Troy

@Delano, no there are many find as respectable people who flash the Wakanda salute. I'm just now one of them. My position on the jewish influence that they exert outsized influence on Black popular culture from the film, TV, music etc...

OK @Delano I'm going to delete them this I saw this one another post of yours as well.

Email which is a great tools has been destroyed by marketers and phishing schemes and the like. I shared really bad one here which actually had an old password I used (obviously from a hacked website). I also get email from my bank, domain name registrar, invoices, etc all fake trying to get my personal information. I'm not surprised people fall for these for they are much more sophisticated than the Nigerian price looking for someplace to deposit funds. 90 or more of my email is garbage -- FAR worse than my physical mail. Again I suggest that you don't extend your personal experience with social media to the general population of users. Here is an example that I previously gave you: We know that Russians targeted African Americans in the 2016 election, by bombarding us with anti-Clinton rhetoric and some cases outright lies. We know Black voter participation was down in the 2016 election. It is pretty easy to connect the dots on this one. So while you were not impacted (beyond hating trump more). I and many other people in my filter bubble was... the disgruntled electorate fed up with both parties to the point we would vote for the 3rd party candidate or no one all all. Also it is hard to convince someone who is being manipulated that they are being manipulated. Once it became clear to me that I was being manipulated the strategies Facebook uses became plain and then irritating. Which i why I simply stopped using it. @Delano, maybe this is why you are a climate change denyer. Why consume news on a platform known to promulgate fake news stories? As far as the Black male group, I don't recall seeing the invitation, but you know I stopped engaging in Facebook groups years ago.

This video speak to why I can't get all wrapped up into the Black Panther hype. I was not familiar with all the background and the Jewish influence in defining Black culture which is notion a reject on every level -- even when it comes in the forum of Black Panther. The speaker, Todd Steven Burroughs, Marvel’s Black Panther: A Comic Book Biography, From Stan Lee to Ta-Nehisi Coates, Reginald Hudlin's and the other Black writers impact was positive and has somewhat weakened my aversion to embracing the World of Wakanda. I still ain't doing no Wakandan salute.

Malcolm X debates Evie Rich (a Black woman who is from CORE) on WCAU Radio in 1961. The argument resonates today. The National is (was) 100% against "interracial" marriage. Rich is married to a white man and hearing her speak about being married to a white man in the context of 1961 America rubs me the wrong way... I can't help it... She said she was as in touch with the so called negro is almost laughable. When Malcolm talks about the importance of land. I agree with him. When Rich disputed him see made it seems as if any educated person would know that this is not true. Neither provided their point but Malcolm's make more sense to me. I view the WWW as analogous to physical land. We are not property owners, but rather fight to excel on white owned properties -- present company excluded of course

Thanks again @Delano I would have, of course, missed this were it not for you sharing it on AALBC -- thanks! I still maintain an AALBC Facebook page and shared the image there (see below). Gwen Richardson, the lady I'm pictured with started her website, cushcity.com the same year I started launched AALBC (1998). Cush City was one of the largest Black owned websites of the day (it may still be). Gwen business was covered in business publications and general interest magazines like Jet. After launching Cush City (Cush City also had a brick and mortar bookstore, which predated the website, but has subsequently closed) Gwen moved on to write several books (one won an NAACP Image Award) and with her husband Willie, launched the National Black Book Festival, which will celebrate it's 13th year in 2019. Gwen was one of the few Black owned business, in the book space, that I was was able to collaborate with over the years. For years I regularly reached out to all of the online booksellers I was aware of to collaborate, so my ability to work with here is saying a lot. She has managed to roll with the times while I obsessive pursue independence on the web. She is a savvy business woman.

Thanks @Delano for sharing this article on AALBC's social media platform! "Booming" is hyperbolic, but there does indeed seem an increase in the number of stores. The ABA's report of a 5% increase in sales feels about right. In the Black community, which lags the white community in good times and is hit harder in bad, there is no cause for real celebration yet. We (Black-owned indies) are still down a couple hundreds stores just in the time that I've been running AALBC. Why the Alanis Morissette video?

