Troy

Hete is another recommendation, again courtesy of Mr. Stovall: Black Reconstruction In America, 1860-1880 by W.E.B. Du Bois

Eugene, man I'd forgotten the profile you wrote about Yerby's work. I Just now migrated your article “Who Was Frank Yerby?” to the site's new format. Thanks again!

The so called Eskimo, I heard somewhere has 20 different words for "snow," implying a more profound understanding in the differences in that form of precipitation. I know some snow is better at making snow balls that other types of snow. I call the former type of snow "packing snow." I just call the other type of snow..."snow." Black folks use the the word snow in a completely different context to mean a white person, but there is no real distinction in the meaning of the two words "snow" and "white," it is just slang or a funky way of speaking. @Pioneer1 since you brought it up why don't you explain what the words "Solid" and "Jive" mean, and how those concepts can not be expressed with English language. As I've said I'm not suggesting that meaning can't be lost in translation. I'm disputing is that much of what you are suggesting about Black slang is not the same thing (in the vast majority of cases). Perhaps you'll demonstrate and exception with your definition of "solid."

Pioneer the answer to your question is quite simple "The white man's ice is colder." That is a cliche that meant very little to me until I started my own business. I won't bore you with details, but at some point we as a group have to invest in our own businesses. Sure there are people willing to do this but not nearly enough. I've read the statistics about our collective buying power, but unless people are willing to spend with us, that buying power means nothing. Look man, I've been running the site for 20 years and I still can't hire a full time employee and I struggle to pay the folks I do pay. In the same time frame Bezoe has become a multi-bazillionaire. Today I HAVE to sell books as an Amazon affiliate because readers simply will not buy from me directly. Writer's tell readers to go Amazon to buy their books as if readers don;t already know that or as if Amazon is the only place to buy books. They completely ignore the indie booksellers that push their books. This does not have to be the case. But we do not invest in our own business. We happily give our money to the richest people on Earth! It really boggles the mind, because there are so many people who talk about Black unity but so few that actually practice it.

@MAFOOMBAY, store manager. I'm sure you have some stories to tell. They've closed several B&N in NYC. I frequent one in Pasco county Florida. I'm keeping my fingers crossed they stay open. The first time I stepped foot in the store I asked for their list of scheduled book signings. They told me they did not do book signings. I was like whoa! No book signings; what kinda book store is this? I've been going there for over 6 years they seem to do doing fine,,, But Wall Street was a lot less willing to tolerate a lack of profits from Amazon for a lot longer than they would from Amazon...I guess monopolies are a much better investment over the long term. Eugene thanks for the recommendation. I've quoted you on Griffin's Way page.

...do I hear 45 playing a violin in the background.

Did you work for them as a bookseller? Or in an administration capacity? It appear the very same things that Amazon did to put independent book seller both online and off out of business adversely affected B&N as well.

26 Bestselling Children’s Book Authors You'll Definitely Love ♥ There have been 115 bestselling children's book authors in the history of AALBC.com. So far 26 that have made that list 2 or more times. Most of these sales have taken place in the last couple of years as the volume of children's book sales have picked up signifcantly.

@MAFOOMBAY, Thanks for the suggestion. I virtually never modify someone else's post, but I wanted to add the book cover and it just made more sense to add it directly in your post. Also I noticed that you posted the book link to Barnes & Noble I can't remember that last time someone posted a link to B&N--almost everyone posts links to Amazon--even if they have a website. Was this a conscious effort not to use Amazon? Thanks again!

Hint, I'm in NYC in perhaps the one of the most expensive retail location in the city.

Funny when I looked for the book on Amazon yesterday I could not find it. This morning I found it with no problem. Amazon is selling the book via 3rd parties, so they are using the ASIM nuimber that is unique to their database. Mel does you book have an ISBN? The ISBN is how I uniquely identify books in my database. The book is not in Ingram's database and something I can buy, but as you suggest several version of the book are available a libraries. My side does dynamically generates links to libraries, but the link is based upon ISBNs so my library link is broken, because the link's query is based upon ISBN.

