Nehisi Coates, Molly Crabapple, Natalie Diaz, Maaza Mengiste, Solmaz Sharif, et al. "We call for the international community to commit to ending the catastrophe unfolding in Gaza and to finally pursuing a comprehensive and just political solution in Palestine." "We are writers and artists who have been to Palestine to participate in the Palestine Festival of Literature. We now call for the international community to commit to ending the catastrophe unfolding in Gaza and to finally pursuing a comprehensive and just political solution in Palestine. We have exercised our privilege as international visitors to move around historic Palestine in ways that most Palestinians are unable to. We have met and been hosted by Palestinian artists, human rights workers, writers, historians, and activists. We have stood on stage with them. Many of these people, including the festival organizers based in Palestine, are in fear for their lives right now. One festival organizer is locked down with their child in Ramallah, sharing updates about the people killed by armed settlers last night. One partner in Gaza, a magazine editor, is no longer answering messages."

I see they make a film of the original Corduroy Book: There was even a cartoon series featuring Corduroy and Lisa:

The little Black girl, Lisa, was brought back in 2018, 50 years later, in a new Corduroy book written by Viola Davis. Penguin Random house may be the biggest trade book publisher, with the best tech, on Earth, but they hell if they know how to market books to Black people. If anyone should have been aware of this book it should have been me. While racism, as the blogger quoted above suggests, may have been the reason for disappearing the little Black girl. Celebrity brough her back. Viola Davis was a little girl when the original Corduroy book was published, she probably enjoyed the book and had enough pull to bring it back. In 1968 there were probably less than a handful--if that many book out with Black girls in them. Today such a book can go completely unnoticed. Times have changed.

Ok @Pioneer1, that camel-faced nigga is an ugly mofo. Happy? Looks are relative and subjective in my book the guy is not ugly… he is on par with Idris Elba.

It is a good question but the way you phrased it would essentially mean that the person would have to reveal the fact that they were schizophrenic Some may feel they are talking to God through another person, who is saying the right thing at the right time...

Oh that is easy -- it makes the most money for the owners. Of course, Google could still make money without shitting all over the internet, but it would just be less. Google paid billions to establish their monopoly and God now how much to politicians to sit with their thumbs up their butts. The government is now trying to address Google's monopoly in search let's see what happens. Whatever happens it will be too little and too late.

When I first started this site, I thought white racism was the crux of our problems. However, my years of experience, and consumption of information tells me that racism. Is a tool and now a symptom of a problem we have failed to address. Fixing racism is a bandaid. Unfortunately, racism like a heart attack, has to be dealt with--urgently. But the heart attack is a symptom of the underlying cause, which ignored will never result in the end of heart attacks. Obama could not do anything explicitly, overtly, or specifically for Black people. If he showed a whiff favoritism to Black people, he would have been unelectable. Racism is the reason for this, but Obama's true masters were the plutocrats who got him into office. Even if Hillary won it would they still would have benefited. Run the country into the ground by selling and insuring rotten mortgages--no problem, Obama will bail 'em out. It did not matter Clinton, McClain, Romney, or Obama in the seat "Too Big Rich" to fail is the bottom line. We all pay the price, Black people and racism white ones too.

In Boley, OK I saw my first rodeo -- all Black rodeo. The mutton bustin' was my favorite event

I would think, based on your explanation, that and all successes are verbal. If the success isn’t verbal, how would you know about it?

It is interesting that the Google's algorithm is pushing that Obama video (Read more about what I think about this issue). @richardmurray can you clarify "nonverbal success?" side bar: Man, I can't believe the posts I leave sometimes. I type something or use speech to text on my phone, it looks good, I hit enter, and come back later to see something incomprehensible. I apologize but it seems to be happening more frequently.

