Troy

True, the communicative power is music is quite fascinating. Even music in a foreign language can faithfully communicate a sentiment, though this is a more personal experience and not as easily shared as a song with lyrucs you can understand. The following song is one i really enjoy. Without looking up and translating the lyrics what emotions does the song conjure? Mel I always communicate from the heart. 😉 But i think you mean i resonate more with you when i relate a personal story. Is that true? People are moved by stories. Facts and figures don't mean a thing without a good story behind it. If no story exists to explain something we craft a story. Actually @Mel Hopkins I no clue what yiu question means was grasping fir straws trying to answer it after a couple of tries Im afraid i cant answer your question. Yes, that is the idea I'm exploring. There is no free will. Free will is yet another story we tell ourselves. Again this is what im saying nothing is randon there is a cause and effect to everthing. We can know the future outcomes of everthing.

I know plenty, so many I consider it a characteristic of success in this country. You realize those on wall street knew the mortgage backed securities they sold were crap and millions would be booted out of their homes right? Think of all the corporate leaders who pushed addictive pain killers fueling the opiod crisis. Are these successfull people "kind and sensitive." Look at the leader of this country. Look at the leader of Facebook. Look at the leaders of flint michigan. look at the leaders of Philip Morris who pushes cancer sticks in virtually every country on Earth -- literally causing more deaths than any other entity... Mel i could go on and on. Many successful people i know personally do unscrupulous things. It is not contradictory. indeed a feminist fights for the right for a woman to exert control over her own body and sexual expression. Of course better parents are more likely to properly rear children. But you don't have to be Dr. Benjamin Spock; children are amazingly resilient. If you can mange to feed, protect and love them they eventually find their way. Rites of passage are great on paper but the impact of them is greatly diminshed if the broader culture rejects everything the child is taught to earn the honor of becoming an adult.

Me too. The culture does not support programming like that. They feed us R. Kelly, Jessie Smollett, and Bill Cosby jail stories in between 45's tweets. We are a culture of selfie-taking mental midgets anxiously waiting for the next shiny thing social media puts in our "news" feed. Spike ain't getting a director award for Black kkklansman -- unless they trying to "Monique" him. What is with all the Ks in the title? The film itself was meh, perhaps because of the directing. Yeah read stories about Morehouse men fighting and winning the right to wear dresses. I guess Spelman can't take them in.. . The company I used to work for attracted Morehouse university's most gifted student the class valedictorian who happened to be a white boy (who did not wear a dress). Morehouse is not the same school Dr. King graduated from. Some would say that is a good thing. All I know is they are no longer graduating men like MLK.

You are probably right and that is because we are not properly raised (no father in the home) and the culture has a huge hand in this. This is probably true too, but again I think it men ourselves who feel this was as much if not more than women. And by strength and and power our both are praised and valued highly in our market driven culture. We judge each other on how much power and strength we wield. Also men can be kind and sensitive AND strong and powerful. Women, indeed no one, likes a weak powerless man. That should go without saying. Does it really need to be expressed? Now if a man demonstrates weakness in a siituation where he had the capacity to exhibit strength, a good woman should point it out -- not by emasculating him and calling him weak, but by helping him to use the strength he has with the goal of becoming stronger. Men and women should do this for each other.

ROTFLMBAO!

@Mel Hopkins I'm not sure what you are missing. There is no "reason" behind anything that happens. There is no omnipotent deity, collective consciousness, nothing putting people into our lives, putting us in situation or otherwise orchestrating our lives. Each and action from the formation of this planet 4.5 billion years ago, to the emergence of sentient life here, to the marriage of your parent, to your birth, and to you ultimately asking me to explain my statement again yesterday. Knowing the initial conditions the exchange we are having right now could have been determined 13.8 billion years ago when the universe, as we know it was formed. The computational power required to make these determinations would be mind-boggling complex, but mind-boggling is not impossible. Does that answer your question? Side Bar that does not support my argument: This morning I upset someone I care about, not intentionally, but sometimes the way I couch things can seem insensitive (as Del has described 😉). After speaking I went to work and asked Google to play some songs, in a manner that I never did before. Would you believe the first song that popped up perfectly explained what I was feeling and the sentiment I was trying to express. I could not believe it! I looked up the lyrics and the song actually did a better job. I texted the person the song's title and artist, and asked them to look it up. They did and they got it. When I heard the song I could not hep but think I heard that song for a reason 😮

Ha ha! Saul seems like a cool dude.

