Troy

The only thing that came out of this is that white folks, like the guy Quannell was debating just dig their heels even more. The notion that dissatisfied Black people should just live basically says; yeah the situation for ya'll is jacked up, don't look to us to help make things better, you might have better luck finding justice in another country... Maybe he is right.

Hi Darlene please share your website's address.

First, the idea that mainstream/social media is needed to spread the word about what we do is the problem that I'm pointing out--and let's be clear this is a serious it is a problem. You see the mainstream/social media can never be an instrument of our empowerment, indeed it is most efficient at doing the exact opposite; which it is currently accomplishing very well. If Black folks ran the media, or even a portion of it reflective our our population, that does not mean they will behave any differently than the mainstream media. BET was a perfect example of this. What we do know however is that if Black people are to be properly served Black people will need to do it. We are the only ones who have ever done it. Cynique, I know you are not equating the March on Washington with Colin's kneeling on the sidelines. But given the media's reaction I could see why one might perceive the two as equivalent. If I had the resources I would see just how much coverage each event got during it's time. I strongly suspect Colin's kneeling is getting far more coverage than the MOW. Cynique do you know the name of the president of the NAACP? Do you think any Black person not working for the organization does? Do you think it matters? Are we better off not knowing anything about the NAACP and it's activities, and knowing all about some ultimately meaningless gesture of a 2nd string quarterback? Time Magazine are not going to put the president of the NAACP on the cover its magazine, indeed we'd be lucky to read anything about the NAACP in Time. Our lack of a Black media is one reason organizations, like the NAACP, are not nearly as effective as they could be. Chris I know you are joking but you do more for our empowerment than most. I'm sure you won't allow yourself to be completely exploited by Facebook. ;-)

I see it differently; Kaepernicks gesture has legs because the media choose to give it legs. They decide what is appropriate for us to know and what is important. This decision has nothing to do with what will be most effective, or what best services our community, It has to do with was is easiest capture and likely to draw the most attention. Pledging a million is a good gesture, but actually giving a million dollars to an entity that will accomplish something of consequence is an entirely different thing--let me know when there something substantive has been accomplished. I'm sure the media will not cover that ... they have a 5 minute attention span, Colin will be out of the league, and all of this will have been forgotten in a season. Black people accomplish things, but the media don't tend to cover these accomplisments. Again they are fixed on covering the empty efforts, comments and activities of celebrities.

Yeah I would have certainly commented. I believe they close comments simply because it is a maintenance hassle. The vast majority of commenters are spammers--at least that is the case on my site. In the old days, the doors to homes did not need locks. Today you need lock, a security system, and insurance. Rather than taking the appropriate precautions, Black Enterprise simply got rid of the house.

@Pioneer1, you are probably right about BLM usurping the media attention from local activists. Again if you have no media platforms you don't control the narrative. Which means you can't control who represents you. Cynique, I'm not belittling Colin, I'm belittling his gesture, for it is empty and will be of no consequence when all is said and done. Are far has risking his career, I think it has helped it and the NFL, by busting rating. I even tuned into the start of the game to see what all the fuss was about

I've begin, in earnest, the migration of AALBC.com's old content to the new format; in the process I'm rediscovering content that I really enjoyed. You know this is a really cool site, if I do say so myself At any rate, I think you'll enjoy this video. Daniel Black is reminiscent of J. California Cooper, was was also a brilliant story teller. Both writers resonate with me because they tell stories about Black people in rural southern environments. The kind of individuals who most African Americans come from. Enjoy.

It seems Black Enterprise has finally gotten a clue regarding social media. 5 Reasons Your Business Shouldn’t Be on Facebook From a limited reach to a lack of results, here’s why your brand is better off without Facebook in its marketing strategy Now I don't agree with the article entirely, because you can still derive benefits from Facebook to benefit your business. But this article is a step in the right direction.

I think you answered the question. The differences in the demographics in Charlotte and Tulsa probably explain the different reactions.

