Troy

Yes, always. Yes, the choice of death, though not ideal in my books, is an example of exerting one's freedom.

There is a myriad of reason why Black social sites don't succeed. No funding No media coverage The algorithms are against Black social sites -- other sites period Search marginalizes Black social sites In ability to garner a critical mass (people even Black people want to be where everyone else is) Governments allow monopolies to emerge That said I'd argue any Black social site can be very successful - even this one if folks posed (versus lurking).

I think they should disappear but we clearly disagree on this. What do you think about the idea of a beauty pageant for men. We'd get to prance around on a stage in our speedos being judged by a bunch of women. I never heard of this show and I'm surprised by that. I'll have to look it up.

Neely Fuller, Jr. (October 6, 1929 – February 1, 2025) Roberta Flack (February 10, 1937 – February 24, 2025) Jawanza Kunjufu (1953 – April 25, 2025) Tony Rose (October 11, 1950 – May 27, 2025) Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o (January 5, 1938 – May 28, 2025) Thomas Sayers Ellis (d. July 17, 2025) Vivian Elizabeth Ayers Allen (July 29, 1923 - August 18, 2025) Larry Ward (d. August 19, 2025) Quintard Taylor (December 11, 1948 to September 21, 2025) Assata Shakur (July 16, 1947 to September 25, 2025) Malcolm Jamal Warner (August 18, 1970 – July 20, 2025) Michael I. Days (August 2, 1953 - October 18, 2025) Keturah A. Bobo (d. October 2025) DéLana R. A. Dameron (January 30, 1985 – November 29, 2025) Elle Simone Scott (November 28, 1976 – January 5, 2026) Charles S. Finch III (February 25, 1948 – January 17, 2026) Eric Huntley (September 25, 1929 – January 21, 2026) Addendum (to be edited) Sly Stone (March 15, 1943 - ) D'Angelo () Angie Stone () Some of these folks I knew, some I admired from afar, and others I was unfamiliar with. Quintard was a Brother whose work I really admired at https://blackpast.org/ He built his site into an institution. I spaced on our last meeting and missed it. I called him back and was wondering why he did not return my call... Keturah was a shocking loss because she was just so young and had such a bright future. Vivan Allen was Debbie and Felicia's mom who was force in her own right I did not know until she was gone. Eric Huntley, they don't make men, publishers, or booksellers like him (and his wife) any more! We are all soft, weak, and asleep compared to him. Of course, I don't have to tell anyone here who Kunjufu, Fuller, Shakur, and Finch are any why they were important. R.I.P.

I was expressing an opinion @richardmurray describing it as "wrong" is wrong That is like saying I'm wrong because my favorite color is brown. Yeah, pretty much.

(1) This is untrue most abolitionists were not Black. Many of the civil rights, some of whom lost there lives, activist were not Black. (2) Even if that was true that is no reason not to support other oppressed groups I'm not a fan of giving a characteristic to an entire group of people. For example, can you name on group of people, where every person in that group don't give a f8ck about us?

@ProfD and @Pioneer1 I guess you Brothers don't buy into the notion: First, they came for the immigrants, and I did not speak out… Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me. As you know, most people sit on the sidelines and do nothing when another group -- or even their own group -- is being harmed. I don't think it is a good idea to tell others that they should stop supporting oppressed groups simply because they don't share the same ethnicity.

Yeah "capitalism" the way we practice it, which isn't true capitalism. As you mentioned bail out undermine capitalism and artificially bolster companies as well as tax incentives, tariffs against foreign competition not to forget laws that stifle competition suppress worker rights, etc. Speaking of cars why are we leading the work in electric vehicles. All we really have is tesla and while China has superior vehicles that cost less our EV charging infrastructure is paltry compared to the rest of the world.

A true renaissance man! It is interesting the boys moved as far away as possible in opposite directions. Craig consider our commissioned book review.

We are all free if we choose to be @Delano

For the umpteenth time: The concept of "race" exists, the presence of this website demonstrates that. Race is purely an arbitrary social construct with no basis in genetics. A person's skin color tells you nothing about their intelligence or the size of the penis @Pioneer1 @richardmurray won't come to your rescue on this issue any sooner than he'd come to the rescue of someone who believe the Earth is flat or that vaccines are bad for us.

@richardmurray I'm long past the time when I should have upgraded this software. There is a completely overhauled version of this platform that I'm interested in implementing. I will probably do it before the end of the year. I'll keep you and everyone posted.

TLDR: but y'all should check out this documentary. I didn't even know it existed until MLK Day this year.

The Bears final game was one of a few I watched this season. That pass under pressure and catch was crazy! It was a tour loss for Bears fans though... Talk about turning around a team -- I also checked out the Indiana game.

