Troy

I'm still researching this subject. Interestingly this post came up #2 on a query on "the best blackowned websites" (without the double quotes). I'm still plowing these sites: https://aalbc.com/top_black_websites/top_black_sites_list.php removing sites that are not black owned, adding other that are. I'l going to factor in a website's domain page to calculate a site's AALBC Score. Any sites that have made it for 20 years or more deserve special props. The oldest domain I found was Vibe.com which was registered in 1994! But Vibe is not Black owned so they'll be removed from the list...

...why Black celebritie's skin tones are often recorded much lighter than they really are.

Mel at the risk of mansplaining, the government counts unemployment 6 different ways, the most conservative figure, is U1 which is reported by the media. It completely hides the facts that, 50% of Black men, in Harlem are unemployed. Nor does it tell you that many of those are working in low age, menial jobs. So no, I do not take the government numbers as the gold standard to help me understand my community. But I understand why others might; they have no investment in my community and in fact despise it based upon their actions and certainly there beliefs I don't reject the government numbers on this matter, based upon what I "believe." I reject them based upon comparison to reality

I could play devil's advocate and say; This commercial is not racist. The Black woman in it was paid and was obviously happy doing what she did. You men are not entitled to even speak on any subject relating to Black women. We don't need or want you mansplaining anything to us. You old people are out of touch. It is 2017 and Black women have reclaimed their agency and if we want to magically transform into white girl that is up to us! Seriously, if you don't like it boycott Dove and tell you friends to do so too.

Net-net hurricanes are a job loser. Many of contractors working to rebuild were already working. in any event. more jobs are lost than gained. Indeed in the worse cases like Katrina, many jobs will never come back as entire communities are wiped out... Biloxi MS, was hit again a couple of days ago a hotel I stayed in a few times was flooded. The information regading real unemployment in New York is not new. A quick google search turned up this NBC report: https://highered.nbclearn.com/portal/site/HigherEd/browse/?cuecard=679# When I get a chance I'll try to track down a primary source (then again you could do that too). I live in the community I don't need anyone to tell me when it is raining... I know this is hard for people outside the community to believe, and the government statistics are laughable to anyone here, but what else is new.

Wendy thanks so much for taking the time to say that. I know people read the forums, even conversations abandoned years ago. But it is not "thankless" when people like you actually express those sentiments. @Delano, Hmm that is not exactly a positive aspect is it?

It is now October of 2017, and as we speak I'm still migrating old content to the new format. As far as I can tell I have less than 1,000 pages of content to move, but I as I move stuff I discover all types of problems, from technical issues to out of date or stale content. An upgrade I thought would take 6 months will take two years and six months. For the life of me I really don't know what drives me in this effort. Someone looking at me from the outside might legitimately think I'm obsessed. It does not feel this way and the last two years have flown by but it has been quite an effort. I actually started the website on this day 20 years ago. @Delano, I guess that makes my website a Libra, opposite me on the Zodiac. I bet that means something huh? :-)

Try Huria Search you might get lucky there. It queries over 300 black websites maybe one of the newspapers may have written an article on the type of business you need. There are a few sites that provide lists of Black owned business but I've already went through those most of the business crafts, clothing, oils and the like. I've been talking to many more people lately who are serious about doing business with Black owned businesses. Indeed, one Brother I spoke with on Friday has written a book on the subject. I'll share it when I get the information. But it feels like supporting Black business is becoming part of the zeitgeist, and important part of Black social consciousness. I actually know people who refuse to do business with Amazon! That is serious stuff and if enough people do the same we can have a real impact.

I'm glad we can agree one something... I suspect you'd need to do some research too Mel. For example, if we looked at the currently unemployment stats. I doubt anyone could say with certainty what caused the decrease, whether is was actually a bad thing, or even if it proves that 45 is a worse president than Barack Obama, as the person who shared these numbers concluded. You see many things impact these numbers. It is simply foolish to compare these numbers, in isolation, because so many thing were different, between this October and last October. I'm not saying you are doing this @Mel Hopkins, but many people like the person who shared these numbers do. In deed the media do it all the time, just announcing numbers without context as it that is meaningful information. We know for example that wages have not kept pace with inflation. We know the "gig economy" has replaced many jobs that provided a some level of security and benefits. The unemployment figures provide no transparency. We know those seeking work are not counted in the unemployment figures after a period of time (two years I think). We know the real unemployment for Black men in Harlem is 50% during Obama's presidency. You can't tease this out from the unemployment figures. As you implied the financial meltdown caused many job losses, some of those jobs are reflected in the numbers above. We know many of the jobs that were lost on Wall Street are never coming back--there are fewer high paying wall street jobs today than there was in 2008. Many of these people ultimately went back to work if not in financial services in other industries those number would be reflected under Obama, though that recovery cost us the better part of a trillion dollars. Now we know Wall Street employment is down and Amazon employment is up. Of course we know the Wall Street investment bankers are not packing boxes in some Amazon warehouse. But we again we know wages are down. I'm not sure a growth of low wage jobs is something to sing about. Again, I freely admit there is a lot I don't know so no, I don't profess to know the cause of the numbers above--any more than I know the causes of climate change. in the former case I know enough to know I'm being misled with inadequate information and in the later case I trust the scientific community.

