Troy

The book club I have been working with The Tea actually selected Tayari's novel An American Marriage for the February Reading list, for which the topic was romance. The video below showed the selection process. The book club's discussion has taken place and I'm a guest participant. That video will be published later this month. I'm hoping the fantastic attention generated by being an Oprah selection will draw more attention to The Tea's Videos. The video below shows the selection process. Basically The Tea shoots three videos for each month's selection. The selection process (the video below), the get to know the author video (these videos are just about as good as they come. I find it amazing that they are not getting much more attention), and the book club's discussion (which will be published on Thursday). The photo below is from Tayari's book party which took place on Thursday, February 8th, in Brooklyn, New York. From left to right is; Rob Fields, who is the President & Executive Director of the Weeksville Heritage Center; Poet John Keene, who was one of the 1st people I put on AALBC.com; Tyehimba Jess, winner of the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry; Tarari; me; Mike Thompson, owner the Brooklyn Moon Cafe, which is well known for their poetry readings; Clarence V. Reynolds, is the Director of The Center for Black Literature, and runs the National Black Writers Conference; I actually don't know the brother on the far right. Finally, the dude kneeling is Ron Kavanaugh, who run the Literary Freedom Project and published Mosaic Literary Magazine (@Mel Hopkins, Ron was in our class at Tech).

Zaji I understand what you are saying (I've have heard from Pioneer and others). There is no gene for race. Now if you do not believe this, all of the opinions you form will be flawed, and nothing I say will make sense to you. Saying there are numerous physical characteristics is no better than saying rce is a function of skin color. Humanity is so diverse you will always find people who are Black but would fail your more complex "brown bag" test. Of course there are genes (and environmental causes), which explain the differences in the way people look. But people are not cats, unless you want to talk about humanity in terms of different breeds. Lion are as different from tigers and cats as humans are from bonobos and chimps, because all "Black" people and "white" people are all Homo spaiens. Now, if we want to continue to use the word race to describe phenotypic differences between people fine. I do it in the course of informal conversation myself, but I also have no problem acknowledging someone who presents as "white" as a Black person, because because given the history of rape in this country "Black: people are all colors of the spectrum. This is perhaps one reason why "Afro-American" is a better term than "Black" to describe the so called Black American, particular ones descendant from enslaved Africans. Leonce and Pioneer use this term as well; I think for similar reasons.

Are you saying that skin color determines one's race? You are darker than me, so are you a "purer" Black person? My biological sister (we have the same parents), is much lighter than I. Is she "less" Black? What shade of skin color do you draw the line, and no longer consider someone part of the Black "race?" It will take me a moment to review the links to see the evidence for a genetic test for race.

Race is subjective; a recently created construct that has been abandoned by the scientific community, but firmly held onto by lay people. The amount of melanin one has is, of course, based upon their genetics and one's genotype is objective -- about as subjective as you can get. However, @zaji, @Pioneer1, why is there no genetic test for race?

Pioneer there are always restrictions and consequences, these issues do not take away from our freedom. I'm free to skydive, but the chute might not open. For some the possibility is enough to prevent them from engaging in the activity, but they are free to do it. Now if they do it and the chute does indeed fail to deploy the consequence is death, but still they exercised their freedom. Freedom includes one's ability to exercise caution, judgement, restraint. Now a child may be prevented from skydiving, because a parent or the law may not permit it. That child is less free than the adult.

..but you need to do experience to get to the point where you can sequence gene, tear atoms apart, and to observe the cosmos. And don't be so confident about what you see. The you remember the Blue/Gold dress image even everyday optical illusions should cause to question everything you see. Of course we all know how unreliable eyewitness testimony is. We, all people, MUST rely on the knowledge of others. This is the very thing that has allowed humanity to advance.

I don't think I have an emotion response to Pioneers posts. When I agree with him it is not begrudging either. In fact I often feel, as I've said before, I can relate to Pioneer because I've shared many of the opinion he hold -- even the one on race. @Delano I think you may be projecting your relationship with Pioneer onto others. At least in my case you are not seeing it the way I do.

Getting closer. So we concur on the social aspect however we still diverge on the genetic side. Yes it is true that lip thickness, hair texture, the amount of melanin in our skin, and all the rest is described in our genes. However the combination of these things is not enough to accurately and consistently describe the categories we use to describe each race. On some level this should be somewhat obvious as we can't look at someone and accurately describe the racial bucket they belong in. There is more genetic variability within a so-called race than there is between them. You may have more in common with Kim Kardashian genetically than you do with me. This is why the scientific community has abandoned the of notion of a genetic basis for race, and why I have too.

See this is what I mean: 1. Information I KNOW to be true based on experience or observation. Experiences and observations are what we call anecdotes and you have a long history of using this method to argue. What you know using the method can be utterly wrong. Is this how you know there is a genetic basis for race? 2. Information I don't actually know but just BELIEVE based on the evidence. This seems reasonable (assuming by "evidence" you mean your own experience or observations). 3. Information that I don't know nor have enough information to have an opinion on Information you don't know would just be called ignorance. Most of us, I suspect, don't realize how much we don't know about a given subject. 4. Information that I don't actually know and DON'T BELIEVE based on the evidence. How can you not believe something you don't know? 5. Information that I KNOW NOT to be true based on experience or observation Again you can't know anything based upon your experiences. Unless you are suggesting that you've been conducting experiment in lab and have had others have replicated your findings. I simply read, watch documentaries, consume information on the web and a variety of other places to draw conclusions -- I HAVE to rely others. I believe our own personal observations and experiences are just the beginning of acquiring knowledge -- not the end.

