Troy

Housekeeping: @Madinah S. If you post with one of you approved account, and not as a guess like your last post, I'll delete the other two accouts. Still there is a problem on my side people are not getting account approval notifications, which is a serious problem, that I'm eorking to correct now.

Five minutes after Affirmative Action was put into place Black people (especially men) were marginalized. It became a fight for "diversity" which means everybody (gays, white women, the handicapable, Asians, Latinx, etc, etc) except white men. Black people have been lost in the diversity sauce because we no longer fight in unity. Black women fight for women's rights, the Black folks in the LGBT+ community fight those battles, and so on. Divide and conquer... All the fight for diversity has done is enrage white boys, many of whom despite their white privileged are struggling and further marginalizes Black people -- the ones who Affirmative Action was purported designed to benefit. As a result, white boys elected 45. Meanwhile Black men's graduation rates have declined relative to all other groups, incarceration rates have exploded, and our murders by police are revenue generating prizes for the media. The Black Power movement has been co-opted and watered down in more ways than I can count. Back on the plantation, Amazon proudly flies the Black liberation flag with total impunity inside the big house, while treating Black workers like sharecroppers and doing everything they can to either put Black-owned online retailers out of business, or completely control their sales channels to consumers.

True but this is largely because we have been excluded from enjoying the fruits of our labor. I can't tell you how many times I have a conversation with a "Afro-American" who was born here but descent of slaves from the Caribbean or South America. Most of the Negros do not identify as American. Instead they embrace, quite fervently, the colonized national identity of the island or portion of the land mass created by whatever European nation conquered their ancestors. For course I understand this as tied directly to ethnicity. So if a Brooklyn born Jamaican wants to self identify as Jamaican, you can't force them to embrace and self-identify as Afro-American just because you think it is more accurate -- despite the fact that the alt-right don't give a damn where you come from if you are "Black." Seen, roots?

True. I still use both "Negro" and "Afro-American" generally for effect to highlight those use use antiquated ideas. But this term is not very accurate because every person in America or who has every lived here is of African ancestry. Am I wrong? -------- Sidebar: @Madinah S. actually has two accounts (@Madinah Slaise) The vast majority of accounts that are created are never used. There are several new accounts created each day, but rarely are they used. Most of the guest posters have accounts even @QueenX who has several but always posts as a guest. Maybe there is a problem using the accounts -- that I'm not aware of. Madinah did you get the confirmation that your account was approved? This is is important because this may be effecting participation if confirmation emails are not going through.

I don't believe there is term that perfectly describes all the brown people of African descent, who are American citizens, that everyone would embrace. @Pioneer1 likes "Afro-American," to me that sounds antiquated, like "Negro." ADOS (African Decendant of Slaves) is another term, but I'm not a fan of it because not every Black person here in America is a descendant of an enslaved African. Despite our internal diversity, what we universally share is oppression due to the color of our skin. "Black" works not so much for how it describes us, but what it represents, a people with a rich history, culture, and civilization going back thousands of years before the first caucasian emerged from a cave.

Hi @Mel Hopkins no book seller, I have spoken to, has ever witnessed anything like this before. I was not totally prepared for the surge in books orders -- no one could have anticipated that kind of demand. It put an strain on the entire book distribution chain no one is unaffected not even the big "a." But you are right I was in a position to quickly scale to demand. The things I had working for me was, The website was prepared for the traffic. Thanks to a surge in traffic last year I was forced to upgrade my web server. I ditched Amazon and began selling books directly (many new customers stated they chose AALBC because they'd rather support an indie book seller over Amazon) I simply would not have gotten the extra sales if I were still an Amazon affiliate. Access to credit. I could have brought a couple automobiles with what I spent on books in the last 10 days. I was able to hire help quickly. I had the time and energy to do this work. I worked every day since since May 28 at least 12 hours per day. One evening I had a few friends and tomorrow I'm taking completely off -- but that was it. Yesterday I didn't even take time for dinner. I'm technically capable and was able to quickly make changes to the website, like adding a feature to say when a book would be available. Most of the problems I encountered was simply the availability of books. Because of the pandemic, some books that are still in print, are simply unavailable to me. Some publisher have been shut down until March. Distributors, printers, shipping companies are strained. this all effects booksellers. Virtually every customer has been completely understanding -- it has been amazing. I do have to say there was once customer that gave me some grief.... A month after their order shipped (before the surge), I gave the customer their tracking code. They emailed and called complaining that their book has not yet arrived. They should have gotten it in about a week (it was shipped media). The tracking number indicated that the USPS lost the book in transit. This is info the customer could easily see for themselves. I was unaware of the lost package, because once I provide a tracking number I leave it up to the customer to get back to me. Now during the pandemic everything is slower and lost packages happen occasionally. The customer was sent a new book, but they had to feed me the classic line, "This is why I don't like to deal with own-Black businesses." I know... I was floored too! I explained to the customer that you can't judge all Black-owned business based upon this single transaction with AALBC -- especially when the problem was caused by the United States Postal Service and I made good on the order. If just seems to me that Black business are held to a much higher standard. Literally every other customer has been a blessing. I was selling a hardcover of So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo, but the hardcover is unobtainable right now. I went back to customers, and offered to send them the paperback version instead, with a $10 refund for the difference. To a person they all said, "Keep the $10 we wanna support!" I could not believe it.

