Troy

Oh boy youtube can get pretty bad. In fact any forum can get bad. I believe I've hurled a “self hating uncle tom” or two over the years on this forum, but in recent years I've spent more time trying to explain how meaningless it is. There are people who get their kicks pissing people off hurling insults behind the safety of a computer screen and an avatar. I believe these are the majority of people saying these things 'cause you know those, bitch azz niggas, would never be that bold in person. Unfortunately a meaningful part of managing this website is removing such comments.

Harry has been holding it down. Seriously though, if you can get by the all caps, Harry often serves up some gems. Actually, I used to just ignore Harry's posts, but then one day one of the long terms posters here (Chris I think) complemented Harry on a poem he wrote. I'd completely missed the poetry. At that point I checked myself, because I allowed myself to miss something simply because I insist on reading text with line breaks and in mixed case. In the past I've reformatted his poetry to make it more accessible to others, in much the same way I often go behind an authors and add additional information about their books. It takes all types to keep a foum interesting. But the most important ones, are the ones who share their thoughts, and Harry has been a consistent poster over they years.

@Mel Hopkins, exactly. Further, Black platforms that could benefit from his presence lose as a result--including his own. I could simply be that Reed knows he needs the platform, that no Black owned platform, including his own, would benefit him as much as posting on Facebook daily, and that I refuse to accept that. Reed, in his three hour C-Span interview which I've been listening to off and on as I work, said he uses Facebook "maybe too much". He also said that people send him things that would not not otherwise get. It always puzzles me when someone says something like that about Facebook. It make me wonder how in the world we made it without Facebook?

Now operating under the name of Brown Girls Book, these sisters have completed two years in operation:

Brown Girls Books celebrates two years of bringing readers the best in books Company that started as a way for new and veteran authors to publish their books reflects on success, looks to future (Raleigh, NC – Feb. 2016) – Brown Girls Books burst onto the publishing scene in February of 2014. Now, as they celebrate two years of bringing readers the best in books, BGB is looking forward to conquering new dimensions. The company was started after National Bestselling Authors Victoria Christopher Murray and ReShonda Tate Billingsley saw the changing publishing dynamic making it more and more difficult for authors to survive and thrive in the industry. “Writers we knew and respected were getting out of the business because the industry was changing so. And writers hoping to break into the literary industry weren’t standing a chance,” said Murray, Founder and BGB Chief Financial Officer. “We knew that we wanted to change that. So we started Brown Girls as a way to give those fan favorites and fresh voices an opportunity to let their voices be heard…with quality literature.” Brown Girls caught the attention of the publishing industry, including the Big Six publishers. Readers applaud the “quality books” and industry professionals have been paying attention to the “boutique publisher that’s making a big splash.” “We were shocked at the impact we’ve had in this industry. A publishing professional at a conference referred to us as the ‘Big Six and a half.’ To even be recognized on the same level as the major publishing houses is an amazing feat. We couldn’t be more proud,” added Billingsley, BGB Founder, and Chief Executive Officer. “While starting this company was monumental, our success is based on the fact that we approach the publishing relationship as a partnership, and as authors, we respect the craft of writing, so we only publish quality books.” That commitment to quality is why BGB has accomplished so much in the past two years. Among their accomplishments: Secured a Distribution deal with a top company, that usually does not work with small publishers. Published 24 titles, with 22 more coming in 2016. Had one of those books, Momma Gone, secure an NAACP Image Award nomination. Had several titles secure Awards and Nominations (Twist, Easier Said Than Done, Catfish, Momma Gone, Pink & Patent Leather, The Perfect Present, Touched By An Angel, Payday, The Dating Game) Had several titles chosen for Amazon and Kobo specials (something also reserved for larger publishers) Started four additional imprints: Brown Girls Faith (Christian Fiction line), Jacquelin Thomas Presents (Mentoring Line), Enchantment (Romance line), and Brown Girls Kids/Brown Girls Teens, a division of titles written for young people by young people. Secured an unprecedented movie deal for several of our titles. Started a mentoring program where we partner with up and coming authors to pen novellas. Given dozens of aspiring writers the opportunity to break into publishing with our successful anthologies. And so much more! “Of course we are so excited about where we’ve been, but we are even more thrilled about where we’re going,” said BGB Chief Executive Officer, Jaquelin Thomas, who joined the company as partner in 2015. “We have some great things in store, stories by authors such as Patty King, the daughter of BB King, Chick Lit darling, Tia Williams has an amazing book called The Perfect Find, popular romance author Donna Hill is bringing back one of her out of print titles, and so much more. We are definitely going to continue our mantra of bringing readers the best in books!” To learn more about BGB, visit www.BrownGirlsBooks.com. ### Brown Girls Books is well represented on AALBC.com, many of the titles are AALBC.com bestselling books. One of the shining stars in the Black Book Ecosystem!

