Educated Does Not Mean Smart

Educated does not mean Smart.

Most people in America don’t understand the difference between the two.

Educated means a person has passed a bunch of classes and has acquired knowledge in a single subject.

Smart means the ability to apply knowledge. Moreover, it means someone has the ability to take that knowledge they’ve acquired and create new knowledge for others to use or create new innovations from that knowledge.

Many erroneously believe that educated people are smart. When this isn’t the case.

A lot of people in America are educated, but they aren’t smart. They have college degrees and advanced college degrees but most lack the ability to apply any of the knowledge they’ve learned in all those college courses they took. Some of these people have read a bunch of books, but can’t take the lessons they’ve learned from those books and utilize them in their everyday lives.

The Average American may have more education than ever but they lack the critical thinking skills of a smart person with a common sense. They can’t problem solve, analyze or, even think long-term.

And this is after taking courses like Calculus and Statistics which are supposed to “teach” people how to think critically.

For all of America’s education we’re just not producing smart people in our colleges and universities. All they’ve learned on these college campuses is how to regurgitate what their professors taught them for an A on their term papers, not the critical thinking skills they’ll need to function in a changing world.

I have to ask: If people are more educated than they were 50 years ago then why are so many people making STUPID decisions?

If we’re so much more educated than we were 50 years ago why are there so many BONEHEADS running corporations? And why can’t American business and American government get its shit together and fix this economic mess in spite of there being more college educated people in the American workforce?

50 years ago we had a less educated workforce and they were able to do more than all our best and brightest people today. I dare to say a person with less than a high school diploma in 1950 was smarter than a guy with a PhD today.

Why? Because those people knew how to THINK.

I also dare to say if we took some high school graduates and stuck them at the top of most Fortune 500 companies they’d have them running BETTER than today’s college graduates.

Why? Because they have critical thinking skills. Moreover, they’d have more common sense than today’s college graduates.

I really think if you took six of today’s college graduates and put them in a room with a high ceiling and told them to change a light bulb They’d take several weeks to get it done. All six of them would sit in the room overanalyzing everything.
One guy would be analyzing cost per watt.

A second would be trying to figure out the best wattage for the bulb.

A third would be trying to figure out what brand of bulb would be best.

A fourth Hippie type would be debating the third on whether or not to use compact fluorescent or a traditional bulb.

A fifth would be on his computer looking for the best price for a bulb and a sixth would be talking about the strength and density of the ladder they were going to use and what spot would be mathematically best to position it.

When all they were told to do is change the God Damn bulb.

America is full of lots and lots of educated people. But what it needs are smart people who can take that knowledge they have dissect it and break it down in ways that can be applied in everyday life. People who can use their knowledge to create new innovations and new ideas.

I’d rather work with a smart person with a GED than an educated fool with a college degree. Educated does not mean smart.

Halle Berry is Pregnant Again…The Baby Mama Drama Continues.

Reports confirm that Halle Berry is Pregnant. Pregnant with her second child with current boyfriend Oliver Martinez.

That’s right Academy Award winner Halle Berry will have two different kids by TWO different fathers.

Good Gravy.

Leave it to the first Black Academy Award winner for Best Actress to participate in the most ratchet and ghetto behavior imaginable. I have to wonder If Halle Berry drinks 40 ounces with a straw when she’s at home. Instead of being a role model for Black women, she shows the world what a Hood Rat she is.

Well, at least she can’t blame her situation on all those Black men she “Tried.”

Halle Berry’s predicament is Halle Berry’s own fault. Like every other belligerent “strong independent Black woman” out there she thinks it’s perfectly fine to have two kids by two different fathers.

Not knowing she’s showing the world the worst behavior regarding Black women and reinforcing an age-old racist stereotype regarding sistas and out-of-wedlock births, their sexual promiscuity and loose morals. Basically the jezebel stereotype for the 21st Century.

The way Halle Berry is acting is nothing new to me. I’ve seen this a thousand times here in the South Bronx.

Black women never want the man who they fathered a child with to be a father to their children. No, they don’t want that man to take the leadership role over the family and teach and guide his children the way he’s supposed to. They can’t trust a Real man to be the father he’s supposed to be.

So they try to shoehorn a SIMP into the role of father.

The main reason women from single parent homes like Halle Berry resent the men they father children with is because they’re jealous of the relationship they see their children having with their fathers. Envious of the father-child bond they never got to enjoy growing up, they seek to destroy that relationship for their children and make them as miserable as they are.

So they try to sabotage the relationship between a father and a child. Then they try to substitute the father of their children with some other man who they feel more comfortable with. Someone they believe is weaker than the father. Someone who they can manipulate and control.

Someone the child usually rejects and HATES. And when other children are brought into this dysfunctional family situation things go from BAD TO WORSE.

Usually the child by the second Baby Daddy is favored more than the child by the first Baby Daddy. In some cases that child by the first Baby Daddy is abandoned by the mother who dotes on the second baby by the child’s father. Yes, the mothers are THAT SELFISH and THAT CRUEL in these situations.

