zaji

Let me add something. My husband worked at one of the top pharmaceutical companies in the world, Eli Lilly. He was a chemist working in the lab for 30 years. He said in all that time, that 142 year old company cured nothing. As a chemist and scientist, he can attest to the fact that there is very little science in most science. This is not to say all science is bad. But more science is foolishness, than revelation and discovery. He said you would be surprised. One of his chemist buddies said that he was asked about a particular project he was working on in the lab. His colleague asked him what he saw in the experiment, the outcomes. His answer, "What do you want me to see?" Basically, he could skew the "science" to be whatever they want it to be for their benefit and profit.

I'm all about science, as well as spirit. Nothing about European history has shown they are truly about science when they have gone through age upon age of Fraud and scientific deception. They are about what they can get from science, much of which did not begin with them. When they stop bringing their prejudices to science in an effort to make themselves better than others, then I'll be fully on board. Until then, I don't take everything they say and swallow it whole. I examine it and critique it to death, to ensure they are not once again deceiving us, as they have done for centuries upon centuries with everything they've ever touched. We need to go back to OUR science and stop following behind them. They are nothing more than intellectual thieves who have bastardized the discoveries and inventions of others.

@Pioneer1 Look, see what you are doing? You are getting me started. LOL.

Thank you. I will try my best to not be a stranger.

@Troy During slavery, the nuances of “the yellow shirt” were irrelevant. If you had even a hint of black, you were a slave, period. House slave maybe, but still a legal slave with no freedom. And for women, the added horror of being raped by the “master”. Quiet as it is kept, most prevelant in the West Indies was the rap of melanin rich men by white male slave owners as a form of humiliation and emasculation. Today, the nuances still don’t matter much. Lighter skinned melanin rich people are given better opportunities across the board, but they better know their place in many circles and not say or do the “wrong” thing. Mind numbing and controlling media (one of many methods) has become a new tool to strip us of our culture and common sense. Regardless of the shade of yellow, the lunacy persists. They still see yellow and its shades, and don’t like it/them. Then oppress us in various was because of it. Then they throw us the “hope” bone to pacify us. Us trying to get each other to change how we use labels given us does not address their madness. We can talk about it, nothing wrong with that, but we need to land our words and actions squarely on their behavior. During slavery we were not oppressed because they “called” us nigger. We were oppressed because they put us in chains, denied us basic human rights, beat us, killed us, erased our history. If they decided tomorrow to beat me, enslave me, then call me a filthy no good cat, or filthy no good apple, then apple would become the word we claim to hate...as though the action isn’t the issue. They can call me apple, cat, dog, orange, nigger all day long. Their actions have and always will be the problem. A psycho is hanging us from trees because he doesn’t like the color of our shirt/skin. It is madness and so many of us want to live around the words they use rather than challenging them on their psychosis. Before the word negro entered the lexicon they were enslaving us. So the word is not the source of their behavior. They have mental issues. What do i care if someone doesn’t like the color of my shirt? I begin to take issue only when they begin to use that dislike as an excuse to abuse me. Hate yellow all day long, but leave me alone. @Troy As for treating lunacy...well, the first step is to stop treating them as though they are sane. One cannot cure a cold or flu by pretending they aren’t sick. If someone believes they are Santa Claus, how long do we go on humoring them? At what point do we say, look sweetie, you are not Santa and you most certainly cannot fly. We are treating lunatics as though they are sane. And because they are in a position of power, it causes cognitive dissonance in us, leaving us actually believing that the insane are not running the asylum. They are! Once we admit and realize that, then our conversations will change and we won’t let them get away with childish yet cunning wordplay that never leads to solutions.