Yeah I'm sure you are right that the highways are very likely to be jammed Cynique. I plan to drive to to either TN, GA, NC, or SC. depending on who has the best forecast. Yeah Del the sky will change outside the path of the totality, but by all accounts that I've read it is a completely different experience. The following account is one of the more subdued ones I've read: "I doubt if the effect of witnessing a total eclipse ever quite passes away. The impression is singularly vivid and quieting for days, and can never be wholly lost. A startling nearness to the gigantic forces of nature and their inconceivable operation seems to have been established. Personalities and towns and cities, and hates and jealousies, and even mundane hopes, grow very small and very far away.Professor Langley says of this superb sight: ‘The spectacle is one of which, though the man of science may prosaically state the facts, perhaps only the poet could render the impression." --Professor Langley

By all accounts, everyone who views these events says you need to be in the path of totality. @Cynique should try to get one of your kids or grand kids to drive you down to Carbondale next month it is basically a straight shot down I57. In Carbondale, the totality will happen at 1:21 p.m. CDT. The partial phases of the eclipse start at 11:52 a.m., and end at 2:47 p.m. For you it will actually be convenient, providing the weather holds out.

Thanks for the recommendation Mel, unfortunately, this book is out of print. If it is not too much trouble can you post a photo of the cover, I'll add it to the website for archival purposes. Interesting analogy.

I've heard so much hype about the impact a total solar eclipse has on people that I plan to check it out. https://www.greatamericaneclipse.com/south-carolina/ I'm planning to head to South Carolina to view this event.

The article I emailed about Google hijacking business from booksellers got a lot of attention. Much of the reader feedback mentioned Amazon as another problem. I atually think they are a bigger problem, but that is an article for another day. At any rate one reader left me the following message: Thanks for this email – very illuminating. I will keep in mind when purchasing. Keep up the great work. I am looking for a good book on the Reconstruction – have any recommendations? I share this message here, obviously, to get some recommendations. It also stuck me that any Black bookseller, worth a darn, should have been able to come up with the names of a couple of good books on the subject of Reconstruction off the top their head. One of the many challenges I have is that addressing issues the one I described with Google really does sap time and energy away from my effectiveness as a bookseller.

No, I'm saying it matters more how one interprets what I said. The constitution and Dr. Kings words are misconstrued and quoted out of context, distorting the meaning of both

@Pioneer1, are you joking?! What percentage of the population do Black folks make up of America? Compare that to the percentage of property or business ownership. Once you obtain those two numbers, then let me know what you think then. "What happens to a dream deferred..."

@Pioneer1 there are plenty of English words to convey the meaning of fronting, including the word "fronting," Mispronunciation of words is another matter. But to your point and Del's, there are people who are concerned about the loss of languages. Apparently there are about 7,000 languages, most of which will disappearing quite rapidly. People are concerned that the loss of the languages will mean a loss of a real understanding of the cultures. Cynique is right. While much of our history was destroyed; there is a lot we could know if we bothered to crack a book every once in a while... unfortunately much of information obtained by us seems to be derived from social media.

If you are in, or near, New York City today, check out the Phillis Wheatley Books at the Harlem Book Fair.

