Troy

Yep. Some of them critters are pretty robust. I saw one go through the turnstile in front of me to go into the subway. It clearly ate well it was huge and it's coat was thick and luxurious! Man, if shit goes really south New Yorkers could hunt rats for their fur and meat. Yeah, Chuck Brown was an icon.

OK, sorry @Pioneer1. I'm not trying to obnoxious; I'm just trying to make a point in terms that are crystal clear to you (didn't the smiley face help?). Again, if you believe there is a genetic test for the social construct of race, then explain how a "mulatto" who looks like a white person could be tested to determine their 50% blackness?

Wow! A true renaissance man! I remember the first time I heard Go-Go like it was yesterday, the fall of 1980. A football player, from the DMV was blasting this music in the locker room. I was like dude what is that?! They were jamming! He said "it is Go-Go cous" I was like what? what did you say? I was like damn how could I know have heard this music before. See I was from Harlem and we thought we were really the center of the universe. People would ask me where I was from and I'd say "the city." Until someone pointed out to me that there were other cities besides New York 🙂 In college I discovered, Go-Go, Jazz, Classic Rock, Bob Marley. I realized I did not know anything about music. DC was one of the cities I wanted to move to, but just never did it. I still may one day, but I'm not feeling the traffic or the weather (DC can't handle snow at all). I visited Sankofa Books (NW) a few weeks ago, and road a scooter to Bus Boys & Poets, the one off U street. I like the city, but it is clearly gentrifying. I'll post an interesting chapter form a book I started reading. @Pioneer1 yeah I lived in a townhouse in Harlem it is not as bad as the picture you shared but yeah you step out you place and you are almost in the street. Plus we put are trash right on the street in garbage bags! That seems perfectly normal until you live someone else 😉

Wind 'em up Chuck! You ever visit Mahogany Books?

Again @Pioneer1 how do you measure that? Consider the scenario: A child has parent described as follows (1) Black Parent, descendant from an enslaved African who was raped by an overseer, and a white parent. Their child presents as white. The child was reared in a white neighborhood and did the things that white kids do. Based upon everything you have written you would call this child "white" and take offense if they called themselves to be Black, simply because of the way that they looked. Should this child get reparations? Of course, your mythical genetic test would fail to pick up on the child's "blackness," because there is obviously no genetic test for a social construct -- despite the fact your "flat-earther" mentality rejects this fact. 🙂

What?! Stop it. @Pioneer1 someone in another conversation mentioned that reparations should be given to people are at 50% Black. Since you believe in a genetic basis for race would you describe how we measure the degree of one’s Blackness? What is your percentage of blackness and how did you make that determination?

Thanks @harry brown! The milestone year went largely uncelebrated, so i appreciate you!

There are more books featuring Black children than any time in history. I'm talking about new books and backlist titles still in print. The books shown in the video below is just the tip of the iceberg. Learn more about this list. I can remember a time when it was possible to know not every new Black children's book, but all of the Black children's books still in print! Right now I try to make sure all of the "good" ones are on the site. In the near future I'd like to have an exhaustive list of all the Black books ever published by a major house, whether they are in print or not. While my list does include indie books, I have no plans to collect all of these books. There are just too many, and there are technical and business challenges to gathering this information as well.

@Chevdove doing what the good professor suggested will clear up most problems. Let know how you make out.

@Delano I guess on some level, and on somethings, we all have a little "flat earther" in us. I'm sure there is nothing Neil Degrass Tyson could say to dissuade you in your belief in Astrology. Yes. What is the difference? Both people reject the observable facts, manufacture their own perspectives, seek like-minded people to reinforce the false beliefs, and reject anything that might undermine their perspective. People who believe there is a genetic basis for race are no different than Flat Earthers or antivaxxers same mentality, different subject. As I suggested earlier, our minds working this way is part of the human condition... natural.

At the risk of stating the obvious, so do I. But I also recognize when we raise our fists an exclaim "I'm Black and I'm proud!" it is as much as a reaction to white racism as it is anything else. Running this website is a reaction to white supremacy.

@Pioneer1 there is a lot to unpack here and if I thought it would make a difference, I might take more time... We already know darker skinned people in northern climates are more prone to vitamin D deficiency than lighter skinned people. It has to do with difference in exposure to the sun. We also know that people descent from farming cultures are less likely to be lactose intolerant -- it is a function of having the enzyme to break lactose down not skin color. Anecdotally, growing up I did not know a single kid who was allergic to peanuts. Peanut butter and jelly was a childhood staple. I don't know what changed. I think it is behavoral/environmental. When my kids were small it was the rich white kids suffering from peanut allergies. At one point some kid was so allergic we were asked not to send out kids to school with peanut products. Maybe this will help: You think about people in very rigid terms (i.e. Black or not Black), when in reality we are all on a spectrum when it comes to all the characteristic from lip thickness, hair texture, skin color, eye color, or any other attribute that you want to use determine race. You believe there must be some binary rule to define Blackness as if there was a Black gene, or combination of genes, that makes one Black. There isn't. Humans are far more complex and nuanced. Race exists as a social construct. The geneticists tell us there is no genetic basis for race. Why do you think you know better? None of my ancestors or descendants are allergic to peanuts, suffer from vitamin d deficiency, or are lactose intolerant. I guess we are not Black in your book.