I tell folks this all the time. We can talk about it all day, but physical things are being done to us based on that which we wish to rename, reclaim, erase, et al. That is why i wrote my piece on Racism. I attempt to show that Whites have cunningly used our “race” as the excuse and cover for their psychological issues. And as their outlet for their collective violent tendencies. We are so busy worrying about them calling us negro, calling us nigger, calling us black, etc, and we calling ourselves these things, that we fail to address and discuss the fact that the ones focused on how we look are simlpy doing that to steer the conversation away from the fact that they are sick in the head. If someone walked up to you, me or anyone sensible and said i hate you because you wear yellow shirts and i am going to hang you because of it, you would evidently think that they are a lunatic, not that they are yellow shirt haters or prejudiced against yellow shirts. They wwould simply be a manic spouting some trivial nonsense as an excuse to express their madness. That person would immediately be seen as someone who requries psychiatric help. Whites have picked something about us to focus on and we have been brainwashed to have real discussions about it rather than recognize that for them to use my melanin as the sole reason to dislike me is the behavior of a psychotic person with no logical and reasonable grasp on reality. And all discussion should focus on hiw to protect ourselves against their psychosis, rather fiddling with words they use to divert us away from the real deal. Cunning game they are play with words. Deeply cunning. Bottom line, we can say all day that my yellow shirt is beautiful, I won’t use the word yellow to describe my beautiful shirt and such things, but the psycho sees my yellow shirt (my melanin), hates it, wants to do me harm for it, and as with all psychos needing psychiatric/psychological help, my words won’t change their feelings or behavior in the moment. They need long term, possibly lifetime help. In the meantime, they need to be locked away so they cannot do me harm because i wear a yellow shirt. Or in this reality, wear my melanin that i cannot take off. When i hear too many labels being used i zone out of the comversation.

@Troy i tried to be as clear as possible.

@Troy Indeed. This construct has done something. For me, it hasn't brought us together as much as reminded us of what we were prior to all this mess. The "good" it has done is bittersweet. I recently wrote a piece called, Racism: The Unacceptable Excuse, which speaks to how I feel about the use of even the word racism as a method of dissecting European behaviors.