Pioneer, I agree with Cynique. The fact supports everything she wrote. I would also emphasize that you can't generalize your observations to the whole. There are more plausible emplainations to many of your observations. For example, very old women today usually grew up in the south because the vast majority of Black people lived in the south then. 50 years from now the oldest Black people will have been raised in cities, because that is where the vast majority of us live today. You can't look at African immigrants and assume they have the same characteristics as the ones still in Africa. The ones in our universities are the best and the brightest Africa has to offer. Even the ones starting out as cab drivers are the most motivated people and are not representative of everyone still on the continent. Also, in cities like NY the entire environment was far more polluted 100 years ago. They dumped raw sewage into the the rivers, horses shat all over the street and the air reeked from burning of trash, factories, etc. It is definitely cleaner today If a 50 year old is not thinking as quickly it is because everyone's mental capacity declines over time, that is normal. I'm not arguing with you about what we may have lost spiritually, because i think we have lost something. Over my short life seeing everyone connecting to devices 24X7 is unnatural. Our complete separation from nature as seen in our massive urban centers is unnatural as well. I assume neither is beneficial, but I can't really say how bad it is relative to the beneficial tradeoffs. I would be willing to bet that the loss of spirituality due to our disassociation from nature and slavish devotion to corporate controlled technology has had more of an adverse impact on the brothers on Chicago's west and south side than vaccines. They could be dying from diphtheria or typhoid fever. Wouldn't you agree?

@Pioneer1 did you see this Time cover? They wrote "Perilous Fight" and "fueling a debate," gimme a break! We were debating this before he was born, and their is nothing perilous about this "fight." To me it diminishes the efforts of others, working in total obscurity, actually doing the work necessary to make change. Besides grabbing headlines, what is he really doing? If he organizes a boycott of the the NFL, now we are talking and he'll have my support and utmost respect. I don't know why Colin is the media golden child. Were the sisters who founded Black lives matter on the cover of Time? Maybe colorism is a factor too. Again, this is the media deciding for us whose efforts matter, deserves attention, and are acceptable. "Plantation" was the right word William Rhoden made this analogy appropriate in his book Forty Million Dollar Slaves.

Hey @Dr T, how does this look:

Thats right! I forgot about that book (it has been 12 years). Kola's old publisher, Door of Kush, published Chris' book as well as another contributor to these forums Diane Dorce. If these titles were published today I would be in a much better position to help promote these books. When they were published I actually had a full time job, young kids, and making updates to AALBC.com requiured a LOT more work. I just created a page for Chris.

Rereading these conversation is really motivating. I have work to do and the struggle continues...

Hi Courtney, tanks for sharing information about your event here. I've added it to our calendar: https://aalbc.com/events/index.php?st=District+of+Columbia#East+of+the+River+Book+Festival I see you mentioned Instagram. I don't use Instagram, so I dug a little and see that there is a website for the festival. I would encourage you to always mention your website.

Stumbled across this page looking for content to create a page for ole' Chrissy boy and this was the first thing that came up. I published a review he wrote, and am about to migrate it to the new format which includes a webpage for the reviewer. So now I'm hunting for a little information on him. Chris was one of the few "Cyniquian Level" posters, an honor earned on the old forum. It is too bad I had to abandon the old software (too prone to spammers), we lost a bunch of good posters in the transaction. I don't even know enough about him to complete a profile page.

I completely agree with what you just wrote Cynique. All I'm trying to do is add to what you and Chris are saying: as a Black person you can do all the right things and still fail. We fail with abilities and actions that result in success for white folks. Most of it has to do with support structures white folks have in place that we are lacking. You see, if we keep saying all you have to do is work hard and make the right decisions to succeed, you don;t do anything about all of the roadblocks that hamper the success of so many others. This is the mentality of many Black republicans who look at their own success and say, "well if I did so can you." Sure some folks escape, but we can't forget about the many others who never will--due to no fault of their own. Yes work hard, avoid bad decisions, pray, keep your fingers crossed, and do all you can to improve your chances to succeed. But we must also be clear; there is still a battle to fight. I think we have forgotten that, and the biggest consequence of this is our lack of solidarity. Folks like to say, "Black people are not a monolith." of course this is true, but we are treated by society as if we are, and must react as a monolith in order to enjoy the freedoms we deserve in this country. That monolith built universities, it build communities, it build newspapers that feed and nourished our community. Today we talk about our ability to reach others with stupid videos on Twitter, while the communities, universities and newspaper we built shutdown and struggle. It is sickening to think about really. A luta continua...

Cynique, with a TV in every room, a cell phone in every hand, and easy access to fast food, I'm sure Blacks (and everyone else) has more material wealth today, but how are Black doing today relative to White folks when you were younger? It would also be interesting for you to expand upon our spiritual losses I don't put so much faith in the individual being responsible for their own success, sometimes people are victims of the situation, a situation they have no control over. If you are a victim of a shitty school system and aggressive policing you are at a severe disadvantage. A poor education and a warrant can put a serious damper on career prospects. Besides I've seen too much talent get marginalized and wasted because they were not in the right "club." I've also seen people do well for themselves by being very sheisty. Negros don't get away with this, but white folks do all day long. The Wells Fargo scam is the latest example with the CEO being one of the highest bank Bank CEOs in the country... No, America is not a meritocracy.

