Troy

The Finalists for the National Book Awards have been announced.

You are perceptive Mel, for I do like to think of myself this way, because often things are more complicated than they are presented. I feel if you can understand why a person is a Covidiot (that is a new one on me 🙂), you might be able to help them and in the process maybe save a few lives. But you are probably right on this one and given the fact that, as @Pioneer1 wrote a percentage of our population does indeed has some level of sociopathy. So while it may not be worth the effort in understanding a Covidiot's motivation -- something needs to be done about them, as they impose a danger not just to themselves but to others.

Don't sleep on fire hydrants man. They provided a great deal of fun -- streams for boat races, way to wet unsuspecting drivers, and relieve from the oppressive summer heat (It always seemed to me that the summers used to be hotter when I was a kid, then remind myself that no one had AC back then LOL). There are millions of stories we can all tell. Where is your book?

Yes, I know, he told me the same thing years ago. He was a good brother with a big personality. Yes @Pioneer1 we are talking about the same man, who died of Covid earlier in the year. I believe there is education. But Covid deniers are not all ignorant. Ignorance can not explain it, once people are presented with the fact of 210K deaths -- despite lockdowns. What we are seeing is a perverse combination of varying degrees of stupidity and greed. Plus a complete lack of empathy.

Interesting reactions absent of reason or compassion... My guess is that more people have died from Covid-19 in the US this year alone than from Ebola or AIDS in the last decade combined. Will a million people need to die before you care? Oh wait, a million people have already died from Covid-19. But I guess that was all due to stress related too. I have to remind myself periodically to accept the fact that some people will never about others.

I rarely express myself using the language learned the Harlem, nigga.

Never heard of her... How many press secretaries has 45 had anyway? Just learned a HS classmate passed from Covid-19 a really nice guy an entrepreneur and restaurateur.

I did not make that argument, nor would I based upon the information I have. If he had a high profile job with Fox News or some corporation I might agree with you, but he go canned by PBS for Christ's sake.

Again, we don't know what Tavis was accused of or punished for. I don't know what Tavis net-worth is today, but the $2.6 MM fine may be relatively minor.

I've met Smiley on a number of occasions, but never had a real conversation with him. He did not strike me as particularly out going or friendly. Though I'm sure it I was a celebrity, or a fine woman, he would treated me differently. While I would have said he was a gentleman, I had not idea he was sexually abusing people. Your bar for morally acceptable behavior is a lot lower than mine. Come on man Obama isn't even a genius few people are. The idea that you would attribute "charisma and social intelligence" to Trump is mind blowing. Hearing 45 speak off script is very revealing. Despite access to every conceivable advantage 45 communicates like a child. I don't know what 45's IQ but I'd be willing to bet it is below the median (100). Have you noticed that when your ideas are challenged to then take them to an extreme case. Sure if someone is so mentally retarded (or whatever the PC word is today) that they are incapable of learning to read yes they may have difficulty presenting themselves as intelligent, but we were not talking about these people were we?

Google's Algorithm is working hard; it showed me this video front center. Knowingly manipulated, I clicked on the video and shared it here. I shared it because I through it would make @Pioneer1 happy and because I wanted to illustrate how Google fans the flames of racial strife. Facebook gets beat up on this all the time, but unlike Facebook Google's direct influence extends throughout the entire WWW probably has a greater impact. I'm not saying the pinheads at Google are trying to get white folks scared or fire up Black folks deliberately. It does not matter. The content they are PUSHING (I did not seek out this video of related content) it will almost certainly have that impact. Will White militia groups, who see this, allow themselves to be punked and let this go unanswered? How many innocents will be caught up in the cross fire and will Google ever be held to account? Who know?

This is the operative phase. CLEARLY Tavis was forcing himself on the women or men. Otherwise we would not be having this conversation. Of course white authorities have been hypocritical as hell since before the inception of this nation, but that does not mean Tavis did not do something wrong. Again, since nether of us know specifically what he did wrong it is impossible to debate the merits of his punishment. At least they did not toss Tavis' behind in prison the way they did Dr. Cosby.

Regarding Candice you've manipulated what it means to be a "lady" to suit your world view. Is Tavis Smiley a gentleman in your book too? You sure can fake intelligence; all you need is someone with less intelligence to dupe. Many Americans view 45 as very intelligent, right?

Look, I have no clue what Tavis did. However if he got canned and has pay damn near 3,000 large he must have done some serious shit. If you want to defend everything short of rape that is cool. Tavis could have found someone else besides a subordinate to screw (he obviously was not making love).

Dude these sentences are completely contradictory. Either Candice is a lady or she sleeps with white men to get ahead -- which is it? I think I would roll with Cardi B over Candice. I doubt Cardi's private persona is the same as her public one.