Their behavior leads to children who are emotionally damaged and spiritually lost. Children who grow up to become bitter and angry adults who hate the world and the people in it. Children who are just as hateful and maladjusted as their mothers.

Halle Berry is turning Nahla Aubrey into another Halle Berry. And that’s what’s tragic about this situation.Unless her father intervenes, this little girl will grow up to be just as dysfunctional and screwed up as her mother.

Now on the surface it may seem like Halle Berry is giving Nahla a little brother or a sister she asked for, but on a subconscious level, Her getting pregnant with the second child by Oliver Martinez is just a way of trying to smear it in Gabriel Aubry’s face to show that Oliver Martinez is going to be a better father than he’d be.

When in actuality he’s a worse candidate for father than Gabriel Aubry. Considering his history of violence and explosive anger it’s clear that he’s not ready for life as a father.

If anything, Oliver Martinez is now a nominee for the 2013 SIMP OF THE YEAR.

By playing Captain-Save-A-Hoe, and impregnating a single mother like Halle Berry, He’ll be joining the ranks of chumps like Chad Johnson, Kanye West, and Steve Harvey. Taking a ride on the Simp train and about to get his ticket punched.

I wonder what size white dinner jacket and bow tie he wears. He looks like a large.

Welcome to 18 years of Hell Mr. Martinez. Now You’ll know exactly what Gabriel Aubry goes through when Halle Berry throws you under the bus. The same things Halle Berry accuses Gabriel, Eric, David and every other man of doing to her She’ll be accusing you of in a few months.

Oliver Martinez has no idea that he’s being used as a tool by a female predator who has no use for men outside of their penises and the sperm in them.

The truth about Halle Berry is that like most Black women who grew up in single parent households she has no understanding of how relationships work. They think that men are just their serve them and do whatever they please. Women like Halle Berry think Men are just supposed to sit there and take emasculatinig verbal abuse, threats, insults, and even physical assaults.

In the eyes of women like Halle Berry Men have no feelings or emotions. they have no rights at all. Again, to bitter angry women like Halle Berry, men are just tools they can use to get ahead in the world.

I feel bad for Nahla and this unborn child. These poor kids didn’t ask to be born into this dysfunctional situation. And they don’t know what’s coming up in the future. They’ll be in my prayers.

Thoughts on Greg Horn

Last week Greg Horn disciplined his two daughters 12 and 14 for leaving the house without his knowledge. And he posted the video of it up to social media.

Some people think Mr. Horn was excessive in beating his daughters With a video cable.

If they only understood tasers and nightsticks hurt even worse. Or that bullets are fatal.

In America when parents discipline teenagers it’s called child abuse.

But if a police officer was to run up on Mr. Horn’s daughters for being outside unsupervised and beat them it’d be called Resisting Arrest.

And the police officers would be considered justified under the law for beating those same children. But thanks to our silly liberal laws written by Manginas, Mr. Horn is charged with child abuse.

Don’t you just love this country?

A father does his job disciplining his kids and is arrested for it.

But if he did nothing he’d be charged with being an incompetent father. Moreover, many of those same people would be asking where is the father when these kids were caught by the police for running around in the street at night.

Whoever thinks what Greg Horn did to his daughters is abuse never had to deal with a 12-year old or a 14-year old, especially daughters. At that age girls think they know everything because they can come and go on the bus.
Worse, they think they are the hottest thing since sliced bread. At that age they’re running around with knucklehead dudes who they think are the greatest because they flash them a goofy ass smile.

There’s a reason why Greg Horn took a cord to those girls behinds. He wasn’t raising no whores. Anyone who has teenagers knows at that age these little girls are ready to serve up the pussy to the first one of these dumb motherfuckers all because he tells them he loves them. Or because he flashes that goofy ass smile at them.

Better to deal with welts on a child’s body than a baby they can’t take care of.

Because that same goofy ass grown man who tells that 12-year-old girl and 14-year-old girl that he loves her to get in her panties is the first to run away and say the baby ain’t mine when they get pregnant.

Personally I think we need more dads like Greg Horn. We need more dads to administer some of that old school parenting and tear up those kids behind and get them in line. Like Joe Jackson said parents today are just too damn SOFT.

Without a Dad there to regulate most daughters wind up going wayward. Without his leadership they turn into whores, hoodrats and single mothers.

Greg Horn doesn’t belong in jail. He shouldn’t be prosecuted. What he did wasn’t child abuse. What he did was discipline his children so they would grow up to become functional adults, not hoodrats, baby mamas and other disrespectful disgraceful ghetto whores who use their bodies like toilet bowls. Again, we need more fathers like Greg Horn, not less. If we had more men like him in the Black community maybe it wouldn’t be the cesspool that it’s become.

