Troy

Man I was visiting friends in the area and decided to check out the Googleplex. It was a sunday afternoon and I just rode around checking things out. I did not met with executives of anything. I was doing the tourist thing. I could tell I was not the only one, as there were others talking selfies in front of Google different buildings as well. I have actually been in Google facilities in Boston, Raleigh, and New York city for focus groups and training, but those other locations pale in comparison. Black people are conspicuously absent not just on Google's campus but in the surrounding community of Mountain View, CA

I visited the terrordome, I mean the googleplex yesterday. I have to admit it very nice campus. I even rode around the one of the bicycles they have laying around. @Kalexander2, I'll leave the foia requests to the journalists I've been trying to get to cover the issue. The pleasant environment hides the destructive forces behind their walls.

@Pioneer1 I'm not suspicious of your identity, I just can't prove your identity. There is a difference. Again, I take you at your word. Any previous inquires regarding you being a gay white Mason were purely in jest.

@Kalexander2, I don't consider the 60 seconds it took to find freely available information about you that matched your profile. Research would actually be validating the credentials you presented. I have never done that -- it has never been necessary. I did actually search for Pioneer's name one looking for his participation on other forums, because I was interested in learning about other Black forums. Nothing immediately came up, and he refused to tell me the names of the other forums so I gave up. Other than that for new signup I will search on an email address if it looks funky, because usually these are trolls. But trolls are very sophisticated using new email address and spoofing there locations so spam does get through. But longstroyshort. I have neither the time or inclination to research people here. My name is not Mark Zuckerberg. Once a public figured emailed me saying that someone was posting under her identity on this forum. I did not check other out, but I trusted the person who emailed me and banned the poster because it made sense that the poster was an imposter even though it was not immediately obvious. Impersonation is a lie I have zero tolerance for here. Now have stated it is impossible to prove someone posting anonymously, like @Pioneer1, can not be proven to be telling the truth. By the same token, I also do not believe one can prove that they are telling a lie. Now, I pose the question to you K2; How can you be so certain that Pioneer is lying?

@Pioneer1, simply put there is no genetic basic for race. This is a fundamental concept that is lost on you. Now if you, and probably the majority of Americans, want to continue to group people based upon the color of their skin, and then proceed to make broad generalization about the characteristics of these arbitrary buckets of people, knock yourself out. Just understand that there is not basis in science for doing that. Obviously, I know some white people feel that brown people are less intelligent. I also know that the most rabid of these racists will never have their opinions swayed by modern science. That in my opinion is a reflection of their stupidity. Any so called educated person, who is a racist is simply stupid in my book.

@Pioneer1, who are making this a circular argument. I'm saying I can't prove anything you've said is true or false because I again fall all I know you can be a white guy. That said I have anything against white guys participating here, but since you are anonymous I can only go by what you say, of course what you can can be a lie, but I have no way of knowing. Of course I take you at your word, but if I were in a court of law I could not testify to your race, because I simply do not know what it is -- I just know what you written. You would not be the first first who posted here and spoofed the gender, race, or even that of a celebrity. You are being a bit sensitive. I was gonna write "don't get you panties in a bunch," but decided to go with cliche I chose. I was just trying to express the idea that it is not all that serious. Of course K2's presence can be completely fictional as well. Even his is a photo of a person -- that does not mean it is him (or her). I, just searched, and found the photo here as well: https://urbanpatriotsite.wordpress.com/ but that does yield any additional proof, as it does not take very much effort to create a wordpress site under a bogus identity I did find a resume for K2, which gives enough information for me to vet his identity if I wanted to do so, but I don't have time for that. Besides, usually people misrepresenting themselves here eventually reveal themselves as trolls and I end up banning them. Finally there is a big difference between expressing a malformed or ignorant opinion and deliberating saying something known to be false to mislead someone. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to tell the difference.

