Troy

LOL @Cynique your recoiling at Christians like Pence is the work of a demon in you. Heeel her! @Mel Hopkins, I don't recall if I had a debate or any one on thoughts being matter. But for what it is worth if you'd like to fire one up I'm game ;-) I don't think thoughts are matter being made up of atoms. But since man simply does not know what the vast majority of the material that makes up the universe is composed of, perhaps we can't know what thoughts are made up of. Is there any proof that thoughts can exist beyond our physical being or outside a suitably powerful computer?

I never met Lewis, but I've been to two of his homes. There are many reasons most of us will never be a Reggie Lewis. But working for, and being beholden to, others is our greatest weakness for building wealth. Sure one can have a very comfortable lifestyle working in a corporation, but that can be taken from you at anytime and we can't help anyone else. This is why Black wealth is so precarious.

Classic @Cynique! An excellent overview of the passing scene. Fortunately I've been able to remain unaware of most of this stuff, and am much happier consuming this overview so that I'm not completely clueless when making small talk with others. I was however very familiar with Game of Thrones; it is just brilliantly done and I enjoy watching it. So Jay named his "Sir" I heard Black folks gave their kids names like that so that white people had to respect them. I did know Colin was still playing football; I'm with Vick he is not talented enough for his distractions. He should just become a full time activist :-) Obama got booed by Boy Scouts--holy shit! He must have been in the deep south, huh? A 45 presidency impact is being felt far and wide.

I see the correct background now too. It looks like deleting the old template works. The portion of the website linking to other blogs still down due to the .php upgrade (the code came from the old Huria Search website and has been more challenging to upgrade--right now it has all my attention. Though I need to get @Cynique's access sorted.

Yeah the screen is supposed to look like this: Not like this but I've been working pretty much for the last 12 hours straight. I worked out side most of the day and that actually takes more out of you that working in an office. I'll probably go to the casio tomorrow Cynique I think I see why you can upload photos the system says you've exceeded your attachment quota (they new system has a new admin interface), but I don;t know how to enlarge it yet. The orange back group is a custom template I created I;m think if I delete it it will use the new one I created which is the default... hopefully I don't break everything

LOL! No but I did make a lot of changes today. One was upgrading the software of this discussion forum. I make incremental updates all the time, but the one I did very early this morning was major. There always was a problem with your particular account that I never sorted out you inability to post picture I never could figure out. Perhas this new issue is related. I'll look at your account now. I'm also trying to figure out why my account is seeing the orange background. I'm trying to use the white back ground but I can;t figure out how to fix it. I'm not sure if it is just may account or if all users see what I see. @Mel Hopkins, @Pioneer1 do you all see the discussion forum with a white background or the orange background? I also upgraded the version of php ued on the server from 5.x to 7.1 and I've been spending the last few hours going through various portion of site and correcting code that does not work on earlier versions.

The feedback on the list has been really great! The list of awards that I'm currently tracing may be found here: https://aalbc.com/awards/ I just learned about the The OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature which is presented in conjunction with the NGC Bocas Lit Fest in Trinidad and Tobago, which I was familiar with and is on my events calendar: https://aalbc.com/events/index.php?st=Trinidad+%26+Tobago#The+Bocas+Lit+Fest I'm actually excited about getting these books and authors added to the site! The award has only been presented since 2011 I can get this information added to the site without too much heavy lifting. I started looking at the Lambda Literary Awarding books. They have 24 categories (see below) and I'm unfamiliar with most of the writers, so it will be pretty labor intensive for me to identify the Black winners. If anyone out there wants to help me parse the authors; I can use the help. Hopefully I'll have interns working with me in the fall.. Lesbian Mystery Lesbian Fiction Gay Fiction Bisexual Fiction Bisexual Nonfiction Bisexual Poetry Transgender Fiction LGBT Nonfiction Transgender Nonfiction Lesbian Poetry (TIE) Gay Poetry Transgender Poetry Gay Mystery Lesbian Memoir/Biography Gay Memoir/Biography Lesbian Romance Gay Romance LGBT Erotica LGBT Anthology LGBT Children’s/Young Adult LGBT Drama LGBT Graphic Novels LGBT SF/F/Horror LGBT Studies

