Troy

Cynique, are saying you used to see Fred Hampton around the neighborhood? Sure we tend to romanticize the Panthers, Malcolm, and Martin. One day I'm sure Black people will wax poetically about the Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, this is natural. Still, Hampton was only 21 when the government murdered him--younger than my youngest child. One can't help but be impressed and admire the impact he had on his people in his short life. Imagine if he'd lived as long as MLK, Who know what the Panthers could have accomplished? Throwing over the government, no I'd agree this would not be realistic, or even desirable if you ask me. But given time the Fred and the BPP could have achieved some of the goals on their 10 Point Program, which would have benefited us all. Frederick Douglass wrote; “Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.” The Panthers, helped change what we would take. They were brave enough to stand up to opposition. Perhaps if they understood how brutal the government reaction would be they would have adopted different tactics. The BPP is worth remember the stood up a tried to did something to improve things Today we bend over and apply the vaseline ourselves.

Hi Shawneda, these sound like really good ideas. Do you have ideas on how to execute this? Please start a new conversation, specific to this topic, in this forum, so that we can focus more on this idea. Thanks for taking the time to share this idea.

Oh yeah, I just looked at the stats for my CoPromoted Beverly Johnson Tweet for her new book. CoPromote got 6 Retweet. I'd only gotta 2 on my own. So while the numbers are small that is still a 400% increase. I looked at all of the accounts that retweeted my post. None of them have as many followers as I have. I feel like I'm helping them more than they are helping me. Also, more importantly, I looked at the number of clicks to my site from Twitter. There were just two and they were both on August 27, the day I originally sent the tweet. The Copromoted retweets resulted in no click throughs to my website. Now that I was able to isolate the impact of Copromote, from my effort, I have a better picture of CoPromote's impact. Click throughs, my goal, may not be generated as a result of using coPromote. I'll experiment a bit more, but the lack of clicks is probably a function of the Retweeters not be closely allied/aligned with my brand--they are just retweeting to get credits, so folks will retweet them..

DC is day trip distance for me. Did you get to do U Street, or just the museums and monuments? They have some great bookstores I'd be willing to bet money Politics and Prose had an authors event worth going to when you were there. How did you and your family enjoy the city? Oh I did not know that about Twitter. I bet they implemented that rule to prevent people from growing their followers artificially. People use to run programs to follow a bunch of people (you could definite criteria), in an automatic fashion. The assumption was that a percentage of people would follow you back. Then the app would circle back and unfollow those that did not follow you back. If you ever see someone with SAY, 20K followers and they are also following 20K people this usually is an indicator that they've used that tactic. NEVER buy followers they are all bugs accounts and of no value. Some, especially in publishing, are dumb enough to believe that if you have a bunch of followers in Twitter that must mean you also have a platform. People are easily fooled by this, so I understand while people buy followers. I follow less than 200 people, which is why I always miss the "Black Twitter" action, always learning about it in the mainstream media.

David Hilliard the executive director of The Dr. Huey P. Newton Foundation, founding member of the BPP, chief of staff and leader of the Party during the time Huey and Bobby Seale were incarcerated says, "The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution is not the story of the BPP, like many other academic and mainstream media interpretations of the Black Panther Party it is an inaccurate, external description of the BPP and it’s legacy." http://aalbc.it/bppreaction

Dr. Huey P. Newton Foundation 1015 Amador Street, P.O. Box 4423 Vallejo, CA 94590 September 4, 2015 I am David Hilliard the executive director of The Dr. Huey P. Newton Foundation. I’m compelled to inform the public of the Foundation’s perspective on the PBS documentary film, The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution. The filmmaker, Stanley Nelson identifies the film as the rise and fall of the Black Panther Party (BPP). Huey P. Newton was the leader and standard-bearer of the BPP. The film was made without input or consultations with The Dr. Huey P. Newton Foundation. I was a founding member of the BPP, chief of staff and leader of the Party during the time Huey and Bobby Seale were incarcerated. Huey's brother, Melvin Newton and my brother, Roosevelt Junebug Hilliard were also founding members. None of us are in the film. Bobby Seale is not in the film. The filmmakers did approach the Foundation about the project. I requested a copy of the treatment and was informed that they did not have one. Films do not get funded without a treatment. The film besmirches the memory and legacy of Huey P. Newton and inaccurately casts Kathleen Cleaver, the wife of Eldridge Cleaver as a principal storyteller and an essential member of the BPP. The historical record will reveal that Kathleen and her late husband were associated with the BPP for approximately one year and did as much or more to destroy the BPP than the COINTELPRO operations. The Dr. Huey P. Newton Foundation does not support this film. Elaine Brown, a former leader of the Black Panther Party has also expressed her displeasure with it. I agree with and support her analysis. The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution is not the story of the BPP, like many other academic and mainstream media interpretations of the Black Panther Party it is an inaccurate, external description of the BPP and it’s legacy. ### It is also worth reading this interview with Dante James, who worked with David Hilliard on a film project for Huey Newton: http://aalbc.com/reviews/dante-james.html