That's easy, because these types of stories attract people and drive ad revenue. How did ya'll come to hear about this story? Unfortunately, we have already done it. By relinquishing our Black-owned media platforms we are at the mercy of "mainstream" media.

@AJ Sam would you be willing to tell us more about your Church and ministry, or share a to the Church's site?

This popped up in my email box today; the Authors Guild's Open Letter to Generative AI Leaders wants OpenAI, Alphabet, Meta, Stability AI, IBM, and Microsoft to obtain consent, credit, and fairly compensate writers for the use of copyrighted materials in training AI. Good luck with that. As long as these companies have been around, they have exploited people for their content. Meta would not exist were it not for the free user generated content they exploit and monetize. Meta has never paid writers or journalists for content -- indeed many of these folks pay Meta to get people to read the content that they post on their platforms. Don't even get me started on Alphabet, Google's Parent. Over a decade ago I wrote about how these super-wealthy companies exploited Wikipedia's content without compensating any of Wikipedia's editors. Generative AI is no different. AI just makes it far easier to take content and more difficult to attribute it. There is a better chance that the descendants of enslaved Africans will be compensated monetarily by the U.S. government than any of these companies will pay any of the 10K writers who signed the petition for the content they wrote. I like the Author's Guild, and I commend them for their intent, but this horse has been out of the barn for a loooong time. On a side note: I got an article I commissioned from a writer that I know was written by AI. There are too many tells with AI generated content (at least right now), so I sent it back to be rewritten, but I was shocked and disheartened. Here is the letter To: Sam Altman, CEO, OpenAI; Sundar Pichai, CEO, Alphabet; Mark Zuckerberg, CEO, Meta; Emad Mostaque, CEO, Stability AI; Arvind Krishna, CEO, IBM; Satya Nadella, CEO, Microsoft From: [Your Name] We, the undersigned, call your attention to the inherent injustice in exploiting our works as part of your AI systems without our consent, credit, or compensation. Generative AI technologies built on large language models owe their existence to our writings. These technologies mimic and regurgitate our language, stories, style, and ideas. Millions of copyrighted books, articles, essays, and poetry provide the “food” for AI systems, endless meals for which there has been no bill. You’re spending billions of dollars to develop AI technology. It is only fair that you compensate us for using our writings, without which AI would be banal and extremely limited. We understand that many of the books used to develop AI systems originated from notorious piracy websites. Not only does the recent Supreme Court decision in Warhol v. Goldsmith make clear that the high commerciality of your use argues against fair use, but no court would excuse copying illegally sourced works as fair use. As a result of embedding our writings in your systems, generative AI threatens to damage our profession by flooding the market with mediocre, machine-written books, stories, and journalism based on our work. In the past decade or so, authors have experienced a forty percent decline in income, and the current median income for full-time writers in 2022 was only $23,000. The introduction of AI threatens to tip the scale to make it even more difficult, if not impossible, for writers—especially young writers and voices from under-represented communities—to earn a living from their profession. We ask you, the leaders of AI, to mitigate the damage to our profession by taking the following steps: 1. Obtain permission for use of our copyrighted material in your generative AI programs. 2. Compensate writers fairly for the past and ongoing use of our works in your generative AI programs. 3. Compensate writers fairly for the use of our works in AI output, whether or not the outputs are infringing under current law. We hope you will appreciate the gravity of our concerns and that you will work with us to ensure, in the years to come, a healthy ecosystem for authors and journalists. Sincerely, The Authors Guild and the Undersigned Writers Click here to view the letter with signatures (PDF).

This sentiment is not restricted to Black folks. It is how we Americans roll.

Absolutely. As @harry brown constantly reminds us, too many churches are led by charismatic ministers who seem more concerned with lining their pockets and laying with the congregants. This is not to say there are no churches and other organizations doing meaningful work; they don’t seem to be as powerful as they once were, and they certainly don’t influence a critical mass of people to get anything done of substance or engage in any sustained activity for the betterment of our people.

