Troy

@Mel Hopkins (1) OK woman, why don't you like being referred to as a "lady?" (2) Again, don't confuse my disagreement with a failure to seek understanding. I completely understand what you wrote I just disagree with it as it applied to Black men collectively. I not accusing you of failing to understand me. I am however of accusing Del of this; I often asked Del questions to clarify my understanding of what he writes but he never answers those questions while you usually do (I'm confident you'll address my question about "lady" to further my understanding of you thinking and not leave me to speculate (3) OK @Cynique I always loved your way with words -- even when you are completely off base I don't even know where to begin, because you just can't see my point. We live In a country where we've elected 45 as president, still you think everyone is sophisticated enough to see through the nonsense he and his trolls push out on social media. If this does not tell you how easily people can be manipulated by social media -- nothing can and I give up trying. I still think people should spend more time reading books than social media, but I guess those days are fading away. Teenage white boys like, Mark Zuckerberg, will determine what Black people read and think, except for the people like you who can see through it all. Despite your disparaging novels as it relates to reality; novel help people understand each other, more so than any mechanism I'm aware of -- even direct communication with someone else. I'm sorry you don't see it that way. @Delano I'm tired of trying to understand your perspective on this partially because you have a habit of eak for others rather than yourself. Why do YOU think Black men don't respect or defend Black women. Also, I don't need to you to tell me I took away Mel's agency or that I'm not listening to her -- she can do that. Ask much as I like Mel I don't agree with everything that comes out of her mouth, and my disagreement is not always because of a lack of listening. Should no on is perfect and Mel is capable of being wrong. If you really wanted to answer my question you would have just DM'ed me the answer. rather than asking me to do it here.

Hey @NubianFellow I created a profile on Nubian Planet https://www.nubianplanet.com/aalbc and have added it to the list of Black owned websites. I also added the other sites you referenced in your article. Thanks for covering AALBC.com! There was a period before the rise of Facebook and Twitter when the site's forum was far more active. In fact, there were many more active Black owned forums back then. The URL you have for Melanated people is incorrect the correct URL is https://www.melanatedpeople.net/ I could not add dotafro.com. It looks like their login is dependent upon Google+, and I was unable to create an account . Perhaps Google shutting down Google+ is the reason. I also noticed that something really bad has hurt Nubian Planet's organic search traffic, starting about two years ago. I've seen this many times before times and it is one reason the Net is dominated by the likes of Facebook. If you know the people running the site it is worth addressing -- like yesterday.

You ladies (and Del) are being inconsistent and are mistaking disagreement with a lack of understanding. Your thesis is that, Black men as a group have failed to respect and protect black women. Obviously, I agree. Now because I disagree with this I'm called a girl (or infantilized), I'm told I'm not listening, I'm told I'm taking away people's agency, etc, etc. However, in reaction, I gave examples of Black men who have protected Black women -- all of which have been ignored. I attempt to explain why you all hold this belief and it is rejected out of hand. This conversation is like one of religion, politics, or one's affinity for social media; one in which people have dug into the respective corners and uninterested in considering opposing ideas. My evidence that Black men collectively protect Black women (and vice-versa) is our survival in the country after hundreds of years of enslavement. We as a people could not have gotten where were are today without some form of mutual defense. I've also shared anecdotes from with wider culture, like the National of Islam's protecting Black women -- all of this has fallen on deaf ears. All I can assume is that you ladies have brought into the disinformation promulgated by the broader culture which degrades and marginalizes Black people -- Black men in particular. @Delano, since you ignored all of my questions I can only assume you do not spend a great deal of time with groups of Black men and have no personal experiences with the stories of us coming to the defense of Black women, so it is harder for you to relate to us. The invisibility of Black men (middle aged men in particular) is a theme I raise from time to time and it is ALWAYS summarily rejected. This conversation is additional evidence of our invisibility in the mainstream culture. There is a great deal of misinformation that has been absorbed by not just our Sisters but our Brothers (or at least Del) that needs to be countered. This is one reason I run AALBC. There are powerful stories of Black men protecting Black women available: read the novel Black by Joan Vassar. You might also try reading the novel Raisins in Milk by David Covin. These novels help counter the narrative of the helpless, hapless Black man who is too powerless to defense his woman. These novels are uplifting, powerful stories about love and family. You won't discover these novels on corporate platforms, who have no interest in uplifting Black people. If you get nothing else from what I've written consider reading these novels to counter the narrative of weak Black men. The future of our culture is on the line.