You know I find myself reading articles (online) from the Guardian than perhaps any other publication. They write from a less parochial perspective. I left this comment on the website: The subject reminds me of a poem Ben Okri wrote, "10 ½ Intonations" in it he explains the we must read outside our race, our culture and our class. Sure a good writer can, indeed must write in the same way.

'Black characters are still revolutionary’: writers talk about the complexity of race The Guardian: Friday 4 September 2015 08.00 EDT Tracey M Lewis-Giggetts interviews; Tananarive Due, Bernice McFadden, and Jeffrey Renard Allen who answer the question: are non-white authors bound to the race narrative? I grew up with African American literature. My parents hustled and jived to the poetry of Amiri Baraka and Nikki Giovanni, and my grandparents were captivated by the astuteness of James Baldwin, Zora Neale Hurston, Richard Wright and Langston Hughes. I absorbed all of it. These black literary giants drove the social commentary of their day, using their creative works as the vehicle. It’s not by accident that their writing is considered to be major work of American literature: their characters are trapped by the racist atmosphere in which they live, a context specific to the US. Yet despite feeling empowered by these books, I often wonder if literature written by black authors, in order to be considered successful or even “good”, must address the social ills of the day. As black writers, are we bound to the race narrative? Many prominent thinkers in black literary criticism think so. (Read the full article)

Hey Chris I'm not sure what you mean by being prevented from following people. Unless something changed you can follow anyone you want, unless that person prevents you from doing so, and that is (or at least was) not based on the number of people you follow. I don't really get Twitter either. I mean I understand intellectually, it simply does not appeal to me. If Twitter disappeared tomorrow I would not miss it at all. Back in January 2014 I wrote an article "Author's Don't Need Twitter," which I'm considering revisiting in the near future. Again I use it simply use it to attract a few visitors each day and to increase brand awareness. Since I don't engage directly very much, and most of my tweets, are automated it is tiny investment of time. Using CoPromote might increase the effectiveness of my Twitter investment--we'll see.

The Kickstarter Campaign for Dante's film was unsuccessful, raising less that 10% of the $40,000 goal. It does not appear that the film was ever made. I found the following video on Dante's Page There is a new documentary film about the Black Panthers, The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution.

Yeah to heck with woman and children first. Maybe it should just be, "Rich White Men LIves Matter Most."

KMill, what vendor did you use to publish your book? I see that you are on all the major online vendor sites.

If you know me, you know I'm always going on about how we must help each other expand our reach. This week I saw a Twitter ad for a company called CoPromote (If you use this link to sign up: http://aalbc.it/COPROMOTE, I'll get more credits for sharing) Basically what they have done is formalize the sharing process; they identify content you'd like to share. You share the content and in return others share your content. Now you don't need a 3rd party to do this. In fact Chris and I do this daily, as a matter of course, but this company provides the resources to help you more easily measure the effectiveness of those shares. There is a fee based version of CoPromote. I've only tested the free version, but like what I see so far. Below is a screenshot from CoPromote showing their impact on a Tweet I submitted for sharing. Now this is by no means a viral tweet, but CoPromote was responsible for 10 of the 16 Retweets this tweet got. This substantially increases my reach because I'm being retweeted my by more aggressive marketers who usually have a larger audience. Also of the remaining 6 ReTweets 2 of those belong to accounts I own, so in reality I earned 4 organic RT's and 16 through CoPromote. Note CoPromote does not update in realtime so the % increase is not 1,000% it is 400% (not counting the RTs from other accounts I own) I also like the way they showed you who RT the post via CoPromote (screenshot below). These might be good people to follow or network with further: I care more about clicks to my website than I do about engagement on Twitter. According to Twitter (screenshot below), this tweet has gotten 6 link clicks so far. Which is a good number of visitors for a single tweet. Now this Tweet was not my most popular recent tweet (see screenshot below). But it does have the highest engagement rate per impression. I don't know how many of the clicks to my site were a result of the CoPromoted shares (CoPromote does not have this data), but I have to believe there was some impact. I'm going to CoPromote my Beverly Johnson Tweet; since it is a week old I can attribute any additional ReTweets to CoPromote. It is worth noting here that 4 of the 6 tweets below were generated by a bot that tweets on my behalf. I did manually tweet the Black Panther tweet (the one I boosted with CoPromote), and the Beverly Johnson tweet. Beverly (or her team) liked The Tweet, so that probably helped the impressions. The Beverly Johnson tweet performed relatively well across all my social platforms, but celebrity related content generally outperforms other content of the same nature. Finally, you can also promote YouTube Videos and Tumblr Posts. Again, is you choose to sign up use this account: http://aalbc.it/COPROMOTE Once you sigtn up you can get your on link to get morte sharing on you account.

