Troy

I think it is messed up too. Follow up on the link i shared with cynique for more info. Here we go again... @Mel Hopkins did you miss my statement that i dont think anyone should get married before 21.

What!? Ok @Delano what is the reasoning for the premise of this question? (Or will you avoid this question too) Also what us the basis of this statement? @Delano i can say, with certainty, that you do not know enough about MLK's sexuality to pass judgement. Are you quoting someone? That is THE problem cynique. Del won't say where he is getting this scandalous information about MLK's sexuality. He wants to gossip, i don't. Suppose i asked the question: Hey everybody what do you think about Del raping that infant last year? Then if im asked how do you know Del raped a baby? How satisfied would you be by my replying: Or some bullshit like: In any case, we simply dont know if Del is in Australia to avoid being labeled as a sex offender for raping babies here in the US. I guess it is just a matter of perspective 🤔

@Delano you're incorrigible. Men's ability to navigate has been measured to be better than women. Im not aware of an experiment to measure empathy. Maybe one was done, i just don't know about it. You see how @Cynique immediately understood the differences in intelligence by describing the intelligence related to detail orientation. Perhaps this why women are better organizers, in my exoerience. Again she understance that intelligence is layered and nuanced. The questions you are trying to get peoole answer reveals a lack of understaning of that nausance despite it being explained to you. In other words, the question are women smarter than men, is a bad question. I teach young men and women who are smarter than me a a variety of different ways -- but they all have something they can from me. Fortunately they are open to learning new things -- otherwise it would never work.

There are many different types of intelligences and some, like spacial intelligence, men are measurable superior. Women they say are more emotional intelligent, empathy for example But i do concur with Pioneer in that Del's statement, "the average woman is smarter than the average man" is yet another transparent example of Del attempting to garner the approval of women, at the expense of men, for a reason I've yet to fathom.

@Cynique I pulled in the entire quote i was reacting to. The issue of age of consent was raised and this what I was reacting to in my remarks. Hopefully i don't have to express my distain for men raping girls this age. @Pioneer1 This is horrible. A man saying that 'he didn't force himself on a 12 year old' -- AND WHAT IN THE HELL COULD SHE SAY TO DEFEND HERSELF AGAINST A GROWN ASS MAN, SAYING THAT SHE WOULD HAVE AGREED!?  This makes me sick.  I don't think the age of consent is 12, 13, 14 or even 15 and ? As far as the laws regarding marriage you can start at wikipedia https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_marriage_in_the_United_States and research the primary sources from there... but you already know how to do this. You also know about men like Jerry Lee Lewis marrying a 13 year old girl... Again this is nothing new. Now the issue of rape is a whole different conversation one which you all know much more about than i do.

Lol dag @Delano why you so nasty these days? It was not that long when you and Pioneer were practically butt buddies. What happened?

What?! @Pioneer1 just forget it. Del can't provide a source to substantiate MLK's gay affairs and apparently won't say he made a mistake, which is indeed surprising.

Wow. @Pioneer1 i listened to the fuller clip. You know there are FAR more gay white men in the united states than there are gay Black men. If there is a conspiracy, then it appears to be backfiring, dont you think?

You know 14, 13 and 12 year old girls can get married in this country today. For MOST of human existence girls this young had children. The age of consent is not some universal fixed number. While i dont think a 21 year old should get married. I do agree with Pioneer that there are far worse things that can, and have happened. Let's keep things in perspective

Hey @Cynique i seem to recall you saying you knew one of the offspring of Elijah Muhammad's children. Do you have any insight on her take of the whole situation? While Del was obviously there, I'd like to get another perspective. @Delano here again you are jumping to conclusions and passing judgement. I said i have no idea what happened, so I'm not prepared to condemn anyone, or the entire NOI, based upon what YOU say. You whimsically, and without a shred of evidence, say MLK had sex with men. You then expect your Brothers to assess his legacy on your imagination. Keep on spreading gossip, just don't expect me to feed into it. I guess you've already condemned Neil deGrasse Tyson huh?

