Troy

that is what i would think, so why are y’all letting him determine what alpha males do?

Depending on the source doing the reporting I would accept it as proof 10 people were killed. Reputable newspapers are not in the business of reporting on murders that did not occur. If Alex Jones said it was actors staging the shooting I would not accept that as proof, as he is in the business of conspiracy theories and sensationalism.

Umar Johnson is an Alpha male I presume. How many women and children is he supporting? What makes anyone think these "alpha males" will be willing to pick up all these unattached women, with children, and wife them up? The terms alpha and beta males are like the terms race -- neither has any basis in science. While polygamy may work for some, I do not think it is a solution to be a "remedy" for our community. On paper, there may be a lot of single mothers, but the reality is many of these women have a man in their lives, but for a variety of reasons it is not government official. The same is true for marriage. So-called single people are shacking up or in long-term relationships. I'm not sure there are stats on this, but we all know it is happening - right?

Proof is not subjective, that is what makes it proof. Sure, it may not be proof to you because you refuse to accept it, but that does not change reality. To Trumpers the election was stolen. Proof was presented that it was not. People rejected that proof and stormed the Capitol. It was not proof to them. Your statements explain the behavior of the insurrectionists; they believe proof is subjective and they believe the people providing the proof are liars.

The difference is in the absence of information. You use your anecdotes to refute facts, like the existence of different races when all the science tells us there is one race. anecdotes serve a purpose; they inform the stories that help us make sense of the world. However, they are usually flawed. When contradictory proof is presented the story based upon the anecdote needs to be revised or discarded. I would not assert that Missouri is more racist than Florida based solely on my personal experience. All i could offer is my experience and I would not generalize it to the entire population. If i did use my experience to make a generalization about the entire state i would naturally expect people to push back on that. This is usually what i do with you @Pioneer1

Sure tuck it away @Pioneer1 I stand by the statement. This is all subjective, but some opinions are more informed than others and in the absence of data one should go with the more informed opinion. now if you have actual data to illustrate that Florida is more racist that some given city, I’m all ears.

How is Florida different, really, than the rest of America? I've lived in several states, in different parts of the country. I've visited every state, virtually every major city, and almost every place Black people have a significant population. My anecdotal, personal experience -- while still anecdotal is better than most who wanna single out Florida. Believe it or not, I could really care less about the opinions of the uninformed. My concern is that people are so easily manipulated by the stuff they see online they stop thinking. Florida is no different than the rest of the country -- they have better weather and lower cost of living but are no more racist (rough on Black people) than New York, Texas, Illinois, Georgia, or California.

Those are good ideas @Delano. Amazon has Spare for 38% off. To sell it for less than Amazon I would be taking a loss -- and this does not even factor in Amazon speed of delivery and "free" shipping. Now the loss can be justified as a way to get new customers, but with the next "big book" comes out I'd be expected to do this again. Amazon could, and absolutely would, drop the book's discount to 50%. Basically, in the long term, it is a losing strategy. Actually, I'm seriously reconsidering my book-selling business model in a world dominated by Amazon. @Pioneer1 in addition to the huge advance Random House spent millions more on marketing. I read the ghostwriter got a cool million. Of course, the book is tabloid fodder -- it needs to be to sell the million+ copies it needs to sell to earn a profit. As anyone here brought the book or watched the Netflix special. I'm not judging, just trying to see what you thought about them.

Michael Brown's murder absolutely resulted in an increase in Black book sales, but these sales impact a very small number of titles. There was an increase in the publication and attention paid to books dealing with racism but again this only impacted a small number of titles. The number of books published overall seems to actually be declining. Please read this article December 2020 article from The New York Times it foreshadows what I'm observing now “Just How White Is the Book Industry?”

Right, in contrast Umar has expressed a desire to be in a committed relationship and gave a weak excuse for not being in one. This tells me there is another more plausible explanation. i did not state, or intend to imply, he was gay or even bipolar, but both would be better reasons than the one he gave. He also stated he is wary of working with brothers because they are only trying to ride his coattail to fame. He does seem to think a great deal about himself.

dude everybody knows no one looks anything like they do, I’m real life, like they do on the cover of a fashion magazine. How old is that photo anyway? You are lusting after a 20-year-fantasy, Omar recommend the film. Oh then i must go see it right away 😉 yeah it seems like her would be a lot more certain about potential wife #1. The excuse about being an activist as a reason for not having lived with or being married to a woman did not wash, as every CIS gendered male activist has a wife — certainly by the time they were Umar’s age. There is another reason.

I'm surprised you feel that way -- I would have assumed you liked them thick not lookin' like a prepubescent boy.