Hi KMill welcome. Keep in mind you (anyone reading this message) can, and should, post your book covers and a link to your website. Here is a link I created for you: http://aalbc.it/sweetjessamine it point to our new website; which I plan to launch next year.

I know I'm jaded because I saw The Black Code below and wanted to laugh. One would think it unnecessary to have to write down rules that we should not go around killing and robbing each other but it is seemingly so far from the what we observe, that is it indeed laughable, and sad. I did a quick search to find the source of this... I guess you could call it a meme, as that is about how seriously the codes listed would be taken, but I could not find one. However reading this made me think about the Black Panther's Ten-Point Plan which addresses not the victim but the victimizers. But this really is not an either or proposition, we have to do both- deal with our oppressors AND deal with our own anti-social mentality. The Ten-Point Program We Want Freedom. We Want Power To Determine The Destiny Of Our Black Community.We believe that Black people will not be free until we are able to determine our destiny. We Want Full Employment For Our People.We believe that the federal government is responsible and obligated to give every man employment or a guaranteed income. We believe that if the White American businessmen will not give full employment, then the means of production should be taken from the businessmen and placed in the community so that the people of the community can organize and employ all of its people and give a high standard of living. We Want An End To The Robbery By The Capitalists Of Our Black Community.We believe that this racist government has robbed us, and now we are demanding the overdue debt of forty acres and two mules. Forty acres and two mules were promised 100 years ago as restitution for slave labor and mass murder of Black people. We will accept the payment in currency which will be distributed to our many communities. The Germans are now aiding the Jews in Israel for the genocide of the Jewish people. The Germans murdered six million Jews. The American racist has taken part in the slaughter of over fifty million Black people; therefore, we feel that this is a modest demand that we make. We Want Decent Housing Fit For The Shelter Of Human Beings.We believe that if the White Landlords will not give decent housing to our Black community, then the housing and the land should be made into cooperatives so that our community, with government aid, can build and make decent housing for its people. We Want Education For Our People That Exposes The True Nature Of This Decadent American Society. We Want Education That Teaches Us Our True History And Our Role In The Present-Day Society.We believe in an educational system that will give to our people a knowledge of self. If a man does not have knowledge of himself and his position in society and the world, then he has little chance to relate to anything else. We Want All Black Men To Be Exempt From Military Service.We believe that Black people should not be forced to fight in the military service to defend a racist government that does not protect us. We will not fight and kill other people of color in the world who, like Black people, are being victimized by the White racist government of America. We will protect ourselves from the force and violence of the racist police and the racist military, by whatever means necessary. We Want An Immediate End To Police Brutality And Murder Of Black People.We believe we can end police brutality in our Black community by organizing Black self-defense groups that are dedicated to defending our Black community from racist police oppression and brutality. The Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States gives a right to bear arms. We therefore believe that all Black people should arm themselves for self- defense. We Want Freedom For All Black Men Held In Federal, State, County And City Prisons And Jails.We believe that all Black people should be released from the many jails and prisons because they have not received a fair and impartial trial. We Want All Black People When Brought To Trial To Be Tried In Court By A Jury Of Their Peer Group Or People From Their Black Communities, As Defined By The Constitution Of The United States.We believe that the courts should follow the United States Constitution so that Black people will receive fair trials. The Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution gives a man a right to be tried by his peer group. A peer is a person from a similar economic, social, religious, geographical, environmental, historical and racial background. To do this the court will be forced to select a jury from the Black community from which the Black defendant came. We have been, and are being, tried by all-White juries that have no understanding of the "average reasoning man" of the Black community. We Want Land, Bread, Housing, Education, Clothing, Justice And Peace.When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume, among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and nature's God entitle them, a decent respect of the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and, accordingly, all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But, when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. This was written by Huey P. Newton in October 15, 1966 and can be found in his book War Against the Panthers, which was published by Writers and Readers Cooperative a copy run by a Brother who embodied all of the above, Glenn Thompson . As far as the title of this post, "22 Weird Tricks to Fix Black America with No Effort," I just poking fun at the click bait techniques websites use to get traffic.