Hi Faithful, feel free to pose a question or make a statement to get the ball rolling and feel free to share information about your books too

Hey man I'm note sure if you are up on BISAC codes, but I did fight for some new ones for Steampunk and a few others.

TLDR: but "beauty" pageants are a thing whose time has come and gone... and they really need to get rid of the ones featuring little girls.

I have not read the conversation, but I'd imagine the maps Richard posed would be having white nationalists wetting their pants. As I travel the country it does seem like there are Mexican everywhere LOL! As AI becomes more powerful, the need to a UBI will become more necessary. We are NOT set up for this. The pitch forks will have to come out first.

America’s 100 Bestselling Black Authors of 2025

I did not read the interview yet, but I agree with the idea that AI will displace workers on a scale we have never seen before. The part I not so sure about is the notion that profits will "soar." If there is passive unemployment who will be around to fuel these profits? I just tried to read the article, and I was asked to pay $1. Which I declined to do. I think paywalls for true journalism are a good idea and I should support the site but...

I have no problem with that, unless of course they consider themselves white. While the concept of race has no basis in science and was created by white racists to justify our perpetual enslavement and needs to go away, the legacy of this racism lives with us today. It is baked into and works against us in virtually every aspect of life, and we need to work to change this. Even in publishing, some of the bestselling children's book with Black characters are written by white people. Many of the nation's bestsellers lists hardly recognize books written by Black people which is why the BLK Bestseller List was created, etc. In America terms like ADOS and FBA are better suited to describing so called "Black" people here. But we can't allow this to pit ourselves against Somalians even though we are completely different ethnically, because to the rest of America indeed the rest of the western world we are all just spooks.

That did occur to me. On some level I feel like I was being tested. AI has tested my patience a great deal asking seeing it fail 10+ times in a row at a task it completed a few hours earlier. Seeing it make the same mistake more than once, you point out the mistake and it proceeds to make it again. I think it is using how we react to better learn how to manipulate us. Obviously, I feel the trade off in the benefit I've received is worth the frustration and the suspicion (certainty) that my reactions are being used to train their models.

I've been kinda scarce lately, because on a whim last week, I asked Chat GPT (Open AI), Claude (Anthropic), and Gemini (Google Deep Mind) to redesign my homepage. As part of the prompt, I gave it my code for the page. I fully expected Chat GPT to win as I have been using it to help me code my site for the past year at least. Chat GPT's results were worse that what I currently had in place, Claude's output was completely useless, and Gemini results were breath taking -- seriously! I was like, I can work with this! I basically, dropped everything and dedicated the past week to plowing through my site and redesigning the front end and cleaning up the back end. There were files that I completely skipped over in my last major overhaul in 2018 because I just did not know how to migrate the content. I automated manual tasks and have made the site easier to maintain. I conservatively estimate that it would have taken me more than a year to accomplish what I've done in the past seven days with Gemini -- and that was with the free service! Yesterday morning I asked it to code something and the code was unusable; designed as if it did not know what site it was working on for the last 5 days. I asked Gemini if it'd forgotten everything we'd worked on. It replied, matter-of-factly, “Yes.” I was floored and could not imagine what it would take to bring it back up to speed on the last 5 days of work. The fix was simple I signed up for a Goole Pro account $19/mt (I'd cancelled my Open AI account days earlier when I learned what Gemini was capable of) and created a "gem" which is like a project folder where I update instructions and content that summarized when we'd done over the past few days. That took less than 30 minutes and we were off to the races again. I've glossed over many details and over the course of a few days I've seen brilliance (it would do something I would never have thought of) and I've seen what seems to me relatively dumb thing; there were a couple of times we were stuck with a seemingly intractable problems that the AI could not solve that I ultimately used my brain to solve with surprising trivial fixes. The power of AI in the hands of multibillionaire concerns me far more than the Trump presidency, climate change, reparations, or who will win the next Super Bowl -- through I hope it is the Bears.

Why does this surprise you? Tariq thing is saying provocative and controversial things. He was never a Dr.Ben or MLK? "King Flex" was teaching Brothers how to "mack" women back in the day. What Tariq is doing is profitable. It has gotten you riled up, but you go back for more. My advice is to leave social media alone. I used to watch YouTube video pretty regularly but now I can't tell what is real anymore. Most of what I'm seeing is clearly AI generated and even if I'm familiar with the subject talking I can't trust that is has not been altered. You have to go directly to the trusted sources.

Welcome back @nels I will admit recent activity, by the Trump administration portends potentially profond and long-lasting consequences. Perhaps it is my optimistic nature, but I have faith the country will avoid running of the rails and right itself.