WHAT?! First, I can't take your agency away. Second I asked you a direct question: did you agree with Del's assessment given that he took it upon himself to speak for you. If you've construed that into my taking you agency then we'll just have to disagree. Del you seemed have complete to completely missed Nubian's point given the flawed premise of your question. The blanket statement that Black women are not being defended is untrue. Barack is protecting Michelle Obama right? A better question would be what do you do about the women who don't believe or are actually not being protected. The answer is that it is all of our responsibility to see that this happens. The NOI protect and defend their women -- wouldn't you agree @Delano, @Mel Hopkins, @Cynique or will you come up with some other silly reasons to dismiss this fact? Malcolm protected Betty, would any of you Sisters (and Del) dispute that? I was on twitter a yesterday and at the top of my feed was this subject. I now see this was what drove Del brought it up. Again this is how this works. Someone corporate entity generates some nonsense about Black men and women and Del people run around propagating it as if it has some validity. Yeah I noticed that Mel, whenever Del's arguments fall apart he resorts to name calling. @Cynique I see you never did research filter bubbles. Before I left Facebook, I made a habit of hoping around rather than letting Facebook determine what I read and I ASSURE your there are many who are ALL-IN when it comes to social media seemingly blind to and ignorant of the adverse impact of Social media Facebook in particular. Try reading Black Enterprise. I had to stop, because all they did was tout the virtues of social media then i realized they must be being paid by the likes of Twitter to lie to us. Maybe I'm wrong but I doubt it -- in any case you can't tell by their behavior. Cynique despite what you suggest with you anecdotal evidence of "everyone you know on social" our collective behavior speak volumes; for the 35 and under demographic most get their news from social media. Preach Brother! I'm sorry so many women feel they are unprotected. The truth is there are many Brothers who would lay down their lives in defense of their women -- I'm one of them. I'd be willing to bet @NubianFellow would too. Unfortunately this is not the the of story massive corporate media conglomerates are interested in telling and seemingly unless they validate it, it can't possibly be true huh?

Dang Mel I'm talking about BOTH Black people AND poor Black people. You know the US, far and away, locks up more of it's population than any other nation. As you also know this disproportionately impacts Black people. You should also know welfare reform hurt Black families disproportionately as well. Then ask yourself how all of the drugs got into the Black community. Finally, ask yourself why crack dealing were buried under the jail and why cocaine dealers grew irdh selling to bankers on Wall Street Yes Mel and Bill Clinton was president was Glass-Steagall was repealed. I was not on the sidelines ether. I was actually working on Wall Street -- not just reporting on it -- and don't believe for one second that you reporters got the truth out of these guys in real time. I saw first hand how a company like Bankers Trust went from basically a savings and loan outfit to a leader in "complex" derivatives trading. I also saw how mortgage back securities made Goldman rich and while causing many Americans to lose their homes. Then these Goldman guys join the government bending the laws to suit their needs. Ask yourself how many Goldman Sach employees served on the Obama Administration. The more I think about it, the more I'm coming to the conclusion that you can really vote in your self interested. You can only vote in the many that will hurt you the least.

How can someone who believes they know something, but is actually ignorant, know that they are indeed ignorant? In the age of filter bubble social media based news delivery, where people are feed a continuous stream of information that reinforces their word view, what will motivate them to seek new, different, or even correct information? Keep in mind, most people change party affiliations like they they change religions and gender -- which is to say rarely. Today people people are not just more ignorant, they are arrogantly ignorant -- despite much more access to information. @Mel Hopkins, while you and I might be interested in listening to others and considering opposing points of view, most people are not.

@Mel Hopkins Black folks and poor people are not mutually exclusive, so why would't large numbers of them share the same needs? We also know that white racists do not see class they just see race. Do you remember Mayor Bloomberg? Do you know how many times she changed parties? Do you remember the party this billionaire was in when he was the Major of NY City? Again, Billionaires are above party, they bend parties to do their will. I thought this was obvious. You're joking right? Black people's slavish devotion to Bill Clinton only resulted in hyper-incarceration, wealthfare reform, elimination of constraints on Wall street -- all of these disprotionationately and adversely impacted Black people. You think the majority of white women, poor white people, or anyone for that matter, who voted for Trump voted for their self interest? People REGULARLY vote against their own self interests. This is not ignorance, but a statement of fact something you can easily research on your own. Sure, if one is ignorant of how they are being served then they are unable to assess whether they've voted on their own self interests -- which is probably most of the American electorate.

