Troy

Hey Richard thanks for your comments. I read your Blog post. You, like John, seem to be interested in creating authentic characters. If you do this well, where is the justification to complain? Much of the controversy surrounding books like <strong>The Help</strong> have to do with characters whom some feel were not authentic (read related article), propagating stereo types for monetary gain when continue to marginalize a group of people in the mass media. Further, when these insensitive stories are published while overlooking work from Black writers, with more accurate portrayal of characters, then people get really bent out of shape. But it is a new day. Anyone can publish a book or make a film.

Here is a link to a chapter from John's book. http://www-personal.umich.edu/~jvr/braverdeeds.com/BraverDeedsChapter1.pdf (from his website). I'll print it out and let you know what I think. John, thanks for sharing information about your book here. Peace

Cyrstal I just finished reading the editorial. It sounds like Carey's arguement: It is founded on several flawed assumptions: There is a grand consipiracy to make Obama look bad including paying off the Cornel West to bad mouth the President Obama shoud be supported based upon what he says he is going to do versus what he has actually done Critics of Obama are just bad people and are in not way justified for their opinions. Only Obama supported care about the poor At the end of the day we can never truely know Pres. Obama's motivations and more than we can know Dr. West's motivations. What we do know however is that Obama had a very difficult, perhaps impossible job and I'm not convinced he is that man for it. I also don't know who would be a better chose. This alone is Obama's saving grace regarding his reelection.

Black colleges were funded a number of sources including white philathropists. Black Wall street was created by Black people. I don't expect an answer from you boitumelo, but I'll pose the question anyway: If each Black person gave a dollar, who or what entity would get that money? More importantly, what do you suppose the recipients of $37MM dollars a year would do with it?

Is this what ABC News is reduced to reporting on? Pathetic.

Hey Cyrstal, I feely admit I voted for Barack Obama soley because he was Black. If you truly believe in the political process it really is an assinine reason to select the President, but I cast my vote for all of the reasons that you mentioned. You can read my comments from 4 1/2 years ago here: http://aalbc.it/obama2007 I even called other Black people who did not want to see a Black man in the white house "self-hating negroes". I could not understand why people would not be willing to give the first electable Brother a chance -- especially after George Bush -- how bad could Obama be in comparison? Carey, your quote is best summarized by the following: . This assumes that someone is planning the whole thing out. Carey what we are seeing is just a result of greed, and bad decisions, not some grand strategy. I'm not Cynqiue, but she has been pretty consistent in her impressions about Obama, and I find myself agreeing more and more overtime. Over 4 years ago called Cynique and anyone unwilling to vote for Obama a self-hating negro. Today I have to aologize to Cynique and everyone else -- sorry Cynique. Any Black person who chooses not to vote for Obama, or not to vote at all. I may not agree, but I understand.

A few recently published non-fiction book reviews I Hate Muscular Dystrophy: Loving a Child with a Life-Altering Disease http://aalbc.it/ihatemd Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention By Manning Marable http://aalbc.it/malcolmbio The Chitlin’ Circuit and the Road to Rock ‘n’ Roll by Preston Lauterbach http://aalbc.it/chitlin Celebritize Yourself: The Three-Step Method to Increase Your Visibility and Explode Your Business by Marsha Friedman http://aalbc.it/celebritize

Carey I read the letter and it is interesting. The letter completely ingores all the reasons why The Congressional Black Congress and other Black people might not be too happy right about now. That really is the bottom line. You can't see why support for the current administration (the whole political process really) might be wavering? You can't see that even though we have a Black man in the white house that business is as usual? Joan gives Obama an awful lot of credit for perceived positives (health care without a public option), while conveniently blaming others or ignoring all the bad shit that is going down today. The writer is clearly a rabid Obama supporter and not one easily convinced with what it happening right before her eyes. Look Obama was voted into office with effectively zero record and a gift of gab. This time his gift of gab will be confronted with his record. If literarlly millions of white people loose their homes incurring the collateral damage of bad credit, embrassment, depression, stress, etc and Obama gives the companies responsible for their misery trillions of dollars. Who do you think they will blame? It millions of white people have lost their jobs and are rapidly becoming unemployable who do you think will take the heat -- deserved or not? Yeah the president is the president of ALL the people. The CBC, Smiley & West are the least of his problems.

Yes ad placement is a big factor Carey. Running the pink ad on the AALBC.com website is rather redundant (yes I did do that). And running the blue an on an wehere people likely to be interested in AALBC.com's content would be fruitless (I don't think I've done that).

