Troy

Putting what I'm about to say in context: I never go to Tweeter to read tweets. I don't have the app installed on my phone. I do post tweets, but the majority of those are automatically generated without my involvement. Just now, I decided to go to Twitter and read what Donald Trump was tweeting. I was motivated to do this because anytime I turn on the radio to listen to conservative or liberal talk, they all comment on The Donald's tweets. A couple of hours ago a guest on the Karen Hunter Show was talking about Donald liking "the Mexicans" because he likes the taco bowls made in the restaurant in his office. Note to liberal radio talk show hosts: If you really do not support Trump stop talking about him so damn much. So I did something which is essentially against my religion; I visited Donald's twitter account to see what I'd find. I did find the tweet about the Taco Bowls. The guest misquoted the tweet making the tweet sound much worse than it was. LOL! I know that's right Donald.

13th National Black Writers Conference Airs on C-SPAN Book TV Panel discussions and roundtable conversations from 13th National Black Writers Conference will air on C-SPAN Book TV: Saturday, May 7, and Sunday, May 8, 2016. See this information on our website: http://centerforblackliterature.org/nbwc-c-span-book-tv/ for schedule and times.www.C-SPAN.org Check local TV listings. The theme of the 2016 National Black Writers Conference is titled “Writing Race, Embracing Difference.” The conference was held at Medgar Evers College of the City University of New York, in Brooklyn, New York, from March 31 to April 3, 2016. Panels and roundtable conversations included topics such as “Decoded: Hip-Hop and Youth Culture,” “Creating Dangerously,” and “The Politics of Race and Gender in the Literature of Black Writers.” Professors Victoria Chevalier, Wallace Ford, and Donna Hill, who were moderators at Conference, are faculty at Medgar Evers College. BookTV presents coverage of the 13th National Black Writers Conference on C-SPAN2. The conference was held at Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn, NY. Programming will include: Day One: Saturday @ 1:30p ET (Re-air Sunday @ midnight) Decoded: Hip-Hop & Literature and Youth Culture – A Panel Discussion Featuring – M.K. Asante, Michael Eric Dyson, Joan Morgan, Marcyliena Morgan, and James Paterson The Politics of Race & Gender in the Literature of Black Writers- A Conversation Featuring – Paul Beatty, Cora Daniels, and Wallace Ford Day Two: Sunday @ 1:30p (Re-air Monday @ 4a ET) Creative Writing Programs and Writers of Color: Current and Future Trends [Diversity & Writing Programs] Featuring – Donna Hill, Meena Alexander, Bernice McFadden, and Mariahadessa Ekere Tallie Black Writers in the Digital Age Featuring – Akiba Solomon, Farai Chideya, ReShonda Tate Billingsley, and Johnny Temple Shaping Memories: The Odyssey to Adulthood Featuring – Cathie Wright-Lewis, Coe Booth, D. Watkins, and Michael Datcher A Conversation with Michael Eric Dyson and Khalil Gibran Muhammad “Writing Race, Embracing Difference” The above is as of 5/3/2016. Air schedule is subject to change. Please check your local listings.

Sure how we perceive others is indeed a function of who we are, but who we are is a function of our culture and our position within the culture. Based upon Zane's statement and the apparent lack of universal female support for Hillary's campaign, I think this reveals our culture's marginalization of women relative to men: Surely a man, even a Black one with little experience, or a reality-TV celebrity with zero experience, would be a better president, than even a strongly qualified woman. I'd also image at Hillary's level the people she encounters, of consequence, will be white males, so they will be the ones in a position to jam her up. Therefore Hillary will encounter more sexism than racism. like most successful women of any so called race.

