Troy

Well this is the only video I ever loaded directly onto Facebook. Facebook do provide some data on views. My video was viewed 98 times (defined as someone who watched the video for at least 3 seconds). Of those viewers, on Facebook, only watched it for longer than 30 seconds. That is pretty much all I got, but it is enough to tell me virtually no one watched the full video on Facebook. Further given the nature of content on Facebook it ages out very quickly meaning I'm not likely to get more viewers of the video. I did however pin the video to the top of the page, as I don;t plan to add any more content to my Facebook page (save the Black history month posts which are shared remotely). YouTube stats are a lot better because the average view time was 3:37 on 24 views over the last 2 days, I also got two subscribers. I posted the video on my website yesterday, so it will get a lot more traction here than on Facebook, so I expect the YouTube views to be steadier over time, while Facebook views have already petered out.

23th Day of #BlackHistoryMonth Wallace Thurman author of The Blacker the Berry..., one of the most widely read and controversial works of the Harlem Renaissance

Chris the embedded video did not get any more exposure than my average post. I think the videos that get more exposure are the funny, meme like ones, not some dude talk about his website :-) These snapshots were taken this morning. The Favorite 100 titles shows about 6 times the reach as the video, but was only on Facebook two times as long. People like lists.

Yes I'm familiar with all of these points. And I stand by the statement. First, my statement does not suggest that people should not be accountable for their behavior that was a conclusion of "Saraian" proportions. To clarify further: We all should all be held accountable for our behavior. Where we differ perhaps is who to blame for our predicament. If you know our history in the country, you know the vast majority of the time we have been here we were either enslaved or living under legalized apartheid, which did not end until the 1950's! Needless to say the racism still continues -- but even if it was wiped out completely when Jim Crow ended, who would think a people would reverse 100's of years of oppressions in less than a lifetime. We have to fight racism AND be accountable for our behavior. Dealing with only one of these problems will end in failure. 100 years ago we were compelled to depend on each other for survival. I believe it was for this reason we were able to build communities like Black Wall Street in Tulsa. Today those of means would rather live in a white neighborhood. Today we depend upon the government. If you are familiar with the Moynihan (Moynihan graduated from my neighborhood high school) Report, you are also aware of the discussion around social programs that were put place and worsened conditions in urban centers by creating incentives for dysfunctional behavior. For example, to get government assistance you could not have a man in the house. The film Claudine, illustrates this brilliantly. The more kids you had the bigger the check. 100 years ago we educated our own children--because we had too. We created great institutions of higher education. Today those very same institutions struggle for survival. Why? Because our best, brightest, and most financially well off rather go to white schools, ghettoizing HBCU's I have a the same question for you @Xeon: Why do you think Black folks 100 years ago did not suffer the crushing exigent dysfunction and intra-group violence as Negroes in 2016?

Good points Kids sitting around all day playing video games all day simply illustrates is that young boys don't know what is best for themselves. Sure, video games, TV, and Social media are for more engaging than sitting in front of unskilled teacher with little passion for her the subject matter trying to teach a room full of Black boys she can't relate to and probably don't like very much. Kids would absolutely run around and play, but who would they play with when everyone else is on Snapchat?

Feminine/masculine behavior is defined by the culture. As discussed these cultural norms are changing rapidly in the US, and vary from region to region. If we are lucky our nature dovetails well with the culture. Men are typically stronger than, in a culture in which we hunted animals for our very survival this was a great characteristic to have, today the only benefit might be in attracting a mate, for the wimpiest dude in the world can go shopping and score dinner. In the classroom, kids need to run around and burn off energy. Sitting behind a desk all day is hard for all kids but even harder for boys (not in all cases but on average). So it really depends upon how you define "behaving" yourself. In the anecdote cited by Chris; does it make sense to punish a boy for not sitting with his knees together? We can define noncompliance with this rule as misbehaving, or lacking discipline. But more often than not these rules made up by women often conflict with very nature of boys. Also I'm not for one second saying that we all have to do things that go against our nature we do, but Black boys are asked to do it more often than any other group I suspect. Besides the gender bias, they also have to contend with the race bias--which is substantial.

Simply Southern, have you had any training in writing? If not, I would take some classes to learn the craft and join a writers group to get some serious critique of your work. If you are a novelist you would really need to have a completed manuscript before you do anything. I would suggest you even have it professionally edited before trying to find an agent. Big publishers (those who pay advances) typically toss unagented manuscripts. I attended a seminar recently where someone suggested the following. Paying for the deluxe service at Publishers Market Place ($25 per month). Then review their deal database. Look for books similar to yours and see who the agent was. This will take some grunt work, but you can come away with a really targeted list of agents who have recently done deals for books like yours. I often recommend The Guide to Literary Agents, which is absolutely better than nothing, but if you have the time, using the technique above will give you more timely results.