Cynique almost two years ago I visited several African countries the most suprising thing was how much African's adhered to Eurocentric standards, much more so than the Black folks here. In Nigeria, for examle, virtually every Black woman had straightened hair or wore a wig to mimic such. Lightening creams were readily available in stores. In the corporate enviroment everyone wore suits with ties -- in 90 degree temperatures. Even on Wall Street professional employees dress down. This in a "racially" homogenous nation of 40 million + Black people. Fortunately I did not see a McDonalds... Kola will have an answer I'm sure but it all stems from imperialism as eveidenced from my observations about.

Lucky Lois, I've actually started the process of following your suggestion. I'm having 3 identical ads created. The only difference will be the model. One will be (for lack of better terms) "light skinned", the 2nd will be "brown skinned" and 3rd will be dark skinned. For a total of three ads soliciting people to advertise on AALBC.com. I will do the same, creating three ads, targeting readers to visit AALBC.com. Those ads will run on other sites. Someone off-line someone indicated that the model on the left is not dark skinned at all. At first I was a little taken aback, but ultimately had to agree. I guess it exposed by own bias Hence the addition of the "dark skinned" model. Yeah Kola the entire media does setup unrelaistic expectations -- espeically for women. Photos are touched up to brighten teeth, the whites of eyes, to even out and lighten skin tone, remove marks, etc. Essence magazine is a master at this type of photo enhancement (manipulation). So they will have a bazillion covers of a retouched Beyonnce before you see a single unretouched photo of say an Ursula Burns on the. Carey, as you can see some people already answered the question as posed. I'm not sure what you are missing, but it is not that deep. This is not a scientifc study -- just something I thought would be "fun and interesting". I will publish the results of the more rigous experiment shortly. In the meantime the discussion is useful -- like the relevations that the sister on the left is not "dark", and Cynique's belief that the Brown Skinned beauties reign supreme.

Hey KPCBookDiva, yeah I knew the quiz was flawed on that aspect but the impressions are still very useful. Ideally, I would have both models in both types of ads for a better test. I will actually run this type of test in the near future by running it all 4 in live ads. Thanks for your thoughts I'll post the answer after labor day.

Hey y'all check out this one question poll: http://aalbc.it/darklighttest Cynique sure those anecdotal stories were indeed heart wrenching and as you seem to suggest the issues are far more complex and nuanced. And of course are not universal. Cynique do you mean "Golden Brown" like Zoe "Hubba Hubba" Saladana? Zoe would be foine in any complexion white, brown, blue... My daughters "Golden Brown" I suspect most of their partnership issues will be more impacted by class more than complexion.

Let me know which banner ad below is consistently clicked most frequently and why. One of the banners below, after hundreds of thousands of impressions over the years, is clicked three times as many times at the other. Now I know the banners target different people (potential advertisers vs. readers), but I thought it might be a fun and intersting exercise anyway

Kola I don't know what you mean by "You don't meet the MAJORITY of black men in America". Are you suggesting the majoirty of men are like that sad "Brother" at the 4:36 minute mark of Dark Girls? If that is the case, playing devils advocate for a second, have YOU met the majority of Black men? Do you think that Brother is in the majority? Carey, wow you ran into Deesha on line. I met her in person a couple of years ago. Funny I have not really heard from here since. I plan to reach out to the old posters If can manage to pull email address of the old board.

Let Me Take You Back, Envision In Your Mind. Long Ago, Southern Woods, In The Distance, The Devil And His Demons, Their Evil Voices Echoes. By The Moonlight, Upon The Ground, A Hanged Black Man's Shadow.. Drug Gangs, Street Gangs, Would Their Black Community Violence End. If They Really Looked At Pictures Of Hanged Black Men. They Would Hang One Black Man, Sometimes Together 2 Or 3. Naked Black Men Swaying Back And Forth By The Southern Night Breeze.. Street Gangs, They Could Spiritually Travel Back In Time Understanding Where Black People Have Been.. If They Really Looked At Pictures Of Hanged Black Men.... Some Black Men Were Burned Alive Before They Were Hung. Celebrating, No Doubt, Songs By The Devil, Were Sung... Would Street Gang Violence End, And Black Unity Begin. If They Really Looked At Pictures Of Hanged Black Men...