@Delano I'll extend you the courtesy of actually answering your question, a courtesy you rarely extend to me. 1st, I'm not going to react to a statement out of context. That is for places like Twitter. 2nd go back and read the entire conversation there you can actually read my response. Finally, think. Stop generalizing and stop jumping to conclusions about situtations you can't possibly know, understand, and even prove like MLK's sexuality. What you are doing is no different than gossiping...

Please stop generalizing. It is lazy and shows an unwillingness or inability to distinguish differences in opinions that differ from yours. Oh Brother, here we go with taking statements from one and generalizing across a group... please read what i wrote here since you obviously missed it:

@Delano the book you are referencing is Malcolm X: A Life Of Reinventionby Manning Marable. However the books findings were shredded in the book A Lie of Reinvention (The above was written in reaction to your earlier post, it was saved but not posted) As far as what you just wrote. I gather it all means you have no proof to justify your secalious assertion that MLK has a homosexual affair. Reacting as if I'm making you a secretary for asked you to subtaintiate YOUR claim is absurd. If you can't or won't substantiate your accusation just say so. All the other stuff about K2 astrology statement (which i dont even recall), McCain, and Google you've thrown in is just noise.

Maybe these authors, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Nnedi Okorafor, and Roxane Gay help can bring Blackness to the Black Panther Universe for Marvel Comics.

@Delano just show us a source that states that MLK was having gay affairs. You can;t ask us to look up information to support your info -- no here has heard of such a thing before. Did you find this on Facebook too?

Ouch! Spare us the self congratulatory hyperbole and the gross offensive generalization. @Delano you really seem to be bending over backwards to gain the approval of women, even going so far as hurl harsher criticism, than necessary, at the men here in order to gain the approval of the women here.

Ahh I'll inform my young friend! Yes I read Our Kind of People and the novels of his wife Pamela Thomas-Graham. It was these books, working on Wall Street, and increasingly moving in circles of people who were in this world that opened my eyes into it. I know people who have had homes on the Vineyard for generations and I have vacationed there myself on a number of occasions, but vacationing there and being part of the culture are too different things. ROTFLMBAO! When I wrote about my thought on Lawrence Otis Graham I wasn't gonna say it, but I hated the who pretentious of the Black elite culture (of course I don't mean everyone). But you see it anywhere the English dominated Black people. The Black elites, the strivers seemingly adopt the mindset of the White elite which includes contempt for the Black underclass. Melvin was important because he was doing his before anyone else. Mario, Spike, at al success was made easier by Mario breaking barriers. Speaking of Melvin did anyone see his film, Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song? Speaking using my Blaines Edward voice (from the Men On Film routine from Living Color) -- Hated it! I guess comedians can not do routines like this and expect to host the Oscars.

@Cynique obviously not. MANY people don;t have a clue who Zora Neale Hurston is. I'm going to start a new conversation about this. Every day I delete (don't approve) seemingly innocuous messages posted by people looking to get an account approved so that they can spam the forums. This message almost did not pass my sniff test. I tend to err of the side of caution.

Hi Marcus, Zora Neale Hurston's work is featured on the site and every book she has published, including the AALBC bestselling book, Their Eyes Were Watching God is reflected on this website. Enjoy!