Cynique, to be clear: If a girl is a a tom-boy, and a boy is effeminate by nature that is one thing. What I am saying is that women teachers, often without realizing it, reward feminine behavior and punish masculine behavior. Of course people are on a broad spectrum with it comes to behaviors and sexuality, you will find men who exhibit what would be considered traditionally feminine behavior. There are some guys that don't have an aggressive or competitive bone in the bodies. They would have enjoyed playing board games with my mom and sister, but you would want them on your football team. These guys would probably do very well in your garden variety female run and administered classroom. Oh and sexulaity is indeed distinct from gender. Which is why you have people who are homosexual after a sex change.

Xeon, I put up profiles, on the site, for people like Thomas Sowell (I read most of his books), Shelby Steele, and others. Occasionally get grief about it from other Black folks. The stereotypical southern Black has more in common, with the republican platform that the democratic one, anti-gay marriage, Christian, conservative, but votes democratic. This is why Ben Carson was embraced by southern Blacks--despite the apparent Blacks folks in the major urban centers not understanding this. Of course Black in our majority urban centers also vote democratic. As far as are party affiliation is concerned we are a monolithic group. But that does not matter very much as our concerns have not been much of a factor since the Civil Rights Movement. During this most recent election cycle we been hearing a lot more about the adverse impact Bill Clinton had on the Black community. As a result, I think Bernie has a strong chance to win the democratic nomination. If this happens I think the republican--even if it is Trump, which seems likely, will win.

“so you'll see a straight man who likes women but has a lisp and bashful demeanor.” I don't know about that one @Pioneer I'd be willing to bet this is exceedingly rare; like 4 standard deviations for men with those characteristics.

Hi Shirley, I glad you were able to tolerate the video all the way through and found it useful. Good luck with your new book! and I hope all works out favorably with Archway.

21st Day of ‪#‎BlackHistoryMonth‬ Video of one of Maya Angelou’s last public appearances

@Cynique, I don't expect anyone to take advantage of everything . What I'm trying to do is help people appreciate what is here. I often get the sense that people appreciate all that is here, so I'm making an effort to change this. I'm taking a page from Chris' playbook and making more videos. The videos are not high production quality, but I hope it gets the point across.

Yes that was the first video I uploaded directly to Facebook. I did upload it directly to Facebook because I assumed Facebook would show it to more people as it is content on their website. I also pinned it to the top of the page. I don't see myself adding anything else to Facebook directly (save the Black History posts--which is also an experiment). Yes I can't see many people watching the entire video, 12 minute video. Creating a video for each section is a good idea Chris. I could also add the video to the main page of each section, though I will probably wait until the site redesign is complete, sometime late this spring.

I agree with Chris @Dr T this was really interesting I left a comment and shared the post. Consider entering your blog in our Blogger database: http://aalbc.com/blogs/addnewblogform.html

Guest, please create an account so that you may post without me having to approve it. ------------------- Here is another anecdote along the vein of being raised in a female headed household. When I was a kid my competitive spirit was discouraged. We could not play a simple board game without my mom and sister accusing me of being too competitive or taking the game too seriously. They played for "fun" I played to win, that was how I had "fun." When I'm around other men this is NEVER an issue. I think the typically masculine trait of competitiveness is discouraged by women, while a man would nurture the trait and teach a boy how to use it. Female run schools also discourage this attitude. Everyone is rewarded for simply participating. Sure this may protect young boys little egos but it does little to prepare them for the real world. This is not to say the women can not raise boys into strong men, but this requires an exceptional woman. Today it is even having a man in the household is no guarantee; for men themselves were raised by women. Of course young women raising boys, who were not raised by a positive male (or no male at all), further compounds the problems. Plus the rules change every 5 minutes. In one generation tattoos were for gang members and sailors, today teenage girls are getting their bodies covered in them. Today men can wear hoop earring in both ears without raising any eyebrows. Today if you don't celebrate the idea of two men getting married, in a church, you are a homophobic Neanderthal. Of course we can go on and on with these. While some of these changes may be liberating, most people are just confused, as the culture is in a constant state of flux. What is wrong today will be perfectly acceptable tomorrow. So while this situation may not be the direct result of a conspiracy, the results would still be no different.

