Troy

I'd put Nat Turner's revolt in the "event" category rather than calling it a movement. Looks like I'm all alone in the believing Hip-hop is no longer a "movement." Right now is it is all about commerce as opposed to culture. A new rap artist has very little hope of living off royalties, indeed I suspect many of the old school legends can't either. One of the Furious Five was working as a security guard before he was arrested for murder (that Brother used to work out at he same gym I did back in the 80's). Most of the wealth is concentrated into the hands corporations and a few of us have become very wealthy while the vast majority of those in the culture/movement struggle. It was by us but it is no longer for us. it is, like so much else we create; FTBU "For Them By Us." Maybe I'm too close to it to see it the way you all do.

@Cynique, the paragraph that starts, "In the 1960s..." was brilliant IMHO. Do you get to express thoughts like this in the physical world?

Thanks for sharing your perspective aSexual. We hear so much about the transgender, gender non-conforming, gay, hetero, etc we never talk about asexuals. I'm sure there are more than a handful of you out there. I know many people have simply opted out of having sex for any number of good reasons and don't miss it. I suspect however if you engaged in the activity, with an open mind, with someone sufficiently skilled, you may change your mind

Agreed @Mel Hopkins and this reveals the problem with all of our collective strategizes to date and why they have all failed to eradicate racism. We are dealing with symptoms not the underlying cause. Black people fight racism, when the problem is our entire system; a system in which racism can actually grow--think about it: We have access to more information than EVER yet we have people who are stupid enough to believe racism makes sense. How is that possible in 2017? Of course corporate owned social media profits from misinformation so we have as much good information as bad and it is getting harder to figure out which is which. Of course we are left to do this on our own because we don't have enough journalists to help sort though this stuff, so false information propagates a easily as the truth. In fact false information propagates faster because it is so much easier to generate--no research or fact checking is necessary. Why aren't people, like 45, who fan the flames of racism laughed off the podium? The answer to that question will explain why there are still white and even Black supremacists.

I recently decided to limit my list of bestsellers to the top 10 books. Here are the Top 10 Bestselling Books for September/October - 2017, in the Fiction, Nonfiction, Children's, and Poetry categories. Except there are no books listed under the poetry section. In fact I have not been able to compile a poetry bestsellers list since the January/February Period--even then there were only two books with enough sales to warrant inclusion on a bestsellers list. I've sold poetry books in September and October but it was one of this title and one of that title. In the late 1990's, it was not unusual for poetry to be the top selling-genre period. But that was during the heyday of slam poetry, poetry cafes, and programming like Def Poetry Jam. Even this poetry forum (The Poetree) was poppin with an active moderator. Today there is no moderator and it average about a post a week. I understand social media may have stolen (ahem...attracted) some of the participation and books sales away from this platform. Still, poetry seems to be less popular across the board. Did it go through a phase like Black chick-lit and Urban Fiction? Please share any quality platforms (especially indie ones) that are celebrating Black poetry. Share any books that you really enjoyed, maybe I'll compile a list for the site and include them in my next newsletter. Here are the most critically acclaimed poetry books in my database; none are AALBC.com Bestsellers: Most Critically Acclaimed Poetry Books The Big Smoke by Adrian Matejka (2013) Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine (2014) The Essential Etheridge Knight by Etheridge Knight (1986) Carver: A Life in Poems by Marilyn Nelson (2001) Wild Hundreds by Nate Marshall (2015) Acolytes: Poems by Nikki Giovanni (2007) Head Off & Split: Poems by Nikky Finney (2011) Collected Poems: 1974–2004 by Rita Dove (2016) Thomas and Beulah by Rita Dove (1986) Voyage of the Sable Venus: and Other Poems by Robin Coste Lewis (2015) Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude by Ross Gay (2015) Cannibal by Safiya Sinclair (2016) Olio by Tyehimba Jess (2016)

I was talking to a lady just this weekend. She sounded just like Pioneer. Again I understand him because I encounter many people like him. The Sister, who like Cynique, is old enough to be my mothers, was going on about White racism and how that Black man is genetically superior. She absolutely did not want to hear anything about the fiction of race. She was firm in her beliefs and was not interested in hearing the science or facts--nothing. I gave up. Fundamentalism is a scary thing. Now earlier in the conversation we agreed about the need for Black owned media and she was well versed on how the lack of it had misinformed our community; so we have some common ground. But when you disagree on the cause of a problem the solutions will naturally be different.

Sure I'd agree Del. Music can be a motivator and an inspiration and have worked in tandem with movements. Of course we are familiar with the music from the civil rights movement and all of our wars. I'm not familiar with the music from Garvey's movement. It is interesting that we don't hear much about Garvey that today given his impact impact and historical significance. I guess after KIng and X that is all we get since we don't control our media or educate our people...

Interestingly Black folks in the midwest present similarly to people from the south.

@Pioneer1, please answer this simple question without a long winded diatribe. When did white supremacy begin?

Pioneer have ever been to any of these places? Do you understand the natural resources that they have? Think about it this way; New York State is 10 times the size of Jamaica with 10 times the population. PR is smaller than Jamaica. You expect these tiny island nations to produce all of the heavy machinery locally? These countries depend upon international commerce (think Cuba). There is nothing wrong with depending upon tourism many places in the US do this same thing. But when New Orleans, Key West, The Outer Banks, New York City's oceanfront, and the Jersey Shore gets pummeled the rest of the country comes to their aid. That is how it works. PR is tapped out--there is no other pace in PR to come to the aid--it has to come from outside (think Detroit) The entire island of PR was wiped they need international assistance. If you've been there you'll know there are plenty of what you'd call white people in PR. Racism did not destroy the island and, racism is not keeping help from coming quickly. It is an unfortunate combination is terrible luck, lack of compassion, ineptitude, and jingoism of 45's part...