Shawn responds yet again to the Why 70 Percent of Black Women are single blog

I’ve gotten a lot of responses to the why 70 percent of Black Women are single Why 70 percent of Black Women are Single blog I wrote a year or so ago. Some Black women have written in the comments section have called the piece hateful. Others have taken the time to take personal attacks at me, calling me bitter and angry.

Even a Drag queen made a video response to the

http://www.youtube.com/user/lacountresssprings?feature=watchwatch  trying to attack me.


Hell, I even got attacked by my own sister when she read the piece.

Whatever.

I see through the shaming language, the nasty comments and the ad-hominem attacks and I’m standing my ground. If the piece is offending you sistas, it’s because something I wrote in there about you must be TRUE regarding your personality and your character.

Call me bitter, stupid, make all the charges with your shaming language. I still laugh at you. Because at the end of the day Black woman you’re still single.

As I’ve stated before on two previous blogs (many of which Black women never seem to read) I never wrote the piece to be malicious. I wrote that blog with the intention and purpose of helping Black women.

I’ll say it before and I’ll say it again. The piece was written in tough love, the kind I learned while working at the STRIVE job readiness workshop over 13 years ago.

Now I wrote that piece applying some of the approaches I learned at the STRIVE job readiness workshop. At STRIVE we made people like drug addicts, ex-offenders, the homeless, and Single mothers come grips with the painful truth about their dysfunctional behaviors and how they were keeping them from finding employment. After three weeks at STRIVE, people dealt with their personal and emotional baggage attitudinal problems unresolved issues, got themselves together and were able to function on jobs for years.

In that blog I was trying to make Black women come to grips with the horrible truths about their behaviors and how they’re forming a barrier to them connecting with decent caring Black men. It was meant to make Black women see how others see them.

Whenever someone like myself holds a mirror to Black women’s faces, they get angry about what they see. And instead of taking that long hard look at themselves and confronting the horrible truths people are trying to tell them about their dysfunctional behavior, they attack the messenger.

I find it ironic that in attempting to refute the arguments in my blog many Black women are just proving all the stereotypes men all over the world say about them to be true with their nasty comments and ad-hominem attacks.

In addition to the white men and Black men who have come to this blog to support my arguments, Men of other races have come on message boards to discuss this piece and say they’ve had a similar experience with Black women. Even some women have gone on record to support what I’ve written.

So it’s clear to me that I’m not generalizing. If men of other races are having these problems with Black women, and even some women are having these exact same problems with Black women, then there is clearly a problem with the way Black women are socialized to interact with people in society.

Black woman, the problem is YOU. YOU are the reason why YOU are still Single. You Black woman are YOUR OWN WORST ENEMY.

Now I’ve written several blogs trying to get Black women to understand why the approaches to relationships they learned from their mothers and the women in their lives didn’t work. How the dysfunctional way they were raised by miserable single mothers is socially engineering them to be single and miserable just like they are.

But instead of hearing that truth and taking a course of action to correct what is clearly a failed life paradigm they continue to come at me statistics.

I don’t care what the Census says. That’s just another deflection Black women use to deny the truth about their situation. Seriously, how are over 70% of these Black babies being born out of wedlock? Where did that statistic come from unless 70%of Black women weren’t single?

Something ain’t adding up with those numbers. And the Census never does. That’s why it winds up in court getting disputed until it’s time to…Take the next Census.

There’s a reason why Dr. Santoshi Kanzanawa was able to scientifically prove that Black women are the least desirable on the planet. The American Black woman literally radiates so much negative energy that she literally REPELS people from her and turns people OFF wherever she goes.

Black Woman, Steve Harvey may lie to you and say you’re doing okay. But Shawn James is going to be honest enough to tell you YOU ARE FUCKING UP.

Black Woman clearly the life paradigm you are following does not work. All those things your Single mom, Auntie, Gramma and every other woman in your life told you DO NOT WORK.

Black woman take a long hard look at those women I just mentioned. How many of them have a man right now? How many of them have happy marriages? How many of them have fun? How many of them laugh? How many of them smile? And how many of them smile when they talk about anything?

Usually the number is ZERO.

Take another long hard look at those older Black women in your neighborhood.

How many of them are living ALONE? How many of them are sitting around bitter telling stories about that “no good man” who did them wrong? And how many years has it been since they last got involved with that “no good” dude? 20 years? 30 years? 40 Years? 50 years?

They wasted their entire lives dwelling on a single moment in the past. All while that man they’re crying about who did them wrong moved on YEARS AGO.

Any time longer than two years was more than enough time to move on. Life is too short to spend dwelling on the one who got away.

But that’s all Black women do. Instead of charging that bum to the game and learning from their mistakes they wind up stranded in a state of emotional arrested development.

Then instead of dealing with their feelings, they head to a church on Sunday medicating themselves with religion. Trying to project a relationship onto God because they’re unable to connect with other human beings.

Because reaching out to others, especially men would mean acknowledging their own flaws. Or making efforts to correct them.

