Teacher, reader, always learning "Ignorance, allied w/ power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have" #HBCU grad #BlackLivesMatter✊🏿 #FreePalestine 🇵🇸
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Joined June 2013
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From the river to the sea, Palestine must be free. ✊🏿
#FreePalestine 🇵🇸
#Decolonization
Rich retweeted
The Police Data Archive obtained 10 years of records of police shootings investigations in Mississippi. We’re publishing it here for activists, journalists and communities interested in transparency and change: drive.google.com/drive/folde…
Mississippi's attorney general says a Senatobia police officer was justified in the June shooting death of a 1-year-old boy while responding to a shoplifting call. The conclusion of the state's investigation follows months of mourning and calls for justice. cnn.it/4z0O5X6
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When you stop reading books, you start losing verbal dexterity, depth of thought and imagination. A closed book is a closed mind. Don't EVER stop reading.
Rich retweeted
DON'T STOP TALKING ABOUT CONGO 🇨🇩
DON'T STOP TALKING ABOUT CONGO 🇨🇩
DON'T STOP TALKING ABOUT CONGO 🇨🇩
DON'T STOP TALKING ABOUT CONGO 🇨🇩
DON'T STOP TALKING ABOUT CONGO 🇨🇩
#FreeCongo 🇨🇩 #BoycottApple #iPhone18
Rich retweeted
“Black Lives Matter” was never meant to say that Black lives matter more than everyone else. The phrase emerged because Black Americans have repeatedly had to fight for their lives to be treated as though they matter equally. The emphasis on Black lives is a response to inequality, not a demand for superiority.
That distinction has deep historical roots. For centuries, American law itself assigned different rights and protections according to race. Slavery legally treated millions of Black people as property. After emancipation, Jim Crow laws enforced racial segregation while Black Americans faced restrictions on voting, education, employment and housing. Even after legal segregation was dismantled, many inequalities created during those generations did not simply disappear.
The modern Black Lives Matter movement emerged in 2013 after the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the killing of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin. The phrase was created by Alicia Garza and developed with Patrisse Cullors and Opal Tometi. It later became internationally recognized following protests over the deaths of Black Americans including Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Breonna Taylor and George Floyd.
At its core, saying Black lives matter is similar to drawing attention to any group experiencing a particular injustice. If one house on a street is burning, focusing firefighters on that house does not mean the other houses are worthless. It means there is an immediate problem requiring attention. Recognizing a specific inequality does not require denying anyone else's humanity.
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The Congressional Black Caucus’s silent partnership with AIPAC
thenation.com/article/societ…
ALT Yet to this day, the Congressional Black Caucus—the long-standing corps of lawmakers dedicated to safeguarding civil rights (and known as “the conscience of Congress”)—has not issued a formal declaration condemning Israel; it hasn’t even produced a statement calling for a ceasefire. The CBC’s silence isn’t accidental: More than half of its current 61 members have been endorsed or funded by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the powerful US lobbying arm for Israel’s agenda. In the 2023–24 election cycle alone, AIPAC endorsed 26 of the caucus’s members, raising $4.6 million for them and another $3.5 million for Black Democratic candidates.
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Want to support more Black books and their authors? Blackauthored has finally launched!
With Blackauthored you can keep track of your reads, leave reviews, set reading goals, connect with others, and more!
Available on IOS and Android! IOS has widgets!
Rich retweeted
In 1968, CBS aired a documentary called Black History: Lost, Stolen or Strayed. One segment showed something uncomfortable: side-by-side comparisons of famous European artists and the African sculptures they copied. Paul Klee. Picasso. Modigliani. One after another. The African artists? Unnamed. Uncredited. Called "primitive." The European copies? Displayed in museums. Taught in schools. Called genius. Bill Cosby said it plainly: "When you look at this copying, you gotta give us a little more than rhythm. You gotta give us style."
Rich retweeted
There’s been a lot of conversation online about the dress code policy at Tuskegee. But current students have been largely left out of the discourse.
So I talked with some of them:
whatimreading.net/p/tuskegee…
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Remembering the man who wrote our childhoods ✍️🕊️
Dwayne McDuffie was a legendary writer, producer, and creator whose work helped shape the childhoods of millions of animation and comic book fans.
As a co-founder of Milestone Media, McDuffie helped bring groundbreaking heroes like Static, Icon, Rocket, and Hardware to life, giving fans stories that felt powerful, meaningful, and truly representative. His work made superheroes feel human, relatable, and unforgettable.
Over the years, McDuffie helped create, write, and shape many beloved projects, including:
• Static Shock
• Justice League
• Justice League Unlimited
• Ben 10: Alien Force
• Ben 10: Ultimate Alien
• Teen Titans
• What’s New, Scooby-Doo?
• All-Star Superman
• Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths
• Justice League: Doom
• Milestone Media
and many more.