The trailer for Dear Daddy was actually hard to watch, so very sad. Too many Black girls (children really) are raised without their fathers. Dark Skin definitely struck a chord with the women I talked to about it – and I can see why. I wonder where they got homeboy (see 4:36 mark) from. In the circles I roll in I never hear a guy talk like this – maybe they are too smart to admit it…

Dear Daddy is a feature length documentary about the life long effects of fatherlessness on women. The film follows the dramatic journeys of eight young women from the tough city streets of Washington,DC as they struggle to overcome poverty, poor educational systems, no healthcare, and the most difficult life circumstance they have been dealt... the absence of their fathers. More information about Dear Daddy Dark Girls is the upcoming documentary exploring the deep-seated biases and attitudes about skin color---particularly dark skinned women, outside of and within the Black American culture. More information about Dark Girls

Carey, Obama betta reveal those hold cards and soon. The mid term elections were a a complete disaster for the Dems. And now the CBC seems poised to bail.

Xeon, I'm sorry to read about your mom's passing but happy that you had such a great relationship with her. That positive and deep relationship may be more rare than you think. You were blessed. Often smart, successful people only socialize, work and live with other smart and successful; this is natural. However these folks tend to have a distorted world view; for the majority of people in this country are not smart and successful; most are struggling to make ends meet. Most don't have passports nor the luxury of time and money to travel to distant lands and indulge their intellectual curiosities. In fact most people don’t have the ability to construct the sentences that you all do so effortlessly on this discussion board I say all this to say that when Kola says, this does not come as no surprise to me. Xeon, while you may live in an environment where Black men and women get married and have children, love and nourish them until them are grown. The vast majority of Black mothers do not experience this. This is an unfortunate reality and is supported by data. But you already know this, right? I would not equate West marrying a white woman to that of Douglas, they were from different times. Douglas was half white. I also suspect the prospect of Douglas finding an eligible Sister of his caliber was very slim.... I have to be honest when I discovered West was married 4 times, unsuccessfully, I like most people relate it back to my own experiences and can’t understand it. Sure marriage is not easy but surely someone as smart as West would figure it out after a few times. Tavis has never been married or raised a family. Obama clearly has a remarkably stable marriage – one that withstood intense scrutiny by folks who look REALLY hard to find some dirt. Few marriages including my own of almost 21 years could withstand that... If you want to evaluate these Brothers based upon character; my gut tells me Obama is probably stronger in that department than either Smiley are West. But that is beside the point. Smiley and West have a valid argument. West has been consistent for years. He was said we need to make sure Obama is accountable to the poor and working class – even when West was on Obama’s campaign trail. Xeon, I’m honestly at a lost to understand how you can say First Black people do not benefit from “Attempted” legislation. We can only evaluate Obama on results. Obama's actual legislation benefited big business. The data does not support any improvements for the majority of us. On every quantifiable level the working class and poor, which includes the majority of Black folk are worse off. Now we can debate over Obama’s motivations and feelings, but we can only evaluate him on this results. This is why his speeches won’t mean a lot in the up coming election. Voters now are forced to evelaute the man on what he has done.

Carey, "It's one big game" - and on so many levels. I do not think Obama's month will carry him as far as it did to get him elected. People will now include his actions as part of the equation for the next presidential election -- something I don't think many people did the first time around. The hall that “Hope” and “Yes we can” stuff will fall flat – especially to the working class. Maxine Waters really summed it up regarding Obama; "We're supportive of the president, but we're getting tired." Check out this video. Whether we like it or not many people voted for Obama because he was Black. There will be much less urgency for people to do the same for the next election. Obama’s biggest advantage is that he is a sitting president and the opposition have not asserted a strong candidate. Obama will have a very tough time getting re-elected and the reason will not be Smiley and West.

Cynique after seeing the movie do you undertand why some folks are all riled up over it? Nowadays your mom could have parlayed that connection into a nice intership while you were in HS and a fat job after college :-) Carey did you have a good copy? I'll eventually check out The Help when it becomes available on Netflix it (I guess it will be available within the year).

Happy Birthday Cynique. You know how I feel.

I guess time will tell what S&W real motivations are... Yeah the new format is more intuitive. I also disabled some of the lessor used functions like the image gallery. I'm going to reach out to some of the old posters and see if they will check it out the new format. I visited the old board the other day: http://www.thumperscorner.com/discus to pull email addresses and the board was down -- cause of 10,000 new accounts -- all spammers (somethings never change).

Boitumelo, I relocated this post from the Poets Discussion Board it is more appropriate for this board. I will relocate these as time permits but it is more likely that I will just delete posts which are completely off topic from forum's focus. Also you should your posts would easier to read it you did not use all caps and broke them up into paragraphs. What percentage of the Black population do you think falls into the catergory you've described above?