The Caldecott Medal, established in 1938. It is awarded annually by the Association for Library Service to Children, a division of the American Library Association, to the artist of the most distinguished American picture book for children. The award was named in honor of nineteenth-century English illustrator Randolph Caldecott. Perhaps this explains why, in 83 years of handing out the award, only 4 Black illustrators have won the medal. OK, that last sentence was a bit snarkier than necessary, but let's be clear, the reason so few Black illustrators have been honored with this award is racism. Racism is so deeply embedded in our culture that the white world of publishing did not see fit to publish many books featuring Black characters. When they did the illustrators were often white. In the rare instance when a book illustrated by a Black person was published, it was obviously not considered worthy of the award. One of the white artists included on my list is the prominent illustrator, of books featuring Black children, Ezra Jack Keats. Keats's is included on my list, because books by white writers of the Black experience are important too -- I still remember the first time I saw the book a Snowy Day (which won the medal in 1963) and how excited I was. Keats would go on to be honored again, in 1970, years before a Black illustrator was recognized. Indeed the first Black person did not win a Caldecott medal until 1977 when the husband and wife duo of Leo & Diane Dillon shared the Medal for Ashanti to Zulu: African Traditions -- a full 40 years after the award first bestowed! There have only been four Black Caldecott Meal winners in the history of the award: Kadir Nelson (2020), Javaka Steptoe (2017), Jerry Pinkney (2010), and Leo & Diane Dillon (twice 1977 & 1976) Nelson and Pinkeny have been honored by Association for Library Service to Children more than an other Black artist, perhaps more than any artist (I did not research this). They have each either won the Medal or Honor (the honor is sort of like being a runner up) three times. A Black woman has never won the Medal, though a few, three to be precise, have received a Caldecott Honor: Oge Mora (2019) Ekua Holmes (2016) Faith Ringgold (1993) Historically, the Caldecott awards have largely over looked Black artists. But things have absolutely changed in recent years. As they have changed with so many book awards in recent years. More than half of the Caldecott Honors and Medals, that were given to Black children book artiists, were given in the last 10 years. In 2020, the Medal was given to Kadir Nelson and two of the three Honors went to Daniel Minter and Rudy Gutierrez! Things have changed. Publishers are now publishing more books featuring Black characters, that are also written and illustrated by Black people. Black illustrators are finally being published and recognized for their talent! We are living in a historic period right now, at least as far as children's literature is concerned. Will it last? The publishing industry is notoriously fickle when it comes to Black books. Urban Fiction was selling like hot cakes a few years ago. Before that, chick-lit was popping. We've seen the the popularity of detective novels rise and wane. I'm sure many of you remember the erotica we could not buy enough. There is still demand for all of these genres as there always was for children's literature it, but big publishers are simply publishing less of it. At this instance, books dealing with racism is the rage, at least until the media move on to the next shiny object... One clever publisher even created a board book book on racism book for toddlers. They are working it! In fact, the author, Ibram X. Kendi has every age group covered when it comes to dealing with racism, or "antiracsim" as he curiously calls it: Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You (A Remix of the National Book Award-Winning Stamped from the Beginning for or middle grade/ Young adult readers) How to Be an Antiracist (one of the most popular books in AALBC ever) Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America At the end day, the question remains: what will we do when the major publishers move on from children's books written and illustrated by Black people? Will we wring our hands and lament the dearth of books featuring Black children and stories again, or will we do something about it ourselves? *Notes: I did the research to come up with these names of Black illustrators for this article, by reviewing the 83 year history of the Caldecott Medal. There is a possibility that I missed a name or two. The information provided on the award's website does not include photos of the illustrators or identify them by their race. As far as I know, AALBC is the only web which has attempted to do this, as we (i.e. me) has with many other awards. If you find any omissions please let me know. My list of Caldecott Medal winners and honorees includes some non-black winners, including Ezra Jack Keats and Gerald McDermott.

