Troy

Chris you, everyone really, may find this analysis interesting. The lack of this type of research and analysis is one of the repercussions of not having a Black media. That and our obsession with social media like which is largely based upon the recirculation of a shallow opinions based upon sound bites generated by a media biased against Black people. I'm sure this article will give folks something to thing about. “The Bill Cosby Serial Rape Hoax by the Numbers--The Devil is in the Details” By James C. McIntosh, M.D. I have never been more sure that the Bill Cosby Rape allegations are both a hoax and a pure and simple media lynching as when I read a story today that should have been entitled “2600 people give Cosby a standing ovation in Canada,” but instead bears the title “Bill Cosby jokes woman should be careful drinking near him.” The hit is out and the single rule of the game is that Cosby simply must not win no matter what he does. Dick Gregory used to tell a story about the old southern literacy tests that white folks employed to prevent Blacks from voting. He said that they would give the Black man a reading test on nuclear physics in Russian. If he couldn’t read it, they told him he failed. If he could read it, he still couldn’t vote because they would tell him that if he could read Russian, he must be a communist. These headlines about Cosby’s alleged actions 40 years ago have no more to do with rape or sexual violence any more than the literacy test in Mississippi had to do with the ability to read. If the people running this campaign against Cosby were concerned with rape they would run the headline, Study by the American Medical Association shows that 39.7 percent of the women and 22 percent of the men in the Eastern Region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo have been the victim of Conflict related sexual violence. Instead there is another story online beginning with the headline “2 New Women Accuse Cosby…” right in line with the Dick Gregory story. When one reads beyond the headline, it turns out that the two women are not new accusers at all, they are previously written about accusers from the original already padded list now simply accusing Cosby of something else. Apparently the press is running out of Cosby rape or assault accusers. However, they are so determined to keep the headlines against Cosby going that they are starting to recycle the old accusers. The two women it turns out are accusing Cosby of defamation because he says their accusations of sexual assault are lies. Just like the literacy test, if Bill Cosby says nothing the press says he must be a rapist. If he says the women are lying, then the press says he is defaming them. The advantage of the defamation suit for the 2 women is that the alleged defamation is current unlike their previously published assault charges which involve allegations of events that are supposed to have happened 44 years ago and 38 years ago respectively. The first woman, L.J.T. who alleges that Cosby picked her up at a place called the Café Figaro, says that Cosby offered her a ride home but took her to the beach instead. He offered her drugs which she refused then he grabbed her chest and rubbed the front of her body. She ran down the beach to escape him and tore her dress in the process. That is it. If every word she said is true, the sexual assault charge is because of the alleged chest grabbing and body rubbing done by Cosby before he apparently realized that just because he had picked her up at the Café Figaro she was not that type of girl. She got back into his car and he bought her a new dress and took her home 44 years ago. She is now suing Cosby for defamation for calling her a liar. He would undoubtedly beat this defamation case if instead of calling her a liar, he had called her a drug trafficker, a fraud, a batterer and an ID thief since these are crimes for which this innocent girl from Café Figaro has already been convicted in what is described in one article as her extensive criminal past. The second, woman TPS says that when she was 19 years old, and Cosby was around 39 years old, Cosby came up behind her in a hotel lobby put his arm around her and asked her to marry him. She smiled and he invited her to come to his show. She did. After the show she went to his dressing room which was crowded with people. She waited until all the people left. Maybe she figured the Justice of the Peace would get there soon. He did not. Instead Cosby offered her two pills which she accepted. One article says he told her they were Quaaludes. She took the Quaaludes from him and put them in her mouth. “She luded out.” Look it up; it’s similar to an alcohol blackout. She says that her next memory was of Cosby having sex with her. When she went home and told her mother about her evening. Her mother with the wisdom perhaps of many woman who like her mother made Las Vegas their home, told her “Maybe he will take care of you.” TPS called Cosby back and continued to see him over the next few