And Black women are either just too SCARED to acknowledge they have flaws.

But to acknowledge those flaws and be human would mean that Black Women would have to come to the understanding that they aren’t perfect.

Sadly most Black women would rather hold onto that delusion of superiority and infallibility than come to the terms with the fact that the Black woman can fail, screw up, and get things wrong just like the rest of us human beings.

Black woman I’m trying to get you to WAKE UP.

As long as you hold onto these delusions of being perfect and infallible, Real people can’t connect with you. They can’t form relationships with you. All you’re going to do is repel all the decent, caring hardworking Real Black men from you.

But if you want to remain single for the rest of your lives, hey, that’s on you Black women. All I’m doing is writing the facts. If you don’t want to hear them, that’s on you. No matter what you say about me, at the end of the day you’re still single.

A pic that sums up how I'd write a Wonder Woman comic...

I saw this this Bill Walko commission and it pretty much sums up how I'd write Wonder Woman if I got the chance:  With the exception of Cathy Lee Crosby, That's the entire cast of characters  I'd use and the looks they'd have (Although I'd give Nu'bia a new "techier" suit of armor to show how skilled she is at engineering/science): And if you've read any of my Isis series books like Amari's Revenge it'd kind of be like that in tone and style with a heavy focus on friendship and relationships. Maybe I'd throw in a little more humor than I do in Isis

Jada Pinkett Smith Needs to Shut The Fuck Up

A week ago Jada Pinkett-Smith proposed that White Women should be on the cover of Essence Magazine.It shows how out of touch she is with the Black community. Moreover it shows how out of touch she is with Black women and the issues of Black women.


Jada Pinkett Smith obviously is too busy shopping for motorcycles and playing in her Rock band to pay attention to her Black history and the place of Black women in it.


Seriously, In White Supremacist America, Why would a White woman want to be on the Cover of Essence Magazine? Why would a White Woman, the pinnacle of American beauty who is at the TOP of the social food chain want to be on the cover of a magazine that sells to women at the BOTTOM of American society?


For a White Woman, being featured on the cover of Essence is a STEP DOWN from being on the cover of Vogue or Cosmopolitan or the thousands of other magazines out there that cater to White women’s beauty


Silly Jada Pinkett Smith needs to understand that a bottom feeding coked out whore like Amanda Bynes or Lindsay Lohan can regularly grace the cover of a magazine on any given month in the year and still be considered at the pinnacle of beauty in White Supremacist America. But outside of a handful of the usual light-skinned Token Negroes like Halle Berry, Tyra Banks and Queen Latifah ,our most beautiful Sistas
rarely are seen on the cover of a mainstream magazine.


If it wasn’t for Black-owned magazines like Heart & Soul, Sista 2 Sista, we wouldn’t know that Beautiful Black women existed.


Hell, I wouldn’t have known Jada Pinkett was even alive after 1992 when A Different World went off the air if it weren’t for Black-owned magazines like Essence telling me about her goings on.


Jada Pinkett needs to get real. White American Magazine publishers have no interest in featuring articles that deal with the issues Black women face? When was the last time Cosmo did an issue talking about dreadlock and natural hair care? When was the last time Marie Claire featuring an article about fibroids or sickle cell Anemia? When was the last time Vogue did a spread on African-American designers or African-American fashion trends? When was the last time Family Circle did a Soul Food Issue?

*CRICKETS*

If Jada Pinkett Smith did her research before making such a stupid statement, she’d learn Essence Magazine was founded by Gordon Parks to give Black women a forum to discuss issues pertaining to Black women. Moreover, it was a place where Black women could showcase their beauty in the pages of a magazine and present their standard of beauty to the world in a media universe dominated by images of White female faces.


But over the past two decades Essence Magazine lost its way. After Susan Taylor left in 2000, it came under incompetent Black Matriarchal leadership that eventually sold Essence to White Supremacist corporate oligarchs. Currently under Time Warner’s ownership Essence Magazine has become a magazine in crisis.


And from the comments of Black Women like Jada Pinkett Smith It looks like there won’t be any help from the women of Black Hollywood in righting the course of Essence.


Jada Pinkett Smith and her husband Will Smith have enough money between them to buy Essence Magazine from Time Warner and hire a competent editor to shape it back into a quality magazine that discusses Black Women’s issues and presents Black women in a positive light.


Hell, if she Halle Berry, Queen Latifah Kerry Washington and every other Black actress out there took a minute to write ONE article a month for Essence it'd go a LONG way in helping Essence survive in these tough economic times.


But instead of making those kinds of efforts to preserve a cultural institution for Black women, she talks about putting White women on the cover of Black Magazines. White women who have no interest in being on the cover of a Black magazine.


Nor would they have any interest in reading about the issues of Black women. Again, the Black woman is at the bottom of the social food chain. So why would a White Woman want to be on the cover of her magazine? It doesn't benefit her in the least.