The Nation of Islam has given 'Hova's 4:44 their stamp of approval. I recieved the following in an email today. (I still have not heard the album) Give Jay-Z Some CREDIT: The Jewish History in 4:44 It took just a few hours for Jay-Z's 4:44 release to go platinum. And it took less than that for the ADL to go berserk. Its desperation to be relevant has pushed its leader Jonathan Greenblatt to the edge of anti-Black absurdity. In 2017 the ADL was exposed for inflating its statistics on "anti-Semitism" to include hundreds of cases of Jews attacking and threatening each other. Its "police training" program is implicated in an alarming number of departments whose officers have murdered unarmed Blacks. Responsible Jewish leaders are openly criticizing the ADL for its political opportunism and for falsely using "anti-Semitism" to stifle dissent. And apartheid Israel is becoming more and more isolated on the world stage. Jay Z--a Black man with lots of money--provided the perfect dog-whistle distraction from that intra-Jewish mayhem and strife. The ADL just had to ride in on Jay-Z's album hype to charge the rap impresario with "Black anti-Semitism." At issue was a lyric in his song "The Story of O.J." that goes like this: Rich nigga, poor nigga,| house nigga, field nigga Still nigga, still nigga You wanna know what's more important than throwin away money at a strip club? Credit You ever wonder why the Jewish people own all the property in America? This how they did it, Financial freedom my only hope F**k livin' rich and dyin' broke. It is not clear what the ADL is upset about. Is it that Jay-Z has demeaned strip clubs? Is it his six-time use of the word "nigga"? The ADL then kicked the bees' nest: "The idea that Jews 'own all the property' in this country and have used credit to financially get ahead are odious and false. Yet, such notions have lingered in society for decades, and we are concerned that this lyric could feed into preconceived notions about Jews and alleged Jewish 'control' of the banks and finance." Russell Simmons, a longtime activist in Black-Jewish relations, took umbrage at the ADL's "anti-Semitism" slur against his friend Jay-Z and labeled the Jewish organization "mischief makers." Simmons further fueled Jewish outrage by confirming the extraordinary Jewish presence in the business end of Black "music, film, television, fashion, technology and financial service." He said "the hip-hop community including myself have partnered with Jews where there were no blacks to partner with." But the item that really must be examined is Jay-Z's partnering Jews with "credit." He says "credit" is how Jews achieved land ownership and "financial freedom." And here Jay-Z demonstrates an impressive knowledge of Jewish history, a history that Jews are desperate to keep hidden--especially from Blacks. Read deeper into Jay-Z's lyrics and one will find a troubling reality: When Blacks emerged from slavery, they were specifically targeted by Jewish merchants, who exploited them mercilessly. Most freedmen became sharecroppers, farmers that were forced into renting land, mules, tools, and seeds from Jewish businessmen at exorbitant rates. In Message To The Blackman in America, The Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad, wrote that "[My people] encountered credit difficulties, hardships of repayment of loans and hardship with white executives from whom the loans must be asked." Mark Twain, the iconic chronicler of Deep Southern culture, described the nature of the Black-Jewish sharecropping relationship. As he saw it: "In the Cotton States, after the war, the simple and ignorant Negroes made the crops for the white planter on shares. The Jew came down in force, set up shop on the plantation, supplied all the Negro's wants on credit, and at the end of the season was proprietor of the Negro's share of the present crop and of part of the share of his next one. Before long, the whites detested the Jew, and it is doubtful if the Negro loved him." Similarly, the great Harvard-trained scholar W.E.B. Du Bois travelled the South, studying Blacks and the conditions they faced in post-slavery America. While in Georgia he wrote: "Nearly all the lands belong to Russian Jews," a people whom he described as "shrewd and unscrupulous." He surveyed the businesses, mills, and factories in the region and came to a startling conclusion: "The Jew is the heir of the slave-baron." He spoke of their exploitation of Blacks and published these observations in a book called The Souls of Black Folk. Jews were upset with him, and they even tried to force him to change the word "Jew" to "foreigner" or "immigrant." But a government study confirmed that Du Bois was spot on. The report revealed that there amidst Black Georgia, "Nine-tenths of the storekeepers...are Jewish merchants--some Russian and German Jews, but most of them Polish Jews." Writing in 1895, Du Bois (who would become an NAACP official) further calculated that these slimy "credit arrangements" were in part responsible for the poor ex-slave losing an incredible three-quarters of the wages due him since the end of the Civil War. Delving further into Jay Z's 4:44 history lesson reveals that the money acquired in these credit schemes was parlayed into the acquisition of land--plantation land. According to the Jewish Encyclopedia, "the cotton-plantations in many parts of the South were wholly in the hands of the Jews, and as a consequence slavery found its advocates among them." The notorious investment bankers and financiers Lehman Brothers started as cotton merchants in Montgomery. So powerful were the Lehmans that Alabama appointed Mayer Lehman as cotton agent for the state! This put Lehman in charge of managing the state's chief asset--a million-bale annual cotton crop--as well as the state's 435,000 enslaved Africans. Many notable Jewish families and institutions, including Neiman Marcus and the infamous Rothschild family of international bankers, can trace their wealth to the cotton fields of the American South. One can easily see why the ADL doesn't want Jay-Z's powerful Black-Jewish truths to be made known. The source of Jewish wealth is in plantation slavery and the credit schemes that ensnared our poor sharecroppers in the Jim Crow south. Thus, today, when our talented Blacks in the entertainment industry seek financing from Jews for their productions and projects--as Russell Simmons says they do--they are tapping into money with a deeply troubling past. It is a past that Blacks and Jews MUST confront if we intend to build better future relationships. So Jay-Z's profound Black-Jewish history lesson in 4:44 is not "Black anti-Semitism." He is simply giving credit where credit is due. For more details about this history, please see The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews, Volume 2.