weeks, sometimes in a hotel room and would get money from him. Eventually when she told Cosby she thought she was pregnant she says, “He sent me away.” Her alleged rapist who she had been meeting in his hotel room regularly since the dressing room incident, in her own words, had to “send (her) away.” Fast forward 20 years later in 1996 she contacted Cosby to ask for money and she says he got indignant with her. She reminded him that he had promised to give her 500 dollars for every A she got in Nursing School. When she finished that conversation with Cosby she was infuriated at the way he had spoken to her. She said she had made up her mind to never contact him again. However, shortly after that conversation Cosby sent her $10,000 dollars directly and had $5,000 dollars given to her from William Morris Agency. That’s a lot of A’s. 8 years after that generosity, 28 years after the dressing room incident, the suspected pregnancy and being sent away, and shortly after her own divorce, TPS read about Andrea Costand’s law suit in which Costand accused Cosby of digitally penetrating her while she was under the influence of drugs. Costand said he had given her 3 blue pills under the false pretense that they were “an herbal remedy.” A year after that Costand filed a suit. TPS says when she found out about Costand’s accusations she became angry about what had happened to her so many years ago and went to the police in Philadelphia--- 28 years after Cosby had sent her away! 8 years after he had given her a total of$ 15,000 dollars, someone ( perhaps the police) saw similarities in her case and Costand’s. TPS was contacted by Costand’s attorneys and agreed to become Jane Doe witness number 10 in Costand’s civil suit. The suit never got to be adjudicated in court because the parties settled. Fast forward again to 2014 A spate of stories began to appear in the press and on the internet following a Hannibal Burress Comedy routine in which he called Cosby “Smug,” and “a Rapist.” The same press which claimed that this comedy routine went viral began to publish stories in tandem with an ever increasing count of alleged new accusers. Understand that 14 of these accusers in the count were not new at all and came from Costand’s settled law suit. Cosby refused to respond. In one of the stories TPS from the Costand suit was recycled, presented anew as around victim 15 or 16. In that story TPS said she had nothing to gain. However, now in 2015, 39 years after the alleged rape she is charging Cosby with defamation. 500 dollars per A is small potatoes in comparison to what is at stake now. In fact she now has quite a bit to gain. For you see when you are white, Defamation around the issue of rape can be very profitable as is illustrated in the Tawana Brawley Case. In that case the accused white rapist charged Tawana Brawley’s lawyers and advisers of defamation because they had accused him of raping Tawana Brawley. The Court awarded the accused rapist Steven Pagones, $345,000 from them and $185,000 from his alleged victim. That’s right, the woman who as a child accused a man of rape has been ordered to pay her alleged attacker for defaming him when she made that accusation. Brawley, by the way, completed nursing school with no one giving her 500 dollars for every A she received. But that was a Black woman accusing a white man. Cosby can expect no such luck because what happens to the accused or the accuser in America has always been determined by race more than any other factor. In the state of Virginia alone, where Brawley lives, 43 men were legally executed for rape between 1908 and 1963 and not one of them was white. Don’t be surprised if the same American legal system that awarded cash to the accused perpetrator in the Brawley case will do the exact reverse by awarding the accusers money in the Cosby Case. Don’t be surprised if they rule that the accused man has defamed his accusers by saying he is innocent. I do not believe that Cosby raped the two accusers LJT and TPS. Yet their stories are no less believable than the other 20 or so women being presented in a distorted way by the white press to paint Cosby as a serial “rapist.” I could go through the first 22 incidents and in all of them tell why in my opinion they are not credible stories. However, I don’t even believe that any woman who claims she has been raped or sexually assaulted should have her story picked apart in the press. I believe that the facts should be argued in a court in privacy. But in the case of Bill Cosby, the press and the bloggers and some of the alleged victims are presenting these one sided incomplete stories and ripping apart any mainstream journalist who asks the alleged victims difficult or politically incorrect questions. So below I have a chart that summarizes 22 of these cases, my understanding of what is the essence of each accusation against Cosby, plus a sentence or two about potential defenses from Cosby that would invalidate their claims. In one of the cases on this so called list the woman is accusing Cosby