(@nels @Cynique) Oh my. ROTFLMBAO!

@Pioneer1 I don't know, but I believe the books were inventory. The rare stuff is probably at the U of Chicago or wherever Haki's, Brooks, etc all papers are stored. True. Apparently, they feel they need the money. What makes you think they are a multi-million dollar business? I don't think they are... That does not mean anything. Ingram distributes my book.

I hope he was not thinking that, 'cause you don't again street cred bi*ch slapping a smaller weaker dude in front of your masters. I usually don't care about celebrity BS and I don't know these guys but the slap angered me on multiple levels. I did not know Jada had a relationship with Tupac, but Tupac has been dead for decades -- surely he must be over it. Didn't Will pay some gay dude in a film? I seem to remember him jumping out of a bed naked with some other naked white boy. Will does not seem like a guy who cares about being perceived as soft. Did he ever "wear the dress?" 😉

Dear Friends, Last year marked our 55th anniversary in the publishing business. We are very proud to have built the oldest, independent, continuously operating Black publishing company in the nation. In October, we celebrated with gusto and invited our supporters, friends, authors and family to our headquarters to commemorate with us. The winter season is traditionally busy for us as we fill holiday orders for the Kwanzaa and Christmas gift giving season. This year however, our efforts were dampened when a water pipe burst beneath our building on a Friday night and quickly flooded the entire basement. Unfortunately, the flooded area housed the major portion of Third World Press’ backlist as well as front-listed books. Our loss has been overwhelming and financially crippling. Our lost inventory consisted of many of our best sellers and included books by Gwendolyn Brooks, Chancellor Williams, Adelaide Sanford, Fred Hord, Diane Turner, Thabiti Lewis, John Henrik Clarke, Herb Boyd, Edmund W. Gordon, Angela Jackson, Useni Eugene Perkins, Jacqueline Bryant, Keith Gilyard, Jacob H. Carruthers, Amiri Baraka, Sonia Sanchez, Christine List, Haki R. Madhubuti and, and many others. To say that we are devastated is an understatement. We desperately need your help. The considerable dollar amount of our loss is approximately $95,000 based upon damaged books, furniture, computers, bookshelves, workers’ regular and overtime pay for clean-up and the relocation of salvageable books to the first floor. We were forced to close the last two weeks of December and the first week of January, thereby losing sales for the year-end holidays and fundraising. These activities make up over one quarter of our annual revenue. If we are to survive this catastrophe, we earnestly need your help. We have a 501C3 status and your donations are tax deductible within the full extent of the law. No contribution is too small. Thank you for your thoughtfulness and generosity during this trying time. Sincerely, Haki R. Madhubuti on behalf of the Third World Press Foundation Staff and Volunteers Click to DONATE

I’ll see it at some point myself … can you stream it for free yet? To me it did not make a difference whether it was staged or not. Either way it was a stupid decision.

An interesting idea that I would not be surprised is true. while it may not require a Phd, i don’t think it is obvious to most people that the national debt is a construct. I, and I assume most, thought the national debt was like the debt of a household it or a local municipality — you had to spend less than you took in or you had to borrow to make up the difference. i think if the media started by explaining this difference the public would care a lot less about the national debt.

Actually there are tools that do this. The software that runs your blog and these discussion forums were built by a different company and i do not control how the software works. There maybe a setting to change how much of the status displays, but I’ll have to put some effort into doing it.

Thanks Rodney! where do i send the check? Seriously, post that review on AALBC, amazon, and social media if you use any of those platforms. 🙂

that sounds cynical even for you 😉 but is fodder for another thread… I’ll check this out too. I have a small telescope not much better that a good pair of binoculars but if i can grab a shot I’ll post it here.

Word.

@ProfD i think it is a gender thing women find it interesting, men generally don’t. maybe it is because girls are accustomed to the whole princesses narrative…

Yeah Michelle’s book would have be a good gift. For customers I’d buy them from Amazon for the steep discount 😉

Wow @Chevdove I had not considered the decrease in the "Black" books could be the result of resources directed to "diverse" or "BIPOC" books where Black is often lumped into with Indigenous, white female, gay, transgender -- everything but white male. I don't have any data to support or refute this idea, but it is an interesting one to consider. @Pioneer1 to your point. I track books in three broad categories Fiction, Nonfiction, and poetry and while all categories were lower. The Nonfiction category saw the largest decline. If you look at our current bestsellers list only 2 were published this year and those 2 books were independently published. The number of nonfiction titles in my database also peaked in 2015. Looking a little deeper there was a surge in Black children's books which started in 2017 but seems to have ended in 2022. Children's books are down 33% from the 2020 peak.