Someone sent me an alert about this message, which is how I came to read it again. It is hard to image that I even posted this. I know it was over 6 years ago, but I have so little interest in anything Kanye says that it is amazing that I ever did.

Cynique, you and I both know Ebony and the Defender are a shell of what they once were. Is this a good thing or a bad thing for the people of Chicago? I'm not going to suggest that Bob Johnson was a conscious Brother. But I do know that before BET launched you could not find a Black music video on TV. Even as BET ultimately began broadcasting hours of gansta rap they did also have a few hours of valuable news. BET's presence was certainly better than nothing, which is what we had at the time. Of course we are better off with Oprah and Perry. Forget the movies do you know how many jobs Perry is responsible for creating? Johnson is late to the game. People are already ditching their set-top box and paying content providers directly for content or streaming it for free. What we should be fighting for is making internet access a utility. Far too many poor people, school age children in particular, are at a disadvantage because they lack access

Whoa... hold on Xeon, you know I love your intellect, but if you gonna go at my man Harry, you gotta come through me first

Kunjufu's original sir name was Brown as far as I can tell. He changed his name, like many people from his era. I appreciate growing up in a ghetto may have given me a very different perspective than most. Many of the dysfunctional Black people folks like to blame for their own ills I actually know and live with. As a result, I also know that the dysfunction we see is not the cause of Black people ills but the RESULT of the conditions we are forced to live under. But don,t get me wrong. Anyone who has been here more than 5 seconds know I'm constantly calling out Black folks for actions that hurt the community. But I will not blame the victims for the root cause of the problem, which stems from an economic system entrenched with white racism. So yes we have to work to stop Black folks from shooting each other, but we also have to deal with the institutions who set up the conditions where this type of behavior flourishes. We have to deal with both. Believing white racism is not a problem guarantees the ills in the Black community will persist.

"Race" is such a problematic term. White men make up a term solely for the purpose of subjugating a group of people, and despite the fact that we know it has no basis in science. We are sadly saddled with the term and forced to reconcile in ways that make little sense. Cynique, why does the artist's so called race make a difference? How does his race help you. What additional information does his race provide, how it help you appreciate his art? I'm not trying to judge how you perceive the art, I just want to better understand it.

Sounds like a plan. I'll reach out to the organizers.

17th Day of ‪#‎BlackHistoryMonth‬ 2/17/16 Thousands of Readers Choose Their Favorite 100 Books from of the 20th Century

Cynique in this context I'm talking about media consumption, who produces it, who profits, how the consumer (Black folks benefit). We are all consumers, and a small percentage are also producers. Sure producers stand to benefit financially, but if they care about the consumer, the consumer will benefit in many ways too. They will benefit from content that serves them, they can even benefit from employment by the producer, I can go on an on. In today's world media production is coalescing into the hand of a few multinational corporations not only don't care about us but don't like us. Who else would publish a book, for your children where a grown black man is skurrying about the kitchen to make a cake for his slavemaster, the "father" of our country. In the book world most of the top selling Black books aren't even owned by Americans. There is not one Black owned publisher that can produce a book that will Black people will support, in the same way that they support a book from Spiegel and Grau published title. So yes, if they were more Black media, the average Black person would benefit. In fact all you have to do is look at what we have lost over the last 20 years. The following cartoon was published in the NY Post, a major newspaper, in one of the world's great cities, New York City. The paper is owned by Rupert Murdoch who owns more media properties than I can count including HarperCollins one of the planet's largest publishers. Murdoch has used his newspaper to advance his businesses. Do you think he give a crap about Black people, poor people...

Piggy backing off another event is a good idea, that would also increase participation. There is an event in Charlotte I've been meaning to attend (I helped in the initial organization but never actually attended the fair. Maybe I can set something up then. It not on my list of event http://aalbc.com/events because they have not set and date for this years fair: http://www.charlotteliteraryfestival.org/

Well done! Thanks for sharing this book here Daryl. Did you know you slaves with Swag was an AALBC.com bestseller? http://aalbc.com/books/bookinfo.php?isbn13=9780978786212 I have not migrated most of the site's content to the new format yet, but I compete yours on the next update.

While it was not my observation regarding the ownership of media outlets Sara, I do wholeheartedly agree with the idea. Of course the the notion that we "...move from being a race of consumers to one that produces..." is predicated up the fact they we do not produce, nor control the production of wheat we consume, so I'm 100% in line with that idea.