because he gave her pills which she took and caused, her in her opinion, to end up in bed with another man. Seriously she’s on the list and not even accusing Cosby of touching her. However, the white media is publishing these unsubstantiated accusations on the internet up to 50 years after these women say these incidents happened as if they are gospel. The sheer numbers are making people say, “How could all 22 women all be lying?” For those who don’t know the answer to that question I refer you to the following book. Alien Discussions: Proceedings of the Abduction Study Conference Held at M.I.T. Cambridge, Ma. Textbook Binding – September, 1995. It’s simply a fact that not only have hundreds of people reported being abducted by aliens and taken on spacecraft. Many of them say the aliens have raped and or fiddled with them sexually. Some even say the aliens impregnated them. I don’t believe them but there are way more than 22 women who claim these things are facts. It’s not that there aren’t enough of them making these accusations against the aliens for me to believe. It’s not that their stories do not coordinate with each other. Their stories are quite similar and their descriptions of the perpetrator (s) are similar. I still don’t believe them. The reason I don’t believe them is because the reality they recount conflicts with reality as I know it. Similarly these women’s accounts do not correlate with the Bill Cosby whose life I have read about. Their stories don’t correlate with the Bill Cosby I saw narrate the documentary “Black History Lost Stolen or Strayed,” or the Bill Cosby who gives money to help elderly and infirm jazz musicians, or the Bill Cosby who funds educational programs for youngsters and donates heavily to institutions of higher learning, or the Bill Cosby who spoke out about AIDS while holding Jack Felder’s Book, on AIDS and US Biological Warfare, or the Bill Cosby who spoke up for Tawana Brawley when it was not popular to do so, or the Bill Cosby who was concerned enough about the Black Image in Media that he tried to buy NBC to improve that image. These 22 women’s statements certainly conflict with the Bill Cosby whose been married to the same Black woman for 50 years a woman who in the face of all these accusations still attests to his good character. Hey if either before or after you look at my chart you still believe these accusations. Take solace that according to the white media nearly everyone else believes as you do. I will take solace in the fact that the 2600 people who gave him a standing Ovation in Canada probably believe more as I do. I am so glad I believed in the Central Park boys’ innocence and spoke out at the time the case happened. They have since been vindicated and proven innocent. Yet I can remember very plainly the strident voices of all the accusers of the young men railroaded in that case. I remember the specific writers who called them “a rolling mass of pus,” “a wolf pack” and a “melanoma.” I remember the full page ad by Donald Trump calling essentially for their lynching. In that Ad Trump referred to non specifically to “roving bands of wild criminals” but there was no doubt about to whom he was referring. In that Ad Trump also expressed his opposition to Ed Koch’s uncharacteristically statesman like call at the time to the people of New York to “remove hate and rancor from our hearts.” Trumps ad said in response to that call, ''I do not think so. I want to hate these muggers and murderers. They should be forced to suffer and, when they kill, they should be executed for their crimes.'' I remember the boys crying parents and the boys’ wrongful convictions despite the fact that the DNA found on the Jogger matched none of them. I remember their forced confessions when they gave precise though conflicting and totally false reports of exactly who held the jogger down and exactly who hit her with a brick and exactly who was carrying a lead pipe. I actually saw a video of Assistant District Attorney Lederer telling one of the boys who had a history of retardation, that his fists couldn’t have made the injuries suffered by the Jogger, so what did he use? The boy trying desperately to satisfy her, said words to the effect of “a rock, I used a rock.” Although it was known at the time of the boys conviction for rape that there was 1 type of DNA on her sock and in her cervix and that it matched none of the boys, Lederer and the other members of the prosecution led the public to believe that the DNA samples related to the case were inconclusive rather than exculpatory as they in fact, were. In that regard Lederer engineered the boys conviction for a rape they never committed. I remember how these boys lost their youth and were assaulted in prisons in the worst kinds of units children can be put into, only to have it revealed decades later that they were innocent despite all the witnesses, and newspaper articles screaming their guilt. The 41 million dollar settlement awarded by the courts cannot begin to pay for their suffering sparked