Humm maybe I better research my Cuban history before I indulge you further on the timing off Soviet involvement in Cuba ;-) Speaking of Cuba I'm seriously considering hosting a literary excursion there next year, perhaps y'all can join me. I'll work out the details shortly. I wanna get there before the suits put a Starbucks and McDonalds on every corner. As far a Haiti, I'm reading a book now called the Black Jacobins; man those French slave owners make Los Pepes (from the Netflix series Narco) look like saints. Speaking about Kaepernick, I tuned into his first game to see what the hullabaloo was all about, and I agree 100% with what you wrote. If the twittersphere wasn't going ape-shit over this I would have thought he was showing more reverence for the flag than those simply standing around him--and I would not have thought anything else about it--pass me a beer. There were two other Black players (non-mulatto) on the team who held up their fists in a Black power salute, reminiscent of Tommie Smith and John Carlos in the '68 Olympics. No one mentioned them. i guess Kaepernick was selected and given the juice. Maybe they should stop singing the nation anthem at football games. If anything, it would give Kaepernick an opportunity to do something meaningful like walking off the field. Imagine if all the Black players walked off the field...now that would be something huh?

So @Pioneer1, if you had children you would not get them vaccinated? You believe vaccinations are a conspiracy to destroy Black people? Man, we need Black journalists now more than ever. If not for anything else to lay these rumors to rest (or prove them to be true). Conspiracy theories die hard even in the face of facts and truth. Recently I decided to focus on the dispelling the Willie Lynch Letter as a hoax. This was a hoax I pretty much thought was dead, but once I started promoting a book, Death of the Willie Lynch Speech: Exposing the Myth by Manu Ampim, which explained and proved the letter was a hoax. I was surprised by the number of people who reacted by saying it does not matter if the letter is a hoax, it is the "message" that is important. This reasoning nonsensical to me. But the reality is that issues likes these are completely emotional and reasoning does not apply. As result, we are stuck on stupid and make no progress--in fact we regress. I thought about removing the book, The Willie Lynch Letter And The Making Of A Slave, from my website because I was helping to promote the lie. Instead I thought it would be more impactful to post the following on the books page: "AALBC.com Note: Despite the popularity of this title on our website, the Willie Lynch Letter is a hoax" Despite the disclaimer, the Willie Lynch letter book outsold the book dispelling the letter over the past 30 days. Obviously conspiracy theories are not limited to Black folks. Even white people believe vaccines cause autism. There are communities where devastating diseases that were eradicated are now on the rise, because white folks are not getting their kids vaccinated. This puts us all in danger. But I understand why people don't trust the government. The government has largely proven itself to be untrustworthy. White folks believe the government is causing autism due to gross incompetence, negligence, and being owned by the pharmaceutical lobby. Black people feel it is genocide. These are all plausible given our government's behavior. We are so grossly misinformed, by the shallow, sensational, revenue-seeking, social-media-driven, news cycle, we are suspect to believe anything. Two days ago I got a social media update the Chinua Achebe recently died....

I think the Black community, was better off 75 years ago. America was far worse, but the Black community was superior. We had our own media, universities, and we worked together to make due with the limited resources and freedoms we enjoyed in this country. If the Black community was as tight as it was back then today we would be thriving. Insteading we kneel on the sidelines or tweet our outrage while waiting for someone else to make things better for us. But what do I know? I yield to the older folks in this regard. What I do know is that we should be doing MUCH better than we are currently.

Videos from the 2016 Brooklyn Book Festival

I just found this mini documentary on Heru:

I ran into poet, author, Heru Ptah at the Brooklyn Book festival on Sunday. Now Heru has been published by a major publisher, he has appeared on HBO's Def Jam, and he was book writer for the Broadway Musical Hot Feet. He has accomplished a lot. But he is still "grinding" like a self published author. Walking the fair hand selling books person to person. This is the way Heru was discovered, hand selling books on a NYC subway. He sold a book to the publishing director of MTV Books and got a "mid-5-figure" book deal. Some authors, after getting a book deal stop self promoting (assuming they ever promoted their own work at all). You can't stop--especially if you are Black. Heru approached me at the fair and I've created content to promote his work as a result. To be clear, selling books on a New York City subway is not for everyone. Even if one were inclined to do it, some might consider it too aggressive or intrusive a tactic to use. Whatever your technique, you have to actively promote you work even after you "make it."