Troy

I did not mean to imply that I don't watch anything on Fox because of it's political leanings. I don't watch anything on Fox because I don't really watch network TV. I watch HBO. where there is a series I'm currently watching. Since Boardwalk Empire ended the only thing I regularly catch is Bill Maher. I'll pick up Game of Thrones when it comes back, but other than that I surf YouTube. But I will try to catch up on Empire. I do like Terrance when he plays a grimey role and Taraji is just talented. I'm managing my expectations though. I don't expect anything of the caliber of HBO's The Wire, but right now I'm not watching anything.

I have to admit I have not seen Empire. I actually don't watch anything on Fox. Perhaps because I exposed to enough Black dysfunction in my actual life I'm not too interested in seeing it on the TV.

Harry you are quite timely. I just published our interview with Lee Daniels who is quite good at depicting Black dysfunction (Monsters Ball, Precious, etc), which is a very lucrative profession in America. As far as my NIggas Tee-Shirts. That train left the station, the cat out of the bag, and the chickens have some home to roost. How can any group of people you allow rap lyrics that use this word quite liberally, then all of a sudden get twisted when people want to put it on a tee shirt? Gimme a break. The Wayans are not doing anything new, but because they are celebrities they'll be able to capitalize off it--like all the other comedians and rappers who "stack mad paper" (do kids still say this) using the word. LIke a true capitalist the Damon Wayans was/is (2006 article) literally trying to trademark Nigga, for his clothing line. Fortunately the government stopped his dumb ass, sheesh. Please

From my perspective, and I'm not just talking about books, the concerns of Black folks have been marginalized, or relegated to a place where they are not a primary concern. For example, Obama is the president of "all the people" so he will never overtly do something specifically for Black people, the way Johnson, or Kennedy did. The fight for so called "diversity" also obscures are needs, because diversity does not really mean anything. Black people themselves are diverse. You can also be diverse with out Black people. The fight for diversity is a completely different fight as far as the interests of Black people are concerned. 15 years ago getting attention for this list, at least online, would not have required such a monumental effort.

Chris when writing my article on The Best Cities for African American Readers I collected data on the Black populations of the largest 300 American Cities. Memphis (the 20th largest city, with a Black population of 63%) isn't in the top 5. 83% of Detroit's population is Black and darn near 80% of Jackson Mississippi is Black. Baltimore and Birmingham have higher percent Black populations too. But I agree with your point. People tend to self-segregate. Historically this was the law, which was a bad idea. But in practice I see little difference from the time there was a law. Schools are still largely segregated. Rich people simply send their children to virtually all white private schools, live in all white communities and hire the highest paid folks for the best jobs. Black people are largely excluded from these schools, communities and jobs. For course, there are exceptions, but these people usually don't have the power to "hook another brotha up." Even if they were inclined to do so, they would not, because they would be afraid of losing their place. It is a real funky position to be in. We KNOW the best and the brightest don't always get into Harvard, we KNOW family connection and money is a factor which helps white folks tremendously. We live in a country when two of the strongest presidential candidates will come from families in which another family member served! I would never vote for Jeb Bush or Hillary Clinton, for this reason along. I hate political dynasties, monarchies or whatever you wanna call them. New York's Governor is the son of a previous governor. Of course there are countless examples, harsher enforcement and stiffer penalties when it comes to the application of the law. Don;t even get me started on the lack on Black influence on the web... What is also so astonishing to me is that the Black population is largely unaware of all of this. Which I guess is why so many Black people are advocates for diversity, we don't recognize how disenfranchised we truly are.

Thanks for sharing the Power List Chris. Now image if I could get some of the authors, who are actually on the list, to do the same. Bestsellers lists tend to be popular with readers. I plan to get other content providers to share the lust. I also plan to encourage authors and publishers to share the list in the manner in which you have. Ultimately, we have to begin to promote and uplift our own work. I believe we will begin to realize this soon enough, as we continue to loose platforms interested in promoting Black books.