I used to used the free version Grammarly, but it got in my way. Cynique may feel I should go back to using it, but the additional overhead was not worth it to me. Is the grammar checker that comes with your word process in adequate? As far as checking for plagiarism I was not aware that grammarly did that. Maybe you get that feature with the fee based version. When I feel the need to check for plagiarism I just run a Google search against a string of the questionable text in double quotes. But if you are a teacher that needs to check an entire class' papers there is of course software available but I can't recommend any.

I hear you Mel and thanks. But there are so many new books that I am made aware of lack of knowledge of this book will not make a difference. Still it is surprising was was not made aware of it prepublication. I have no interest in reaching out to the publisher, they obviously did not put a big marketing push behind the book. I suspect they are relying on the author's platform--he did win a National Book Award. Who knows. Again, I was just surprised I have not heard about the book. I actually did share info about this book on social media in an effort to see if this book was new to anyone else and wondering if it might attract attention, but organic reach on social media for brands is largely dead, so there was very was engagement.

Check out THE TEA book club's reading list. They create interesting video of all of their book club discussions. I'll be working with them to help share the content. The folks behind the scenes really care about the subject and the video are high quality. Out goals overalp so I'll be working to help spread the word :-) _____________________ Sometimes I think the conversations on our discussion forum might make make interesting videos given the range of opinions. Logistically it would be a challenge just because of geography. We could do an online video, but I wonder if the dynamic of what we write could translate to video. Then again it night be better... who knows.

Mel I can't answer your question without doing some research. However I suspect we'd arrive at the same conclusion. The data alone does not tell the whole story, much less tell the "truth," despite the attempts of those to who use the data that way; like the person who made the Twitter post. That was the only point I was trying to make and I think you got what I was trying to say now.

There are a lot more of these types of memoirs being published as a result the self publishing revolution which was made possible by desktop publishing software and digital printing. The timeliness of this particular memoir will certainly help sales. Too bad the author will not enjoy the success...

Actually there is SO much more quality programming on TV today it would be hard to dispense with the tool. You can watch lectures from all over the planet given by brilliant people. Believe it or not I had no concept of the quantum world until I discovered it on YouTube about 10 years ago. I was simply never exposed to it. I learned about this fascinating world watching streaming videos. @Delano, you recently mentioned Richard Feynman. I discovered him several years ago watching youtube videos on my TV. How did you discover him? Have you never watched his YouTube videos? If you have, you are basically using whatever device you watched that video on as a TV. You should rethink what a TV is. Like anything a TV is what you make of it, but as technology advances and corporations become more powerful, the ability of our "TV" to manipulate us will become greater (more harmful) and our ability to thwart this effort will become more difficult.

As previously discussed, people are moved by emotions, not reason, not data, not facts. Mel you continually insist that I substantiate reason behind the numbers in the chart chart shows. Apparently my original point simply can not be "seen" by you. But that is fine and I completely understand, I see it all the time. If it means anything to you, the statement, "This is the first time the U.S. economy has lost jobs since September 2010 – seven years ago. It interrupts the longest streak on record of consecutive months in which the economy added jobs." is supported by the spreadsheet. That statement is obvious from the data shown above. You want me to answer your question but you haven't even acknowledged an understanding of the premise of my post. Your question is a diversion from my point, that I'm not interested on making. @Mel Hopkins I know from previous posts you play fast and loose with interpretation of data and you are not alone. Today it is much more common for folks to arrive at completely different conclusions from the same data. Whether is is climate change, voter turnout, or employment data. In all cases the devil is in the details, but in some cases, as it is with the point I made above, it is simply cherry picking a portion of a chart. Depending on the range of data you use, you can make wildly different statements some supportive of 45 and other anti-45. I can say, for example, based upon the same data above that. during the first 9 months of their respective presidencies that Obama lost 1.5 million jobs while 45 showed job growth of 100K jobs (estimated I did not take out a calculator). Now if I reported that to make 45 appear to be superior to Obama, that would be silly, would it not? I guess this what is meant by "alternative Facts."

That must have been torture for your kids :-) I doubt I'd get rid of my TV, but I definitely don't watch a lot of the shows people rave over...

The person who made the statement which I quoted directly also shared the spreadsheet to support the statement. All you have to do is look at the spreadsheet @Mel Hopkins to see my point. No additional explanation is needed, either you get or you don't. But if you want me to, I'll try to explain, or "mansplain" as @Cynique calls it

This was at the top of my Twitter feed today. I did not comment on it, but it struck me because the person who posted it cares for 45 about as much as I do and they went to the same business school I attended. The problem I have with the chart (assuming you accept the figures as presented, for no primary sources was cited) is that the statement failed to recognize the staggering job losses shown on the very same chart for the first two years of Obama's presidency! This also ignores the net job gains for the 45 adminstration are actually far great than they were for Obama at the same point in his presidency. In other words, this chart, looking at the numbers alone, makes 45 look much better than Obama... Of course Obama supporters will say those loses were the result of legislation from the Bush administration. Well if you make that argument you'd have to give 45 the same pass. People use numbers to make arguments when the should not do so. Right @Del From Twitter: "Last September, President Obama added over 200,000 jobs. This September, under Trump, loss of 33,000 jobs."