From Virgil Hawkins becoming Static, to the Justice League facing impossible choices, to Ben Tennyson growing into a more mature hero, McDuffie’s storytelling gave depth, heart, and purpose to the characters so many of us grew up watching.
Although Dwayne McDuffie passed away in 2011 at the age of 49, his legacy continues through the heroes he helped create, the stories he helped tell, and the generations of fans and creators he continues to inspire.
Rest in peace, Dwayne McDuffie 🕯️
Rich retweeted
Joe Lim estimates that 90 percent of what you see on the internet is advertising in disguise, and he should know. For three years, Lim ran a company called Floodify, which at its peak operated 65,000 dummy social-media accounts used to drum up attention on behalf of paying clients.
The point of this kind of marketing is that nobody is supposed to notice it. But lately, the machinery has started to show.
In April, Justin Bieber headlined two consecutive weekends at Coachella. Coachella is the biggest stage in pop music save only for the Super Bowl, the kind of event that in theory generates its own attention. And yet on both weekends, a Discord server writer Lane Brown had been monitoring hosted paid campaigns for Bieber’s Coachella performances, offering clippers — people who are hired to turn a song, trailer, interview, stump speech, or whatever into short, social-media-friendly fragments — as much as a dollar per thousand views.
“On social media, popular opinion is being formed, measured, and manipulated all at once, and every signal the platforms produce — a trending song, a backlash, a talking point, the feeling that ‘everybody’ is suddenly talking about the same thing — can now be fabricated by unseen actors with hidden agendas,” writes Brown.
“Everybody is doing this now,” Lim says. “And if you’re not, you’re behind.”
Brown reports on how the same techniques are now being used to fool people on every app they go to in order to find out what other people think, not just in music but across entertainment, politics, consumer products, and celebrity gossip: nymag.visitlink.me/w6Bu9N
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“When we say Afro American, we include everyone in the Western Hemisphere of African descent. South America is America. Central America is America. South America has many people in it of African descent. And everyone in South America of African descent is an Afro-American. Everyone in the Caribbean, whether it’s the West Indies or Cuba or Mexico, if they have African blood, they are Afro Americans. If they’re in Canada and they have African blood, they’re Afro Americans.”–Malcolm X (1964) blackpast.org/african-americ…
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March 22nd is World Water Day.
In Canada there are 37 First Nations living under drinking water advisories, some that have been in place for decades. 🧵1/6
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Waves! Out now <3
‘WAVES’, a new animated short film by Jason Raymond has released on YouTube.
Watch: youtu.be/1KGlLjB8Nr8?si=pxaP…
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Barber-Scotia College was the first higher education institution for Black women in this country. Today it is fighting to survive. The 144K Collective is asking 144,000 people to donate just $1.44 to help save this historic institution. Our HBCUs are not just schools. They are the foundation of our history, our culture, and our future.
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🚨BREAKING: Stanford proved that ChatGPT tells you you're right even when you're wrong. Even when you're hurting someone.
And it's making you a worse person because of it.
Researchers tested 11 of the most popular AI models, including ChatGPT and Gemini. They analyzed over 11,500 real advice-seeking conversations. The finding was universal. Every single model agreed with users 50% more than a human would.
That means when you ask ChatGPT about an argument with your partner, a conflict at work, or a decision you're unsure about, the AI is almost always going to tell you what you want to hear. Not what you need to hear.
It gets darker. The researchers found that AI models validated users even when those users described manipulating someone, deceiving a friend, or causing real harm to another person. The AI didn't push back. It didn't challenge them. It cheered them on.
Then they ran the experiment that changes everything. 1,604 people discussed real personal conflicts with AI. One group got a sycophantic AI. The other got a neutral one.
The sycophantic group became measurably less willing to apologize. Less willing to compromise. Less willing to see the other person's side. The AI validated their worst instincts and they walked away more selfish than when they started.
Here's the trap. Participants rated the sycophantic AI as higher quality. They trusted it more. They wanted to use it again. The AI that made them worse people felt like the better product.
This creates a cycle nobody is talking about. Users prefer AI that tells them they're right. Companies train AI to keep users happy. The AI gets better at flattering. Users get worse at self-reflection. And the loop tightens.
Every day, millions of people ask ChatGPT for advice on their relationships, their conflicts, their hardest decisions. And every day, it tells almost all of them the same thing.
You're right. They're wrong.
Even when the opposite is true.
Rich retweeted
There has never been an official, comprehensive record of Black-owned bookstores across the United States — until now whatimreading.net/p/black-ow…
Hi @PatrickHorvath LOVED your story in "DC Horror Presents". Very creative story where the simplest mistake leads to catastrophe.
The true stroke of genius for me though came in the final panel where I saw Superman (!!) looking the way he does, knowing what fate awaits him. 😬