@Troy I love his video. It is on point. There is a complexity that exists that we also need to step into. While the concept of “race” is something we most certainly need to dispense with given that it is a social construct created by whites to place themselves above all other “races” and cultures, we cannot dispense with the very real, tangible and visible biological fact of our melanin rich skins. It is our melanin richness that whites used, given the evident nature of our melanin, visually amazing and powerful, to create the construct of race. Were it not for our visually evident melanin, they would not have had the opportunity to construct a social notion called race that they now use against us and have brainwashed much of the planet to use against us. At the end of the day, race is really a more charged word for our visual differences, all of us. The word race is not strictly used for melanin rich people. European biology breaks down all races, including their own, as one on a list of several “races” which is based on our physiology. And, quiet as it is kept, our overall biology. Just as slight differences in DNA make me a woman and you a man, DNA also gives me melanin, Chinese slanted eyes, Whites a brachycephalic head, so and so forth. DNA plays a role in every aspect of our physiology and biology, even when it comes to disease, DNA steps in and can alter how our children are born, passing on to them often deadly diseases once latent in our lineage. So although race can and should be cast aside due to how it has developed in the cultural and what it has done to us, my melanin (a visual representation of what my DNA has created) cannot be dispensed with. It is there to be seen. One of my melanin rich friends told me about a conversation she had with her white friend. In any case, her white friend one day said to her that she doesn’t see color. Now most people would get all warm and fuzzy and be happy that this woman said that. But my friend, who is a fierce thinker, turned to her friend and said, ‘Now you’ve just insulted me.’ I smiled and listened as she explained why she said that to her friend. She asked her friend what was wrong with her color that in her mind she must make it invisible? Is her brown skin ugly? Unworthy? Low in her esteem that she feels that the only way she can cope with being her friend is to make her melanin invisible? Her color gone? I whole heartedly agree with my friend. What is this nonsense about not seeing my melanin? What does that mean from a psychological standpoint exactly? And how do these folks who have constructed the term race see me when they now claim to not see the very thing they once abused us for? I am not asking you or anyone these questions directly. They are merely questions we need to meditate on. In general, why does my melanin (color) need to be invisible for there to be comfort in European culture, or even in melanin rich cultures for that matter? Given that some of us are on board with this thinking of ignoring our beautiful melanin. Why do I need to dispense with discussion of my melanin? Isn’t that what makes me beautiful? What is wrong with my melanin that I must make it invisible in an effort to make whites comfortable, or, worse, to transform society into an “equal” society? My color must be subdued as a discussion in order for me to be equal, treated equally? Seen as equal? While I can dispense with notions of race given what it’s done socially to us, I will never attempt to NOT discuss my melanin to help forward society. There is NOTHING wrong with my melanin. Nothing. And I won’t hide my words around it and subdue it for the comfort of those who take issue with my beautiful melanin rich skin. Never going to happen. Those who ask me to make my melanin invisible are people I want nothing to do with. They don’t make their melanin-poor skin invisible. They attempt to make it so visible and superior that they’ve driven nearly every brown culture on Earth, even the non-brown cultures such as Chinese, to use skin whitening cream to make themselves whiter. Why? Because melanin should be hated and every culture is taught to hate melanin. Even the Aborigines, which “science” labeled as Caucasian still caught hell, regardless of the label science had given them. Why? Because of their melanin. Their race classification was Caucasian for a very long time, yet they were oppressed because of their melanin. So what does that say about their own discussions about race? It is meaningless. When it serves them, they use it. When it doesn’t serve them, they ignore it, like they did with the Aborigines. Race be damned. But my melanin is not going away and I am not invisible; and any white person who says they don’t see color is, frankly, a disgusting human being who plays into the reasons why all this madness continues to happen. SEE me!!! SEE my melanin!! And let that be OK! It is OK for me to be brown! And for the record, I use white/black only to forward the conversation given that that is the term 95% of people use and can understand when discussing such issues. But I often prefer to use melanin rich or melanin deficient when speaking with those who know how I converse about these things. Reference history (per the video), I have a personal library of over 5,000 books. I read from Ivan Van Sertima, to John Henrik Clarke, to Cheikh Anta Diop, to Yosef Ben-Jochannan, and everyone in between. Including thinkers such as Lillian Smith, author of Strange Fruit and Killers of the Dream. I am very present with and aware of my history. I know why I use the terms I use. I have a deep understanding of who we are and how far back our history spans. I am still working on Yurugu, an amazing work by Marimba Ani, which dissects the European mindset to a great degree. What I think many melanin rich people should also read is Falsification of African Consciousness by Amos Wilson. Now that really digs into the how and why of many aspects of this culture. My belief is we need to focus on how we think, above all else. The language we use is important, but we need to begin transforming that language and really looking at the nuances and why European culture even created certain words/terms. There are words in the dictionary that are illegitimate and don’t belong. And/or, words that we need to redefine because they’ve been bastardized, or more specifically, the idea of the word has been bastardized, such as race. This is all a mind game meant to keep us focused on everything but enriching ourselves. Race is a cunning synonym for melanin. If they used the term melanin, a biological term, they could get themselves bound up in all sorts of flawed logic that could easily be torn down. But when they invent the word race, which subtly attempts to diverge away from the word melanin, it becomes easier to create intellectual garbage and reasoning around their behaviors. And, create negative stereotypes around us as a culture. As a Jamaican woman, I never grew up seeing race, only class and culture. But that did not mean there wasn't an issue with color on the island and here in America within Jamaican communities. It remains so to this day. Even within brown skinned communities, we have been made to believe that lighter skin is better than darker skin. This comes from our melanin being made to seem inferior, which is why I think it is dangerous to attempt to pretend our melanin is invisible in this culture we live in. My Jamaican roots of diversity and racial equality (or more specifically how my family raised me) did not shield me from cultural behaviors around melanin rich peoples. Anyhoo, let me stop rambling on. Bottom line, I agree with you, but with some additions/deletions and clarifications on how I view it. We should dispense with the concept of race. But we need to be careful that we are not dispensing with our melanin as a discussion, in an effort to make others feel comfortable about who they are and how they look.