Google has an effective monopoly in search; they eclipse all other search engines combined. Google's YouTube dominance is so complete I'm sure you're unable to name three competitors. Google has exploited this dominance in many ways that have hurt the web overall -- particularly as it relates to Black people. Now this is nothing new and I have written about this subject over the last 15 years. Given the lack of reaction, particularly from those most effected, I gave up trying to highlight the problems caused by Google's dominance. This is no different than the reactions to my decrying Amazon and social media. But the current trends I'm seeing with Google are particularly disturbing. Since the beginning of the year, Google algorithms as Google has begun to emphasize the most controversial subject matter while depressing the most positive. How do I know? Google provides me with the data. I recently noticed an explosion in the number of comments in a video I uploaded 4 years ago, “Barack Obama Didn’t Do a Darn Thing for Black People.” This video has been watched almost 59K times -- almost all of those views in the past month! Virtually none of these views result in traffic back to this site, and my YouTube channel does not meet the minimum requirements for monetization (I have the subscriber count, but only 1/2 the "watch hours" count they require). As a result, as a result only Google benefits financially from this video. Keep in mind Google's algorithm controls the how frequently a video is watched. Still, why has Google turned up the volume on the Barack-Obama-Didn’t-Do-a-Darn-Thing-for-Black-People messaging? Google is responsible to most of AALBC's website traffic. Lately they have been sending a ton of traffic to the site for people searching for "Why are Black people so violent?" This search brings more people to the site than anything else. I publish original book reviews, but if you run a query on these titles Google will send you to 20 Amazon pages before they send you to AALBC. Basically, Google rewards website that generate controversial or content designed to illicit an emotional response. If the content is designed to inform, nurture, or God forbid celebrate Black positively it is buried in search -- unless a white owned platform produced it. The reason we see so much crap on the WWW, including websites riddled with shitty ads, is because Google has created the financial incentives for websites to do this -- it is in Google's financial interest. Below is a graph that depicts the Afro.com's search traffic and we see a step decline in traffic over the past two years (blue line), the orange line shows paid traffic there was little on organic traffic. Basically, Google is telling the oldest newspaper in the country you have to pay for traffic from out search engine, this profile is similar for AALBC and many other Black platforms. This is the same for social media traffic. Facebook was up front and announced: they have shut off organic traffic -- brands have to pay for it. The following graph for Blkem.com, one of the few Black-owned social media websites. Never heard of it? Of course not, as you can see from the graph Google sends no organic search traffic to the website. In order words, there is no query other than "blkem" that you can run on Google's search engine to get this site to some up high enough that someone will see it to click. As a group we don't put our heads together for figure out a way to deal with Google's dominance, for we are in Google's pocket, too busy competing against one another, or simply fighting to survive.

Sure, there are physically unattractive people, but Jay-Z is not one of them. Who wrote that? The handful I encountered were seemingly the unfortunate victims of serious accidents. While I think there are culturally defined standards of beauty. I don't think they are features that are universally accepted across cultures or even static within a culture. Within the Black community light skinned guys with wavy hair were in style, not so much. Slim women were in vogue now "thick" ladies are all the rage. I find large eye attractive on a woman , but usually only see this characteristic on Indian (Asian) women. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder but influenced by culture.

You’d need to back that statement up, as during that period many black people lost not only jobs, but their homes. A net gain of hundreds of thousands of jobs for Blacks sounds like an exaggeration. I would love to see data to back that statement as well up as well @Stefan The Article from Black Enterprise does not make those claims and tags like promotional copy. @Cynique I’m afraid I don’t do Facebook. I deleted my personal account years ago. However, I have a dummy account will look for you. Class is the primary thing that stratifies us as a people.

Is BLM still a thing? How old is that video. All of the NOI representatives, who speak to the general public are highly trained and skilled speakers.

true but all of those things are symptoms of businesses, struggling with limited resources, i.e. money to pay folks. and of course, there’s a shortage of nurses and teachers; poor pay, and the high cost of getting the credentials needed to do the jobs make them harder to fill. But once those professionals are in their roles, they they have tools that make them infinitely more efficient. again, none of the technology that has made the world more efficient has financially benefited the middle class. I mean we all have smart phones, but most of us spend our time scrolling through screens, we are manipulated into watching. our best and brightest are not out there trying to cure cancer or end world hunger. They’re trying to get you to spend another microsecond on some social media app or come up with some crazy financial product — whether it’s a stupid ape NFT, or a toxic mortgage there’s no end to to the get rich, quick schemes out geniuses spend their time cooking up . i do think AI will make things worse. It SHOULD make things much better, but we are too greedy to do anything other than make as much money as we can no matter what the impact is on all the people. How is this related to @harry brown’s original post? Heck if I know?

Depends on what you mean by middle class @ProfD. according to pew research the middle class earns an increasingly smaller share of the nation’s income and are less able to just absorb increases. Living in the big city, you probably don’t see people putting $10 of gas in their tank, rather than filling it up.

well people don’t really have a choice. They have to go to work, the store, etc. the price it does fluctuate, and while it’s highest price it is higher that it has been. But the cost of energy has also higher and did not fluctuate like gas prices — water is even more expensive. My water Bill is like 10 times what it was 10 years ago.

Well I’ve once we acknowledge that we have common problems, perhaps we’ll behave less tribally and the violence occurring in northeast Africa wouldn’t be happening.