This audio interview was done in 2009. Ishmael saw into the future better than Nostradamus. But it is very frustrating to listen to this because while Ishmael is speaking the truth his behavior, particularly on Facebook, goes directly counter to what he is saying here. He is making Marky Z rich, as the saying goes... I just don't get it. I have invited him to comment here on occasion as well, but he never has. Of course it is terribly difficult to pull people off Facebook, so that does not make Ishmael unusual, but I don't expect usual behavior from a man of his intellect. We need him engaging on Black owned platforms.

Thanks for taking the time to reply here Michael. I had not considered the possibility that the message introduced that way would carry more weight with other white folks. Still, I think introducing your art with your race is unnecessary. We know there are righteous white folks; that goes without saying. Your imagery is powerful and your race is incidental unless you chose to make it otherwise.

Yeah coordination something like this would take effort. Let me see if I can get say 20 people together in a hotel in somewhere where we can connect on a personal level and hash out some ideas. I think southern VA maybe NC would be more central and definitely cheaper than NY or DC. It does not have to be a destination location. It could be like a writers retreat, the less distractions the better.

Black Issues Book Review was the only large circulation magazine devoted to books written by black authors. I talk about this magazine often. William Cox had sold it to the Brother that runs Target Market News, Ken Smikle. It is curious Ken does not mention this on his website's biography. At any rate by the time the magazine died, the surge in attention paid to Black books was already in run downswing. There are some indications that the pendulum is beginning to swing back as there seems to be renewed interest in Black books. 15 days down 351 to go :-)

It was interesting that the artist led with “I'm a white artist...” I'm not sure what his intent was when he provided that information. Was I supposed be more impressed? Was it done to preempt any negative reaction were I to discover his whiteness later? If I were white, I would he have used the same introduction? Obviously he shares his art with Black people who fight racism, but does he share it with the white racist who actually need it to hear the message? I did invite the artist to comment on his work here, perhaps those questions would be answered. I chose to use, Michael D’Antouno’s tactic to introduce his work here. In today's racist culture, perhaps it is salacious enough to attract attention to his message In any event the art speaks for itself.

I decided today to add all major book events, not just Black ones, that I could find to my Book events listing. I think it one of a kind. There are plenty of places that lists book events, but none also list Black events. My list includes book and literary festivals from across the country. Have about 100 in in my database, some have already occurred, and others have not posted there 2016 data, so they are not showing, but right now I have 75 events listed. Check out the list at http://aalbc.com/events/ I plan to provide a list suitable for printing, but I'm looking for some feedback on what I've done so far. Also, am I missing any important events? Let me know what you y'all think. Also take a look at the participating authors at these events. What conclusions can you draw? Occassionaly some well meaning white person will ask me some variation of the following; "If there was an event that was called the National White Book Festival, that would be considered racist, but you all can have a Nation Black Book Fair, why isn't that racist?" Again, let me know what you all think.

OK It must be getting late I read the article twice and completely missed the methodology so prominently placed at the end of the article I'll look at this again tomorrow. I will say any data collected at an Essence Festival would be VERY biased. Have you ever been to an Essence Festival? LOL!

200 hours is more time than someone working 40 hours a week would spend on their job. There are many homes I visit where the TV is playing and no one is watching it. I know a lot of people who sleep with the TV on--one lady I talked to about this needs the TV on to fall asleep. Some people still keep TV's one to even when they are not home to give potential burglars the impression someone is home. This is purely anecdotal of course, but since Nielsen no longer hands out surveys I presume they are collecting the data by monitoring our viewing habits which is data that is easily obtained now that we all use view TV broadcasts over some digital network. The article did not discuss the methodology used to collect the information. I suspect what Nielsen is capturing is a cultural bias, where Black folk happen to have the TVs on longer, and not being watched, so the perspection is we are watching them longer. As far as smart phone usage is concerned that makes sense because for many Black folks the cell phone is there only form of Internet access. We don't talk about it much any more but there are A LOT of Black people who don't have PC's or laptops at home, and their cell phone is their primary method for access the internet. Which may explain why Black folks disproportionately use Twitter. The stats about newspapers readership baffles me. I subscribe to newspapers and read them, but I don't know very many other people who do. They read, but it is typically online...

Where is the midpoint between ATL, NYC and Memphis? We should host an conference, a real roll-up the sleeves combine to hash some of these issues out. We all know an least two who would be interested in doing this maybe we get the ball really rolling. I've been part of similar efforts that went no where, but Mel is fired up and Chris is not too jaded yet :-) I think our group we can actually make something happen. Over the long term. Maybe over the Summer? What do you think?