@Kalexander2, in an earlier conversation, brought up an online news firm he'd previously planned to start, the JPCC News agency. That actually reminded me of a company I started, back in 1991 when I was in MBA school, working in the computer lab with @Delano. I'm order than Del, but he was ahead of me in school.' Anywho when K2 mentioned "JPCC" it really triggered memories. I went to the Wayback Machine and found a snapshot of the JPCC website from 1995. JPCC was one of the first websites that I created; I'm not sure what year that but it was not long after the Netscape Navigator web browser became available. AALBC started as a directory on this website back in 1997. That was a time when very few people had both a PC and Internet access at home.

Tanks for sharing this research Richard. I went directy to the Pew Study: http://www.pewinternet.org/2018/05/31/teens-social-media-technology-2018/ I'm really so very glad I grew up in a world before social media. I hate to think that I'd be walking around with a device in my hand constantly subjecting myself to bullying, pressure, and worse of all marketers. The did not speak to very many Black people about just over 100, so I'm not too sure this survey speaks to our experience (but what is is new). I collect similar data from my students a slightly older demographic and I think a more influential demographic. The most surprising thing I learned speaking to my students, and this is reflected in the pew data, is how irrelevant Twitter is. I was also surprised by how popular Instagram has become by largely copying and improving upon Snapchat. I find the fact Facebook owns instagram troubling, but that is another story. My students have suggested to me that I use Instagram to market AALBC.com. This is something that I have, believe it or not, decided to try. The most difficult thing in this process for me was installing instagram on my phone. I'm completely against having social media apps installed on my phone, but for the sake of learning I decided to experiment with Instagram. Interestingly, I'm not finding the application particularly intuitive. the concept of, and how to create a "story," is not really clear to me. But I'll learn. If a 13-year-old can do is so can I. I've always had an instagram account; I just never used it, so I'm starting out with over 1,000 followers. In additional to learning the application I'm trying to build up my fan base which I'm largely doing by following others. I'll probably look into using a bot to amp up my followers but I wanna learn more about the system first. Below is are the results of a surveys with my students over the last three semesters. I allowed students to pick their two favorite social media platforms, unlike Pew I did not have them select from a list, so I discovered platforms I never heard of. The frequency of use of these platforms too small to have an individual column and are included in the "other" category. For the spring 2018 semester more than 50% of my students said Facebook or Instagram were their favorite social media platforms.

Here are some of my talking points from the presentation: https://aalbc.com/sbbf/

Funny JPCC was the name of my first sideline business it stood for Johnson PC Cconsultants. I'll post the logo when I'm at my pc.

Yes you are probably right and the issues regarding the Department of Defense are way above my paygrade.

@Pioneer1 K2's responses adequately answer your question to me about race. I use a website called ancestry.com. they don't mention the word race but what they do speak to is geographic origin. This is something K2 mentioned as well. Also the fact of the matter is people understand race so it is often easier just to speak in terms that people understand. But of course when you do this you run the risk of being less clear.

One thing Larry told me was that there have only been two Black owned daily newspapers in the United States. The Chicago Defender was one, and I don't recall the name of the other.

As expected Amazon matched my 20% discount. I just bumped the discount to 25% lets see how long it take for Amazon to match or suprise this price.

I met Larry Lee, President of one of the nation’s premier Black-owned newspapers, The Sacramento Observer the 2018 Sacramento Black Book Fair yesterday. We chatted about his 56-year-old newspaper and how he is positioning his newspaper for the modern era. Learn more about Black-owned newspapers at: https://aalbc.com/newspapers/ met

The article unfortunately needed a great deal of editing. I've updated and change the title to, “Google‘s Adverse Impact on the World Wide Web,” to take the focus off AALBC.com which was not the main point of the article. I've been reaching out to my media contacts (Black) as they are greatly affected by this issue, but I've gotten no interest so far...

I read somewhere that wealth disparity is greater in the US today than it was during the period of apartheid it South Africa. I also read, somewhere else, that it is higher now than is was during the Gilded Age. So the answer to you question is absolutely. The an increasingly smaller percentage of the population holds and increasingly larger portion of the nations's wealth. The problem today is that no one seems to care. As long as we have legalized weed, pro football, and social media, we can tolerate being f*cked in the as* without lubrication, warning, or permission. As a country we are not educated enough to act in our best interest. We elect a sociopathic egomaniac as POTUS. I as informative as K2's last post was I doubt most Americans would read or understand it, so it could not possibly have a positive impact on anyone's understanding of so called race, let alone effect positive change.