The words are not synonymous. Black is a superset of African American. For example Nigerians are Black, but not African-American. Both terms are imperfect. No human is black in complexion. Is a white South African immigrant living in Chicago an African American? On AALBC, we capitalize Black when referring to people in articles we publish.

Man, I wonder what it would take for me to get an author to go to some other bookseller's website and tell the people there to go by their books at AALBC? @Alion Jay why don't you link, to or even name, your own website as a place where people can link to your website?

No problem let me know if you think any of our other videos might work elsewhere on the website.

Cool Video! I just added it to my MahoganyBooks page on AALBC.

https://store.aalbc.com is part of AALBC. When I started selling books directly, a year ago, I used a company called Big Commerce to handle my shopping cart, inventory tracking, billing, invoicing, it has been great. Most other book sites that use the Big Commerce software also use the software to drive their entire website. I do not. AALBC is much more flexible in displaying book info as BC is a more generic solution designed to sell anything. AALBC's book platform is a competive advantage.

Yeah I was never a real fan of hers for this reason.

Well I'm on this mailing list with some pretty prominent elders. It does not seems like this is a scam. But you never know, government agents could be anywhere. I did not sign up, but it reminded me of your philosophy (albeit more extreme) and I thought you might it interesting.

I wonder what is different now than the 1960's, or the many other years, when there was civil unrest?

Yeah and it will last until the news cycle moves on to the next shiny object dangled in front of them. The REAL issue is will people continue to support Black-owned businesses once the media fueled hype is over?

@Pioneer1 the message below was in my in box today: "I don't understand why we just sit around and TALK. when there is a well defined STRUCTURE that makes Black Lives Matter and it is our own National Structure.We can't arrive at this far reaching destination of our lives mattering without a VEHICLE, a well thought out way to make our lives matter. We cannot logically obtain Reparations while we have not liberated ourselves. Reparations do not work well for encapsulated people. Reparations is an International matter as explained by Malcolm X and the only way to obtain COLLECTIVE reparations is that we must be a Self-determining collective, until we realize that BLACK LIVES WILL NOT MATTER. The Government, the Police Unions, the District Attorney Associations, and the Conservatives judges cannot reform themselves and we should not expect them to. We ask you to listen to the Afro-descendant Nation Confederated and our brother Ramzu Yunus when we say we must move for SELF-DETERMINATION so that we can be assured that you, I and our children and family will be safe. Self-Repair is the First Step towards full reparations. WE MUST FIRST BECOME STRONG ENOUGH TO REPLACE not only the POLICE, but the JUDGES, D.A's, Banks, Stores, Landlords and execute our Afro-descendant Right to the land and authority over it. WE ARE NOW AT 150,000 Citizens but WE WANT AND WILL OBTAIN 1 MILLION CITIZENS BEFORE THE END OF THE YEAR SO THAT WE CAN MAKE THE FINAL MOVE TOWARDS TRUE FREEDOM." We need your vote and your participation. Please register now at www.adconfederation.com

I don't disagree with your two points. The video also shows that he old guy was pushed very lightly -- with so little force most people would not have fallen. The fact that he tripped, fell, hit his head with such force that he immediately began bleeding out his ear, because he was too weak and uncoordinated to break his fall in the slightest, could not have been known by the police. Again it was just a tragic accident -- this does not rise to police brutality that is regularly leveled against Black people. Hopefully, the old guy has a speedy recovery.

Hi @Maurice Thanks so much for your business the best way to see how much it cost to ship would be to actually go through the process of placing the order. The shipping cost will be calculated and you can then decide if you'd like to place the order. If you have any difficulty or the option to ship abroad is not available let me know please -- thanks!

Thank You! @JazzBeauty Worse, still corporations, like Amazon, are exploiting the situation (Black people) for monetary gain, buying off civil rights organizations who should be calling our Amazon for the exploitation of Black people and Black businesses.