This would be great information if people understood why this matters and why is worth trying to do something about it. The reality is even worse than these graphics show. The top 20% starts at $178K, living in NY City on that income would not put you in the lap of luxury. Indeed anyone in the bottom 60% (making less than $50K) would be struggling in NYC and living a very modest life anywhere else. Another factor distorting this issue is wealth. People like Anderson Cooper who was mentioned in the article as having an $11,000,000 annual income. But what the article failed to mention was the fact that Cooper is an heir to the Vanderbilt fortune. Cooper and his children's, children, children are set for life. One also has to consider what is an Anderson Cooper actually doing that warrants an $11 million dollar a year salary. Surely there someone else around who could do the job BETTER for just one million dollars a year. Folks like Cooper get opportunities that people, stuck on the lower three quintiles will never get. As Trump is so quick to remind us the wealthy OWN the politicians as a result they get legislation in acted which benefit the wealth and hurt the poor. My salary will be taxed for example and Anderson cooper will inherit his fortune tax free. I'd also be willing to bet when I was in the lower end of the top 20%, that I paid a much higher percentage of my salary in taxes than Anderson paid of his $11 million annual income. We all accept that the world is not fair. But I'll never understand why people are so goddamned greedy. How can people who are so extremely wealthy continue to hoard so much wealth for themselves while so many people around them are struggle just to survive. Obama promised change the people desperately desired. Maybe Bernie will make a difference.

Saving Horatio Alger: Equality, Opportunity, and the American Dream The stain of racism is a stark, depressing reminder of how far short of its founding ideals the nation still falls. Even with the legal scaffolding of American racism dismantled—and even with an African-American in the White House—black children live in the poorest neighborhoods and attend the worst schools; they have the lowest chance of graduating college, and the highest risk of incarceration. But after decades of rhetoric and reform, the American education system is failing as an engine of social mobility. The poorest children (black and white alike) receive the worst public education. Achievement gaps between poor and affluent children tend to widen, rather than narrow, during the K-12 years. Americans celebrate the Horatio Alger ideal, that all individuals can succeed by their own efforts in a level playing field, yet social mobility rates in America are now lower than those in Europe, risking America becoming an ossified, class-based society. Richard Reeves argues in this Brookings Essay that Alger is on the ropes, that the ideal of American egalitarianism is threatened by a variety of forces related to income, wealth, family structure and education. And yet the answers do not lie in the European model. Instead, Reeves argues, reviving the promise of the American Dream requires a quintessentially American solution, saving Horatio Alger. THE BROOKINGS ESSAY: In the spirit of its commitment to high-quality, independent research, the Brookings Institution has commissioned works on major topics of public policy by distinguished authors, including Brookings scholars. The Brookings Essay is a multi-platform product aimed to engage readers in open dialogue and debate. The views expressed, however, are solely those of the author. Available in ebook only. Print Length: 21 pages Publisher: Brookings Institution Press (August 20, 2014)

Aw man I wish I could make this.

WC. I'd encourage you to start an entirely new conversation and share the information directly. If you go the main page of the forums, http://aalbc.com/tc/ and click the link for entering press releases that would be the best place. I definitely use this site as a source for information to share in my eNewsletter, on the website and even by word of mouth. Readers use this site as a sources of information as well. Indeed, I'm surprised more people do not take advantage of this...