I have not listened to the album, yet, but I put down New York's Village Voice newspaper to post this comment. The quote which opened this post is from writer Greg Tate. I have to admit the quote prompted a big "Oh Brother!" in my head. I'm just not accustomed to reading Jay Z being being compared with Public Enemy from the perspective of "Pro-Black Nationalism." Still after reading that quote from Tate I was like now I have to listen to this album--I then immediately pulled back because I felt manipulated. As if the Village Voice was part of the machine created to encourage readers to rush out buy the Album (or whatever the collection of digital files are called today). But even the act of my posting this comment is the reaction of someone being manipulated to take an action to talk about the album and thereby provide free publicity. I feel used. Even the affiliate code I embedded in the link to Amazon, makes me an unwitting part of this machine. ...maybe I'm over thinking this huh? Maybe I would just lighten up and try to enjoy the album huh? I can't do it.. Now if someone reading this, has listened to the album and agrees with Tate's-- assessment even marginally--I'll check out the album. I can honestly say I have no interest otherwise. I have heard a potion of one of the cuts from the album where Jay's daughter is rapping it came across as self-indulgent and uninteresting, and definitely not a song that would prompt me to want to hear more. But again if anyone feels Jay has demonstrated himself as being a pro-Black Nationalist, not only will I listen to the album, I'll support the multi millionaire with some of my meager funds and buy it.

The following videos are courtesy of What's the 41 TV: http://www.whatsthe411.com/ AAMBC LITERARY AWARDS; THE HARLEM BOOK FAIR MARCUS BOOKS IN OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA A NECESSARY COMMUNITY BOKSTORE A SALUTE TO GO ON GIRL BOOK CLUB HILLARY CLINTON AT BEA, QUEENS BOOK FESTIVAL, AND THE BLACK PACK PARTY

The marketing copy starts out, "Welcome to the long awaited Antidote to the Willie Lynch’s Making of a Slave document." Which sends up red flags considering that letter is a hoax... That said, Black Unity will likely remain a fantasy. The incentives for achieving this goal are all wrong, and the entire culture is aligned in such a way to prevent most of us from being interested in it as a goal. There are are indeed many people, I consider myself one, who find this a goal worth pursuing and actively engaged in it. But the evidence it pretty clear; collectively we aren't willing to make the necessary sacrifices to make Black Unity a reality. I wish I was wrong, and that books like this were unnecessary, but the evidence speaks for itself.

In this case, it appears, the owner simply retired and the store went with her. I guess there was no need for a Go Fund me page; if no one was interested in ensuring the store continued.