@Pioneer1, you believe the white people in control like Bezos, Zuckerberg, et al, are motivated by racism. I believe they are motivated by power and greed. People motivated by racism are either stupid or ignorant. I don't think Jeff Bezos is either. Now the 45-voting white boys you are likely to encounter on a daily basis probably are more likely to be racist. This might explain your world view. This site was created in reaction to racism. Obviously I believe racism is a problem which needs to be addressed. But, Jeff Bezos adversely impact more white people than Black. Indeed many Black people don't even appreciate what is happening. It is white folks who are trying to stop him. They are not reacting to Jeff's racism, they are reacting to his greed and overwhelming control.

@Delano, I don't understand this statement; “Music is and is accompanied by music. I mean that literally and figuratively.”

And that went over my head Del No big deal.

@Delano, why are you going so hard at the young Brother? (nevermind, you answered my question here) @Pioneer1, you know you really can say a lot more with fewer words. Sure, virtually all of the people you mentioned are white. Do you think, then Billionaire, Bob Johnson did Black folks a service with BET? You do realize most of the people robbed of their homes, locked up in jails, ODing on opioids, and now killing each other in mass shooting every other week are all white. No my brother, the problem is not white supremacy, it is just plain ol fashioned greed. The Bezos fellow will never be satisfied with $90 billion and control over everything. As the saying goes you can never get enough of what you don't need...

True, music is part of the culture and therefore part of any movement. But music is not a movement. Hip-Hop has been co-opted.

Yeah I give @Antonio Ingram a lot of credit for joining the fray and I welcome his input. I think we can learn a lot from his perspective, but obviously he stands to learn more from us than we from him . @Cynique, which movement would you say is the greatest? I started another conversation.

@Cynique, since you were there, I'm not going to challenge your knowledge of the Panthers. Besides I don't think the Black Panthers represented the greatest movement led by Black folks in any event. I'd of course put this civil rights movement at the top of the list; there were clear goals out that were achieved, and which have had lasting impact. I'd also add Garvey's UNIA there are still active branches today. I'm seriously considering joining one. What was the greatest movement in your book?

@Antonio Ingram, what a refreshing statement: "I don't have a Facebook" Why don't you have Facebook? As far as the nature of our changes here. I have agreed with everyone you mentioned and I have also disagreed with at some point over the years. Sometimes I have changed my position with someone I've disagreed with, in fact this is what makes the disagreements important. I completely understand why some folks might be put off by this, indeed many can't tolerate it and prefer the corporate social media platforms where you can join a filter bubble and have all your ideals reinforced. If we are constantly looking for points on which we agreed we would never grow. If no one ever challenged your ideas you may go around ignorantly believing something that is simply wrong or missing a nuisance you may never have considered. The thing to keep in mind here is not to take anything written personally, and if you do use it as an opportunity understand why. I try to understand what the other person writes--even if I don't agree with it. @Pioneer1, when I wrote, "Every job on Wall Street that I ever got was because of white folks." What question of your's did I answer? I'm sure I missed it.

Rachel Renée Russell’s DORK DIARIES children’s books series has sold over 30 million copies with translation into 36 languages worldwide 222 weeks on the New York Times bestsellers list. The Dork Diaries is a fantastically successful series. The main characters are not Black. Rachel said in an interview with The New York Times that she wanted her books to appeal to a wide audience. Would it really be impossible for a Black main character to appeal to a wide (i.e. white) audience?

For convenience I embedded the program @Wendy Jones referenced above Here is a link to Farhad Manjoo's "State of the Art" column on The New York Times. I wish we were talking more about these issues in the Black community.

Puerto Rico, is an island that got pummeled by two massive storms that may have been made more massive because of man made climate change. There is very little they can do, on their own, to recover. The days of living in anything less than a bomb shelter on these islands in the middle of the Caribbean may be coming to an end; if two or three of these massive storms are going to come by each year.

You are talking about a family I'm talking about an individual. No one in the Rothschild's family comes close to Bezos. Indeed much of the wealth attributed to the Rothschilds exaggerated hyped up in social media memes without basis in reality.

Hey Del I'm not sure what you mean by your statement: The notion that the activities at CERN are an attempt to unify religions and mythology with physics, and by extension, with each other is false. I think that is just wishful thinking. I don't think spirituality can be discovered with science. I don't think science can prove or disprove religious belief.

https://socialjusticebooks.org/about/why-boycott-amazon/ A review of 190 articles from the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and the Bezos-owned Washington Post over the past year paints a picture of almost uniformly uncritical–ofttimes boosterish–coverage. None of the articles were investigative exposes, 6 percent leaned negative, 54 percent were straight reporting or neutral in tone, and 40 percent were positive, mostly with a fawning or even press release–like tone. The last major investigative piece we found in any of these three publications was a 4,500-word critique of Amazon’s labor practices in the New York Times (8/16/15) almost two years ago. Considering that Amazon is the fourth-most-valuable company in the world, with a 43 percent (and growing) share of all US online commerce, it’s a striking absence of journalistic scrutiny.

@Pioneer1, Don't leave out how Reconstruction started and why it ended. That also explains a lot about our predicament today and many of the ame strategies are in place. Today when Black folks create something of value it is either run out of business or we sell it away.