Troy

I hope you are right. Will he be thrown, or forced out of office in the next 18 months?

Xeon, in terms of the relative merits of the film I agree a white person can do a fine job. Bigelow is a big name so I'm sure that was a factor. But it does make a difference to me because Black people have been largely cut out of the creative process in the motion picture industry--even when it comes to telling our own stories. I seem to remember Don Cheadle complaining that there was not a single Black person, in Hollywood, that could greenlight a film. I don't know if that has changed, but it shows if you look at the films being made and who is making them.

It makes little difference whether Kaepernick plays in the NFL or not; for it will make no difference in the way the NFL treats players. Again, there were many other players who took knees, raised fists, and engaged in other forms of "protest" during the National anthem. Some were given media attention others were not. Indeed if the broadcasted did not show kaepernick's taking a knee and spend so much time talking about it his "protest" his would be a nonissue. You see, if our protest is a function of the media's (even social media) coverage, then it is doomed to failure. His protest is a direct function of the media coverage. However, if every Black people simply stopped tuning into games the NFL's games, the NFL would feel the pain--whether the media covered it or not. That is true power.

Troy, can we count on you to stand up for our friends and family in Missouri? The NAACP last week issued a travel advisory for the state of Missouri calling for all African-American travelers, visitors, and locals to exercise extreme caution given the recent series of concerning, race-based incidents throughout the “Show Me State.” Black Missourians need your uncompromising support to fight back against assaults on their civil rights and civil liberties. Help show me a state where African Americans are no more likely to be stopped and searched by police than their white counterparts. Show me a state where African Americans are free to travel any road they wish without fear for their safety. Show me a state without Jim Crow-style legislation preventing individuals from protecting themselves from discrimination, harassment, and retaliation. Show me a state where freedom and justice are common to all. Donate $5 Donate $10 Donate $50 Or any amount of your choice. Thank you for your support, Derrick NAACP Interim President and CEO P.S. Your contributions to the NAACP are 100% tax-deductible. Donate now. © 2017 National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Find Your Local Unit | Unsubscribe Are you all getting these emails, or seeing this stuff on social media?

The focus seemed to be on the flaws in how others perceive us. I wanted to raise the issue of how how flawed our self perceptions can be. I think I could make a string argument that others perceive us more accurately than we perceived ourselves. Shoot, Facebook's software knows people better than they know themselves. But of course I may have misunderstood what you said and stand corrected. (1) You can use embed code as you have done above. You may also use standard HTML markup code to insert audio directly, as shown below <div id="audio" class="audioplayer" style="padding:10px;margin:10px;border-style:solid;border-width:1px;border-radius:5px;"><p>Listen to an Interview of Troy Johnson Interviewed by <a href="https://aalbc.com/authors/author.php?author_name=Lee+E.+Meadows">Lee E. Meadows</a> on Detroit’s WPON’s “Book Beat” February 4, 1999</p> <audio controls> <source src="https://aalbc.com/audio/troy.mp3" type="audio/mpeg"> Your browser does not support the audio element. </audio> </div> As demonstrated below: Listen to an Interview of Troy Johnson Interviewed by Lee E. Meadows on Detroit’s WPON’s “Book Beat” February 4, 1999 Your browser does not support the audio element. So while this is possible the issue is where will you host your audio file? As you can see from the code above. My audio file is located here: https://aalbc.com/audio/troy.mp3 If you have a place to store the audio file (your website, maybe google drive, etc) you can use the code I provided above to insert your audio. Maybe google drive (2) Promote Feature: is actually pretty powerful. It allows you to promote a post here across multiple social media platforms. It is better than most social sharing options in that you can customize the posting across that different platforms (3) Probably but I'm have to research this. (4) Cool. There are many features of this discussion forum software that I'm not familiar with. A couple of weeks ago I applied a major upgrade that improved the software and added new features including the concept of clubs, which are analogous to groups on Facebook. The developers of the software appear to be implementing many of the popular features available on social media (without the invasion of privacy)

Hey @Cynique, I pulled this image from your website: I'll probably replace or add this book club's photo here on the site with the image below. Can you tell me the month and the year this club read your book? I'll update the site to reflect your book being on their list. Thanks.

The college football especially the largest Division programs are perhaps one of the most exploitative institution of Black men. The majority of the student athletes don't get degrees and the one who do earn them don't learn very much. Obviously the majority do not enter the professional ranks, never able to financially benefit from the efforts, like everyone else. The student athletes should absolutely be paid for the the entertainment they provide commensurate with any any revenue earned from ticket sales, broadcast licensing, and products sold. The universities are providing the NFL's minor league and the rest of the student body is subsidizing this with exorbitant tuition and fees. The NFL owners are gangster who are robbing the public blind and we are their happy victims.

@Xeon, you can blame Del for the gross diversion. @Pioneer1, are are different forms of intelligence. Determining one's "overall intelligence," is often limited to how well people perform on standardized tests, or advance in school which marginalizes people--especially smart Black people--who don't have college degrees. Often obtaining a college degree is more a function of opportunity, resources, who your parents are, where you live, one's performance on a high stakes test that measures one form of intelligence (test taking). It is not a function of one's overall intelligence. But we all know this--otherwise there would be more Black men getting college degrees. Some people are smart in terms of interpersonal skills, mathematical skills, language skills, physical skills, and so forth.