Someone on Twitter suggested: Now this person actually has a point, because Nicole's books Here Comes the Sun is indeed critically acclaimed. But the acclaim is not from any of the entities that I currently track. My goal is to track all of the awards presented by Black entities, but compiling the data is virtually impossible. Try asking the NAACP for a list of their past Image Award winners--I maintain a better list than they do. At any rate, Nicole's book was named a Best Book of 2016 by: New York Times, NPR, Buzzfeed, San Francisco Chronicle, The Root, BookRiot, Kirkus, Amazon, WBUR's "On Point," and Barnes & Noble As you might image, I have ZERO interest in tracking what the NY Times and the others find noteworthy. They are largely echo chambers praising many of the same books (think Undeground Railroad or Between the World and Me). I will look into what The Root are doing but that is about it. I did notice however that Nicole won a Lambda Literary Award, if I add those books to the mix, she would make the cut "so to speak." I also need to add a Christian book awards. Does anyone know of such an award--particularly by Black entity? I already have plans to add the Black winners of Hugo Awards and others. The list will improve as I incorporate additional sources. The list recognize books traditionally overlooked by the likes of the New York Times, but are just as deserving of recognition and readership.

Today I emailed a newsletter. In it I included a link to a section of the site described as the The Most Critically Acclaimed Books of the Last 40 Years. Because the website is database driven and I have a lot of data it occurred to me that I could produce an interesting list of books like displaying all the book in the base that have meet two or more of te following criteria Won an Award that I currently track (Carter G. Woodson,Coretta Scott King,Ernest J. Gaines, Hurston/Wright Legacy, NAACP Image, National Book, Pulitzer Prize , Phillis Wheatley, All Awards, Power List Bestsellers) Made my bestseller's list Was selected for inclusion on a prominent Book Club's reading list like, Go On Girl Made our now defunct Power List Bestseller's list There were over 300 books out of my 9,000 book database which met this criteria. The list spanned 40 years hence the description. Now I thought the list was interesting but some guy sent me the following message: Where is E. LYNN HARRIS on this list? He outsold just about every black author in america. You seem to never give him any props. I found the message absolutely ludicrous, and immediately fired off the following response: Never? Proteus, you may not be very familiar with the website. Please visit this page: https://aalbc.com/authors/author.php?author_name=E.+Lynn+Harris and look at the content. Then tell me who is currently covering and selling E. Lynn Harris’ work more prominently. E. Lynn is a 15 time bestselling author https://aalbc.com/books/bestselling-author.php?author_name=E.+Lynn+Harris. I’ve published reviews of at least of 6 of his books. Point to another entity that has reviewed that many? Finally, if you would have looked more carefully at the list of books you would have found Harris is on the list https://aalbc.com/books/critically_acclaimed.php?year=1997 I hope you take this information and spread it far and wide. Because AALBC.com is one of E. Lynn Harris biggest supporters. Peace, Troy I was so proud of myself I when I send the message and was looking forward to his response. But my response was rejected by his email server--darn it! I share it with you all, just in case anyone else out there wants to twist their mouth to suggest that AALBC.com does not support E. Lynn Harris or any of our authors who have made a mark as profound as Harris'.

Well Hickson, I have to to say that if every publisher did what you have done and stopped selling their books on Amazon, then Amazon would not control our books they why they do today. Amazon A wholesale boycott of Amazon would be impossible. Amazon would have their, I mean "our" federal govern go after the publishers and accuse them of collusion. Even though Amazon is effectively a monopoly! As far a bootlegging, it is well known that Amazon will produce knockoffs of popular products they learn are selling well on their website. Amazon also serves as the biggest platform for he bootlegging of movies--far better than even Youtube! Their marketplace is a virtual bazaar of fake products. Amazon has already opened up stores in NYC; selling books below the price I can buy them for wholesale from the distributor! Amazon can sell books at a loss until all of their competition is ground to dust. Amazon just opened a Wholefoods on the corner of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Blvds. (OK the Amazon purchase of Wholefoods has not closed yet, but again Amazon owns the feds the deal will go through). Social Media How are you selling books on social media @HICKSON? Are you actually transacting directly on the platform (Facebook allow this), or are you having visitor go to some other site to transact? If it is another site, send me the links I can update the Ghettoheat Books on AALBC.com to that they go to the site where people should buy the books. Black Booksellers Man running a book website is very hard. Running a physical bookstore--especially in today's environment--must be damn near impossible. So hard for me to be critical of any bookseller particularity one running a brick and mortar store. Speaking as bookseller, we all make mistakes, we all have our own biases, and honestly many of us are operating on fumes. As a result, we may make decisions or do things that might come across a slighting an author. This is not always be the case. That said, I do know some NYC booksellers were notorious from marginalizing indie authors, but they are no longer around. Now consider this: most authors, indie or otherwise, do nothing to support the bookseller. Now author they may feel this is unnecessary, but this stands in stark contrast to majority of authors who constantly and relentlessly say connect with them on social media and buy their books from Amazon! If I, or any bookseller, got that kind free promotion from authors it would be a much better environment for booksellers, authors, publishers, and readers. Now Hickson, you support booksellers and you ditched Amazon, but you are the exception, not the rule. How many Black authors do you see posting in the forum--even occasionally? AALBC.com is far and away the largest platform for Black books and I can't drag people away from Facebook! Just today an author I know was on Facebook lamenting the lack of Black business. She wrote an 763 word article to make her point. I see this all the time. The people who make these comments don't seem to understand that giving Facebook free articles just lines Mark's pockets and strengthens his ability to keep Black folks away from Black sites! Facebook will never serve as a tool empower Black people or businesses. Facebook is optimized, by the best brains available, to extract our wealth, time, and data.