Hands don't make babies... smarty pants.

LOL @Pioneer1, no need to be insulted man. I just think Zaji articulated what I think you believe -- but she is a professional writer and she, like Leonce, have obviously put a great deal of thought into the subject and have written a lot about it. Still you don't recognize the fact that there is no genetic basis for the racial categories you hold so dearly, which leads to faulty conclusions. Again I think Zaji articulated the spirit of what you believe. Am I right or wrong? I didn't know anything about the colorism people around the world faced when I was a kid. All I knew was that Puerto Ricans, like Black people, were every color under the sun and that we were all in the same ghetto boat -- and not white. I think we also need a national daily newspaper that people actually read. We will NEVER be able to define ourselves if we have no media -- which we don't. What little we do have is largely concerned with mimicking what white media do. Which is largely concerned with making as much money as possible -- which has never served Black people, or the Afro American, as a whole.

The Harlem Book Fair is a far cry from it heyday over a decade ago. I trust it will see better days if was the premier book focus on Black books. I'm not aware of anything that has duplicated it since. Why do you ask @Nah'Sun?

Del I don't treat men the way I treat women. I know of course some women will have a problem with that and others would applaud it. But that is the way it is for me. I've never put my hand on a woman or spoken to one in a disrespectful manner (that I can recall). I tend to be more courteous to women than men and will do more for them like hold open doors or give up my seat on the train. I also don't treat my elders the same way I'd treat someone my junior. Perhaps it is my nature. Perhaps it was the way I was raised. Perhaps it is a combination of both.

No one is free to do anything they what, if they expect to be able to engage with anyone else. But that is not the point of freedom; is it?

I'll need to look into this bugs -- thanks for pointing them out. Yes I earn a commission from Amazon, for book sales, but the most important thing is that the book is purchased. If you buy it from the author, publisher, or indie bookseller that is the most important thing. I've also decided to simply sell books directly. Turns out I don't have the time, resources, and energy to corral the entities together to make the indie affiliate program work. Still I think it would be a much better long term strategy, but the coordination required is too much for me. If there is a book you want there me know what it is and I'll have it shipped to you. No tax, I can swing a 10% discount off list and you'll get it in a few days. I'll invoice via PayPal or Square. Thanks for your support @Mel Hopkins!

@zaji, the “yellow shirt” analogy was great. But we'd also have to consider that fact that the yellow shirt itself is subjective: to some people the yellow shirt might appear be to mustard or gold... or simply passing for yellow. The lunacy is perfectly normal give the American culture. How does one treat lunacy? @leonceg, thanks for sharing your thoughts.

@zaji, I looked for your piece it seems quite substantive.

@Harambee Books & Artworks, I just added your Book Festival to our event calendar. I see you have Chimamanda coming — that is big!

@Nah'Sun post a link to your website. Where you been?

I agree with Morgan Freeman to the extent that there should not be a "need" for Black history month, but the reality is that it is needed. In fact, I think we need to celebrate Black history 24-7-365. The stuff I was taught in school was propaganda; designed to marginalize people with brown skin.

Man I'm going to make sure Leonce sees these comments, they are just so thoughtful and profound. I may quote from these comments in my next letter. It would be nice if others shared as well. @Mel Hopkins, though we converged at Brooklyn Tech our paths there were entirely different. I grew up in segregated East Harlem where you where either Black or Puerto Rican. I did not know any white people my age until I got to Tech. Even then the only ones I really got to know were on the teams I competed on. To this day NY City Public schools are very segregated by both "race" and class. @zaji, what you wrote is probably better articulates what @Pioneer1 has been trying to communicate regarding race. Pioneer does what Zaji wrote reflect what you believe. I "saw" race.., and that is largely my biggest problem. I thought all Black people lived in the 'hood and were poor. This is all I saw growing up and this was reinforced by the images I saw on TV. The Blaxploitation films were filmed in my neighborhood, The Projects the TV Show Good Times depicted could have very easily been the one I grew up in. The Cosby Show which later might have changed my perspective, but I'm sure I would have assumed that is was far fetched; Doctors don't marry lawyers and live in big houses in NYC. In fact the one of the first Brownstones, like the one the Huxtables lived in, that I'd ever been in, that was not cut up into apartments, was the one I owned. The life my kids was provided would have been completely alien to the one I lived even though they lived walking distance from where I was raised. What what I was seeing was not race, but largely culture and often the two are confused. Most people would see Zaji, Mel, and myself as just "Black" people largely indistinguishable from each other. The reality is that culturally we are different. One good thing about the artificial construct of race is that it has brought us together

This is a short (sub-3 minute) video. If made me think of conversations we have been having here. Particularly as if concern race. Anyone who has been active on these forums knows I believe we should dispense with the concept of race in its entirety because it is flawed scientifically and it provides a mechanism for us to hold onto racist stereotypes that have never served us. The video below speaks to the later. Leonce, the Brother speaking in this video is a novelist. His book, I Dreamt I Was in Heaven - The Rampage of the Rufus Buck Gang is an 18 time AALBC.com besteller. He is currently the 20th bestselling author on this site over the past 20 years. The video describes the premise of his first (I believe) nonfiction work; Whites Shackled Themselves to Race and Blacks Have Yet to Free Ourselves. Let me know what you think.

Sometimes it is more difficult than others.

@Cynique that us exactly what I mean. Acceptance does not mean agreement.

@Delano don't think of it that way. You don't have to "accept" anyone's opinion anymore than you have to accept the fact that some people hate brussel sprouts and other love them.