OK I'm clearly missing something. Is this the original koan below? Thoughts do exists just follow the peebles. I still don't get it. How do the apples or Principal some in? Pioneer must be smarter on this form of intelligence.

Interesting. I think a person's belief of who THEY think they are can different from reality as well. People can fail to live up to their own self perception. We will know people like this and they typically have unlikable personalities.

Cynique, TV viewership is actually a very big deal. A big stadium can hold 100,000 fans, the TV audience can be 2, 3 orders of magnitude larger. The Super Bowl garners an audience of over 100 million --That is more than 5 times more all of the people who attend all of the NFL games in an entire year (including preseason)! Most football fans have never attended a game--who can afford it. In fact, the NFL does not need to sell tickets from a revenue perspective. But they charge exorbitant prices because they are just very, very greedy! Were it not for local municipalities giving away our money to pay for arenas and cable systems charging higher our rates to everyone to subsidize the NFL broadcasts, the game would not be nearly as lucrative as it is. The real revenue come from TV which is a function of viewership. If a significant portion of the audience (i.e every Black person) stops watching there will be a material impact on the owner's bottom line. But we don't understand this and are unable to use a very simple tactic and effective tactic. We could start now during the preseason and simply stop watching pro football. Yeah Spike ain't about to get involved unless there is some money to be made. I ain't hatin' on the Brother, but we should recognize what he is before anyone confuses him with being an activist.

“Uninformed men make unsafe leaders. that is the primal cause for so many errors of judgment in state and national councils. We look upon them not as statesmen but as promoters of petty politics, for out of their deliberations spring no alleviation of the woes of the world. It is from this lack of understanding in leadership that the world suffers most today. We could discriminate between the true and false in our civilization, if we knew more about primitive culture. The way by which the first man climbed must ever be the human way. Racial prejudices are the greatest menace to world progress. Classes clash because the wealth of the world concentrates more and more in the hands of a few.” —Drusilla Dunjee Houston (Read the full excerpt, better yet buy or borrow the book and read the whole thing) Man, we have been singing this song for a long time! Houston's book, was originally published in 1926! However she helps identify and address the causes. I'm going to promote this book for an extended period, because the information is sorely needed. If you agree please read the book and share the information. This is not about selling books to make money—it's about sharing knowledge (You know that really should be obviously to anyone with a passing familiarity with the site; if this site was just about making money, it would have ended years ago).

We'll see what happens. Amiri Baraka once called Spike Lee an "opportunist." Amiri was an activist. Spike is another story...

Cynique, the operative word in your last post was "anecdote." Pioneer has a bad habit of taking his personal experiences and extending them to the broader community, indeed it is the way he sees the world. But this is natural, for anecdotes, especially personal ones, are very powerful. If is a good thing Pioneer is open to being in a place where his world view is rejected by others with different beliefs, experiences, and even facts. I respect him for that. @Pioneer1, you have so profoundly mischaracterized what I believe it would be too strenuous to refute what you wrote. I'll just let my previously expressed words do that. I will say however, that @Cynique and @Mel Hopkins's presence here is a prime example of Black women supporting a Black man. You see they, like you, could easily abandon AALBC.com and engage exclusively on the corporate owned social media platforms. This forum only exists because of folks like you. Now I could very easily complain about all the Black women, writers in particular, who benefit directly (read: financially) from the existence and efforts of AALBC.com, but do nothing to support the website. This of course would feed into your narrative and is actually supported by 20 years of my experience and data. Here's the thing, even though I have experience with supporting hundreds of Black women authors over a 20 year period, my experience is still an anecdote. I have absolutely no problem saying that Black female writers, for the most part do not support the website as much as I think they should (IMHO), but it would be wrong for me to use this experience to say that Black women do not support Black men in general. Do you see my point? Further, I also understand way Black female writers do not support the site as much as they should. Part of the reason is that don't know how to do it and why it matters. I also understand the pull of social media. it is so strong many writers have abandoned their own websites in favor of social media. Many Black women are struggling, like me, and don't really have the resources/time/energy to extend to others beyond themselves or their families. Of course there are some Black women who hate to see a Brother succeed and withhold support because they want an AALBC.com to fail, but these women are so small a factor they are not worth considering. That said, I think the letter was an overreaction and ill conceived. Using their reasoning each chapter could easily craft a letter warning travelers to avoid most of Florida, Chicago, New York City, Baltimore, Detroit, New Orleans, Philadelphia, the entire state of Mississippi, etc. I've been to Missouri a few times, mostly for conventions, and once for a family reunion. The have nice library and ball park, but again, I have no trouble avoiding the state--especially if a Black institution says it is not safe. Besides who says they are not ready to fight in Missouri? I'll disparage the letter, but I'm not willing to trash the Black male population of a state because I don't have enough information and I won't judge it on one letter from the NAACP.