I trust all goes well @Linda Chavis!

I've been going on about the problems Amazon, Google, and social media have created for Black booksellers and how much harder these entities have made it for me. I spend a lot of time talking about these issues because I spend much of my mental energy dealing with them and I've witnessed the impact they have on the entire Black book ecosystem. One could also almost assume from my rants that Black literature itself is struggling. This morning I stumbled across this Youtube video of Ta-Nehisi Coates responding to the question, "What is the state of African American Literature today?" He said "I don't have a good answer for that..." Now Coates was asked this question 5 years ago and he may respond differently to it. While I've met Coates and he has been to my home. I don't know him well enough to fire off a an email to get an updated answer. But what struck me was that this question would have been easy for me to answer today and 5 years. I just published a blog post to give my answer. What do you think the state of African American Literature is today?

WHite folks are also profiting quite handsomely as well, even though it is still against federal law.

Pioneer don't share that theory with anyone else

If a professor is intimidated by the reaction they may get from a student they are correcting, they should not be teaching. The reason was certainly #2. I know the woman felt she was better than me and she obviously had no desire to help me. The whole environment reeked of white privilege. There were well over 500 MBA students in my class, and only a handful of Black men. the school was in NYC. There were only two Black men from NYC (I was one of them). I never had a Black professor. We were all destined to work for companies with the same demographics and sensibilities. Some Black men thrive in this environment I was not one of them. Sure i did my job and often enjoyed it, but I always felt like an outsider, as if I did not belong. This could be me projecting my own bias as well, but the reality I grew tired of "Frontin."

After decades of using a computer to communicate with other and in a professional capacity I can no longer legibly write in cursive. My signature if little better that the crawled X, used by illiterate folks. Outside of cards I rarely receive information written that way. And this goes to my point slang does not actually communicate more information, it is just communicated it differently as in the difference between aks and ask. What I have seen is a shrinking of our vocabulary. We started saying "naa'mean" instead actually expressing our thoughts. Pioneers describes this as inventing language, I view it as a devolution of language, because less is being communicated--not more. Some believe a limited vocabulary limits depth of thought. I'm not so sure about that, but if those thoughts can't be expressed to others it makes little difference

The list of growing. I have enough votes now to begin sorting the Favorite Black Authors of the 21st Century by popularity Check out the preliminary results and cast your vote. I'm a bit disappointed by the lack of authors from other countries on this list. I have reached out to folks across the planet and while those individuals may have cats votes their respective audiences do not appears have done so. Authors who have only obtained one votes are not included in the preliminary results. I've also removed votes for author who voted for themselves. I'm surprised so many people actually do this. Everything is a marketing opportunity for some folk. I will be interesting to see which authors span both the 20th and 21st century lists. There won't be any surprises I'm sure, but it will highlight the authors you have sustained a high level of popularity over a long period of time.

Well you know white folks really believe Black people are really a missing link between monkeys and themselves. Again modern science explains that, genetically, white people are more different than each than we are from them. But hey people like to feel superior to others and perpetuating these stereotypes plays well to and resonates with the white masses. I'll wait for it to be available online later this year...