Clearly, this Sista has issues. Two decades of Isolation in Hollywood have her believing that she’s an individual, not a part of the Black community that helped her and her husband become the stars that they are today. If it wasn’t for Black-owned Essence Magazine and other Black owned publications promoting her and her career no one would know she even existed. White women who laugh at her behind her back.


Poor deluded Jada Pinkett Smith. She doesn’t understand that the scariest part about selling out is you don’t even know you’ve done it. With her statements and her actions regarding Essence magazine she’s shown who she’s loyal to and it’s not the Black community.

Shawn's 500th Blog

500 blogs. Wow.

I’ve come a long way since I started this blog way, way back in 2006.

Five years ago I barely had 15 hits a day. Today I get almost 500 hits a day.

I started this blog seven years ago to promote my paperbacks and discuss issues in the African-American community. In that time it’s gotten so popular I’ve started branching out to other subjects that I’m passionate about.

And the subject I’ve become extremely passionate about are Men’s issues.

Since a lot of brothers don’t read my fiction I decided to go in a new direction to reach them in 2011 with the blog. I began to realize I had a lot of life lessons from my experiences that could help out other brothers out there.

In the past I’ve touched on Men’s issues in blogs like Black Men in Dresses-Entertainment or Emasculation? But I’ve been focus more attention to the topic over the past year.

After reading more about Men’s issues in books like No More Mr. Nice Guy and watching videos from brothers (and some sistas) on YouTube like Dan Freeman, The Advise Show, TMOT, Thugtician, Tariq Nasheed and The Iceman, I began to reflect on my experiences growing up. And after hearing from those men, I realized I learned a lot of valuable lessons that I could pass on to another generation of brothers.

Men’s issues mean a lot to me. As a Real Man, I’m seeing a world that’s changing for the worse as it comes to the state of Men, manhood, and masculinity. Thanks to two generations of boys being raised in female headed households women are defining what it means to be a man.

And that’s leading to a new generation of boys growing up to become emotional, effeminate and dysfunctional.

Boys who will not be able to take care of themselves when they become adults. Boys who won’t grow up to become men who will be the leaders of their communities, but led by a Matriarchy of dysfunctional women that seeks keep them stranded in a state of arrested development where they remain emotional children for the rest of their lives.

I feel Real Men like myself have to start standing up to the Simps, Manginas, Captain-Save-A-Hoes and other Bitch-Made™ males out there who were given leadership roles by White Supremacists and Corporate Oligarchs and redefine what manhood is for the 21st Century. So many boys are so disconnected from Real masculinity that they’re now starting to act and dress like women.

So far Articles like Why Real Men avoid Single Mothers, The Pussy Trap, Manginas at Work and avoiding the Trick Bag at the Workplace have gotten a lot of positive feedback from men all over the world. I’m hoping I can keep building up the momentum. I’m hoping it makes a difference in the lives of men.

Now some may feel that I’m being sexist. Others may believe I’m a misogynist.

I really don’t give a shit.

These subjects need to be spoken on. Too many males (not men) are being silent letting feminists pussy whip them into subjection and letting Manginas in positions of high power shame them into silence. It’s time more of us Real Men started standing up, standing out and fighting back against the forces that are out to destroy men, especially Black Men in society.

Now I’ll still be promoting my books and writing about my other favorite subjects like the state of the comic book industry and the African-American community. But from here on in, I’ll be making more of an effort to write positive blogs that help Men towards improving the quality of their lives.

How Do We Stop Self-Hate In the African American Community? Guest blog by Commencement Author Lawrence Cherry

Everyone knows that the biggest problem that African-Americans have is self-hatred. Self-hatred is what causes the low self-esteem in our young people, which in turn, causes them to murder each other. Self-hatred is what causes our mothers and fathers to devalue their children. Self-hatred is the primary reason why our local and national community leaders can’t work together for our own benefit.  Self-hatred is the primary obstacle to the progress of African-American people. We all know it, but we do nothing about it. Instead we work to try to get legislation passed. We work to get more social programs. We fight for more money and resources to be poured into the community. Our people minimize and trivialize the impact of self-hatred on our people, believing that if we have material wealth, the self-hatred will go away. However, the past 40 years or so since the passing of the 1964 Civil Rights Act has proven the aforementioned idea false.  All of our efforts will be rendered useless unless we first eliminate self-hatred.

            We first we have to know where the self-hatred is coming from. It is issuing from those who have an interest in keeping African-Americans a part of a subjugated minority. It is indoctrination that comes from the media at all levels. It also comes from our nations classrooms a.k.a social engineering factories. This indoctrination is targeted toward African-Americans and other groups to make them feel not only less than, but powerless in the face of the forces that conspire against them. It comes in several forms and African-Americans must be aware of these forms in order to combat it.

