Troy

Cynique, I did not come to learn about the so called Black elite until I was an adult. All of the groups you mentioned, "civic and political groups, Masons, Eastern Stars, an American Legion Post, social organizations and clubs," were completely beyond my world view. I remember the first time I learned about Black Greek letter organizations--I was a freshman in college... I did not learn about Jack and Jill, the Links, or Boule until I was out of college. I did not know a Black teacher, lawyer, doctor, or engineer growing up. I barely knew anyone with a car, and I did not know anyone who owned the place in which they lived. Sure we had the Black church growing up, and I went most Sundays growing up. But other than the singing I hated every minute of it. I could not wait to get outta there, change my clothes and go outside to play. So the church was not exactly and influence for me growing up, and my pastor was Rev. Dr. Wyatt Tee Walker Compared to the kids coming up after me I had it pretty good... ...it got worse, as as drugs were introduced into the community, which brought violence and crime. Then they started locking people up like there was no tomorrow. Some of the younger kids from my neighborhood gained some notoriety, like the Central Park Five. They were more the rule than the exceptions. Of course this helped destroy the nuclear family in communities like mine. By the time I went to college most of the youngsters I knew, grew up without their fathers--if they knew them at all. As far as hip-hop is concerned the art form itself is great, it was the commercialization of hip-hop if that destroyed it and, I firmly believe, helped weaken the black community as well. I say all this Cynique to say there are many people who see women like the character Leslie plays every day (and as Pioneer suggests Leslie may indeed be one of them). Sure they see the Michelle Obama's of the world, but they are on TV and may as well be on Mars for as much influence they'll exert on the lives of most folks. Saturday Night Live, Hip-hop music, and the culture as a whole reinforces the Leslie Jones archetype. Michelle is just an exception. It is probably a lot worse out here than you might think...

I just added the the event you attended to the site: https://aalbc.com/events/index.php?st=California#SDSU+Writers%26rsquo%3B+Conference The personality of events are just like people. Some events I really like and others get on my nerves, because they constrain the growth and even hurt themselves because they alienate people. I think events reflect the sensibilities of their organizers. Book festivals and fairs are completely different animals than conferences. I think conferences, who usually charge, are more likely to generate a feeling of intimidation especially among newbies. The BWABC is taking place in Memphis next month. There are going to be 100 authors in attendance. These are the types of events I like to do, there are not too many events where you'll encounter 100 Black authors, actively promoting their books in one place ;-)

I hear you Cynqiue. As a Black person in America, I'd be the first person to admit, that it is really hard not to believe a lot of the craziness flying around the internet. So when people are convinced that vaccines cause Autism I get it-- we all know about the Tuskegee "experiments." As we watch wealth inequality grow and witness first hand Black people be shot for no good reason, who would not believe in the Illuminati or some other cabal of white folks trying to control the world and rid it of Black people? Our course I could go on an on from climate change denial, to your typical internet hoax, to George Bush blowing up the World Trade Center, all the Jews staying home, no airplane debris at the pentagon, and thousands of Muslims cheering while the towers fell... Why wouldn't people believe this?

I just upgraded this widget to include a full year of events. Many of the events have not updated their websites, but they usually take place during the same time of the year so I have updated our Events Calendar to reflect this. I also updated the widget to work on secure (https) websites. As I was updating the events calendar I noticed a couple of book fairs decided to call it quits. One, The Blue Ridge Bookfest, gave three primary reason for stopping, which I will share in a separate conversation.

While updating my Book Fair Events Calendar, I was surprised to discover several book festivals have ended The Blue Ridge Bookfest, called it quits after 8 years provided three main reasons for ceasing their book festival: Attendance has not lived up to expectations. The public seems less interested in meeting authors than in the early years. Internet, e-books and audio books have grown strong. Donor and sponsor funding have declined while the expense of bringing in authors has increased. The financial gap grew each year. The event did not charge admission. Volunteers have not come forward in sufficient numbers. The Buffalo Small Press Book Fair ran from 2007 to 2016, but it appeared to be successful and the organizer apparently just decided to "move on." These are two that have definitely ended but several others are likely to end, simply because they has already passed their anniversaries and they have not updated their websites, or their websites are down altogether. The First Read Expo is an event I participated in last year, and actually hoped to participate in this year, but their domain has expired, and I'm unable to reach the organizer. Maybe they will come back in 2017. Of course some of the remaining festivals are struggling. But fortunately, there are many fairs that are thriving. Do you go to book festivals? If so, which ones do you enjoy?

