Troy

Don't even try it FAS, if I missed approving any of your messages that is YOUR FAULT. Create and account; I'm not your personal secretary ...

First awarded in 2014, The Kirkus Prize is one of the richest literary awards in the world, with a prize of $50,000. Black writers sweep for the 2nd year in a row! #readingblack

@Maurice is the resident Mayfield expert, but I believe for the song to really resonate, unless you are super empathic, you have to have grown up in a ghetto. What do you think? Think about all the Black on Black crime in the ghettos, how we rob each -- even from their own families. The lessons learned in the home is different that the ones learned on the street. The default is distrust, that was called being "street smart." In the wider world it is paranoia, for most people are not going to rob you as you walk down the street. Moving through life distrusting everyone is stressful, carrying that mentality into the wider world, where it is not necessary is just as stressful. It prevents you from really engaging with the world.

This song, "The Other Side of Town," by Curtis Mayfield is one of my favorite songs from one of my favorite artists. It came out in 1970, but I was an adult before I first heard it -- if I heard it before them I probably could not appreciate it. It is a very sad song in many was. It reminds my of the lives, and contributions to society, that were lost because people grew up impoverished. It also make me think of the comments @Gibran and @Pioneer1 made in earlier conversation where people do something dumb because some negative remnant of their upbringing presents itself. Know know folks who have completely derailed their lives because -- they let the ghetto comes out of them. I'm not immune to it either, but I've been lucky (relatively speaking).

It just occurred to I never deleted my Bookshop page. I went to bookshop to delete it and realized you can't do it on your own. I guess they never figured anyone would ever want to delete their page. I emailed support requesting that they remove my page on their website. In the meantime I updated my page to indicate that I'm boycotting their business. Let see how long it takes them to delete the page now https://bookshop.org/shop/aalbc 😉 I just did some more research into bookshop and discovered the state of Black-owned bookstore ecommerce is atrocious. The dependence we have on Bookshop is depressing. Many of the Black-owned stores including the ones getting the most attention in the media don't operate ecommerce sites -- bookshop is their website! These websites share precious sales figures and customer data. These sites also completely give up on advertising revenue which for a popular website can easily exceed book revenue. I get it, it took 2 decades for AALBC to ween itself off of Amazon's teat, wasting precious years of lost revenue. Sure bookshop gives these stores 30% on each sale -- which is almost as much as what a store would make if they, did all the work and fulfilled the books orders themselves, so we know the 30% share will not stand very long. Like Amazon taking a loss on the way to building a monopoly is a winning strategy. Like Amazon they will continue this until they taken control of ecommerce for indie booksellers. The only difference is rather than taking the loss with the consumer on low prices, bookshop shop is taking the loss with the Bookstore on the affiliate commission. With Amazon the consumer was happy with the low prices, but the booksellers were pissed. With Bookshop the bookstores are happy (save the ones who can see the con) with the high revenues AND the consumers are also happy believing they are supporting indie bookstores. By the time some independent bookstore wise up Bookshop's hustle they will have made Bookshop dominant and it will be too late to do anything meaningful on the web. It is not enough just to not use these sites. You have to be "anti-Bookshop" and "anti-Amazon." More to come...

🙂

Sorry, Dave those sold out quickly.

I have not read the article yet. But maybe it was difficult to read, because the writer was not very good or did not have sufficient command of the material to relate the material very well. Why did you read the article? What were you trying to learn?

Committing a hands on double homicide at 83, that has to be highly unusual. Maybe he was protecting himself?

Take a deep breath, and get a sense a humor. You rabid Trump supporters are wound way too tight. When was the last time you got some?😊

Yeah @daniellegfny that is the nature of discussion forums, conversations in general...

FAS I can't tell which owner is more intelligent, but I can tell you I would like to be the owner of and work for company #1. If the goals of both owners was to maximize wealth, controlling for all other variables, one could easily argue owner #2 is more intelligent given she is more successful at generating more more profits. America is optimized to encourage owner #2's, which is one reason wealth disparity is so high, workers are under so much strife, and our best and brightest clamor work for the likes of Facebook.

@Pioneer1 don't start counting your chickens before they are hatched; it ain't ova 'till that fat lady sings. All 45 needs is PA,NC, GA, and NV, which is completely plausible.

🙂 Man there are so many choices for some products, it does not make any sense. Recently I spent at least 5 minutes mentally evaluating the various tooth brushes on the shelves before I kicked my self saying "negro it is just a damn tooth brush pick one and lets get the heck outta here." Don't be too hard on yourself 🙂 I think this is what The Nation of Islam recognizes in the these men, good solders (can deal with all those rules 😉), but you will definitely find leaders among these Brothers, if the attribute is nourished. Something mainstream American culture is not too keen on doing.

Well I hope 45 does not win, for you sake 😉

Thanks Brother man!

Yeah it would be helpful to me if you created an account. Why won't you do it FAS? What is you concern?

Mosaicbooks.com folded years ago. Another one of the many Black-owned book sites we've lost. The number of web based, Black-owned booksellers is shocking small. AALBC. might even be the only site that has been their online bookstore from scratch. Ron is still active on the literary scene though he runs a non-for-profit called the Literary Freedom Project. Ron built his site from scratch too, but the web development dand ecommerce battles did not interest him. Man that is a great question. Your participation in this forum helps. Basically if a fraction of the people who brought their books from Amazon, or conversed on social media did so here it would be a different story. If a few celebrities did so on a regular basis forget about it LOL!

This might sound good to some, but this will not happen, for the reason you mentioned and more. That would be like telling Amazon they must fund AALBC's operations and 200 more sites like it.

Yes, I am who do you think was smarter? If you think Hilter was just as smart as Einstein, pick any dumb Nazi you can think of, then make a choice.

I come from a blue collar background too. Like many ADOS my age I was the first to go to college, first to work a desk job, etc in my family. This was a disadvantage of course... That said, are you telling me that of the people you grew up with you can not determine who will act the fool on a job you hooked them up with?

So we live in a "demonocracy" huh? Dude you are the one who should be looking it up. Whenever I present you with facts you don't change your belief. The word Democracy is not derived from the same root as Demon. But believe what you want, you are going to do it regardless of what I say, or what the fact are... All of them and none of them. The answer depends upon your meaning of "people of color" and "stable." Since the words mean what you say they mean, the answer is what you say it is.

I believe the young couple will get married (if they are not already), have a couple beautiful kids, and live a long happy life together. Just putting something more positive into the universe to counter all your negative energy against this couple. 😇

I'm forcing you to give me a specific incident because the are a variety or reasons any unarmed person might disarm someone with a gun, without a great discrepancy of intelligence being the reason. Maybe the unarmed person was faster and stronger, maybe the unarmed person was a Karate expert, maybe the gun jammed, maybe the wind blew something into the gun man's eye, who knows. Bottom line, in the vast, most cases he with the gun, assuming he is winning to use it, will call the shots. Who would put your money on in a physical altercation an unarmed Einstein or Hitler with an Uzi? ------------ Well any caption would be funny with this photo ... hell. this photo is funny without a caption. :-)

Mr. Strawman (aka @daniellegfny) you've changed the focus and are defending something I never contested but that is fine. I just want to point it out because I don't think you honestly actually see what your are doing.