Man, why is everything so Black and white with you all. Why does everything have to be all of nothing. I'm certain I use Google's suite of services more than anyone here. That coupled with my WWW expertise allows me to better understand them than you all. Google has paid AALBC more than any other entity BAR NONE. AALBC has both helped and hurt by Google. The WWW at large has been both helped and hurt by Google. I believe Google monopoly in search is doing more harm than good. To say my expertise is drowned out by my "hatred" of Google is ridiculous. I appreciate my unique perspective allows me to see thing you simply can't, but because you cant see it does not make it untrue or the result of hatred. Now Facebook, in my opinion has been FAR more destructive, all things considered, than Google. We can share memes without having our data collected and used to manipulate us, our state of mind, elections, etc, the way Facebook does. Facebook, in my opinion, is as bad a big tobacco, I may hate Facebook, but that came after years of use, observation, and yes... dare I say it... books. @Delano, your joke may have been funny I just did not get it

@Delano ?

They are really quite tasty!

I guess there it is in a nut shell. I'm sure your pension is secure as long as you need it. Someone has to carry all the junk mail we get @Mel Hopkins please don't encourage @Pioneer1 LOL!

He has saved many people.

@Mel Hopkins if that is the story about the white American missionary who went in to convert those people (we dont know what they xall themselves) imagine if Africans reacted that way to the Europeans who 1st stepped onto the African shores... @Cynique, based ipon your ardent defense of the platform and your jumping down my throat everytime i say anything negative about the site. Have you ever said anthing about the site causing harm? If so show me 'cause i obviously missed that. My last post answered all your questions. I dont begrude any individual for doing what makes them happy. My gripe is with Facebook, cigarette makers, etc. I don't blame victims. @Delano ? @Mel Hopkins if that is the story about the white American missionary who went in to convert those people (we dont know what they call themselves) imagine if Africans reacted that way to the Europeans who 1st stepped onto the African shores... @Cynique, based ipon your ardent defense of the platform and your jumping down my throat everytime i say anything negative about the site. Have you ever said anthing about Facebook being harmful? If so, show me 'cause i obviously missed that. My last post answered all your questions. I dont begrude any individual for doing what makes them happy. My gripe is with Facebook, cigarette makers, etc. I don't blame victims. @Delano ?

What is this word? I can't figure out what you are trying to say in the sentence it is used. I know what you were trying to spell here. The missing punctuation and incomplete sentences do not really pose a problem for me either. I'm not sure why you have decided to become the chief of the grammar police recently.

Sheesh Cynique, I will relate anecdotes. There is nothing wrong with this, but stop making believe that this is the only evidence I'm provided. There are great volumes of data that speak to the changing demographics of Facebook that I've previous shared and that you can easily look up if you wanted. @Cynique stop making my justified critique of Facebook all about YOU and please spare me the explanation of why people use Facebook. Remember I'm the inhouse WWW expert Please, use Facebook, smoke cigarettes, get drunk, eat pork, go to church, don't read books, have unprotected sex with strangers, do whatever makes you happy in this life, but stop making believe that Facebook is not having adverse impact on our culture. Just because YOU did not die from smoking cigarettes does not mean it is not a scourge killing over 1,000 people a day in the United States alone. If you ran around here playing down the ill effects of cigarette smoking, I'd challenge you every day of the week. The same goes for Facebook.

On the other hand they are also, motivating, inspiring, and powerful speakers, who help a great many people get through life with much greater ease. This reminds me of an earlier conversation.

LOL! Man that is the only thing you've said that made sense in the last two months! While it does imply some restrictions I'm not saying it is "better." I just find in the south women, in general, have no problem adhering to the more traditional gender roles. This is good for some people and not for others. I'm not making any value judgements. I'm just saying what it is. It is not a "claim." I objectively know more about the www than anyone else here -- full stop, end of story. Just accept it man. @Delano, I'm not sure why you are going back to the 80's the net was not publically available back then. But I was actually a user of the internet I have had an email address since 1980. I'm not ever sure why you are bringing up the 90's either social media, as we know it today, did not exist. Antisocial media did not emerge until the the past decade, so lets keep things in perspective, OK? As far as Cynique giving me perspective, she did not say I was being manipulated by social media -- neither she, or I, knew it at the time. Besides this is a phenomenon Cynique currently disputes, so she would not have arrived at that conclusion, that was my conclusion. Look, when Facebook first appeared people where playing Farmville and discovering old friends, no one outside of Facebook knew that it would become human manipulation engine, hell bent on global domination that would become. It took time before Facebook revealed itself to be the great evil that it is. It actually took me a couple of years after arriving at this conclusion to completely delete my account. Part of the reason was the fear of missing out on something, which I know is one of the strategies Facebook uses to keep people connected. If you ever try to delete your account you'll see the slick techniques they use to keep you from actually cutting the cord.