It is all good @Delano I heard an interview with Saul Williams on the radio yesterday. That dude always reminded me of you. Did you two ever cross paths?

@Cynique, Then why reply and take a dig at me on the way out? So I'm stuck in a "rut," unable to look around me? That statement is incredulous since you know my background and ongoing behavior. You did the same with Dr. Welsing... if that helps justify your disagreement with me on issue fine.

It requires no additional explaination: nothing happens for a "reason." Perhaps you can give an example of something that happens for some reason, and I'll show you a story an elaborate or creative one but a contrivance nonetheless. Thank you. It was a deliberately provacative statement that no one has poked any holes in 😉

@Delano my undies are unbunched 🙂 thanks for the kind words.

@Cynique Dr. Welsing died in 2016 you two were only a couple of years apart. She was as intune with the times as you feel you are. Why diminish her poistion? I'm sure Welsing had strong opinions about the film Precious too and I doubt they were favorable. You know i witnessed the birth of hiphop. Indeed i was part of it i own the first few rap albums. I saw kool herc at the disco fever. I saw flash dj in community centers. I know what rap music is. It is always easy to find exceptions that buck a trend. Just because oprah has a billion dollars and Obama was president does not mean Black people are not struggling financially for structural problems in our economy due to greed and racism So there are a few good shows, in your opinion, on the boob tube; that does not negate the fact that Black people often get the big white awards and acclaim for showcasing dysfuntional behavior as entertainment.

I think everything happen for no reason. All the reasons we come up with are just stories we tell ourselves. Different people will have a different story for the same event. The reasons we conjure are as unique as the individual. If they are religious then it is all in God's plan.

@Mel Hopkins I give you the exact same caution I give @Chevdove plus with the added bonus that a little knowledge can be dangerous. Mel not sure how you arrived at the conclusion you did based upon the information on the page you provided, but Nothing in quantum theory suggests you can walk through a wall. This is simply not true in the macro world. @Chevdove an xray machine is no more mysterious than your cell phone camera. But y'all go ahead and conflate xrays with quantum theory and "exotic" matter and theorize about people walking through walls to your heart's content. Who am I to stop you.

@Delano i don't know the specifics of your online experience. For the umpteenth time your statements regarding the way i moderate a forum that has been active for over 20 years reveals a lack of deep experience and frankly some balls -- how many forums have you run for 20+ years? I'll wait...

Hi Evelyn this is a banner; can you share the actual cover (front and back) or post a link to it? Why include photo of people t all? Since the subject has nothing to do with race, what does the images of people do for the book? Ignoring your race, which also does not have anything to do with the subject. I would probably over look a book covered with white folks -- but that is just me. Similarly, I'd image some white folks would avoid a book with nothing but Black people on them -- why take a chance on alienating anyone. If you really want to include people on the cover consider a more diverse group.

Sure they did we all have choices. It is just, generally speaking our choices are selfish, but this is the culture. Here you make a distinction between different types of white folks, because you recognize their are differences. Black folks regardless of ethnicity or national origin are just "Black." This too is part of the culture. The first statement is true. The second is completely false. Are you suggesting that Jazz is or some other genre of Black is nearly as profitable as rap? This is what rappers and the folks who make money on them say. But it is no more true than the film Precious was art imitating life -- unless you are solely interested in presenting the most egregiously dysfunctional portion of Black people as if it was typical behavior. @Chevdove Frances Cress Welsing a student of Neely Fuller gets deep on the subject. While I don't agree with some of what she says, she makes a lot more sense that most women who the media gave a platform to today. Can you image a sister like Dr. Welsing being on a major talk show today? Her evisceration of Dr. William Shockley on Tony Brown's Show (video below) is awe inspiring.