Of course you are right about the typos--thanks for pointing it out, again. Hrad as I mghti tyr ti si dfiflcut ot eidt my onw wirhtging, btu yod'u be rsupsrided how mcuh cna be cmomnucitade dseipet typos. But it is one of my weaknesses and while I'm not really sweating typos on the forum, it is an issue in general. Cynique, it is still not clear to me why you keep asserting that people are not being bamboozled when there is so much evidence to the contrary. We all agree that social media helps bad information circulate more quickly, but when consider the fact that today we have easier access to better information than ever before, but we are much less informed. Better access to more information and we we worse off...

Hi Anita, I just added this event to our events page. Does this event have a website?

Perhaps it is wishful thinking on my part, but time will tell Bruh--and you heard it here first

@Cynique, lets just say that the article reminded me of our conversation, and forget any of the ideas I attributed to you. However, I'll address what you just wrote. I do not think Facebook reflects Black culture in the least. At best it is a caricature of it. I agree everyone "fronts" on Facebook--more so that they would in real life. In terms of faking opinions regarding the election, what do you think about the impact of trolls, which the research paper discussed? People consume information created by trolls in the same fashion that they consume real news. People use troll generated information to substantiate a beliefs--even if they are exposed to real information. In my mind, the question is not really about the opinions of folks, but how those opinions are arrived at and how Facebook serves to reinforces their opinion whether they are based in truth or not; or whether they are fronting or not. These articles explain this research more clearly, in layman's terms. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/01/q-a-walter-quattrociocchi-digital-wildfires/ http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0118093 @CD Burns, sure social Facebook helps spread false information more quickly, a propaganda is nothing new. But if I understand you correctly, it sounds like you are suggesting that someone, using the same data, could have easily written a paper with opposing information? It also sounds like you are dismissing the impact of social media, essentially saying that any impact is only marginally different than what we've experienced in the past. Am I reading you correctly?

"Digital misinformation has become so pervasive in online social media that it has been listed by the WEF (World Economic Forum) as one of the main threats to human society." You can read the research report here. Don't be put off by the formulas and graphs; you can get the gist by simply reading the opening paragraph and the conclusions. @Cynique, I just stumbled across this article looking for something else and it make me think out you regarding our conversation about using Facebook to assess public opinion. I cautioned you against doing this because of the echo chamber effect of the platform. This research speaks to this effect. It also talks about how difficult it is to change ones opinion as a result; whether it the belief in vaccines causing autism or denying the climate change. It is pretty interesting stuff.

...at least for now. About a month ago I reported that at the current rate, referral traffic from social media this year, was on track to exceed the referral traffic from all previous years combined. Since Facebook is such a substantial portion of all of my social media traffic can effectively use "Facebook" and "Social Media" interchangeably. Well traffic from Facebook for the first 8 months of 2016 has already exceeded traffic generated during all the previous years combined! I decided to stop using Facebook to promote AALBC.com, because my organic reach was declining despite a growing fan base and daily active engagement. Now in 2016, after I taking my Facebook usage to the bare minimum; my referral traffic hits record levels?! I believe the increase is traffic to AALBC.com from Facebook is the result of one or more algorithms changes designed to increasing social sharing on their platform. The benefit to AALBC.com while relatively substantial is almost certainly short lived and certainly nothing to bank on. The algorithm change may have also been designed to get me to engage more on their platform, in an attempt to increase the traffic. Well I can tell you right now, there is no incentive for me to got back to actively engaging on Facebook again. I learned my lesson. The free time I've gained by eliminating Facebook engagement, has allowed me to grow AALBC.com's traffic much more substantially than I ever could have through Facebook. This might sound extreme, but I believe Facebook has already peaked, and is on a decline. You traders out there, short FB.