@Delano OK. I was not aware that you were the official spokesperson for Black women. One would think you would be better able to speak from a Black male perspective. Questioning my respect for the women on this forum -- or even Black women is general is a silly desperation move on your part Del. I've already demonstrated an ability to listen to the women here and have modified my opinion as a result. The Viola Davis conversation is a case in point. You tried to use it against me, but you were too blinded by your own biased position to actually see that my position changed as a result of the conversation. I see Black men as being defenders of Black women and you describe that as me being at "fault." Your word choice is telling. Del do you engage with groups of Black men, in the real world, on a regular basis?

@Delano you believe collectively Black men have no respect for Black women and I disagree with that. Our experiences are obviously vastly different. Clearly, there is nothing I can say and no experience I can relate to convince you otherwise. Your mind is closed; bizzare statements like the one below illustrate this fact. I'm astonished that is your takeaway from our hundreds of years if enslavement. Perhaps we should just agree to disagree.

Sure having to witness your wife get raped by massa and bear his children must have been soul crushing for both husband and wife. But @Mel Hopkins are you going to suggest the conditions of enslavement are comparable to today? First Del asks for examples od bkaxk men protecting black wonen then immediately ignores or dismisses them without addressing them, and now you bring up a examples from our period of enslavement to explain why you dont "feel" protected in 2018. You will never "feel" protected. In a white racist majority society. Welcome to American sis. But this has nothing to do a lack of respect for you from black men. @Mel Hopkins do you also buy into @Delano's unsubstantiated belief that black men dont respect black women? As an aside: i pray for the souls of our brothers and sisters who endured the horrors of slavery, unable to protect themselves, or each other, from the evil heaped upon then for generations. I know they did best they could and we are a testament to their survival. There is nothing anyone reading has experienced which compares to their struggle. May their souls rest in peace.

@Delano how did you come to the conclusion that Nubuan Fellow and i are in the "clear minority?" Is there a study you can reference or some data you can present? Is all your information from white owned corporate media. As far as the men on this forum you are definitely in the minority. Black men largely respect black women -- much more than the media would have you believe. If your window into the black world is social media and tv you have a distorted picture. Subscribe to the Amsterdam news.

Thanks for trying to support my facebook page @NubianFellow. I stopped people from posting on my wall years ago because people just abused it. I'm against facebook on so many levels. You sharing your knowledge here us much more valuable anyway. How did you discover the website? Ill add your site to my list of black owned sites https://aalbc.com/top_black_websites/top_black_sites_list.php

@Mel Hopkins for sure poor people, and the middle class -- the majority of Americans. This includes the majority of black folks which is who im generally referring to when i write "us."

Exactly. This is so true. @Delano karrine is not representative of Black people neither is commercial rap. You realize much of what you regurgitatung is corporate nonsense. As a result, you believe Black men do not protect black women. Unfortunately, this is obviously not your experience. As discussed you arent going to read about strong black men on social media or main stream media. We desperately need black media to control the narrative. @NubianFellow welcome to the forum. For what it is worth @Delano i've seen black men defend black woman, but this was always black men defending them against another black person sometimes a woman I've yet to witness a white man get ill with a black woman in the presence of a black or vice versa. In the south, where the honor culture is still in full effect, you would not be considered much of a man if you let some dude dis your woman in your presence.

@Mel Hopkins the majority of black people (poor and rich) vote democratic (but you already know this). The party of white men is the Republican party. The really wealthy are above party affiliation, as they control both parties. We are all in our tribes and we rarely switch teams because we rarely exercise that level of freedom.

Black people vote with their tribe the Democrats, which some people believe is why they do a poor job serving us.

Well i agree to a point: AALBC, for example, survives because of Black people. If Black people were not supportive or patronizing the site, it would have been a wrap long ago. That said, AALBC can not compete with the massive corporations who utilize psychometric tools (ads, algorithms, big data) and white privilege (access to the capital markets, media, and industry connections) to woo our people away from supporting their own. As a result AALBC's growth is constrained. The solution is not as simple as asking black people to patronize fiscally responsible black owned businesses.