Of course not. Being a "flat earther" is than just the belief, it is the way the "flat earther's" brain works. Consider my years-long effort to convince @Pioneer1 that the social construct of race is not based in genetics. There is nothing that will change his mind; it is something he chooses to believe. The flat earther simply cannot see the flaws in their reasoning, which is obvious to others. Maybe there is a medical term for this... In any event, I'm not surprised you were unable to convince the flat earther that the planet is round... technically an oblate spheroid 😉

Over the years there have been many conversations on this forum about how Black people should pool our resources, support our businesses, and control our destiny. In the past, civil right organizations lead the charge in organizing successful boycotts and getting important legislation passed. Today these organizations are a shell of what they once were -- toothless. Social media is seen by many as the modern way to mobilize Black people. I've always lamented the fact that we hitch our wagons to platforms we do not own or control and claim it as a tool to support Black people. This was always a flawed strategy. "Black Twitter" was a recent example of this. I'd go farther and say that the entire social media universe not only does not serve Black people; it is harmful to us. In the past, any organization that has shown a sign effectively mobilizing Black people from the Universal Negro Improvement Association to The Black Panther Party even the Nation of Islam, was actively undermined by our government. Obviously, our current lack of organization is not only a consequence of direct attacks against our organizations, but several hundreds of years of violent and legalized oppression. Today are we completely rudderless as a people? Who, or what organization, could initiate a Montogomery Bus Boycott today? Are we so happy today that a boycott is completely unnecessary? Which organization could do what the NAACP Legal Defense Fund did to win Brown v. Board of Education, or are we happy that "race" can no longer be used to help reverse hundreds of years of being prevented from learning to read, while benefits to white people like legacy admissions continue? If we are happy with the way things are then cool. If we are no satisfied then, who with the power to effect change, leads the Black community in 2023?

Would Black peoples actually use such a social media site? Those stores are just that, stories. both companies had and have a tremendous amount of financial backing. @richardmurray what is or should be AALBC’s “gimmick” i appreciate you all could be giving elon and mark all of your jewels. The time you spend here is the ONLY thing that keeps this part of the site viable. Of course if more Black people posted here instead of social it would be amazing. But the value proposition inadequate. this forum is not designed to hack into your brain and manipulate your level of engagement. Now there is some content here that has some aspect of what social media offers but that is purely incidental and not by design the way it is on social.

This news completely surprised me. This is what happens when you actively avoid consuming content on social media I guess. When I connected to Twitter to check on engagement (from a tweet I send out through MailChimp), I saw a flash of a big "X" and then I noticed the same Big X on the upper left had side of my screen. I hadn't even noticed the blue bird was gone. I thought it was a bug; after a quick search, only then did I learn Twitter was killed by Musk in favor of his new social media Platform "X," https://x.com. Nothing has changed. It is probably a publicity stunt (which I'm feeding into). Well if it will get Black people to consider Black-owned platforms, then it is a good thing. But I will not be surprised to see us running around celebrating our engagement on X with "Black X."

Yeah people think everything is on Google… which of course it is not. The same goes for ChatGPT, it shells out a lot of amazing answers i often use it instead of search, but it is not perfect. I’ve been using it for several weeks several hours a day and it is amazing, but as with Google you really need to know a little something about what you are searching you also need to know how to think critically otherwise you we’ll be easily misinformed. I hear you about solutions to problems, @Pioneer1, but there are indeed some problems which are intractable without real solutions and we just do the best we can anyway… perhaps that is the real solution.

Not exactly. There are epigenetic factors as well. OK, but obviously there is little agreement as you don’t consider Malcoim X or Barack Obama to be Black while others do. These racial classifications are far from objective. As @Cynique mention there are a variety of arbitrary phenotypical characteristics that white racists have used to define different races including skull shape. still your reasoning ignores the fact that there is no test for “race” — indeed there cannot be one for all the reasons mentioned and more! You ignore the science and instead cherry pick sloppy word choice in articles to make your point. Why? Does the fact that there is no genetic basis for race just throw your world view about what it means to be Black into disarray? Blackness is about culture, shared experience — one’s ethnicity — not the shape of one’s skull or the thickness of their lips. Forget about a genetic basis for race; every conclusion you derive from that premise will be wrong. We’ve seen how destructive this reasoning has been in the hands of racists over the last few hundred years. White people put millions of other so called white people in gas chambers using this logic.

Reading your last post @Pioneer1 reminded me of an episode from the Boodocks

@ProfD at the end of the day, which presidential candidate are you voting for the Republican or the the democrat? Did you vote for Trump or Clinton. Did you vote for Obama or McCain? if you made a choice then you’d have to concede we are talking about different coins as it relates to the political parties. Still we have been abused by both — all political parties since we’ve been on these shores, but surely you appreciate there is currently, a lessor of two evils here.