I just published a review of the new film War Room. It was the #1 grossing film this Friday, and was #2 behinding the HEAVILY promoted NWA flick for the weekend. What, never heard of War Room? Neither did I. At least not before publishing this review. I did not see a trailer. I read no social media buzz, nothing on Black Twitter (well maybe there was, but I don't follow it). I mean I did not even get a press release. Karen Hunter mentioned it on her radio show today (thank for what little Black media we do have left). If it were not for Karen I would not have known that this was a film with Black main characters and directed by a Black man! Now as I was looking for material to supplement the review I posted; I saw that critics and industry observers were "surprised" by War Room's strong (relatively speaking) showing...you know given it is an uplifting film with Black people in it--who wants to see something like that? Look at the stark contrast between the audience reaction, and critical reaction to the film, as reported by Rotten Tomatoes By contrast there was only a 5% differential between the critic's and audience's reaction to Straight Outta Compton. Also, there was 10 times the number of critics reviewing the NWA movie versus War Room. Needless to say, the vast majority of reviewers posting reviews on RT are white. This is the kind of discrepancy we see with other success Black films, like Tyler Perry flicks. Now this does not mean I'm going to rush out and go see this film? I'll wait for it to hit Netflix, if I bother to watch it at all (odds are I probably won't watch it). That however, will not stop me from helping to spread the word about this movie, because I know a ton of people who would LOVE this film; it is made for a substantial portion of my audience's demographic. It is my job to turn folks on to books and films they would enjoy that they would not discover otherwise. Unfortunately the appeal of this film is apparently something White critics can't seem to wrap their heads around. I'm not saying they are racists trying to keep a Black film down--they just don't understand the culture. So the reviews skew negative because of that cultural bias, and since we don't have Black film critics with a substantial platform, (Kam on AALBC.com does not count--at least not yet) these films can't do as well as they could at the box office.

The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution This looks like it will be really interesting, not simply a nostalgic sugar coating of the organization. Here is Kam's review. I stumbled across this film on Youtube, the person who posted it did not attribute the source I recognize the narrator's voice so it looks legitimate.

This is an email I got from a visitor to AALBC.com. Normally I can answer these questions, even if I've not read the book, just by querying the website. However in this case I think i'll need to be familiar with the book. Does anyone what book this might be? Here is the message: "I frequently visit your site when seeking new books to read. Last month I went on the site and found a book that I was very interested in reading. Unfortunately, I did not write down the title and have not been able to identify it. I was able to read a few pages of it online, so I know a little bit about it. Is there someone on your staff to whom you can forward this email to try to identify the title? Here's what I remember: A mother is explaining that a young man was drunk and drove his vehicle into her yard. She allowed him to come in her home to sleep it off. One of the odd things she mentions is that her son slept through the entire incident. It also appears that the drunk man's father is a man of importance in their town. I appreciate any help you or your staff can offer!" Thank You,

"Since fixing the "perceived problem", would involve telling people how to live their lives, this creates a dilemma." You know Cynique at the end of the day it all boils down to that. We live in a country where we basically have the liberty to do anything we want. For some this is a great blessing and very fanatically rewarding, for others it is a curse. Most of us fall into the "others" category where liberty and freedom is just an illusion--experienced virtually on social media perhaps. The problem is if we are free to do anything we are also free to be victimized by the powerful, which is why they typically are the ones who fight so hard for what they call liberty, (freedom from government control). You saw how hard these types fought to keep slavery the law of the land, to keep Black people from going to school, or from even allowing women to vote. We have so much freedom it has become politically incorrect to tell people what to do. Rules are for religious fanatics. But we need rules to define acceptable behavior--otherwise the rich and powerful, unchecked will increasingly take advantage of us. It makes me seriously consider what a Trump presidency will look like....

Dude what makes you think virtual sex is not already better than real sex? That said, social media surpassed porn on the web a year or two ago--it is a wrap my friend and I believe that is my point. BTW Del why is your avatar image broken?

I actually did my best to ignore this story, but I'm on social media and it is really difficult to filter out these types of stories. I know some will be offended by that statement; "Troy how can you be so insensitive to Black women being kicked off the train for being too loud--they could be you wife, your sister, you mother, your daughters." I know, I know, but honestly I can't get too bent out of shape about these situations. So much worse happens everyday that is completely ignored But I broke down and decided to check out one of the articles linked from Facebook and I and came across this photo. I immediately recognized at least three of the women. One is a published author, profiled here on AALBC (and she is cool people too). I had know idea this story went freaking global--the story made Al Jazeera! Honestly. it is not clear to me why this particular situation made international news.....5 minutes late....looking to figure this out..... OK I now see that the story picked up steam on Twitter #laughingwhileblack this went viral and every news outlet hopped on board, if you look at the tweets it was a feeding frenzy. How did I miss this? Easy, I post to twitter remotely and when have to use the website I have blinders on--I'm in an out. I hope something really positive comes out of this story. Apparently this is the woman who got the sisters kicked off the train.