The NY Times is trying to step their game up. Please share a link to the article if you think about it when it comes out.

@Delano again your question is based upon on flawed presumptions. If you recall the Viola Davis conversation you'd also recall i was defending Viola against what i took as her being depicted as racist caricature. After some debate I conceded i was too sensitive given the other women did not feel the same way. But lets be clear: i was defending my Sister. How can you say that knowing our history of resistance from Naturner to Medgar evers? who do you think these Brothers died for? Black men defend their wives and daughters every single day -- doesn't that count? I know i did and do -- and so do the MOST of the Brothers I know. Sure men are supposed to do this, but some men dont including white ones. Why single black me out as if we deserve special consideration.? Look i know the media love to focus on the disfunctional Black man to the point where women feel they are not being protected. Pehaps a consequence of a social media fueled world Dont believe the hype. We as a people could not have suvived in this country if black men and women did not did not support each other.

There is an interesting study being mentioned lately involving very similar boys split up into two group who eventually end up fighting each other -- solely because they are in different groups. It basically helps explains that people will vote, knowingly, against their self interest in order to support their tribe.

@Mel Hopkins that is scary given how much money the us spends on defense, relative to the rest of the world. You know this is ridiculous right? China is indeed doing a great deal of business in Africa, building infrastructure and the like, but the idea that they are doing this as a pawn of the British is absurd. The British are not a threat to China on any level. The only thing the Brits have going for it is the support of the US which is becoming increasingly less valuable.

@Delano this is a variation of a theme I previously raised and how it impact our literature. The question you asked is not really the right one, that is if you are really trying to understand what you perceive as a lack of support Black men show for black women as a collective. Your questions makes the presumption that the reason for the lack of support is true and based upon gender -- neither are true. There are a great many Black organizations who provide support for Black people of both genders (or should i now say all genders). AALBC (Troy Johnson) has supported Black female authors for over 2 decades. This is one example, there are countless more. Examples of Black men supporting other Black women does not go viral on social media, so you may not be aware of it. The lack of Black platforms inclined to celebrate these things, in the past have either gone out of business, or are focused or celebrity. This statement, quoted from the article, is complete and utter bullshit! My example of supporting Black women is just one, but EVERY Black man I deal with is supportive of Black women. Sure, my experience is anecdotal, but so was Natalie's. The fact that it was published without contention, as if it was a matter of fact is so frustrating. God only knows who will read this and absorb it as gospel. The article cited social media as a evidence of the lack of Black male support: My God. Ladies allow me to mansplain: MEN DO NOT USE SOCIAL MEDIA IN THIS FASHION! This also ignores the fact that Natalie can't see every post the algorithm is designed to be anything but balanced. I dislike social media and how it has impacted reality. The article goes on to cite Kanye West as proof of Black men not supporting black women (as if Kanye is a representative Black man) -- while completely ignoring the fact that a Black woman was sitting right next to Kanye?! Interestingly, Omarosa was not mentioned in the article and she bore as much of Trump's wrath as any Black woman. Why leave her out was she not worthy of support? This article was published by the Washington post (another Amazon property), who is more concerned with profit that telling the truth about Black support for each other. White men control the narrative. Our fight is countering the nonsense and it is a fight we are losing -- badly!

@Delano Why isn't anyone suggesting that Mark Zuckerburg is colluding with Russia? Is it completely implausible? Trump is getting all the attention while Zuck was busted running a smear campaign against detractors, demonstrating no willingness to prevent Russian influence or even admit a role in facilitating the influence, all the while talking about connecting the world -- phulese!

No, I dont get it. As far as all the stuff about the "ancient scripts" you've used to substantiate your argument, im not impressed. Where'd you get that stuff anyway?

You Probably never heard of Alibaba @Pioneer1, surerly you've heard if Starwoods and AMC. A lot of companies you think are Anerican are owbed by the chinesse. I did mention that the US is into China for several trillion... I'm not sure why you are discounting that fact. So the US, China, and Russia are all on the same page? ...you are probably right as the oligarchs running things are in alignment. Meanwhile our silly media are running around wondering why Cheryl and Zuck aren't doing a damn thing about Russian influence on Facebook. They connect the dots with 45 but not with Mark.