Open discrimination/racism – Within open discrimination and racism, we are told that we are less than and are excluded from conversation and dialogue within the mainstream. It takes the form of openly racist symbolism, speech, philosophy and other content. There tends to be a lot of hyperbole attached to race. Black men are always hypermasculine, hypersexual, tend to have superhuman strength and agility which is contrasted against a lack of mental acumen. Everything attributed to African-Americans is given a negative connotation. This type of self-hate message relies on the suspension of disbelief to adhere to its far-fetched ideas. Most purveyors of this kind of hate rely primarily on pseudo-science and fairy tales. Hate-groups are most closely associated with this type of indoctrination of self-hatred. I have seen some blacks who identify with and dally with this kind of self-hatred. They believe that whites are gods who hold the power of life and death over them. It is beyond tragic to say that there are proponents for white hate groups within the black community today: black groups that say they are working with white hate groups. It is the result of an open loathing of self and complete disregard for life.

Our response should be:  The devil is a liar! I am what God says I am! – Out right rejection and refusal to accept or entertain anything that comes from this quarter. These folks have discredited themselves with the outrageousness of their claims. Imagine if someone came to you and said “African-Americans are merely a mutation from a strand of bleu cheese!” It’s not even worth the time to take to refute it.

Covert discrimination/racism – This kind of indoctrination relies heavily on the “American Assimilation Ideal.”  According to covert discrimination, the goal is to get African-Americans to want to assimilate into mainstream society and become “Americans”. The problem with this is that African-Americans are already Americans by virtue of being born and raised on this soil. We are already Americans because our forefathers fought and died for what we have and have influenced the progress of this country as much as any other group. What this self-hating indoctrination implies is that African-Americans must accept an artificial construct of what “American” means.  Within the artificial “American” construct is the idea that whites are physically, culturally, and mentally superior and African-Americans should be striving to aspire to this ideal. The paradox is while they insist you must assimilate, they constantly deny you the access to do so.

Equality is denied African-Americans through the use of coded language, which is used to separate African-Americans from others in the mainstream. Terms like “urban”, “low socio-economic-status”, “at-risk,” “foreign,” “single-parent household” are used to describe African-Americans while terms like “traditional”, “family values-oriented”, and “conservative” are used to describe the mainstream. In order to be American, we have to give up our history and embrace the “collective” history, which is watered down and only references one particular group. They will tell you that being a true “American” according to their concept means x,y and z and at the same time insist that African-Americans never had x, can never attain y, and inherently don’t have z, making your “American” status always suspect. African-Americans who get caught up in this group are always trying to prove they are ‘good enough’ to be a part of the mainstream. Most of the self-hatred indoctrination of this kind usually comes from amongst the likes of conservatives.

Our response should be: Firstly, we are God’s property first and foremost. Who I am in Christ trumps whatever you want to call people down here. When the judgment comes, I don’t think God is going to care about what country you come from. He’s going to be looking at your heart. That being said, I’m striving to be called a citizen of the Kingdom first and foremost! Secondly, I’m already an American whether you like it or not and I don’t have to ‘assimilate’ or prove anything to anyone! I was born here. My slave ancestors helped to build this country. My forefathers fought and died for this country just like yours. They made valuable contributions like yours. I work and pay taxes just like everyone else. The Constitution should work for me the same way it works for you. “American” does not equal a certain culture, class, or skin color. America is a place with all kinds of people in it. It’s always been that way and always will be. If you don’t like that, you can exercise your right to move out.

Liberal Racism:Self-hating indoctrination from the liberal quarter is very hard to detect and is almost subliminal. The liberal self-hate indoctrination can be very enticing because the focus is always on creating programs for African-American uplift. On the face of it, it seems very philanthropic, but when you turn it over, you can see what it really implies. The liberal self-hate indoctrination tells African-Americans that they can’t achieve anything without the help of the mainstream or some outside group. There’s always some group or figure head who tries to make their claim to fame by ‘saving’ the people of the inner city. To these people, we African-Americans are too stupid and backward to help ourselves. We never get a voice in the design of these ‘programs’, but have them foisted upon us by these elites who feel they know better.

Most of the programs that are brought to our community from outside agents aren’t really used to help us up, but to keep us in our place so we will not compete within the mainstream. For example, welfare has been used to pacify our people and make them complacent. Many of our people don’t even try to better themselves so long as welfare, section 8, SSI, or some other program exists as a crutch for them. The programs we’ve been given don’t help us where we need it: building community ties, self-esteem, building our culture, ect. The liberal philanthropist just throws cash at existing problems making them worse than before.  A young woman who has been sexually abused and is about to become a young mother doesn’t need just a bi-weekly stipend of $120.00. She also needs counseling, training as a parent and training for a job. She needs love and support from the larger community and mentoring from strong black women. Finally, no one is going to give you something for nothing. In some cases, the philanthropy in the black community is just another way to get a customer for some business.

Our response should be:Thanks, but no thanks, man. I know there’s a God who can supply my each and every need. If God be with us we can rebuild our community and our culture and it wouldn’t take all the money the philanthropists think it would take.