and fueled by the inflammatory white press’ rush to judgment. In the Cosby case, the white press is again acting like a lynch mob. That’s why any real journalist would refuse to be a part of it. The bottom line is that Cosby is entitled to the presumption of innocence guaranteed to him by law and the benefit of the doubt earned by his years of service to the Black Community. The alleged assault victims should also have the right to be exempt from the current media circus where they are now simply being used as pawns in a rigged game of chess between Cosby and the media big boys. Yet the question remains who is behind this rigged game, this coordinated media lynching of Cosby. Could anyone actually be going through all this just because Cosby wants to own a network. One red herring thrown out in the white press this week centers around Donald Trump’s having fired Keisha Knight Pulliam on his NBC broadcast show, The Apprentice. Trump says she was fired because she would not contact Bill Cosby to ask for money for charity in a team competition on the show. It is true that Cosby recently had nasty words for Trump but it is doubtful that Trump has the capability to trigger a media attack as extensive as the current attack against Cosby. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tk5BM_kuMEQ It is also true that Trumps defensive Tweet this week in which he claims the show was filmed before the current attack against Cosby began, lends credence to the notion of his involvement in Cosby’s current woes for some. However, for me, the paraphrased words of Don Corleone apply here. “T---- is a pimp. He never could never outfight (Cosby). But I didn't know until this day that it was Barzini all along.” For Barzini perhaps substitute any name at the power level of Stephen Burke, Jeffrey Zucker or any recent Corporate officer at NBC Universal, NBC News, Comcast or NBC related entity who is actually big enough and mean enough to influence headlines across all media to destroy the legacy of one 77 year old Black Icon with a previously spotless reputation. Here is an excerpt from one Daily News Article originally reported in April 24, 1989 , with several quotes from then, Assistant D. A. Elizabeth Lederer EXCERPT Hints of what she (The jogger) endured were exposed hours earlier in Criminal Court, where the accused youths heard Assistant District Attorney Elizabeth Lederer give abbreviated versions of their chilling statements: “Clarence Thomas, 14, of W. 112th St, quoted fellow pack member Steve Lopez, 15, of Harlem’s Schomburg Plaza housing complex, as saying, “Let’s get a female jogger!” In keeping with the theory that the gang left its victim for dead, Thomas told detectives, “I know who did the murder” and said he would testify before a grand jury. “He admitted holding (the woman) down while others raped her,” Lederer said. Yusef Salaam, 15, of Schomburg Plaza and a student at Harlem’s Rice Academy, a Catholic school, “made a statement that he hit her with a pipe and grabbed her breasts.” “He said he did it because ‘It was fun,’” according to Lederer. Karey Wise, 16, a Schomburg resident who is one of two pack members who will be treated as adults, downplayed the charges against him, saying “he only played with the lady’s legs after others knocked her down.” “Wise gave shocking details in terms of the account of where the body was taken, dragged, and left,” Lederer said. Wise’s attorney, Colin Moore, told the judge his client “admitted playing with her underpants.” Raymond Santana, 14, of E. 119th St., a student at Junior High School 117, “grabbed (her) and hit her with a brick. He said he felt her (breasts),” Lederer said. Antron McCray, 15, of W. 111th St., a student at Career Academy Junior High School, said “he mounted the body and kicked the woman: he named Salaam as hitting her with a pipe,” according to the prosecutor. Michael Briscoe, of Madison Ave., who at 17 is the oldest of the suspects and will be treated as an adult, “made plans with several people to go ‘wilding’ … several days before the incident.” The bespectacled Briscoe has a prior juvenile record that was not disclosed. Sources said he was serving a term of five years’ probation. Other defendants said Briscoe “smashed the victim with a rock.” Kevin Richardson, 14, of Schomburg Plaza, admitted chasing the victim and said Lopes, McCray and Santana “pushed her down to the ground,” Lederer said. OBVIOUSLY HISTORY HAS PROVEN ALL OF LEDERER'S ACCUSATIONS AS FALSE AND THE BOYS AS INNOCENT. Below is a chart with summaries of what 22 the accusers in the Cosby case have said happened and potential defenses and evidence against the charge of rape or sexual assault, that Cosby could easily offer. This Link is to an article with full descriptions about the stories of the first 18 accusers. At the site there are also videos of the accusers telling their own stories. At the following Link there is a Daily News Story containing Kathy McKee’s own words and a video of her description of the alleged rape and the aftermath.