This book came out 10 days ago. I just learned of it's existence last night. Were any of you aware of this book before now? If so ,how did you learn about it? I'm a bookseller and actively look for new books that I think would interest my audience. I talk to others in the industry. I have tons of content, much of it exclusive, on James Mcbride. I just strikes me as crazy that I one did not get a galley of this book, or have some form of advance notice of this book's publication. It still amazes me that we can have so much access to so much information an still be completely uninformed... FIVE-CARAT SOUL “feel good” fiction from James McBride

There is very little you can do to prevent this type of thing short of just making it illegal for an individual to amass so many weapons. Some people are good and others are evil. Most of us are capable to doing both good and evil things. What motivated this guy is unknowable. I doubt even he knew. Besides whatever reason this murderer's brain manufactured would not be rational--nothing justifies this behavior...nothing. Yes Mel, I think more respect for life, as a culture, may help make behaviors like this less likely. But I think our country will end before changing. We live in a gun culture. We live in a violent culture. Violence permeates all of our entertainment from videogames, to movies, to TV, to sports, and music. The country was created, forged, and is maintained with violence. We execute people, we bomb people by remote control, our police kill unarmed innocent citizens all the time, we have a military larger than the next 20 countries combined, our "leader" threatens to "totally destroy" another nation. Violence is how we roll.

My bad @Mel Hopkins 10 months. @Del you live in a community with others. Here is the US we have 45 to show for a population of misled, and riled up by fake news and misinformation. Was that a rhetorical question.

Thanks again, I just approved your account @Johanna Sparrow

Cynique I understand that you, like myself, are simply individuals who wield little influence. Again my concern is not about you or I, but our culture. Whether it is Cardi B becoming the most significant rap artist of the day, Colin Kaepernick being the most visible activist today, or a great Black writers who remains obscure unless they are given the white co-sign. I tried really hard to explain why my point is not about you or I individually, but about us collectively. The only reason I speak about you specifically is because you bring up things that are specific to you, so I address those things and maybe that gives the impression that I'm making this about you--again that is not my intent. You like to state that Black people are not a monolith. Of course we are not, that goes without saying, we are all individuals and are all unique. I'd don't want anyone to adhere to my standard of behavior any more than I would want to adhere to theirs. So while I think the NOI is more significant that Colin. I would not want the NOI to run the entire country. However we as Black people must reclaim our agency. We can not continue to allow corporations who are run largely by white men motivated by profit, to set our agenda--to even determine something as mundane which Black owned websites survive. Individually, we have no power to change anything but together we do. These are the efforts that I personally engage in and support. I would not be surprised that Colin is engaged in more substantive activity. As I previously discussed substantive activity by Black folks is not something the media like to cover. Beyond kneeling, what activity did Coates say that Colin is engaged in? I did read somewhere that Colin has pledged to donate $100,000 to 10 charities over the next 10 years. As you said we'll see Colin's impact over time. I, for one, hopes it becomes significant.

OK @Cynique While I have no interest in joining the NOI, or adopting their chaste lifestyle, I'd take a Farakhan over a Kaepernick any day of the week. Many, perhaps most, of Farrakhan supporters are not in the Nation. Indeed many in hip hop drew inspiration from him, including myself. He spoke with the force of a contemporary Malcolm, a Malcolm I was too young to witness. Farrakhan, like Malcolm before him, drew criticism from white folks and scared a lot of Black folks too. Malcolm like Farrakhan had a platform they helped lead and did not need the support of the media. Colin does not exist without the media. Malcolm, like Farrakhan, was chosen by Black folks. He was not propped up for us by corporations as our acceptable symbol of protest the way Colin had been. You mis-characterize Farrakhan by saying he never did anything but rant about Jews and do a disservice to the people of the Nation of Islam calling them "Sheeple." But again, I understand why you'd say these things, because that is what the white corporation would have you believe. Cynique you have to understand the power of the media. You don't give them enough credit because you feel you are not impacted, but indeed you are--we all are to a certain extent. Farrakhan only rails against the Jews who do us harm. He speaks highly of Jews he admires. He is a minister so of course he is going to proselytize--that is his job, but no different that a TD Jakes who whitefolks find more acceptable because his is a Christian and does not speak about America's evils... though Jakes is much better at separating Black folks from their money. Yes, Farrakhan's excoriation of CBS's MIke Wallace on 60 minutes was priceless. I seriously doubt Colin is capable of such a thing. I prefer what What Farrakhan said to MIke, clearly exposing America's evil and duplicity for all to see. Kneeling is open to interpretation, says nothing clear, does nothing concrete, and was easily shut down. It took a lot more effort, and violence, to weaken the NOI, to destroy Malcolm and Dr. King. Colin was just fired.