Hi Pamela, The 2017 list is high on the list of priorities. I'm going to convert the list to a rolling 12 month list--hopefully before the end of the month.

Cynique I recently encouraged authors, who were interested in getting their book reviewed, to post information about their book on Thumpers Corner--instead of sending me an email. I get a lot of requests for book reviews, and I since I can not afford to accommodate the majority of these requests (no publisher can), I felt it would be a better use of the author's time to introduce themselves and their book on Thumper's Corner. This way I would still see the book info, but other potential readers would see information about the new book. I did not intend to these requests to be just straight up book review requests, because this does not interest readers. I'll have to update my instructions to make this clearer. Some authors have taken the suggestion as intended and I've even created free profiles for some and offer suggestions on improving their pitches. Hopefully this will evolve and improve overtime. As far as adding images to posts, simply click the link Drag files here to attach, or choose files.... at the bottom of the editing window from that point you will be promoted to select a location to upload an image (see image at the end of this post with the arrow). You will then need to click the image to add it to a post. I'm surprised you never asked this before. As far as the typos in my posts, sure the remote responding is an issue, but most of the time it is just me rushing. I do from time to time edit my posts, and am actually floor my how egregious the typos I've caught are sometimes. I'll try to do better. (ignore any typoes in this post ) Pioneer, get your mind out of the gutter.

Amaru, interestingly this page attracts a lot of visitors through search. Oh Clarence is Black, but as Cynique inferred above, he is chose a different path. If has worked out well for him, but has not served his people very well. But then again this is the American Way isn't it?

@Pioneer1 that was I inspired :-) @Cynique, please can walk in lockstep on the otherside of the political spectrum too. Which is my biggest complaint about black folks slavish devotion to the democratic party despite the all of the policies that gave hurt our community. But it looks like I'll have to break down and vote for Hillary just in case the no-shows tip the election in favor of that nut in the opposing party.

Cynique, one's own personal filter, though important, is a completely different issue that what I've described; read up on filter bubbles. Pioneer I agree with most of what you've written, but I do get the appeal of social media. While I no longer use social media for anything other than sharing links to AALBC.com, I definitely get the appeal. It can be a massive ego stroke. I stopped using it because I don't like being manipulated. The promoting to wish someone a happy birthday, the promoting to share old photos, and even the guilt of not doing it--everything is all designed to keep you engaged get you to use their system--and they do a brilliant job. Walk around any city and look at what people are doing...

"We" as in Americans. One of the problems with the current campaign indeed our entire political process is that if reinforces the "we" versus "they" mentality. Presumably we all want the same thing a prosperous nation. Sure we may disagree on how to get there, but the we" versus "they" mentality is self destructive, and nothing good ever comes from it. So while I, personally will not vote for Trump, I'm not about to disavow the Americans who do.

Yes Cynique, you hang around smart people... But look at it this way, the stuff you see posted on Facebook is, by its very nature, biased. The majority of people who have accounts don't post, and of those that post the information is filtered by the people doing the posting. Then Facebook's algorithm determines the content that you see. Are you beginning to see how these multiple funnels skew things? Despite the hype from Facebook the majority of Americans are not posting on Facebook, so how can it be representative of what the general population thinks? Now Facebook itself has a better indication because they know what you look at--even if you don't comment, they capture the text you type--even if you decide not to submit it, and they capture everything, so they have a better perspective of what people are like, but again the data is only a reflection of the people using the system...

Cynique, the "we" I'm referring to are the millions of Trump supporters. But I'm also talking the weak ass media, so desperate for viewers that they put Donald Trump on TV at every opportunity, while lobbing him slow-pitch softballs for questions and rarely challenging him on the lies he tells to their face. But they don't do it because they are afraid of losing access to Trump. The mainstream media is weak, pathetic, and did more harm than good this presidential cycle. We are looking a real potential Trump presidency as a result!