Chris you are also working on the presumption that all we read in the media is all that actually happened. Just because we can name another man in exactly the same position does not mean that it does not happen. We would not have know about Bill Cosby until recently. "The Juice" got away with decapitating a white woman, does any one believe for a split second that Nicole was the only woman O.J. abused?

Hi MIchelle. Congrats on your latest book. Do you have a website?

Well Chris Michael Jackson got away with his shenanigans for his entire life. Like Bill Cosby the closest anyone got to him was an out of court settlement. Did you forget about the cat at Penn State who was fondling kids for years? Were you not aware of the Catholic church protecting predators for generations? This kind of cover up happens all the time. I think you underestimate Bill Cosby's power and influence. I could very easily see why women would not go after Cosby. Most sexual assaults go unreported in general. Have you ever heard of the "casting couch?" Even Spelman, as bad as they need donors, have distanced themselves from Cosby. Just accept it man.

NY Times Bestselling Authors Roxane Gay & Edan Lepucki talk about on their favorite bookstores: http://aalbc.it/roxane-edan Plus Roxane gives a humorous reading from her book of essays Bad Feminist. Recorded Jan 8, 2015 at the University of Tampa. Book Soup West Hollywood, CA (unintelligible) Skyline (Tree in the center, ) Word in Brooklyn Parnassus Bookstore Avid Books, Athens, GA The Last Bookstore, Los Angeles Literati Bookstore, Ann Arbor, MI Book Bud Kal Women and Children First, Chicago, IL If someone could help me correct the list above I'd appreciate it -- thanks.

I never thought about who Edmund Winston Pettus was until the film Selma came out. According to Wikipedia Pettus was a Confederate general during the American Civil War, after the war he led the Alabama Ku Klux Klan and was a U.S. Senator. Maybe it is time to rename the Bridge...

Hey Chris I hear you. That sentiment is one reason I don't embrace hip-hop in the same fashion I did 25 years ago. I watched a video of Jeff talking about the impact of Hip-Hop he was making all of your points, taking it to an even higher level.

This video was created by VOX which does a good job of explaining Charlie Hebdo and a great many other things. As mentioned in the media Charlie Hebdo lambastes all major religions. Obviously, publishing content offensive to Muslims is a lot more dangerous. I have to give Charlie credit for having the courage to do this. I would not do it, but at the same time it is not that important or interesting to me to offend followers of the world's religions. I understand that that the next issue of Charlie Hebdo will include another image of the Profit Muhammad, this time crying. The print run for the next issue will be increased by two orders of magnitude. It seems the impact of the murderous rampage had the exact opposite effect. Charlie Hebdo's official website

I saw Roxane Gay in Tampa this past Thursday very funny woman (I'll post a cell phone video, shortly). I'm 1/2 way through her book Bad Feminist but I gave it to my kid to read. I just could not relate to many of the pop culture references (I simply don;t watch that many TV shows). I just posted our interview with Jeff Chang (Chris you'd love this guy) He exalts Hip-Hop like none other.

Transcript Link Police Under Fire; Father of Wounded NYPD Officer Speaks Out; Battle Between NYPD and Mayor; Is the KKK Recruiting?; KKK Billboard Protested in Arkansas; Remembering Mario Cuomo Aired January 6, 2015 - 22:00 ET DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: This is CNN TONIGHT. I'm Don Lemon. Exclusive. Police under fire. The father of one New York City cop speaks out after his son and another officer are shot responding to an armed robbery in the Bronx. The crime caught on surveillance video just moments before the officers were gunned down in the line of duty.

Whoopi Goldberg Questions Bill Cosby Accuser Beverly Johnson on The View https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLnxccZST_Q

Cynique, perhaps this is why so few actually do any of the things Chris and I are complaining about--they don't get it. I've complained about growing tired of trying to explain this to people, but it could be I'm just not doing a good enough job of explaining. I call myself an educator now. I need to figure out a way to communicate this to people without their eyes glazing over or getting lost. Perhaps, if I can explain it to you, anyone can understand it (don't take that the wrong way I'm sure you know what I meant). Did you read Tabil's article? Did that make sense to you? Did you read this article I wrote about what writers need to do to survive online. Did that make sense to you? If you take the time to review those articles and provide some feedback (I know that is asking a lot and I appreciate your time). I will make it a priority to write up some of these concepts in a way you can understand it. Maybe I'll write a short book about it. :-)

Authors and publishers, Exhibit at the National Conference of African American Librarians this is an opportunity to get your books into libraries across the country. Libraries are much more open to working with indie authors and publishers, than they have been in the past. In addition, to exhibiting opportunities (AALBC.com friends get 25% off the regular rates). There are opportunities for authors to participate for free and submit proposals for presentations. This conference will not take place for another two years. Take advantage of it.