OK let me see what I can come up with. Chris keep inmind, your side margins are not large enough to accommodate a 160 pixel wide skyscraper ad. Your template can accommodate 120 pixels max without creeping outside the boundary the way the Amazon banner is doing now.

Del what does "throw joint" mean? Chris, the reference to "blue khakis" is lost on me is that some southern jailhouse thing?

Yo Negro you know Brothers are tight. You can't hurl insults all willy-nilly. Actually, I was not accustomed to your change in voice, just your steadfast adherence to all things magical/mystical. You stray from that I get confused.

Interesting, I was going to email Del separately and ask him what was wrong. That is because the statement, "I dunno y'all sound like two chicken headed biznitches" is so out of character for him that I literally have trouble believing Del wrote that statement. Honestly I'm still not convinced Del wrote it.

Del that is like asking if you are tired of being yourself. Of course not. But that does not mean that I have not fantasized or contemplated what it might be like to be someone else. That also does not mean that I've never lamented the hardships that accrue to someone in my situation--but anyone can do that. Being human sucks. But being human and being Black can be quite enjoyable too. It is not an either/or proposition. Striving to make things better is actually one of those things that motives me. Often trying to make things better is discouraging, because it is difficult and failures are frequent. Hey Chris, I watched one of your lecture videos (are you actually lecturing a college class in shorts ). Man when you find the time to do so much (do you have kids?).

Cgris give the new power list layout a try. It is fully responsive and I've removed the Power List logo. Take a look at how it look on my site: http://aalbc.com/books/powerlist.html Huris search is pretty straight forward too. This is the same code I'm using on the Power List site: <script> (function() { var cx = '017439764859730021228:ale46ds4sbg'; var gcse = document.createElement('script'); gcse.type = 'text/javascript'; gcse.async = true; gcse.src = (document.location.protocol == 'https:' ? 'https:' : 'http:') + '//www.google.com/cse/cse.js?cx=' + cx; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(gcse, s); })(); </script> <gcse:search></gcse:search> We just need more folks doing what we do, working together, on-line, to make a difference (and some money).

Chris you mentioned Ava a number of times. Ever since I learned of Ava Duvernay I've promoted her work: from the very first film I Will follow. I do this not because it will make me any money, I do it because I think it is important. But I also recognize these films are not blockbusters. If you search for Ava DuVernay on Huria Search, you will get over 300K results from Black owned websites. So we are talking about her, the question is who is listening, or even until the Selma film, who cared? Ava will get just as much attention because she was "snubbed" by the Academy, than she would have received winning the award.

Being Black sucks; sure, it does, but not has much as it did 150 years ago. We have come a long way in this country, but we still have a lot farther to go. We will not get to where we need to be overnight. In fact if humanity is to survive we HAVE to to get where we need to be. My biggest complaint today is the we, Black folks, look toward our oppressor to validate our self worth. We cry if Hollywood does not give us the roles that truly speak to our humanity. As Chris pointed out we complain when the award us for Monsters Ball, or fail to recognize us for Selma. We jump on the worship Bill Cosby bandwagon on the word of white folks, until they tell us to start hating him. We have not choice because we no voice in the media. The sharing of oppressor propaganda on social media does not count as having a voice--that has been the best game yet.

I agree. As a corporation, Amazon is first and foremost, if they are doing their job, a friend to their shareholders, not to readers. Chris if Nike controls 90% of the market, as you wrote, they are, for all practical purposes, a monopoly. Amazon, who sells about 3/4 of all eBook and 2/3 of all physical is effectively a monopoly as well. As such they control the industry much more than any of the individual top publishers ever have. Amazon is not, nor do I think they even claim, they are the lowest priced seller. I make available for sale, every day, books that can be purchased for less that what Amazon sells the same book for, overwhelmingly however, people choose to buy from Amazon. But I guess the reason for this goes back to perception. People perceive Amazon is better than an indie book seller, even if the indie book seller can provide the same product for less. Drug users consider the pusherman their friend too. The YouTube video was yanked. I only got to listen to about 1/2 of it. I found the opposing arguments very interesting The final result of the debate was than more people were convinced that Amazon is NOT the readers friend. The debate did take place in New York City, the publishing capital of the world, so that result is not particularly surprising.