My west coast family please consider joining for a workshop on #readingblack. If you care about Black culture, who tells our stories, and who profits from the activity; this workshop is for you: Tomorrow 1:30 p.m. at the Sacramento Black Book Fair.

Our 2018 Black Pack Party group shot includes veteran authors like Reshonda Tate Billingsley, Victoria Christopher Murray, Donna Hill, Angela Dodson, and others (mostly in the back row with me). This year we collaborated with an organization called People of Color In Publishing. As a result, there were a lot more younger professional in the house. Most to the front of the photo.

See @Pioneer1, you are pointing out the flawed nature of the artificial term of race. Sure, if we ditched the hispanic category and moved people into the Black or white categories, based upon skin color and/or culture, the Black/White disparity would be much greater I'm sure. But the fact remains, no matter how you slice it, "Over the past 25 years, the wealth gap between blacks and whites has nearly tripled, according to research by Brandeis University." The problem is we don't even understand why! In many ways, we are like spoiled children largely dependent upon others to help us and start crying when we are told we have to start doing things for ourselves.

@Pioneer1 don't get all bent out of shape man. I completely understand why one would hide their identity on the web. I have simply never done it. Indeed it would be very difficult, if not impossible, for me to run a business and do it. With your identity hidden, you do not have that same accountability for your statements as someone who does not hide their identity. You wont ever have to worry about standing behind or explain something your have written. Surely you can appreciate this, can't you? Also, with so much of yourself hidden, how could it be possible for anyone to assess your honesty? This is NOT the same thing as saying you are lying, but we just have no way of knowing. All we know is what you tell us, but we have now way of vetting what you have written because we don't know you you are. Get it?

Del don't be so hard to on K2. How can he possibly accurately assess anyone based upon a few statements. We all say things, or arrive at conclusions, based upon limited information that ultimately turn out to be wrong. K2 may feel differently over time. Besides you know your level of education. What difference does it make what he or anyone else thinks or says about it?

If it was a bit tighter it would make a good meme. Nonetheless, the sentiment is on point.

Yeah, she is probably racist but I give comedennians a lot more leeway in what they say. Their profession is based upon saying crazy shit. Now what she actually does is another story. Now she touts she as one who has been fighting for civil rights her entire lifetime. This seems hyperbolic, can't I have no clue what she has been doing. The interesting thing is that Roseanne actually favors Valerie. Neither one would qualify as "fine" in my book. But now that I see what Valerie looks like. I see now the statement was clearly racially motivated, cause Valerie looks like a white woman to me.... What starbucks needed to do was can that manager, pay off the dudes who they called the police on (which they did). The company wide training was merely a publicity stunt, to stop people from going to their competitors which they are already doing. They hired Common. I guess since he was in the movie Selma he is best suited to train employees not sic the po-po on loitering negroes.

That is high praise @Cynique thank you. @Pioneer1 you can't have it both ways man. You can't say on one hand that Del's observation that you are humble and your admission that you are not are perfectly valid, because they are subjective, while his observation that you are honest is statement of fact. The truth of the matter is @Delano is in no position to assess your honesty, despite his psychic abilities -- man you aren't even honest about your identity. All he, any of us, can do is express an opinion. However, we will never know if that opinion is accurate. As far as humility, this we can assess that based upon the manner in which you express yourself. Again, as you freely admit, humble you are not. This assessment is not nearly as subjective as you are trying to make it seem. Anyone who believes they know more the the world's scientific community cannot be humble. K2, Del did a some readings in my home for a group of friends it was a very nice evening and everyone had a really good time. Del, in person, is a very laid back, unpretentious dude. I think these forums allow us to express sides of ourselves which we would not typically present in the real world. I think however when you use an avatar you can take these liberties to an extreme that you might not when you using your real identity.