I REALLY wish the media would stop writing shit like "strong economy" and "low unemployment rate." The terms are even used in an article describing how 7 million American are about to have their cars repossessed. Strong economy for who, the rich corporations and the people who run and own them? What does low unemployment rate mean when you don't count the incarcerated or those who have given up looking but want to work. Even those who do work the wages are are low and benefits are nonexistent. In states like Florida almost half the population makes less than $20 an hour. At some point, the chickens will come home to roost and we will have to deal with this nation's wealth inequality. The election of 45 was the tip of the iceberg. We will see more incidences of white boys shooting up public places. The US already has more mass shootings than any other country on Earth. People are angry and stressed but have no understanding why because they are consistently misled to by the media. The Washington Post's article does not attempt to explain why so many people are behind on their car notes, "despite the strong economy," as if it was some freaking enigma. Perhaps they should look at the business practices of the owner of their publication and how he has adversely impacted the economy. Of course this will never happen, for obvious reasons.

@Delano your statement reveals a lack of experience with forums -- including this one. I'm quite confident I have far more experience and as a result a much broader and deeper experience and perspective as result. If you like to share some of the depth of your experience I'd like to read it..., I'll wait. My experience, for example, predates the WWW and goes back to days of bulletin boards and acoustic couplers, plus over 20 years of running this forum and moderating the comments left all over this website (which you may be completely oblivious to). Then there is my blog and social media site like YouTube where I have to moderate comments. Obviously I participate on other forums. Understanding your experience Del will help me understand how you justify so easily discounting what I've related to you. That was a good one! Glad you have not lost you sense of humor LOL! True dat! Guys, what was it about K2 that ruffled your feathers so? Was it because he was new and came with guns blazing without showing you any deference?

I know Hunts Point well. Us fatherless boys used to cruise up there for fun. Hookers would be on the stroll stark naked! There were strip clubs galore (whore houses in actuality). Uniformed police would be at the door. I always thought about the people who lived in thbe area. I mean they had plenty of hookers walking street where i lived too, but hunts point was off the chain.

Come on man, you are really going off the deep end here. First, you have limited experience with forums including this one. The lack of partipcipation is due to a wide variety of factors, the least of which is our manner of communication. A decade ago the forum had much more controversy and the posts were so racy Google banned me from serving ads on the entire domain. Look it up, it is still online http://thumperscorner.com there were far more regular posters then and forum was often laugh out loud funny. @Cynique am i lying? Why so morose all of a sudden?

OK @Mel Hopkins I misunderstood what you were objecting to. When I wrote "women can't raise boys," I did not mean all attempts would be abject failures, as demonstrated by Joy Thomas Moore. What I really meant is that a woman's effort would be optimized with a male partner.

I can think of many who are dead. I don't blame the mothers thought most of whom did the best they could...

That is what I want to know. Don't hold your breath LOL! Yes I think Disney host a discussion forum... @DelanoI have yet to be on a discussion forum that at some point did not become confrontational? One the website proper I'm often attacked. This posts I generally delete because they service no purpose. Recently on one of the sites web pages someone left this comment: https://disqus.com/home/discussion/aalbc/books_by_african_american_or_black_writers_coming_out_soon_62/#comment-4340853637 "It is astonishing to me that you have no poetry on this list by the Cave Canem..." Out the gate the guy was hyper-critical, but I left the message because it gave me an opportunity to correct him and help others understand the site better. As part of the exchange I actually discovered an poetry I was previously unaware of who I've since dded to the site. I've said it before -- you can;t learn from someone who agrees with everything you believe. Often I observe people who take out rude and critical often change their tune when I reply -- they realize this site actually has an individual behind it. Sometime people just want to vent. In the early days of the net "flame wars" was a common thing. But you probably don't recall those days.

Such bizarre behavior. Clearly the young man needs help. Obviously the media would run with a story like this -- it is their bread and butter.