How are the updates coming along?

My point exactly! As I wrote, we need to focus on his actions, what he does, because at the end of day, that is where the danger is. I don't get offended by his words. I expect them. I've watched his behavior for decades. His comments are not surprising in the least. I am on the lookout for the actions his words produce. I prepare to defend against and/or brace for the impact of his actions, not his childish ramblings.

I have a few thoughts on this Troy. Yes, the word in and of itself is offensive and obscene. But is it a problem for me? No. Why? Because it is being spouted by a spiritual/emotional/intellectual infant who has no understanding of history, and even more, has no understanding of context. Within the context of world history, America and most European countries have been the biggest shithole countries on Earth. Europe was such a shithole country that many of them left there to populate most other places on Earth, hence why melanin rich people have been forced to deal with their shithole behavior and have suffered for hundreds of years because of it. Why did they leave Europe in droves? Why did they need to send even their criminals away to other parts of the world? Anyone who has studied even basic history in school can point to just about every war in Western history and see that it is due to Europeans combatting shithole conditions and shitty people who oppressed them in Europe, THEIR shithole countries...that they had to run away. Then they come to places where melanin rich people are, oppress them, thereby turning OUR countries into shithole countries, just like what they left. PRIOR to European invasion, there was nothing shitty about our countries. Europeans discovered a good 80% of the world sciences in OUR shithole countries. THEY turned our places into shithole countries, and could only do that because they were bringing their shithole ways of living to our doorsteps. Shit produces shit. Still, we overcame their behavior and remain above the fray overall, with some specific issues we still need to overcome...if we can get them out of our countries. At the end of the day, I am far from offended by what Trump said. Why should I be? He's an imbecile. That is like being upset with my 3 year old child because she says, "Mommy, you are stupid." Alrighty then. This infant who just got here is gonna tell me something about myself. Trump is spouting the sentiments of many Americans who have no knowledge of history, or wish to ignore the facts of history to make themselves feel better about the shit they've transferred to us and our countries. These infants in world history are going to insult brown cultures that were around and established when Europeans were just getting on a boat to "discover" us. Even with their transference of cultural shit, we STILL are not as bad as many European countries (Europeans in general) who even in recent times, were in an uproar and burning down even police stations. Look at Greece in recent years. Any shit we are under in our countries, it's mainly because of European influence. The mere fact that some of our countries have "democracy" in a formal government structure is the clear evidence of the taint on our way of life. Why are we living under their social structures? My fear is not what Trump said, but what that imbecile will DO. We concern ourselves too much with the ramblings of children when we need to focus on what these children have done, are doing and may do again. Their words merely highlight their potential. But we need to be talking about and focusing on his actions and the havoc he could wreak because he was ignorantly placed in a position of "power". It is ironic that a man with a shithole mouth and zero class would be calling whole countries shithole; countries that, were it not for their ancient knowledge (math, science, biology, etc.), discoveries that precede the existence of the United States by over 5,000 years, he would have no Twitter account or a camera to spew shit from his shithole.

I always try to buy directly from authors or independent book sellers. Additionally, I think part of the problem is black authors ONLY selling their books through Amazon or B&N (all the big names) with no options to sell directly through their website with the monies going directly to their bank account, no one taking a cut. Not only do authors need to sell through their websites, but readers need to buy directly from authors and independent black book sellers. If authors don't stop going to Amazon to sell their books, readers won't either. There needs to be this sort of simultaneous action that allows for the change to happen. Readers and authors are far too trusting when it comes to Amazon, which, like you pointed out, doesn't always give the best price for books.