In a recent conversation on this discussion forum I made the following observation, “It is interesting to observe how women are not nearly as devoted to Hillary as Black folks are to Obama.” I usually share quotes from these forums on social media. In reaction to this quote Zane a very popular author wrote the following: “Women tend to be bitter toward other women and don't want to see them succeed. I am riding with Hillary to the end and my stance has never changed. In my life I have faced more discrimination for being female than I have for being black.”—Zane, 213 time AALBC.com Bestselling Author The main reason this struck me is that I have watched Zane's career grow from the beginning. I've witnessed her get a lot of grief for no other reason, that I can conceive, than her Blackness. I've even written about attacks on Zane a number of times. I know if Zane were white she'd be far more popular than E.L James is today. Now the fact that Zane wrote that she gets more grief for being a woman than being Black is almost shocking. I wrote "almost," because I've heard many Black women make this statement, in one form or another, over the years.

“If the public don’t attach any particular importance to paying for creative work, they’re unlikely to feel a sense of outrage when a company like Huff Post doesn’t attach a great deal of importance to it either.”—James Bloodworth You know when white men start complaining it is REALLY bad. Salon recently interviewed James Bloodworth on this subject which James writes more about in his book The Myth of Meritocracy.

@Dr. Jazzy, thanks for making this post. It is interesting to see how many people sited Park's work (someone I was unaware of until I read your post). This lead me to work of Gunner Myrdal, Marlon Ross, and other scholars who cite his work. Ralph Ellison wrote of Park, "Dr. Robert F. Park was both a greater scientist and, in his attitude toward Negroes, a greater democrat than William Graham Sumner." This will keep me busy for a while, I can't comment as some of this thinking a new to me.

Pioneer the board has life because of folks like you; it is simple as that. I was listening to Thom Hartmann (a liberal radio talk show host) this afternoon and he was interviewing a guy who thought Trump might select a sensible, true republican, female running mate. I thought if that happened The Donald may have a fighting chance, indeed with any decent running mate he has a chance. I was in FL a few days ago and some older white guy, almost certainly a retiree, asked me what I thought about the election. He immediately told me he was a Trump supporter. Now the guy was quite friendly and reasonable. This was not some rabid, Obama-hating-racist, rather he was a guy that wanted a change in the way the country is being run, and he thought Donald was the one most likely to bring that change. The other sentiment out there is the one Cynique raised, "Why should I even bother to vote?" This sentiment is shared by many people. I feel that way. I'm not excited about voting for Hillary or Trump. This sentiment is expressed in the "Bernie or Bust" position many Sanders people have taken. This sentiment appears to hurt Hillary more than Trump, as Trump supporters seem more motivated... like Bernie supporters. I think Bernie has a much better chance of beating Donald than Hillary does. Hillary represents politics as usual. Bernie and Donald represent change, much more so that even Obama demonstrated, and certainly promised. This is the appeal of these candidates. The polls support my impression of Bernie being a stronger candidate against Trump than Clinton. Despite all the rhetoric you heard from many people about how important it is to vote, I don't buy into that concept for several reasons. One is that If there is no candidate you are interested in supporting, then why vote? I see no reason to force someone to vote for a candidate they do not support. Since Donald is now the presumptive nominee, it looks like the republicans are getting their party aligned, while the Democrats are going battle it out all the way to the convention. The republicans beginning to show more party unity than the Democrats. 7. Unless Bernie gets the Democratic nod, Trump has a very real chance of becoming president.

I doubt Trump will be elected in the general. If seems likely Trump will win the Republican nomination, upping the level of absurdity reached with the Palin ticket. If America elects Trump as Pres, we will have officially "Jumped the Shark," becoming a caricature of our celebrity obsessed self. The POTUS is like the Queen of England, yielding little power beyond ceremonial and doing the bidding of the plutocracy. A perversely curious part of me actually wants to see Trump win; just to see what will happen. It is interesting to observe how women are not nearly as slavishly devoted to Hillary as Black folks are to Obama.

Who knew a Brother invented the Super-Soaker? I admit I had no idea. Maybe I've had my head in the sand, or maybe it is simply not common knolwedge. Lonnie Johnson became a multi-millionaire, pretty quickly as a result. Share the story with you a young person in a brand new book for children: Whoosh!: Lonnie Johnson’s Super-Soaking Stream of Inventions by Chris Barton and illustrated by another Brother Don Tate.