Pioneer you mis-attributed a quote to me. But in reaction to the statement that I made. Sure there were some that fought back. Indeed there were always some that fought back, but not enough to make a difference. Forget about physically fighting white folks; they are armed to the teeth, out number us, have the support and backing of the government, and already have itchy trigger fingers... We can accomplish much more by exploiting on our own economic and intellectual capital.

OK I found the page: http://www.boxofficemojo.com/weekend/chart/?yr=2017&wknd=31&p=.htm Thanks Cynique Pioneer the marketing was weak, at least in the Black community. I actually thought Detroit was a documentary until I read Kam's review. The film appears to be made by white folks for white folks. I scanned the entire list of films and I've only seen to of them. Hidden Figures and Alien Covenant. I need to get out more. I'm going to try to finish migrating all of the old content before then end of the month. My body have gone to crap over the past 18 months spending so much time in front of a PC

:-) Cynique. You got me wrong; I use Google's search engine daily (it drives this site's search engine). I just recognize it's monopolistic power, deficiencies, and the resulting problems created. I'm familiar with the box office mojo movie; though I have not used it much lately. There are three sites I reference when looking for movie info to augment the movie reviews I post. Most frequently I use rotten tomatoes, followed by the IMDB. Box Office Mojo would be number three. Sites like those is what helps give the internet it REAL value. Can you post a link to a box office mojo page showing a film's budget. I recall the information being easy to find. Maybe I'm just missing it.

Thanks for sharing Cynique! Your friends's comment was pretty cool: “Saw it last Friday. A riveting, disturbing, plausible, portrayal of an episode in the history of the United States. The events portrayed in this film should weigh heavily on our collective conscience as Americans. Facing the reality of this event can be the basis for confronting justice issues we face today in American. The confession of the horrors of the past will open the door for us to move into the days and years ahead.”

@Pioneer1, I can see where your comments might sound like they might make sense as they conform to the current gender stereotypes. As a man, it would sound appealing because it make us sound strong and powerful. If what you say is true, how do you explain Black men, many straight from the African continent, allowing themselves to be enslaved for hundreds of years in this country? Why didn't we just put our foot in massa's ass back then? Perhaps the reason we did not do it back then explains why we don't do it today...

Oh I thought you were reporting stats. I did not realize you were proving a prediction. I can understand Pioneer skepticism. One it is not surprising that Trumps ratings are low; and two the margin of error you gave your self was pretty wide. Perhaps if you made a prediction of an event that does not seem likely to occur or is difficult to time. For example, when will 45 be thrown out office? When and where will North Korea lob a Nuke?

Sorry, @Cynique what I wrote was unclear. What I was describing as "crazy" was the fact that Detroit, a film I would want to see, I knew nothing about; and the film I would not want to see, Girls Trip, I knew all about. I suspect part of the reason for the relative box office stats had to do with the lack of promotion of Detroit compared to Girls Trip, and the fact th Girls Trip seemed to generate so much buzz on social media more that once I saw women raving over the film. But given the larger budget for Detroit is seems that some of their marketing would have reached me. Now here I am helping to promote their film through a review--and paying for the privilege! It is a cost I'm not likely recover, which is why I don;t publish as many film reviews as I used to (few are still able to). But that is the subject of another conversation. I see now that Girls Trip is directed by Michael Lee film which probably explains the enthusiasm I saw across Facebook for the film. Detroit, directed by, Kathryn Bigelow is described as, by Kam, as difficult to watch. I'll probably check out Girls Trip out of curiousity, but I'll wait for them both to be streaming so I can watch at home. @Pioneer1, Biglow of Hurt Locker fame was picked, I'd bet, because they wanted to make money with white audiences. If they got someone like Ava Duvernay, it would have become a "Black film," which depresses box office for serious films covering Black subjects. Now if it is a comedy--it is less of a problem. Girls Trip has already out gross Selma I seem to remember Box Office Mojo reporting how much a film cost to make, but I can't find that info any more. Can you post a link that shows that stat?

I don't know where I've been. But I was not aware of this film until my wife suggested to check it out. Am I the only one? Now I know I'm not completely out of the pop culture loop because I was totally aware of Girls Trip. The crazy thing is that I would really like to see a film like Detroit and have less than zero interest in seeing Girls Trip, which looks like a Black female version of The Hangover part III. I wonder what the respective marketing budgets are for these films are and where they advertise. At any rate here is Kam's Review. I have not published anything by him lately.

Thanks for the feedback @B.L. Brown. There are a many reason to be optimistic. We have so much unrealized potential as well.

...Cupcake Brown, at 11 years of age, regularly engaged in prostitution and took drugs. Cup, tells the story of her crazy life in her memoir, A Piece of Cake. This is not a new book, but I had not thought about it in a while. I figured there are many people who never heard about it so I shared into about it on social media, since sex, drugs, and dysfunction seems to plays well on social media. Seriously, the idea that Brown now runs a law practice just seems like a remarkable story. I rediscovered this book as while updating the site with the Black Caucus of the American Library Association's award winning books. I'm adding all the the BCALA award winning books to AALBC.com. Actually most of the books are already on the site, they just have not been updated as winners of the award. I've also updated the logic used to determine The Most Critically Acclaimed Books of the Last 40 Years.