Every once in a while each of these types of indoctrination will employ unwitting self-hating African-Americans to achieve their ends. We have to recognize them as self-haters rather than buy into what they are selling because they are African-Americans. Here is your litmus test: Any African-American that is consistently associated with positive images, language, and actions is a free-thinker. Anyone else is just another self-hater and I don’t care how much money, prestige, or clout they seem to have.

Overall, the goal of each of these forms of indoctrination is to get the African-American to feel as if he/she is less than and to believe in the godhood of mainstream society and the structures it has set up to limit our capacities. We have to de-install the virus of self-hatred out of our minds and hearts and create our own definition of what it means to be an African American. I believe that starts with a return to God.

As a people we have to get back to our spiritual roots in Christ. Our self-hatred comes directly from the fact that we don’t know who we are in Christ. We have to recognize that God made us just like he made other people and he loves us just as much. Stop believing what the mainstream says. When the media tries to put one message in our head we have to check that with the Word of God. Nowhere in the Word of God does it say that African-Americans are inferior, less worthy, stupid, hypersexual, evil or any other negative things that have been attributed to us.  Stop worrying about what the mainstream thinks about you. Worry about what God thinks about you.  

We also have to stop looking at the government, the majority, or the constructs that have been set in place to hold us back. We have to realize that if we have God on our side, it doesn’t matter what the so called ‘powers that be’ set up against us. Most people who don’t read the Bible know about what happened in Egypt when Pharaoh tried to break the nation of Israel. Pharaoh thought he had it made because he had money and military might. In the end, nothing Pharaoh had could match the power of God who was working on Israel’s behalf. If you read the second book of Chronicles (2 Chronicles 14: 7- 15), you will read about the history of king Asa and how he was challenged by the Ethiopian army which came out with a host of “a thousand-thousand and three hundred” or a 1,000,300 soldiers, but the army of Israel prevailed against them with only 580,000 men. Israel defeated an army nearly twice their size because the Lord was on their side.  You should also read what king Hezekiah did when Sennacherib the King of Assyria threatened him (Isaiah, 36-38). And there are plenty more instances where God deliverd his people. There is no power except the power of God. ‘nough said!

The Bible also says “the Lord is with you, while you be with him; and if ye seek him, he will be found of you; but if ye forsake him he will forsake you.” (2 Chronicles 15:2) If we as a people want the mercy of the Lord to overshadow us, we must return to Him. We have to put away the false gods of materialism, money, lust, and covetousness and turn to the true God with our whole hearts.  For too long we have been worrying about trying to get a good man or a good woman. We’ve been chasing after jobs, and political change. We’ve been worrying about entertainers and athletes. We need to be worrying about our relationship with God.

If our relationship with God is not right, nothing else in our lives will be. Inside of every single person created there is a spiritual space where God is supposed to dwell. That is how God designed us. When God is absent from our lives, we feel as if something isn’t right. When we are far from God and doing things that are against his order and his will, there is something that will nag at us and let us. If we don’t take heed it can indeed become self-hatred. The self-hatred will create a lot of self-made problems that 

can destroy our own lives. But then God is always faithful to intervene.

Sometimes God will allow us to be overcome by our enemies so that we can wake up and realize how much we need Him. When I think of the state of African-American people today, I can’t help but think about how when Israel went into captivity to Babylon. Israel had it good for a long time, but when times were good, they forgot God and God had to bring them down so that they would turn back to Him. After the Civil Rights Movement, a lot of us thought we’d made it. Then we went in with Baal. Young black people started worshiping politics. Some of our people turned our back on God for communism and other vain philosophies. Some of us got caught up in the chase for the “American Dream.” We forgot about how God delivered us from slavery. We forgot that it was God that moved men to create and sign civil rights legislation. We forgot that God moved on our behalf to end segregation. We told God we didn’t need him anymore and tried in vain to make our own success with our limited knowledge and understanding of things. Now we’re paying the price.

It also makes me think about King Josiah and how he led Israel to return to God when he found the book of the law that God wrote through Moses. When Josiah found the book after all those years, he immediately wanted to do everything that was in it. I think our people should be like that. We should get the Bible and want to do everything that God says. Not pick and choose what we will listen to based on modern notions of political correctness. We must live according to every word that is in the Bible. We need to do this, not just so that we will prevail over those that are oppressing us, and not just so that we can have material blessings on earth. We should be doing it because of a love for a God who first loved us. In fact, he sent his only Son to redeem us! Think about how great a sacrifice He made for us! Trust me people, there is nothing in the Word of God that has been written to limit us, or take away our joy or pleasure. When we follow the Word of God we will have more happiness. A lot of times we think that if we could just have our way, we’d be happy, but God knows better than we do and He wants only the best for his children. Many if not most of the things we want for ourselves will only lead to destruction.