To emphasize Cynique's point. if anyone one of the characters in 45's Whitehouse were black they would have been deservedly laughed out or consideration. Look at that kid Kushner; does anyone that absent his inherited with, whiteness and ,marriage to 45's daughter that he would be doing anything but working some minimum wage job (all due respected to minimum wage job workers)? @Pioneer1, sure you are right regarding the nature of traffic to the site. I know much of what I push will not appeal to the masses. But I would rather people "reach" to engage with the content here, rather than me trying to speak down to people to increase engagement. Besides the competition for appealing to the lowest common denominator is STIFF. That demographic's attention span is short and fleeting. It takes a powerful machine to crank out that type of content with the regularity to compete on traffic. The most successful entities in this space, like social media, have there own visitors produce this content for them. This is why I don't publish content on social media and why I think those that do should be paid. One of the most popular pages on my site, often hundreds of visitors a day, is obtained by people running the query "who is elias gutierrez" When I first noticed this a few years ago. I had no clue who Elias Gutierrez was, and someone explained it to me. I posted that explanation on AALBC.com and now THAT page is #3 on the search results! This is what you would describe as pure "Gossip." I could greatly expand content on this dude to attract more traffic, but again I have no interest in doing this... But one thing I'l will to do that appeals to more folks is lists. These lists ALL generate a great deal of traffic. My new database allows me to create these lists very easily and update these lists and I find they are a great way to introduce readers to new authors and books. As far as reaching out to academia at universities even the one I work for is something to consider. Outside of the folks at Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn, I have not engaged with universities or colleges at all.

White cops railroading negroes--who knew? Cops set up Black folks; enforce laws more harshly and frequently existing laws; and take brides from criminals. This is nothing new or unknown. The frustrating part is despite all of this, and more, we are viewed as being more naturally criminal... this is a shame.

I may have told my "ask" story before but check this out. When i was working on my MBA and NYU's Stern school of business I was giving a preliminary presentation for a final project in a marketing class. Now keep in mind this is an all white class, the professor, my teams members and my class mates--all white. During my portion of the presentation I said, "We axed over 100 people which brand of sneakers they prefer." No one batted an eye or made a comment. Later however one of my teammates, a guy I became friendly with, told me the professor told him that I mispronounced the word "asked." The professor NEVER said a word to me! But felt it perfectly OK to talk about me with the other white people, in my absence. I was angered by this, but trust me I never EVER mispronounced that word again. I simply was not aware that I was mispronouncing the word. It was the way I was taught to say the word, and no one even after 7 years of college, at that point, ever corrected me--not even that racist professor at Stern, and she was racist--otherwise she would have immediately corrected me the way I do my students. Obviously, I was much more sensitive to this and have observed many Black people across all classes and education levels mispronounce the word the way I had. I also wonder how white people negatively judge Black folks on the way we speak in general. Now my experience is just an anecdote, but I think it is reflects of how we are judged by white people and even sidity Black folks based upon the way we speak.

Thanks for the book recommendation @Cynique

Pioneer English is my language and has been for generation--at least as far back as I can track down every ancestors line. What is your language? Sometimes we make up words simply because we don't have the vocabulary to use the words which already exist. We used to use solid synonymously with favor. As in, "Ma Brother, would you do this solid." Or it way to express gratitude as in, "Yo nigga, I tole 'ole girl I was wit you last night. Cool/" "''Course mah nigga." "Solid." Sure skiers have more ways of describing snow too.

@Pioneer1, thanks for the kind words regarding the site, but it could be infinitely better with more support from my own people, the very people whose culture I'm trying to uplift. I don't know if Black folks don't support Black business because they don't want to see another Black business excel. If that exists I suspect it is a very small inconsequential percentage of people. I could go on and on about the structural disadvantages Black folks have relative to the majority culture. But you can read Coates and many other books to understand this. I think part of the problem is that folks are too busy struggling themselves and aren't in a position to help another business. So if they can save 40% off the price of a $30 hardback--assuming the even have the time, energy, or inclination to read such a book--guess who is gonna get that sale. Now my overhead is much lower than Amazon's, but I don't have Wall Street analysts hyping my business getting investors to give me money so that I can continue selling books at a loss--burying even my biggest competitors. Meanwhile, virtually every author enthusiastically gives Amazon free publicity by saying their books can be purchased on Amazon. There was a time when an author felt a great deal of pride by saying their book was available in a massive chain store, but ANYBODY can get their book on Amazon--there is no prestige in it being available there. Still, authors get Amazon all the glory, rarely mentioning a Black independent store... Perhaps the reason the Black owned stores have trouble maintaining stock is that they can't get a business loan, and they have a much more difficult time obtaining credit, the deliveries are not as timely to their neighborhoods, they find it difficult to get a lease in a nice location, or they don't get the best terms from distributors. The fact of the matter it is more difficult for us. That lack of support from other Black folks just ads insult to injury. All you see is a struggling business, which you attribute to laziness. I'm telling you as a business owner there are structural factors that prevent us from achieving at the same level as out white counterparts. Amazon started out selling books out of a garage right? We will never have strong Black business unless people invest in them and divest of the massive corporations. In other words, skip Amazon and a patronize a Black owned bookstore.

I didn't even know you could embed Facebook posts here Thanks for flippin' the script @HICKSON!