I understand completely Shirley. Just wanted to make sure folks were aware of the issues. Enjoy your tour! The email I sent is here: http://aalbc.com/blog/index.php/2016/04/30/terrific-books-coming-may-adichie-more/ Please post a link to your article about Wade.

Well @Sara what did you think of Dyson?

Terrific Books Coming in May, Beyond Adichie, and More!

Now you write free verse poetry too huh? Oh Brother... Given your commentary about the subject, it is more likely your free verse masquerading as poetry, not the poets listed or anthologized above. It takes balls to publicly berate an art form which you've demonstrated zero qualifications or talent to critique. Celestial you are starting to sound like our old friend Unkel Ruckus with comments like this "Aside from poetry, this is the precise attitude as to why the Black community has been trashed! 'They do not want rules! They want to behave like wild animals!'" Is that your assessment, or that of the right wings racists whose rhetoric you've apparently come to embrace? No need to reply, the question was rhetorical, for you are completely correct in your assessment: this dialog has become repetitious and is waste of time and energy.

Man you really are fixed and rigid in your thinking Celestial, I doubt you'd ever come to appreciate free verse as as poetry or any other form of artistic expression. I'm sure you know A LOT less about poetry than many of the artist that utilize the form, but hey lack of knowledge never stopped anyone... What do you think about free Jazz? I guess you'd suggest folks like Ornette Coleman don't know anything about musical theory. Those questions I posted were not to suggest that I knew the answers; as you were so quick to point out I don't. The answers are unknowable. If the conditions of the situations I pointed out are unknowable, how can rules be applied to them? What does someone like you do or think when there are no rules? Look, all the other brilliant physicists of Einstein's day were familiar with the same rules old Albert was--perhaps more so, indeed that may have been their limitation. What distinguished Einstein from all the others was his ability to think beyond the rules he did not expand on what was already known he created a completely new set of rules--something someone like you will never do, because of you own self limitations. I wrote "Rules were meant to be broken bruh," not to quote anyone but to make a simple statement, one that obviously went over your head. Why for God's sake does breaking a rule lead to "...behaving like wild, obnoxious, belligerent and uncivilized animals?" Your hyperbolic statements do not strengthen your argument in fact it substantially weakens them. It is one thing to engage in hyperbole for the purpose of braggadocio and you are given to do. But folk simply recognize this as a form overcompensation for other deficiencies... and it is easily ignored. If rules are meant to be broken, this is how we grow as individuals, and evolve as a culture. Accept it man, free verse is poetry

Can't guarantee Haki, but someone is working on it.

Well hopefully you can make it Sara :-) It is possible Haki Madhubuti will come through.

@Celestial Greatness, what happened before the "big bang"? What happens to us when we die? What is beyond the observable universe? While we do know a little about the universe, it would be extremely arrogant to assume we have a clue about what those rules are. We don't even have a firm grip on what we don't know.... LOL, me write poetry... nah man. I can barely understand most of it without a some effort. I'm more of an analytical thinker, which is why I recognize it when I see it in others like yourself. Since building this site I've grown to appreciate a wider variety of artistic forms. I'm not sure why you keep insisting kids say poetry is dull and boring. I know you realize most songs and rap lyrics are poetry. Perhaps it is the way it is being taught that is discouraging the kids you encounter. Kids will find anything boring if it taught poorly. Some people are bound by rules and rigid structure. It is much easier to conform to some preexisting rules, but that is not where the new discoveries or the great things come from. When Einstein corrected Newton no almost no one agreed because Einstein's idea because it was so radical. Albert thought outside the proverbial box. Still Einstein himself never fully embraced many of the ideas currently associated with the quantum world. Rules were meant to be broken bruh.

I just added the photo to the newsletter, which I will email this afternoon. @Shirley Gale, there is one thing I did notice, that is worth mentioning not just for your consideration but for any other authors who read this conversation. When deciding which photo to use, I noticed you included the text "Available at Amazon.com." There was a time when that would be considered sponsorship and a company would have to pay for that kind of exposure--and that time was not very long ago. One of the things I observed in recent years as that everyone gives the largest corporations free promotion. I know part of the reason social media is so very popular is that we all aggressively promote those platforms. We plaster their logos on all of our promotional material and refer readers to these platforms often before our own websites. It is not just Black authors who do this it is most business, from individual enterprises to large corporations, (though I have to believe the larger corporation plugging social media are not doing it for free). A buddy of mine recently designed a graphic to promote our Annual Black Pack Party. He put the logos of three popular social media platforms on our flyer. I did not ask him to do that, he did it on his own; collectively we have been trained. Don't get me wrong people should use Amazon, and social media, but lets not let they them get more out of us than we get out of them. As Black folks I think the issue is even more important because this free promotion, based upon my observations, has come at the expressive of our businesses. I have always suggested that Black authors, if they are going to plug a bookseller for free, plug a Black-owned store too. In 2016, one can pretty much take it for granted a book will be available via Amazon, explicity saying it only reinforces Amazon.com brand--again at our expense. I also know authors feel there is still some level of credibility that goes along with saying that their book is available at Amazon, But today anyone can make their book available via Amazon, there is no longer any cache in saying this, at least not in the way there might be to saying your book is available in a Barnes & Noble brick and mortar bookstore, which despite their size carries relatively few books written by Black authors--especially independently published ones. I hope for a day when Black-owned businesses can benefit from free promotion too.

It is poetry man. Sonia Sanchez wrote a book composed entirely in royal rhyme, which you might confuse with prose masquerading as poetry if you did not happen to notice the form. the reader don't have to know what the form is called to know one is present. All poetry does not have to rhyme and has more to do with artistic expression. Poetry, even free form poetry can communicates in a way that prose can not. Don't get caught up in a rigid structure @Celestial Greatness, you'll bound yourself up and restrict your freedom. The world is not all about Black and white, right or wrong, facts versus myths. The universe is mostly unknown, unknowable and a mystery.

Black Pack Party 10th Anniversary Celebration We are hosting the 10th Anniversary Black Pack Party on the evening of Wednesday, May 11th. It is shaping up to be a wonderful celebration and we are looking forward to seeing you there! Venue: Norman’s Bistro Address: 1001 E 43rd St, Chicago, IL 60653 Phone: (773) 966-5821 Date: May 11, 2016 Time: 6:00 p.m. to 9 p.m. More Info: http://aalbc.it/bpp2016 Hash Tag: #blackpackparty #BlackPackParty Tweets The 2016 Black Pack Party co-sponsors are, AALBC.com, The African American Children’s Book Project, The Chicago Defender, Linda Duggins, Mosaic, Say It Loud! Readers & Writers, and Written Magazine.

Sorry man, you are right, I was wrong--completely. I should just delete my comment and your reply and make believe it did not happen is that cool?

@Pioneer1, uncharacteristically you've seemed to reply with a comments that has absolutely nothing to do with the original post. I guess you just wanted to get that off your chest. Have you considered that people of all so called "races" are the same way? For example I would not want to be president of the united states. However, I would like to be the man that pulls his strings.

Yes she is great isn't she @Shirley Gale. She is one of the reasons I have to really work hard to incorporate the work of publishers outside the U.S.

This is why indie presses are so important. Can you image anyone from a "big five" New York publisher saying anything close to what she sister is saying?

You know I actually do have an issue with the word "diversity." It depends upon who is using it for example when Shirley uses it I know she means to include Black folks--that is a given. However when corporations use it, Black folks don't have to be part of the mix, and this is very troubling. This is troubling because corporations and organizations seeking corporate support for their programs can say they are diverse, which gives the impression that Black people are benefiting, when in reality White women, gay people, Asian people, any demographic but the American Black is benefiting. I worked for several fortune 100 companies many of these companies boasted about their "diversity," but this diversity does not include us. On paper the figures can be presented to make a company appear very diverse, but a Black person are simply left out --certainly for the income producing roles and higher paying positions. This New York Times article illustrates this quite well. In fact over the course of my corporate life things got progressively worse over the past 30 years So no I'm not a fan of the word diverse, unless I'm talking about the diversity within Black culture.