Our African-American people need God. He’s not a white man’s God. He is the God of all creation. He loves us and he desires our good, but we have to turn to Him. All the legislation in the world can’t change things. Self-haters will inevitably give up any rights fought for. All the money in the world can’t change things. Self-haters will use it for their own destruction. All the people in the world can’t change things (remember the Tower of Babel). Self-haters just end up arguing without getting anything done. God alone can change things. He will, if we have faith in his Son Jesus.

At the end of the day the only way to stop self-hate is with Love. God is Love.

P. S.

Turning your heart toward God would be a lot easier if you turned the TV off and don’t spend all day on the Internet either. I’ll tell you from experience, television (and also the internet) is an addictive habit like drugs or anything else negative that needs to be put down. I found that when I put down TV, I had a lot of free time to do a lot of things I never thought I had time for before – like reading the Bible, prayer, meditation, writing, and visiting places and people. Turning off TV opened up a whole new world for me. I can’t say enough about how harmful TV and movies can be. TV, movies, and music are the primary vehicles that are used to undermine and erode self-love in our community. There are very few positive films/shows about African-Americans and I refuse to support racist imagery or shows/movies in which people pretend that we don’t exist. So if you’re not sure if it’s good for you, just turn it off!

Peace!

LC

Manginas at work

When men go to work things get done. But when Manginas go to work, chaos ensues.
The Mangina is by nature dysfunctional. And when he comes into the workplace he brings all of his baggage to the office. Employees often have to walk on eggshells having to move around his numerous personal emotional suitcases.

A workplace with a Mangina in charge is often a tense place. Workers under his supervision often have no morale, and most dread coming to work every day. Turnover is high in Mangina run workplaces as workers start their jobs enthusiastic but resign a few months later demoralized by his numerous hidden contracts, lies, excuses, deflections, shaming tactics, and blame games as he makes them take responsibility for his ineffective and incompetent leadership.

In most businesses the buck stops with the boss. He or she usually takes responsibility for whatever happens good or bad. But in a business run by a Mangina it stops with…No one. A business managed by a Mangina is like a rudderless ship. Floating around lost with no direction and no focus on a course to crash and burn wherever it hits.


Manginas hate conflict. And to avoid conflict, whenever they’re given any form of responsibility they abdicate power. Usually to his assistant which is usually a female co-worker. This poor woman is often burdened with the unfair responsibility of having to make all the decisions for this coward. When things go wrong in the workplace he just blames her.


And when things go wrong with his supervisors, he plays the blame game too. Refusing to take responsibility for any of his own mistakes he always blames a co-worker or a subordinate. And usually to sate his bruised ego regarding his own mediocre work ethic and ineffectiveness he usually quits his job. If he’s a manager, he often fires some poor fellow who works for him. Because females in his eyes can do no wrong. Even if they’re driving a business out of business.


Thanks to his abdication of power and refusal to deal with conflict, productivity in workplaces run by a Mangina often grinds to a halt. As employees from different departments have to navigate around his emotional baggage and mood swings it becomes next to impossible to get the simplest tasks done.


Because he hates being confronted by others, Manginas often create an unofficial bureaucratic hierarchy or
hierarchies to shield himself from having to take any responsibility for anything whatsoever. He’s the kind of coward to give an administrative assistant the title of editor or assistant manager and delegate all of his responsibilities onto her. And then when things go wrong, blame them for all the mistakes. When they confront him telling them they’re just an assistant and not a seasoned manager he fires them saying it’s all their fault. When he was the one responsible for the mess in the first place by placing an inexperienced person in charge of work he was supposed to do.


The Mangina is the kind of person to hide in an office all day and avoid all social interaction with his co-workers. He comes in extra early to avoid saying good morning to others. And leaves late to avoid saying good night.


Any workplace communication he needs to do is usually done by the female assistant he puts in charge. He usually sends this woman to do his dirty work and parrot the orders he wants delegated to co-workers. In some ways this woman is like the single mother who raised him, a caretaker who smoothes over all his workplace problems and keeps him from dealing with the responsibilities delegated to him.


Mangina managers can never go face-to face with anyone in the workplace. They hide behind rules and regulations. They hide behind co-workers. They even hide behind other managers. And when that doesn’t work, they call out sick. In some extreme cases they just resign their positions. For them dealing with conflict is worse than death.


And that’s what makes Manginas highly ineffective employees. Their fear of confronting issues in the workplace is what prevents problems from being solved. In some positions, that indecisiveness is downright dangerous. Jobs in fields like law enforcement, emergency services, and healthcare require people who can make decisions quickly. Moreover, they require people with the integrity and courage to stand by their actions. Having a leader who abdicates power and avoids conflict like a Mangina can get someone killed in these fields.


Conflict is a part of any workplace. And there’s no way to avoid it. As people disagree, they come to a consensus on how to solve problems. The compromises they make eventually leads to them making decisions that benefit all the employees there. Avoiding these decisions only leads to exacerbating the problems and making them worse. