Troy

I'm sure you all know that Ntozake Shange passed away this Saturday. I met her a couple of times. Once at a performance across the street from where I lived -- actually in the same building that serves as the barbershop in the Luke Cage TV series. There were only a handful of people in attendance so I go to socialize a bit with Ntozake, her sister, and their peeps. I have a photo somewhere, but I can't find it now... She struggled with mental health issues. I shot video of her discussing this about a decade ago and just now added it to her page. Shange is best known for her "choreopoem," For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow is Enuf, (I saw saw a production of it in the early '80s). She enjoyed a resurgence in popularity back in 2010 when Tyler Perry make a film the work, For Colored Girls. R.I.P.

@Cynique I just read the other post on this Black woman' story. Of course it comes as no surprise to me that this farce could be completely contrived. But I'm not about to gloat over being vindicated. That would be like gloating over my taking @Delano and @Kalexander2's money because 45 make it to the end of the year. It would be like gloating over being right about climate change. All the media's attention on this young lady is a sad use of valuable resources -- unfortunately utilizing journalists to cover this stuff is very lucrative, so it will only get worse.

The New York Daily News is a tabloid, at best one step above the National Enquirer. The sea of click baity ads on the site completely undermines my ability to take the site seriously. @Delano of all the sources of information why do you reference sources like The Daily News? I know a lot of people who participated in the ACN pyramid scheme -- you could not convince any of them that it was a scam. The idea that 45 would promote it comes as no surprise at all. Despite with the Daily News wrote it seems highlighly unlikely this will bring the man down. This is sensationalism. Del for the upteen time, I believe it is possible that 45 will be indicted and it is certainly possible that he will be thrown out of office. However it is becoming increasingly obvious that he will finish the year and that I will collect my money from you. There is a good chance he will finish his term. The possibility of a 2nd term is qute real too. Again the result of the midterms elections will be quite telling.

Oh that's easy: ratings. White people will never go broke putting crazy Black people on display. This is why Kanye West is one of the most popular Black men in America.Insert other media

@Cynique did you miss that the statement you are reacted to, that I wrote was written in jest?

Maybe you are right. LOL! Since when are you concerned about your reasoning being well received -- spit it out man! Besides the reasons I'm hearing for making this a federal case makes no damn sense to me so far. @Pioneer1, if a woman tried to stop you from entering your own apartment would you make a video of it and put in youtube? Seems like a childish, almost punk-like way of handling this (not something I'd expect a woman to understand). Some of the Brothers I know would have just showered her to the side and entered -- end of story. I don't get these social-media-people sometimes... Perhaps you are right, but this too is subjective based upon the recipient's own lense. Sometimes when what you expressed is so distorted from both what you intended to communicate and your actual belief it is hard to understand. What the listener is thinking. @Cynique, sure people believe their opinions but that is an entirely different thing than what is true what is factual. People hold opinions about things that are demonstrably false. We are all entitled to our opinions... Now we disagree about the relative importance of this situation. I think it is of no real consequence and certainly not newsworthy. You and Chevdove disagree. Fine. Yes my increasing disdain for the media informs my opinion because were it not for the media -- I don't read ANYTHING on Twitter unless it is directed to me, and I definitely don;t follow 45. However I am subjected his every tweet if it is incendiary and factually incorrect the more likely I'm to know about it. Twitter is losing active users by the droves -- why login to Twitter when mainstream media repeats everything there anyway? Me too

Phulese, more hyperventilation and overreacting to a social media fueled frenzy...yawn -- wake me when a bomb actually goes off. OK, before anyone "attacks" me know that I'm joking. I could not resist after coming from the other conversation about the "Key Fob" incident. Now this is serious... 45 is using Twitter as a platform to spread hate. As a matter of national security I'm beginning to think that a sitting president -- especially this one -- should not be allows to communicate with the public via Twitter. Greedy Corporation's who care more about money that they do about polarizing the nation. Yes, 45 has his hate filled rhetoric amplified in an unprecedented fashion. The real problem is his obvious lies go unchallenged and have become normalized -- an alternative truth. This is VERY dangerous. If 45 were not President people would be more likely to keep their racism to themselves. It is no longer politically incorrect to be openly racist. You have Twitter to thank for this. True voting may not make a difference as the process has been completely corrupted. I voted a few days ago, in Florida, by mail. I should be able to monitor my vote online. Hopefully well get a Dem in the Governor's office and allow felons who have paid their debt to society vote again. The results of both will be quite telling...

Again you and Chevdove's confusion on this point is becoming irksome. I NEVER said my opinion was right. I said out the box neither you or I know what was in the woman's heart. We are all just giving opinions. What I have been rejecting is the reasoning for you too saying my opinion is wrong. I've been accused of favoring a white woman over a Black man which is ludicrous and not understanding overt racism... an you want to accuse me of ad hominem?! Maybe we some more testosterone in this debate because you two women take every disagreement I have on this issue as if I'm making a personal attack. While I'm not surprised that a relative newbie like @Chevdove would take my statements this way, I'm surprised that you are reacting this way. Again, I submit that maybe the reason is your perception of my supporting Miss Ann --- I dunno, you tell me why this particular issue struck nerve with you. Chedove, In my book just because something goes viral does not mean it is relevant or serves Black people very well. I'd argue much of what goes viral on social media, and our oversized attention it, does us more harm than good and only services the media companies that broadcast and agitate the situation. I'm glad you agree that losing a job over a minor altercation during personal time it an overreaction. I suspect she was fired because she. is not exactly a valued employee and they used the situation as an excuse. Your use of the work "Attack" Chevdove differs from mine. It seems it does not take much for you to call something an attack. As in the woman attacked the man in the lobby and I attacked you by expressing an opinion that disagrees with yours. These are not "attacks;" these are examines of hyperbole. I engage in hyperbole from time to time to emphasize a point, but I never actually believe my exaggerations.

Yep @Mel Hopkins, the link you provided was the source of my data. So far I have codes applied to about 12% of the books in may database , so the number of books listed in your category will likely increase. Of the books I have already categories 800 different codes are used. I saw some book using nine codes. Technically there is no limit, but practically you'd probably want to use 5 to 10. I'll know more after researching the subject a bit more. I assume you selected the BISAC codes for your book. If not, do you know you applied them? I obtained the codes associated to your book from Ingram's database.

Obviously you have not read or understood a thing I have written @Chevdove, because your statement above, your assessment of my position is utterly absurd. You apparently have a such a deep seated hatred of white women that your have contorted my impressions beyond recognition. (I also did not realize the brother was attacked by the white woman.) The notion that I'm bullying YOU is just plain silly. You are confusing disagreement and candor with bullying. You are completely free to express your opinion; the suggestion in your comment that you are not is even more absurd. You obviously don't have a clue how I've run this platform for the last two decades. I'm not interested in reading any more opinion pieces about this situation, so I'll skip the article you've linked to. Again it is more sensationalism which does not serve me, or any of us for that matter. The only ones served here is People magazine -- a publication that never interested me anyway. I asked you about the police's reaction because YOU brought them up. I was trying to understand your reasoning. So you've done some more research to learn more, which again tells me that you did not have this information when you brought them up. Which makes sense given your conclusion.

@Chevdove, I'm not going to debate the fact that slavery has ended or that things today are better than they have been, in the past for Black people in Anerica. Since you refuse to tell me what the police did i can only assume that you dont know or that their reaction supports my point. I did not say Black people are not subjected to overt racism, indeed i wrote that i have been subjected to overt racism. My situation did not warrant opening a fedreal case, nor does this one that you are so broken up over. I see so many people reading their social media feeds consuming a ton of nonsense and getting worked up over some bullshit of no consequence, at least until the next shiny thing flashes before them and they get worked up all over again... Even my participation in this conversation feels into the frenzy on some level. While i'm trying lend some perspective, by saying both people handled the sutuation poorly, it is not heard or is just rejected without consideration. The only acceptable response is to take out a cell phone record the situarion and cry racism feeding the medias insatiable appetite for dysfuntion. None if are better off escalating the dumb altercations. The media seem to be the only beneficiaries.

Exactly. Now one might think you'd have to be somewhat paranoid to be this be suspicious of Amazon for doing this, but one has not way to determining if this is happening. Plus Amazon takes the first $100 of all you sales, plus you earn less money for each sale, plus you can actually find less expensive printers depending upon the count. plus Amazon does not give a sh-t about you or your book.

The NY Times published an article on over 200 men purged as a result of the me too movment. Some names I completely forgot about.

@Chevdove you are combining all types of unrelated anecdotes, books, and other sources of information to inform this situation to fuel your overreaction. You told me that the police were called. I was unaware of this and asked you what they did. Did they do anything? Why, or why not? If they did nothing perhaps they saw as I do that this is just two stupid people who happen to converge in the building of their lobby. When it comes to books by or about Black people, for obvious reasons, I'm more informed than the average person. I was aware of the Blackmon's book when it first came out a decade ago. We are not talking about slavery here. Even if this woman was the grand wizard of the KKK and she and behaved the exact same way I still would not care about this event to the extent that you do. Again, there are too many mre serious things bend out of shape over... @Cynique I have actually have been the victim of overt racism. I can tell you, whipping out a cell phone to record the incident is not the first thing that occurs to you when you feel threatened. Trust me.

@Mel Hopkins You know your suggestions for the missing information is really important. I'm thinking about writing an article for the minimum set of information an author should provide when sharing information about their book with booksellers, readers, reviewers, news sources, etc. From personal experience if I have to take extra steps to find the required missing information, if there is not other compelling reason for me to do it, I simply won't. The hashtags you provided could also be described a keywords. Ernest provided the ISBN13, which is perhaps the single most important piece of information to me. There is a hot topic in publishing surrounding all of the information regarding a book and it is called metadata; it sounds more technical that need be, so I suspect authors don't think about it very much. This has always been important to me, and has become increasingly important since AALBC is now database driven. I spend a lot of time cleaning up bad or supplementing missing metadata for a book. Here is an example. A publisher uploads a book's, title, series name and series number into the title field when uploading information to Amazon or some other database, This information should be uploaded the 3 fields provided for this information. Not only does this make the book title wrong, it looks sloppy. When I retrieve this information from Amazon I have to manually parse it out and I only do this for paid clients. Amazon does not care, they just take what the author uploads. Another common problem I see on Amazon's site is ISBN13 in the ISBN10 fields. This matter to me because I have a process that pulls this information from Amazon (sadly many author give exclusive rights to sell their books Amazon, so it is the only place the information is available). I so when I pull the ISBN10 but it is actually an ISBN13 -- it srews up the book's record in my database. More importantly is many authors don't make proper use of the BISAC codes. This is a list of almost 5,000 categories in which a book is associated. I just added a new feature to the website that will list books by these categories, which make it so much easier for readers to discover the books they are interested it (this also help search engines as well) For example Mel Sleeping with a D-Man: An Urban Fantasy Novel BISAC category is "Fiction / Romance / Fantasy" and "Fiction / Science Fiction / General." Now visitors to the website can discover all of the books written by Black writers which fall into these categories -- no other site is doing this! If a customer is a paying client I'll apply the BISAC codes that are appropriate for the title -- not other sites does this either 😉 I have 9,300 more books for which these codes need to be applied. I will then update my top 10 lists to be based upon these codes -- making my life so much easier, while improving the discoverability of books 🙂 Metadata matters!

Hey @Riley Perez, would you consider postering an excerpt here, or link to you site where one can read more?

Oh brother... I'm not defending the white woman for she was stupid too -- and i have already made that clear. But is that the real crux of your problem with my opinion on this subject? Is your hatred of Miss Ann that deep, that my unwillingness to jump on the overt racism band wagon cause for you describing me as coming to her defense ...please. You are older @Cynique and have a recollection of what real, overt racism actually looks like -- when it was codified into our laws. No, those days are over and no amount of hyberbolic handwringing over a dumb altercation will convince me we are back in 1850, or even 1950. Are Black people (actually poor and working class people of all colors) out the woods yet? Heck no. But we've come a long way and this altercation is the least of our worries. There are people who are homeless because of racism and all our attention is on these too dimwits. No, I'm sorry, I can't brong myself to care about this particular cry of racism.

Actually, I was unaware that the woman called the police. So what? Homie obviously made it home, as he recorded that too. What did the police do when the showed up? Was he arrested, choked out, what? What did the police do to cause you so much distress @Chevdove? Oh Brother..., something tells me much of this is in your imagination -- particularly given your reaction to the apartment story. I've been to St Louis a number of times over the years and have never experienced such "tension." @Cynique, I'm not trying to get you to change you mind. I'm trying to understand your reasoning and to express my own. I'm glad you clarified your son position regarding the "Arab's." This is important because people tend to group all kinds or unrelated situations and behaviors as if they are all connected -- when they are not. So while there are people who treat Blacks with open hostility there are many more who do not. Now for sometime who consumes a daily diet of these types of videos and related alarmist opinions and rhetoric via on social media, I can see where one might think there is a rabid white racist in every corner. Now I'm not naive I recognize racism is a problem in this country, indeed it is one reason I run this site. But you too are going off the deep end with this stupid apartment building story. If this is your evidence of a racist American I guess we have come a long way. There was a time when a surly negro, like my man with a video camera, would be swinging from a tree -- here's to progress ladies 🙂

@Cynique I fail to see why your son not wanting "arabs" immigrating into this country is racist. Is Arab now a race? Perhaps his reluctiance to have arabs come into the country has more to do with the perceived threat of terrorism or perhaps Islam than what you are calling racism. We agree on the racist nature of Americans origin. Yes yellow journalism is nothing new. But surely you're not trying to compare the 24/7 hour per day social media fueled "journalism," from a century ago? Cynique, I'm not trying to minimize the situation. The situation is minimal on its own. Even if we knew for certain that the woman racially profiked that "man," surely you have to admit that there are many more things of significance that occur on a daily basis. Now that I know your actual motivation for seeing this story being shared is the opportunity to spite white folks. Because obviously this situation on its own merits does not warrant much attention. Still even rubbing white folks noses in their racism is not worth it in this case. It strikes me as trifling.

This is indeed a really good question. No one person as the answer, but collectively we do. Hopefully they'll be some good responses.

@Cynique, it seems you are viewing my positions as absolute. You seem to believe, or at least you often suggest, that I don't believe any Trump supporters are racist. I do believe 45 has racist supporters; the Klan obviously supports 45 and that support appears to be mutual. I just don't believe they ALL are racist, your son is a perfect example of this. I've never engaged with a trump supporter on social media, but I have in the real world. Of course there are profound differences between engagement on Facebook and in real life -- so much so I would never equate the two, because they are so different. No, the media is not perfect, nothing is perfect. Again, I try to consume news from a variety of sources. Social media is simply not part of my mix for the reasons discussed. While I don't read my social media news feeds or watch network news I'm not a hermit and I'm exposed to these sources, so I can still speak from experience. When I'm on Youtube I'm usually looking for a specific video or substantive information about a person or subject. Substantive information is simply not on facebook or twitter, so I don't spend much time there. Yesterday, I was interested in learning way to convert a ONIX file for books into a format that I could use to update my database. I looked at videos in XML, JSON, AJAX, JQuery and Javascript. Youtube, despite your seemingly passive disparagement of it actually has useful information. Facebook and Twitter do not. I don't learn anything useful on those platforms. Facebook and twitter are consumed passively by most people. Users scroll through a news feed designed to keep them focused on the platform for the maximum amount of time. The draw is extremely powerful. I had to remove the applications from my cell phone otherwise I too would be compelled to spend every idle second scrolling or swiping. I'm at the point now where I view those platforms as not just a waste of time, but actually detrimental. But I don't look down on people who use these platforms, because they are human. I do a few things I should not do too; it is part of the human condition. Perhaps it is why I'm not so hostile against all 45 supporters -- even the racist ones. The American culture is quite good at creating racists. The media, and social media in particular, has helped a great deal in creating racists... look at who is in the whitehouse. People see the silly altercation between the Black man and white woman as proof the country is full of racists. The number of videos showing these things is just fuel to the fire. Racists have their world views reinforced and people previously able to think objectively about something are now polarized. No, this is can not possibly be a situation of a woman trying to prevent a non-tenant from entering her building -- it must be proof of racism! No other options can be entertained. Fifteen years ago no one would have even seen this video, and it would never have risen to the level of national prominence. Home boy would have had to handle the situation like an adult man. Again, our society is less well off because of this.

@dlgrowe, I don't recall seeing this post before now. I'm actually working on an update for this site that will allow visitors to easily discover books, written by Black people, in this category. The are a number of categories in which books can be found (see below). I plan to apply categories to all of the books on the website (about 12K) to make in these categories more easily discoverable. For example if you can click the following link if you are looking for books dealing with Religion / Christian Life / Women’s Issues. There are only a few books that have been categorized thus far, but when I'm done you'll find hopefully find the books you are looking for. AALBC does have many books for young children and it is growing. Historically, however, we have focused on secular books for adults, so I don't think we will have many book that fit into the categories below. I just ran a rough search for titles in these categories and I did not find any written by any a Back authors that I could identify. That does not mean they don't exist, but as the premise of this post suggests there may not have been very many published. When there is an expressed demand for specific types of book I attempt to meet that demand. As always when you discover books please post them here so that other can learn about them too. Juvenile Fiction / Holidays & Celebrations / Christmas & Advent Juvenile Fiction / Religious / Christian / Action & Adventure Juvenile Fiction / Religious / Christian / Animals Juvenile Fiction / Religious / Christian / Bedtime & Dreams Juvenile Fiction / Religious / Christian / Comics & Graphic Novels Juvenile Fiction / Religious / Christian / Early Readers Juvenile Fiction / Religious / Christian / Emotions & Feelings Juvenile Fiction / Religious / Christian / Family Juvenile Fiction / Religious / Christian / Fantasy & Science Fiction Juvenile Fiction / Religious / Christian / Friendship Juvenile Fiction / Religious / Christian / General Juvenile Fiction / Religious / Christian / Historical Juvenile Fiction / Religious / Christian / Holidays & Celebrations Juvenile Fiction / Religious / Christian / Humorous Juvenile Fiction / Religious / Christian / Learning Concepts Juvenile Fiction / Religious / Christian / Mysteries & Detective Stories Juvenile Fiction / Religious / Christian / People & Places Juvenile Fiction / Religious / Christian / Relationships Juvenile Fiction / Religious / Christian / Social Issues Juvenile Fiction / Religious / Christian / Sports & Recreation Juvenile Fiction / Religious / Christian / Values & Virtues

No, I don't give the the media any slack because they know better but are seemingly only concerned with profit. People on the other had are victims of the media. We depend upon an unbiased media to do the work we can not possibly perform ourselves. For example, there are people who don't believe that man made climate change is real, I don't blame them; I blame our media. I listened to that women (Candice something or other) in the video with seth rogan, say she did a "deep dive" into the subject and came away completely doubting climate change -- very possible because there is plenty of information out there -- This is assuming she was being completely honest (which is suspect if you ask me). Similarly, when people embrace 45 as a great businessman and effective president I don't blame them because there is plenty of media outlet pushing this narrative. It does not require 'bending over backwards," all it requires is simple observation and willingness to see something from someone else's perspective. But this is a point we'll have to disagree on. @Cynique do you know any 45 supporters, have you spoken to any? I know a few and have spoken to others none of them stuck me as racist (most were Black). Like politics, religion, and climate change, once people commit to a position it takes something very serious to get them to change. @Mel Hopkins, I understand voter suppression is rampant in your Georgia. Some of the strategies are quite sophisticated. It is the same here in florida. we have a measure on our ballot to give felons who have completed their sentences the right to vote. Seems like a no brainer, but those opposed feel this gives criminals more rights than their victims. This is just another tactic to suppress the votes of democrats... Your Stacey Abrams election will be quite telling. I not sure anything as changed as far as people are concerned -- wanting more attention or have they civil right violated. What has changed however it that people seeking attention have a platform, called social media. Again, I'd be willing to bet none of the men I know would not have shot a video of the woman and put it on twitter or Facebook. They would have used their key or shoved her aside.

@Cynique I believe America has always been crazy, the the election of 45 just made it as obvious as ever. However I don't let mainstream and social media off the hook. They provided a tremendous, free, platform for donald trump to reach the masses. Starting with the "reality TV show that created the fiction of Trump being a great business leader, which many people continue to believe. Keep in mind, while there are certainly racist, disgruntled, and all the other groups of people you describe who voted for Trump, you are neglecting the people who voted for him because the buy into his narrative -- completely, and without reservation AND who are not racist. These people may live in a pro trump bubble. Where all they hear is how great the country is doing; we have more jobs that there are people available to do them; the stock markets are at an all time high; and 45 is responsible. You better hope the Mueller investigation takes 45 down because he'll likely survive for a 2nd term. That "woman of color", Warren, has zero chance. 45 picks these prospective candidates off the fish in a barrel. He is actually quite good at playing the media in this regard. While the country is crazy I don't think the people are inherently crazy. I think living here, under the 24/7 influence of marketers and young white men who now run the media, is making us crazy. I know most people like to diminish the impact of the media, perhaps because they feel unaffected by it, but the evidence is pretty clear. Our making 45 the president should be evidence enough... We call 45 crazy, but we really need to look in the mirror.