Dude was supposed to be dupe. @Delano you do realize, of all the regular posters your posts are far an away the most riddled with typos. Everyone just lets them slide because we can usually get the gist. Now of course I have no problem being corrected but the sarcasm from someone who is notorious for typos is strange.

Tarkisha's book is indeed the #1 bestselling book on AALBC making the September/October - 2018 list. What is striking, to me about this video, produced by the author, is that she, (1) recognizes the accomplishment of making AALBC's bestsellers list and (2) tells readers that they can buy her book from AALBC. An author doing both — even an AALBC bestselling author — unsolicited is not common (sad but true). I'm confident this is a trend that will continue as more authors, especially the indie authors expand their promotional efforts beyond social media — it is win-win. Indie authors need booksellers who promote and sell their work and booksellers need indie authors to support us. There is no need to send readers to Amazon (everyone already knows you can buy books there). It is a beautiful thing when authors show some love for their most ardent supporters indie booksellers Thanks Tarkisha!

People follow charismatics leaders that promise great things. Some people, as I'm trying to explain to @Cynique are far more easily manipulated than others. Try to show some compassion for the victims -- and lets be clear they were indeed victims. I don't know if Jim Jones was a evil monster or a monster who thought he was going some good, in any event, lets try to create a world where people like Jim Jones can not easily dupe so many people into killing themselves.

I agree with this too.

Twitter (like Facebook) is losing users and is already largely irrelevant to the most desired demographic, young people. Of the last three years only one or two of my students numbering more than 50 each semester say that Twitter is in the top 2 of their social media platforms. None of my friends outside of marketers (a handful) and political wonks (even fewer) use twitter. While Mel keeps saying I'm proving her point because I used Twitter to send a message, what she is failing to recognize, actually using the platform requires actively engaging on it. I used Facebook for the same reason, for many authors (too many if you ask me), the ONLY way to reach them, if you don't have their contact info, is to look them up on Facebook. I don't engage on Twitter, because it does not drive traffic and no one I'm friends with uses the platform save the few exceptions I mentioned which includes Mel and Chris Burns. 45 Tweets and the media who feed off of them are keeping Twitter afloat for now. Indeed it took the 12 years for twitter become profitable and this was just Q4 2017. and there stock price is too volatile. Their ad sales are dwarfed by Facebook whose ad sales are dwarfed by Google's. Twitter is a marginal, peripheral, player in online ad sales and largely attractive to older, less tech savvy people like 45. Again they have a monopoly on 45's online ravings so they are over achieving right now. Obviously my predictions of Twitter's demise are not a statement of fact, or certainly. It is just my opinion and some wishful thinking. No I did not say that, but it may in fact be true once you factor in the disenfranchised voters, the ones who stayed home, the ones who votes for Bernie and the 10% of Black voters who actually voted for 45. Allow me to be clear, I'm not implying it, this is what I'm saying. Vague documentation -- indeed! @Cynique, try reading something outside your social media filter bubble. AALBC Social media platform -- Bite your tongue woman! Don't group AALBC in with Twitter and Facebook -- unless the private investors are going to give me money to lose until I become profitable. LOL! There needs to be another term for what we are doing here. Social media, for me, has become synonymous with manipulation, the creation of filter bubble, profiting off personal information, data mining, creating addiction, brokering in celebrity scandal and the like.

{exasperated sigh} Mel I could have used email to accomplish the same thing, I simply used Twitter as a means for communication, because that was what WKDU provided. I DM'ed you because I know you use Twitter and it was trivial to forward the message to you on Twitter. Again the same could have been accomplished via email, but you meet people where they are. I could not have done the same thing using Facebook -- simply because neither you or I used Facebook. That does not make Twitter platform for eliminating racism or anything more significant. It is a commercial platform designed to generate profit, seemingly at any cost. I could not have shared the message with Cynique, or any of my family or most of my friends, because none of them use Twitter. Twitter's days are numbered (you heard it hear first).

That DM, nor Twitter, will fix a thing. It ever has and never will. I predict Twitter's demise shorty after 45 leaves office.

What is the difference between what Farrakhan preaches and the (fill in the blank) religion? Is it that it is the pro-Black perspective?