You know I checked your link to make sure there was an affiliate code. It honestly was more habit than anything else. I respect your gansta ;-) Of course I think you are right Chris. Unless something radically changes the survival of indie sites will never depend upon a Facebook or Amazon. That however does not mean that we can not benefit from changes our tactics and strategies in how we engage those platforms. Again successfully dealing with some of the biggest corporations planet Earth has even seen, can not be accomplished by individuals... One baby step could be to simply get others to use Amazon's affiliate links. Some really bright authors with good sales have used my affiliate code on their sites, to offset the cost of promotion. There are a great number of possibilities. Of course running ones own affiliate program.is the best solution. I'm sure there is an off the shelf solution we could take advantage of but the real challenge would be getting other websites to participate.

Faith will be my motto for 2015.

Hey Chris, most people who visit your site will not transact or engage, but you don't need all of them do so. Yes they may do so in the future, as they become more familiar with your brand. This is why we engage in the effort of attracting visitors. It is interesting to compare our mix of traffic. 73% of my traffic is due to organic search, which is why I'm so vulnerable to Google search results. This past October Google made an algorithm change that resulted in a doubling in traffic, from search, compared with the previous year. This is really good news for me, but I'm guarded as Google can take away just as easily as they give. My referral from social is only 4%. Now I get 8% of my traffic from other sites. In other words, links from other sites, is responsible for twice the traffic I get from all of social media. It is not unusual for me to get more traffic from Wikipedia than I do from Facebook. The rest of my traffic, 15%, is direct. This is why I firmly believe we, collectively, can be much more successful by simply linking to each other's sites, commenting on other sites, and just actively recommending other sites. This does NOT mean linking to someone's social media page, this means linking to their website! I also believe we will be better served by linking to each other is because this worked better for us long before social media was invented. I could very easily get rid of the, 4% of my traffic coming from social media, they do not convert as well as direct traffic or traffic from referrals. In fact in 2015 I'm going to invest more effort with working other sites rather than social media. I also agree that affiliate programs could help a great deal. Affiliate programs, by their very design expands your reach and helps everyone profit. This is a strategy that Amazon has exploited brilliantly. But we have three major problems as they relate to affiliate programs; We simply won't use affiliate links For example, the vast majority of authors who send people to Amazon do NOT apply an affiliate links. I have tried to explain the benefits of this to anyone who will listen, but even after explaining, most authors continue to link to Amazon with applying affiliate codes. I find this too baffling to understand. I've written so much about this I've grown tired (see point #3). We are won't buy buy from indie websites Implementing an affiliate program can help, but we, as a people, have to be more willing to actually make the purchases. Indie sites don't have enough traffic Revenue generated from commissions earned from affiliate programs will be quite low as most sites don't have enough traffic to generate meaningful sales. All of the problems above can be easily addressed by indie sites working for closely with each other. I think it would also be helpful if we stopped giving social media so much free promotion and content, and just leave social media for people who want to boast, play games, and share celebrity gossip and funny videos. Chris if I could sit down with 10 other people who run websites and share the type of information you shared, off the cuff, we could all benefit. But most webmasters sophisticated enough to do this won't, because we also are way too competitive with each other and way too supportive of those ready to bury us..

Chris I could see why you liked this article. Talib thinks like us :-) Yes the article was very interesting, of course I see parallels in what is doing as an artist and what I;m doing here with AALBC.com. At the end of the independence is key. It took him a long time to come to that conclusions. In my space I always understood this to be true, but in my case there were no alternatives to independence. It is worth mentioning Talibs site: Kweliclub.com of course I'll be inquiring about an affiliate program

Yeah Chris I was going to add a hyperlink to the authors website, but I could not find one. Often I'll come behind posts like this and add missing information I think would help.

I have to say I'm not a fan of this album. I don't have time to critique it in in more depth, but when I listen to track number 10, for example, and think of Sinéad O'Connor's version, I can't think about how much worse Aretha's treatment is. Dare I say, O'Connor delivers the song with more soul Listening to, "At Last", just makes me wanna get out Etta Jameses album.

Hey Chris, though we disagree from time to time, we share a similar thought process. I read the analysis of the results of your kick starter campaign, that you shared on your website I found it very interesting. But the thing you left out was the impact of your video. I think your video was excellent. You came across as someone we just wanted to support. You appealed to people emotionally--people would feel good about themselves by supporting you. It was a great approach for crowd funding. Now if you were trying to obtain funding from some VC folks, you better have some figures. Del, most of the time people use anecdotes or personal beliefs to support their arguments, not facts. In fact, people will often use anecdotes to refute facts. When people start arguing over facts I'm learning to abandon those arguments.