Interesting conversation. Cynique I agree with @Pioneer1, I don't think most Black people, indeed people in general, understand how much and how easily they are manipulated. Yes there are a lot of "dumb niggas" out there, from time to time I fall into the category But you put your finger on it @Cynique, most people would be entertained than enlighten. In fact engaging folks in an entertaining way is a good way to enlighten them. But the reality is most of are entertainment is vacuous, while our enlightenment/education is banal, so yes there are a lot of dumb folks out there... Cynique I'd also be careful about using social media as a gauge of how people, in general, feel about anything. Social media create filters which present you with the opinions and ideas most likely to keep you engaged, and for most of us this is stuff that we agree, mindlessly entertain you, or vivaciously peek in on others. Potting you finger on the pulse of the Black community it is not... I think it is the primary reason why some folks can't wrap their heads around why anyone would support Trump. They consume the same biased social media fueled sources of information. But I digress... Look while folks have they rude and obnoxious counterparts Melissa McCarthy (starred in brides maids), is basically John Belushi in drag, but white folks don;t get all riles up about her characters, because whites actresses get such a wide variety of diverse roles McCarthy roles don't matter. Because our roles are so limited we run the real risk of being stereotyped in the minds of white folks. The real solution to this is not to put Leslie out of work, but to create more diverse roles for Black actresses, but until we become less dependent upon white folks for gigs this will never happen. So there will never be a shortage, rapper, slave, maid, gangster, and dysfunctional ghetto dweller roles for less than stunning, large dark-skinned Black women.

AALBC.com's August eNewsletter is out, full of information about books, writers, and related articles

I just added another enhancement to the your Enhanced Author Profile @CDBurns, I made all of your pages secure. This is are of an overall effort to be part of the https everywhere effort. Eventually the entire AALBC.com website will be secure and use encryption but the Enchanced Author Pages are using this today. This will also help in SEO as well. I'm close to having some promotion ideas related to the Enhanced pages as well--thanks again for your help.

Oprah is back with a book club selection. I don't recall the last time she made one, and I have to believe it has been a couple of years since she has picked a Black book. The last one I remember off the top of my head was Ayana Mathis' The Twelve Tribes of Hattie. The selection of Colson new book was The Underground Railroad will be a tremendous boon to the author. A simple google search will reveal the incredible about of coverage of this book right on the pub date. Of course the coverage is as much about Oprah's endorsement as it is about Colson's book. It is almost like a competition to see who can cover the story the fastest. The publications that focused on the book more than Oprah distinguished themselves in a positive way. While the Oprah effect can't be ignored. I often wonder what initiates it? I mean I've watched some of the videos of Oprah endorsing the book and it is great to see someone of her magnitude bring excitement to books. I'm sure it is a very decent book. But what motivates her to aggressively promote this title; is it simply the sheer love of this one book... or is there something else happening behind the scenes? I know, I know it is too early to be so cynical, but part of me can't help but see this thing as being orchestrated--there is just too much money involved. At any rate, I've jumped on the bandwagon, following the herd, like everyone and their mother feeding into the feenzy, and sharing information about Oprah's endorsement of a Black book that will go quite well. I understand the initial print run is 200,000 copies--that is a lot of books. Fail to make the New York Times list will be surprising. It will be interesting to learn how it does on AALBC.com. There are other great books that pubbed this week, including one by Jesmyn Ward that pubbed the same day as Colson's new book (Aug 2, 2016), and Jesmyn actually won a National Book Award. Al this attention paid to a single book actually hurts other books that deserve attention as well. But I plan to email a newsletter today and I'll cover Jesmyn and the other books mainstream media overlook

Dear Friends, I am happy to report that Kevin Young will be joining NYPL as Director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. He will begin his tenure at the Library in the late fall. Kevin succeeds Khalil Gibran Muhammad, who led the Schomburg with great distinction for the last five years. Kevin joins NYPL from Emory University, where he was both Curator of the Raymond Danowski Poetry Library and Curator of Literary Collections at the newly named Rose Library. He simultaneously held the Charles Howard Candler Professorship of Creative Writing and English. Under Kevin's leadership, the Danowski Poetry Library and the Rose Library have both enjoyed remarkable success, increasing their holdings, expanding public programming and access, mounting innovative exhibitions, organizing conferences and fellowship competitions, and enhancing their digital presence. Among his notable curatorial acquisitions were the Lucille Clifton, Jack Kerouac, William Burroughs, Marie Ponsot, Sarah E. Wright, and Nathaniel Mackey archives, and in collaboration with his colleagues, the addition of W.E.B. Du Bois' copy of David Walker's Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World. During his 11 years at Emory, Kevin produced a wide-ranging corpus of poetry and cultural criticism. He has published 11 books and edited 8 others. In February, Knopf published Blue Laws: Selected and Uncollected Poems 1995-2015. His influential volume of cultural criticism, The Grey Album: On the Blackness of Blackness, won the PEN Open Book Award, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism, and was named a New York Times Notable Book. His Book of Hours (Knopf, 2014) was a finalist for the Kingsley Tufts Award and winner of the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize from the Academy of American Poets; Jelly Roll (Knopf, 2003) was a finalist for the National Book Award The roster of Kevin's honors and awards is extensive and includes, among many other laurels, membership in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize, the Donald Justice Poetry Prize, the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, the Graywolf Press Nonfiction Prize, the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance Award, and Guggenheim, Lannan, and National Endowment for the Arts fellowships. Kevin is widely recognized as a distinguished teacher, scholar, and public voice. He has held named professorships at Princeton, Indiana University, and Beloit College. His poetry, reviews, and essays have appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, The New York Times, and The American Scholar. Across his writing, his curatorial work, and his teaching, Kevin has mapped a deeply textured account of American life. From his Amistad poems through his trenchant accounts of the lives and languages of both ordinary men and women and public figures such as Jack Johnson, Muhammad Ali, and Billie Holiday, to his insightful analyses of jazz, blues, and hip-hop forms, Kevin has described the trajectory of 400 years of national experience. His syncretic accounts of American social, musical, and cultural history are notable both for the breadth of their vision and for the vertiginous pleasures they afford. We look forward to having Kevin among us. I want to thank the members of the Schomburg search committee for their dedication and unfailing good counsel, and take particular note of the leadership of Co-Chair Gordon Davis. In addition to Gordon and myself, the Committee members were Elizabeth Alexander, Kwame Anthony Appiah, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Raymond McGuire, Arva Rice, and Aysha E. Schomburg. I also want to thank Alvin Starks and Mary Yearwood for their continuing and exemplary work as the Schomburg's Interim Co-Directors. Warmly, Bill William P. Kelly Andrew W. Mellon Director of the Research Libraries The New York Public Library

Well I'm sure Trump has supporters that are racists, and I would definitely put racists in the dumb category. But Hillary non-supporters don't make them automatically racist, stupid or filled with hate for her. When we all supported Obama over Hillary it was not because of hate or stupidity--though race almost certainly was factor. I'm not aware of any plan that Donald has the only thing I know about what he says are the sounds bites the media promotes to such an extent that they are unavoidable. Still the only point I'm making is that his appeal does not suprise me an is understandable given the shitstorm poor people face in this country. How can one argue that Dems are "...doing the greatest good for the greatest number..." when wealth inequality is at a virtual all-time high in America? "Losing a job" is the essence of what brought Obama into office. Remember millions of white folks voted for Obama; his imagery of "hope and change" resonated with a nation. But the nation is now disillusioned after getting more of the same; despite having Obama at the helm. Hillary, for many, is a continuation of this--whether it is true or not matters little. Trump is a desperation move by an angry, disaffected, and struggling population... this is what breeds racism amongst the uneducated. How else would you explain the fact that Trump actually has a chance to win? Even though one can objectively say that Hillary as far and away more qualified to be president than Trump, this does not matter. People are looking for something different. Bernie, Trump, and Obama all had "something different" this going for them.