Hey Chris thanks a lot man. I truly appreciate the time you took to point out those mistakes. I corrected and updated the print the entire list code, so that the list prints on a single page. I think the Huria Search this is cool too. Anyone can use it on their website it search all the Black owned newspapers, major websites, magazines, book sites, etc--all without advertising (Ipay to keep ads out of the results): http://www.huria.org/able/public-search.html I corrected the broken images I corrected the link on the usage page (same fix as the homepage) Chris, I did not understand the bit about "skyscraper banner for my widgets," I gather from the lol you were joking, but do I owe you something in that regard? I also updated the code to allow people to share the Power List on their websites. Anyone can add the Power List to their website with just a few lines of code. The code may be found here: http://www.huria.org/powerlist/ There are already a few sites using the code: Book Club Magazine Dr Askhari Johnson Hodari AALBC.com (needless to say) Urban Prints Productions Huria Search There really should be more that the three sites (not counting my sites) after 19 months. I'm going to work on getting both the Power List and Hura Search shared on more websites. The challenge, still, is that there really are not a lot of people or entities with the technical skill (which is really very minimal in this case), who have the websites, and the desire to share this information. Certainly there are more that the three, I just ave to find them. Again as people migrate toward using social media as their primary web presence, the ability to share information like this becomes impossible.

Folks have been complaining about the Academy failing to recognize Black people this year. Most notably, Selma failed to get a nomination for Best Actor or Best Director. Everyone was excited about Ava DuVernay, not just being not just the first Black woman to be nominated, but the first Black women to actually WIN the "prestigious" award. People also complained about a the lack of diversity (read: lack of Black people), at the National Book Awards. Black people even ceased upon a dumb joke by the host of the National Book Awards ceremony as proof of the insensitivity of white folks. This is why we have to change the way we think about the awards we give to ourselves. We have to hold the NAACP Image Awards, for example, as high as any award we can bestow or receive. But in order to accomplish this will take some major deprogramming. Look, the entire culture perceives EVERYTHING we do as less worthy. That is understandable, the dominant culture always defines the standards, from beauty to art. The problem is we can't continue to buy into it. We HAVE to define our own standards and if the dominant cultures accepts it fine, if they don't that is fine too. It is a free country, more or less. Now I'm not naive enough to ignore the potential for great financial gain by winning one of the white dominated awards. Sure the winner of an Academy Award, or a National Book Award, stands to exponentially increase their earning potential. But again, that is because the entire culture make this so, and we fall in line with this mentality. i don;t need a crystal ball to know that Selma will almost certainly win the NAACP Image Award for best picture. Will that make any of us feel better knowing that Selma will almost certainly not win an Academy Award in the same, or any category? The answer to that question will tell you how far we have to go.

Hi Chris I see from your perspective, as a writer, that you are not concerned about Amazon's impact on the big five publishers. The question that was asked, and debated, was is Amazon the reader's friend. What is your position on that idea?

In a world where people, business, and other entities are increasingly using a Facebook page as their primary web presence, or if they are tech savvy using WordPress or some other blogging platform to establish their primary web presence, I still opt for going the old fashioned way--doing it myself. The original Power List site http://powerlist.info was created, quickly using WordPress, but Wordpress' limitations became obvious immediately. It took me another 18 months to get around to redesigning the Power List site, but in the interim I've learned a bit more about web designed (I actually teach a college level course on the subject), so I decided last month to completely revamp the Power List's site. The coolest thing about it is that it is completely database driven, basically I can radically change the look of the website with very little effort. I also like the way I present book information. Take a look at this sample page for Americanah and let me know what you think. I think it is best of class, but it I need to change or add something please let me know--I welcome suggestions. At any rate, a custom built site means nothing if no one visits it or buys books. That aspect require support from others. Hopefully others willl share in our mission and support the website. The website is actively supported by CushCity.com, MagahoganyBooks, and AALBC.com (including Huria Search). I listed websites, as if there are massive organizations involved. It is really just me, Gwen Richardson, and Ramunda and Derrick Young. Most of us work multiple jobs too. If you believe in what we trying to do, sharing Black Literature, please spread the word.