WTF!? Amazon has stooped to a new low by making this claim. To make matters FAR worse, they have the unmitigated gall to fly the Black Liberation Flag in one of their corporate offices! This is outrageous! When I saw this photo on Amazon's site (despite Boycotting Amazon I visit periodically to see what Amazon is doing with Ibram's book). Amazon is the antithesis of Black liberation which is what this flag represents. I have not taken out an ad on Twitter in years, but I took one out today -- just to highlight Amazon's hypocrisy (we will see how that works out). Sure Amazon gave out $10 million to some civil rights organizations -- which is the financial equivalent of you or I giving away penny, which we stole from the collection plate at church. Go to hell Amazon.

I looked at the video a couple of times. From my perspective the police clearly did not intend to cause that kind of injury to the elderly fellow. He was lightly pushed, unable to regain his footing, stumbled, fell backward, slamming he head into the pavement. the police immediately recognized the severity of the injury and did something about it. There is no way the police could have know that was gonna happen. It was a accident. If you are gonna protest you must know you may not be treated with kid gloves and there are there are going to be risks. Police have brutally treated protestors, but this was not one of those situations. The fact so many officers resigned should tell you something. When have you ever heard of officers reacting that way This is in no way comparable to sitting on someones neck, as they plead for their life, until they are dead. "wholly unjustified and utterly disgraceful." Please, this is a bit much from a governor really juicing this pandemic for all it is worth politically.

Yesterday I sold more books than I did during my best month of sales when selling as an Amazon affiliate -- just one day of sales. Sales the day before that beat yesterday! The surge in sales has been experienced by every indie bookseller I have spoken to. After this post I will spend the next 10 to 12 hours processing book orders! I went to bed too tired to process yesterdays outstanding orders -- that has never happened. Customers, thankfully have been more than understanding -- this has simply been inspiring One long term booksellers told me he has never seen anything like this in 50 years in the book business! During my brief phone conversation with this brother I got more orders than I did during the entire month of May. I could go one and describe in much more detail -- i just do not have the time. I took the morning to update and add some website content. I added a couple more bookstores to the site. I also added audiobook excerpts to the top 10 selling books on AALBC (for just the past 4 days). Most of these books are out of stock and on back order, but every customer I asked was more than happy to wait! Here are the top 10 best selling books for the month of June (so far)! How to Be an Antiracist The Fire Next Time The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness So You Want to Talk About Race Between The World And Me My Vanishing Country Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America Sister Outsider: Essays And Speeches Their Eyes Were Watching God It’s Not All Downhill from Here Thanks to all AALBC's new customers; Now have to get to work to do 🙂

There are a wide variety of factors. Much of it self-reinforcing. For example, when an author says, "You can buy my book from Amazon." Everyone in 2020 knows this. But I can't tell you how many authors I have interviewed on video that will tell my audience to buy their book from Amazon!? AALBC is the one shooting, editing, and publishin their video -- not Amazon, but their condition makes this crazy scenario possible. Still I sold book as an Amazon affiliate FAR longer than I should have. I was afraid my customers would simply stop buy book from me. That is simply not true. For example, on Tuesday I had more book sales, in one day, than I had with Amazon in my best month! Now I know the reason is that there has been a national push for readers to support indie Black booksellers because of the pandemic and the police killing of Black people. If I were an Amazon affiliate I would NOT have gotten these sales, because people want to promote Black booksellers. Probably. but I have not had time to check. I only took the time to check Kendi's How to Be an Antiracist, because I saw a surge in demand for the title. I figured the demand was due to gouging by Amazon -- which turned out to be true, but the real demand came from a people looking for books on the subject but sourced from Black booksellers. Now demand for the titles has made it impossible for any booksellers to immediately ship these book. How to Be an Antiracist, will not be available from the nation's largest distributor, Ingram, until next week! Check out want Amazon was up to yesterday: They are still engaged in predatory pricing, but they have kept the price gouging at bay, at least until the scruntiny on these titles has abated. Price gouging during a time like this is just a bad, bad look -- even the mighty Amazon is not immune to this. I see Amazon has raised the price about a buck on this book and have removed a date when the book will be in inventory. Screenshot taken June 4th 10:35 a.m. My main distributor has more than 34,000 copies on back order! This is a big number. That is the earliest the book can be sent to a customer who order it from me.