This was in my inbox this morning. I agree with this message. I'm completely dissatisfied with modern journalism. I know more about Kevin Hart's homophobic tweets than I know about anything of more substance. Of coure, the nature of our capitalist system makes this necessary -- there is no viable business model to support it. Pen America is soliciting donations, I don't know what they intend to do with the money. I'm not contributing I'm too busy trying to keep my head above water, but I figured I'd share it here for any well heeled folks who can contribute. But don't contribute to this cause before contributing to AALBC 🙂! Dear Troy, There is a Western idea that wickedness, when committed by a certain kind of person and in a certain kind of way, is worthy of being engaged with. And there are certain things that people said would never happen in this country. But they are in fact happening. It is at times like these that we must counter lies with facts, repeatedly and unflaggingly. We must proclaim the greater truths of our equal humanity, of decency, of compassion. Every precious ideal must be reiterated, every obvious argument made, because an ugly idea left unchallenged begins to turn the color of normal. It does not have to be like this. Now is the time for the media, on the left and the right, to educate and inform. To be nimble and alert, clear-eyed and skeptical, active rather than reactive. To make clear choices about what truly matters. PEN America was founded in 1922 to stand at the intersection of literature and human rights—to protect free expression in the United States and around the world. To defend democracy and our free press in a country born from the idea of freedom. Today, we need the media to elevate the art of questioning, to frame questions differently, and to be precise about the meanings of words. Will you stand with me in supporting PEN America to defend our free press from repeated attacks and to protect our democracy and our right to information? Things that were recently pushed to the corners of America's political space—overt racism, anti-Semitism, glaring misogyny, anti-intellectualism—are once again creeping to the center. We will not stand by and watch. Now is the time to talk about what we are actually talking about. Thank you for standing with me and PEN America to tell our story. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Author and activist Copyright © 2018 PEN America | 588 Broadway Suite 303, New York, NY 10012 USA

Comparing Blacks in Africa to Blacks in America on this basis is not fair or a valuable exercise. First, there are just so many more Blacks on the continent of Africa than there are here; you will find more geniuses, great athletes, and beautiful people than you will find here -- simply because of the larger talent pool in Africa. Of course much of that talent will never be realized because of poverty, but this is true here as well. Second, the African you find here are a biased sample. These are often the most wealthy, educated, and privileged. Even if they come here improvised -- they are still exceptional because they are highly motivated and passed muster with US immigration. What do ya'll think?

Absolutely! Sometimes I feel like we get caught up in semantics, that than the idea I'm trying to express. I'll take responsibility for that as it may be due to a limitation of my written expression. Sure there are some men like this, but as Del implied it is cultural. We grew up teasing guys that were soft on any level. Fathers raised their boys not to cry.. to be a Man. I was a Division 1 gymnast and got teased for that. You get used to it. As an adult I would never tease a man for being gay or failing to conform to the American standards of manhood. But it took a lot of growing up to get to this place. Kevin Hart jokes about homsexuality because it resonates in our community that is what guys do or did. Now as a man short in stature he man have manhood issues, but who knows... I'm not sure much has changed what you've described mirrors my experience. Though membership has probably exploded since your time particularly in the sororities give the increased number of Black woman in college. I know a young man who was interested in joining the Masons, for the Brotherhood aspects of it, but was rejected in the last stages because he was Catholic.

Yeah i heard the radio host blow a gasket over a tweet that was a joke. Hart said something like if he saw his son playing with his sisters dolls he would smash the doll house over his head. The talk show host said Hart was advocating violence against children -- oh brother! Apparently Hart did tweet an apology today. I did not look for it. Yeah i know very few twitter users who are not marketing something. Besides you dont need an account since the media covers tweets.

@Mel Hopkins yes that is my quote, but your are taking out of context and naking an absolute. First, i said most not all; and second, i was talking in the context of the work environment and publishing. Q-dogs aren't setting up Black groups the help brothers in publishing. Generally brothers with power in corporations just do the basic stuff that any white boy does. They dont congregate because they need to do the stuff that is gonna advance their careers and hangin out with the brothers is not gonna make that happen. @Pioneer1 i was a gymnast that was considered gay. I did the cooking for my family that was considered weak. Many guys take pride in having they women cook for them. I settle fir live and respect. As i get older i notice guys would do stuff that we would all call gay in the past, like hugging each other, saying i love you, or talking about feelings and revealing weaknesses or fears -- talking about meaningful stuff not just sexual conquests or sports...

I heard about this social media stupidity on the radio. F*uk the academy awards. See this Instagram video by @kevinhart4real