Do you believe everything you read? The source matters. Share a link to the article. Take if from someone who actually raised a family in New York; you would be struggling on $70K a year (assuming they did no benefit from inherited wealth like a home). The fact that you would even share that comment that tells me you really don't have a clue. @daniellegfny it is difficult to determine if I should even take your seriously given your statements.

Because AALBC is Black owned and Powell's is white owned. Seriously, because the ABA and Bookshop.org have excluded stores that are web based only from the revenue share. Again, I believe the reason websites have been excluded is that bookshop.org wants to dominate web sales. The ABA does not seem to be concerned about this and this is why I can not support bookshop or the ABA for that matter.

I'm glad you have a sense of humor 😉 But you are completely missing the point Bruh. Obviously Smiley's sexual overtures were conventual he would be in this pickle. He was obviously abusing his power and coercing these people. One one could make a strong argument that he should be in jail.

Still, try raising a Family in NYC with an income of $65K. Starting with nothing. Destitute, impoverished, the definitions and their differences mean little to the millions of Black people in America living in ether condition. Delaying gratification is not a solution for these people. They don't have to decided to put for adding an extension to the house or putting of a cruise down the Nile.

No it is a conscious effort on my part. I misjudged women in the past based upon the way they looked. I used to see more attracted people get a pass when they should have been fired. Tall, handsome, Blond-haired blue-eyed dudes could do no wrong ... Oh, OK. You are, pardon the expression, a classic "dog" LOL! As I've gotten older I fond it more difficult to sperate what I think of a person from how sexually attracted I am to then. If I find your behavior revolting I'm not sure I'd be able to get it up for you. That is not to say that I physical attraction is not part of the equation. It s not an either/or proposition, it is both. Besides it takes two to tango and I don't think I'm light skinned enough for Ms. Owens.

You are assuming Tavis is heterosexual. Shadow and Act did not say and I did not reference the source article (I don't really care that much). Tavis may have been sexually harrassining his male and female subordinates for all I know. On Friday I took a mandatory sexual harassment course for the college I teach at. I hate the things. The department admin and the department chaired emailed me separately telling me that it was a state requirement. Normally I just fast forward though the slides and videos and answer the obvious questions at the end. But this course was on to this tactic; you could not advance until every video played. Given your statements @Pioneer1 I can see why these training course are required. One of rules is that professors can not have sex with the students -- consensual or otherwise. This is obvious to me, but I can see, now where people like Pioneer would see no problem with this and really do need to have someone explain to them why this is just a very bad idea. Common sense tells you that you should not have sex with those who report to you... I guess common sense is not all that common huh?

Any idea what they are selling? Again you are jumping to an extreme @daniellegfny No one wrote that "...mass of Black People in America are destitute..." So I won't try to defend another one of your strawman arguments. The reality is that almost 1/5 of Black Americans do not exceed the incomes levels shown in the table below. That is almost twice the national average. I'm sure you'd agree a working age adult making less that $250 a week (before taxes) is virtually indistinguishable from being destitute. Poverty Thresholds for 2019 by Size of Family and Number of Related Children Under 18 Years Size of family unit Weighted average thresholds One person (unrelated individual): 13,011 Under age 65.................................... 13,300 Aged 65 and older............................. 12,261 Two people: 16,521 Householder under age 65................ 17,196 Householder aged 65 and older........ 15,468 Three people........................................ 20,335 Four people.......................................... 26,172 Five people........................................... 31,021 Six people............................................. 35,129 Seven people........................................ 40,016 Eight people......................................... 44,461 Nine people or more............................. 52,875 Source: U.S. Census Bureau.

Of course I'm an American male we are taught to do this. I actively try not to do it, which is why I'm sensitive to it when i see others do it. I noticed you did this with Candice Owens too, as if her a relative attractiveness should have some bearing on her intelligence. For me the converse is true; intelligence has a great deal of bearing on one attractiveness. Further, I would not try to make a determination about the sister's intellect based solely on what she said (or read) in the video. How could one possibly do that? All we know is that she can verbally express an opinion (whether it is her's or someone else's). This does not exactly make her an Imhotep. @Pioneer1 I suggest that you stop considering how attractive one is when hearing what they have to say. Marketers have known for a very long time that this is one of the easiest ways of manipulating people.

While updating my Top 50 Black-owned Websites page. I noticed the Tavis Smiley story. Given all the other crazy news today this story was buried. Shadow and Act a site that covers film and TV quoted Variety: "In March, Smiley was found guilty of breaching his contract due to multiple affairs within the workplace. Earlier in January, an investigation commissioned by PBS found Smiley accused of enacting several types of misconduct, including verbal abuse and sexual harassment." This is beyond unfortunate. The Brother had so much potential. He could not keep his d*ck in his pants for 5 minutes? Why is he sexually harassing people? SMH...

Hi @Ocilla Holst we don't allow links to Amazon on this site. However you are free to link to your site or any other bookseller (except bookshop.org)