In this video I talk about the AALBC.com website, that I started in 1997. I'm attempting to describe some of the site's features to someone completely unfamiliar with it, and hopefully help folks already familiar, with the site, appreciate the scope of the website's offerings. I wanted to do this in less than 5 minutes, but that is really hard for me to do without completely leaving things out. Still, in this video, I've left a lot out and it runs over 12 minutes. 12 minutes is way too long in today's sound byte world, but I figured people really interested will watch the whole thing. I'll also monitor the video stats and adjust the video accordingly. I'm open to any feedback anyone might have about the video. Of course I'll answer any questions anyone has about the website and, as always, I'm open to any suggestions anyone has on improving the website.

Man it goes even farther guys get earrings in both ears, they go to the hair dresser, they get their eyebrows arched, they have tons of shoes, they expose the butts whil sagging there pants, they don't engage in anything resembling athletics. Chris that story of getting out of the car always makes me laugh. For all practical purposes my father did not raise me, but we did not have a car ;-) I learned how to be a man on the streets, which of course meant I did not learn how to treat a lady properly.

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19th Day of ‪#‎BlackHistoryMonth‬ Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison 1st Book by a Black writer to win a National Book Award

Hey @Pioneer1, welcome back. I have not had a chance to read the article yet, but I did however add Mother Jones to Huria Search, I have just decided to expand beyond Black owned Properties for quality journalism we need to consume.

That is fine Cynique we can disagree. I'm not naive enough to believe that the way I look does not inform how I'm treated in this culture--I'm a Black man in American you KNOW I get it. I guess what I'm trying hard to do is not judge people by their looks but by their actions, you know, not the "...color of their skin but by the content of the character..." If I could wave a magic wand, I would get the government our of the business of tracking people by "race." Lord knows how much money we would save, but the real benefit is that we can then begin focusing on how people are treated without the confusion of race. Because at the end of the day, race is a diversionary tactic; our the problems all stem from class.

You can comment on the vast majority of videos posted, which give it the characteristics of a discussion forum. In terms of social media, youtube is my favorite platform. You can earn money from your content They allow you to embed content your website (twitter does this Facebook does not). They have a dislike button. Because of all of the above; they have valuable content Here is a typical comment that I just posted on Youtube. I was still on my Ishmael Reed video watching binge. Huey Newton said the statement that Jimmy the Greek said about breeding Black people was valid. Of course that statement is absurd and I made the commented to that effect. Someone came back and amazingly make the assertion that science back Jimmy the Greek! It is astonishing that people still believe people can be bred like dogs. The science today, and the science back then, did not validated what Jimmy the Greek said. The black is a better athlete to begin with because he's been bred to be that way, because of his high thighs and big thighs that goes up into his back, and they can jump higher and run faster because of their bigger thighs and he's bred to be the better athlete because this goes back all the way to the Civil War when during the slave trade...the slave owner would breed his big black to his big woman so that he could have a big black kid. This is a ridiculous statement, that many Black people, like Huey Newton believed--event this day. Jimmy "The Greek" lost his job over making this statement. I think that was a shameful, overreaction. If people lost their livelihoods over making ignorant statement none of us would have jobs. It would have been better for us and Jimmy to learn way the statement is stupid, but the media took over, Jimmy lost his job and thirty years later people are still largely ignorant of this issue.

Cynique, again "Caucasian stock" and white race are both artificial constructs. These are not technical terms and have no basis in science. I understand that the culture uses the terms as if they are based in science, and it is hard to break old habits. But we are all human regardless of the way we look. If you use the way someone looks to classify them as a somehow different type of human, you will always be wrong. If we make assumptions about a person's life experience based upon the way they look, we will definitely make some false assumptions as well. So I have no idea what this artist brings to the table, based solely on the color of his skin. He may have grown up the adopted child of Black parents and raised in the 'hood. Which would give him a completely different sensibility than a trust fund kid, generations deep in wealth accumulated based upon the labor of enslaved Africans. Racism is a human issue which must be addressed by humans. Boxing people into an arbitrary categories to "judge" their work in this fight unnecessary--even if the artist himself thinks it is. I submit making the race of those fighting against racism an issue weakens the impact; again, because it is a human fight. I choose to judge the artist on his work not his race. Of course know full well there are those that would ignore his work BECAUSE he is white; this is counterproductive. Now I'm not saying that the so called race of this artist is uninteresting. Indeed it might be fascinating to know his background and what motivated him to join the struggle.

18th Day of ‪#‎BlackHistoryMonth‬ Carter G. Woodson’s Appeal: A Lost Manuscript