Is Amazon the Reader's Friend Video In late 2014, Amazon and the publishing house Hachette settled a months-long dispute over who should set the price for e-books. In Amazon's view, lower prices mean more sales and more readers, and that benefits everyone. But for publishers, the price of an e-book must reflect the investment made, from the author's advance to a book's production. The conflict, resolved for now, has only raised more questions about the value of books, Amazon's business practices, and the role of publishers. Is book publishing an oligopoly, a dinosaur in need of disruption? Is Amazon, which accounts for 41% of all new book and 67% of all e-book sales, a monopoly? Who is doing right by readers and the future of books?

Here is Dick Gregory explaining how Hollywood works. What and why the media tells us what is does and what it does not tell us. The explains the financial implications of this whole controversy. I suggest you skip to the 19 minute mark. Del your are doing the math to calculate how much she should have been actually paid (without a transcript, I might add) and have completely missed point; the implication from the statement about the A's was that she was overpaid. The good Dr. may sound "off" to you Del because his perspective if different than your, therefore he must be "off."

Yeah Del, the Russians are jamming me up, always have. It is the price of being running a website. They literally made my first discussion forum unusable, the second one they made too labor intensive to maintain and this one they bombard with fake accounts to post spam. They get better at it every single day. I have people that say they can figure out how to create an account here, but the Russians successfully and automatically create several accounts a day. This does not include the accounts which are caught by spam filters. That said I got rid of this account--thanks. Also, the comment about people not reading long posts is true. Indeed the content providers like myself are discouraged from posting long form content, because no one reads it and is costly to produce. A significant number of Black people access the net from mobile devices, so the whole industry is catering to that audience, Which is one reason why Black people disproportionately dominate Twitter, a live on Facebook. They are tied to it 24x7 via mobile. When you said you did not read the entire article I took advantage of that to make emphasize my point.

Del the article said $500 for every "A" not every course. I appreciate the the vast majority of people, like Del, will not read the entire article. This is another reason why this type of analysis is rarely done, because so few people will invest the time to read it--sort of like books are today... The Tawanna Brawley bit was a unconvincing to me, as that incident was proven to be a lie, but the rest of the analysis casts enough doubt in my mind for each individual case. Bill will never be tried for 22 cases all at once, it will always be he said, she said under dubious circumstances. Cynique, it is not just men rallying behind Cosby. Prominent females that support cosby include Whoopie Goldberg and JIll Scott. When you look at many of the cases like Beverly, Errol! Hey thanks popping by. Del posted a video from Cosby's routine about Spanish Fly. This of course does not prove anything. Of course we are old enough to remember Spanish, Fly. I seem to remember it being more of an aphrodisiac, rather than your garden variety date rape drug. At the end of the day, we know we know the media will take every advantage to pile on Brother and Sisters with problems.

Chris I have to agree, and indeed have adjusted my opinion accordingly. Imagine a world were mainstream journalist actually did some research before reporting. Today the press is nothing more than a rumor mill, an exalted National Inquirer, especially when it comes to Black folks. Of course the main stream media would publish sensation stories; it generates revenue. Research takes time, energy and money, which reduces profits. The circulation of these rumors on Facebook and Twitter generates vast wealth for those owners as well. Meanwhile the public remains largely ignorant and misinformed. Again, in the light of this information, I realize I fell prey to the media hype by rushing to judgement against Bill Cosby. In fact, originally I supported Bill. What changed my mind against Bill Cosby was Beverly Johnson's article in Vanity Fair, which essentially related the same information in the video above. But the printed piece is much more impactful than the video. If The View was my first introduction to Beverly's accusation I probably would have assumed her story was suspect as well. I doubt we will ever learn the "truth" in this situation. Each situation was very different. I don't believe Ennis's death was some form of Karmic Justice--actually I don't believe in any of that, at least not to the extent that we could comprehend it.