Chris we call that a drive by promotion. I don't mind this at all; it happens so infrequently, and I learn something from every contributor. Plus it has only been a 4 days, sometimes I go this long without replying to a post. What actually is more interesting to me is that fact that this does not happen more often.

Hey Cynique, I'm glad you enjoyed Respect: The Life of Aretha Franklin. Since I have no recollection of the year 1962, the year I was born, your relationship to Aretha is very different than my own. Her album Young, Gifted and Black was one of the few albums my family owned. I listed to it countless times. Still, even in my book, she is the "Queen of Soul." Talented, Black, adult, female singers don't seem to have the same level of support today as they did back then. I'm not sure when any other woman will approach the same level of multi-generational admiration as an Aretha Franklin. Aretha's first collaboration with Ritz, Aretha: From These Roots, was an AALBC.com bestseller back in 1999. This book however is very controversial; Aretha Franklin calls the book "trashy" and "full of lies." "As many of you are aware, there is a very trashy book out there full of lies and more lies about me. ... (The writer's) actions are obviously vindictive because I edited out some crazy statements he had the gall to try and put in my book written 15 years ago. Evidently, he has been carrying this hatred ever since." (source) I could not find a direct source of her full statement. This reaction does not surprise me however, David Ritz, despite his very impressive resume chronicling Black people, does not have the best reputation. But Aretha is a "diva" so who knows what is true. A some point, unless some criminal activity is involved, I believe people have right to maintain their privacy. But we live in a country where someone can make a lot of money by writing a biography, against the subject's wishes, which contains information (true or not), that they don't want shared. In my mind, something is fundamentally wrong with that. Aretha just released an Album: Aretha Franklin Sings The Great Diva Classics Aretha Franklin Sings the Great Diva Classics (Full Album) Tracklist: 01. At Last 02. Rolling In the Deep 03. Midnight Train To Georgia 04. I Will Survive 05. People 06. No One 07. I’m Every Woman _ Respect 08. Teach Me Tonight 09. You Keep Me Hangin’ On 10. Nothing Compares 2 U

Del, perspective is everything, everyone is different, and facts are irrelevant. Trying to change the beliefs of others based upon information, is largely a waste of time unless they are actually trying to learn and are in search of the truth--which is a rare characteristic. It is not opposition to you Del, it is human nature. Appeal to people's emotions. They don't care about "better results," they care only about the way something makes them feel. @Harry if you are reading this, this is why the Black preachers you often decry are so successful--they are expert at appealing to people's emotions.

I believe the E-Drum predates AALBC.com. If not, it has been around about as long as I can remember, and I'm on my 18th year running this site. E-Drum has been on Yahoo Groups for 7 years and was on a list-serve before that. Famed poet, historian, activist, and father Kalamu ya Salaam run the E-Drum for our collective benefit. You may subscribe here: kalamu-subscribe@yahoogroups.com E-DRUM - January 3, 2015 - 3 publishing opportunities + 8 other posts POETRY: MY NAME IS KALAMU - http://bit.ly/1xsBKIo VIDEO: Pharaoh Sanders Quintet - http://bit.ly/1Bw1Byl VIDEO: Ahmad Jamal - Jazz session 1971 - http://bit.ly/1xsBx84 PUB: 92Y "Discovery"/Boston Review Poetry Contest - http://bit.ly/1Bw1nXX PUB: The 2015 William Matthews Poetry Prize - http://bit.ly/1xsBh9i PUB: 2015 San Francisco Book Festival Call for Entries - http://bit.ly/1Bw1eUw INTERVIEW: Conversations with Anqélique Gakoko Pitteloud and Wanuri Kahiu - http://bit.ly/1xsBaKF VIDEO: 50 Years Of African-Caribbean Funerals In Pictures - http://bit.ly/1Bw17II VIDEO: American Drug War: The Last White Hope - http://bit.ly/1xsB1XG REVIEW: BOOK—Never Been A Time - http://bit.ly/1Bw0Zc9 HISTORY + VIDEO: The Goal: To Remember Each Jim Crow Killing, From The '30s On - http://bit.ly/1xsAWn3 Subscribe: kalamu-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

Hi Salena. Welcome to the forum and thanks for changing information about your book. I noticed that you sent people your your page on Amazon. i was wondering if you had a website? If not why not?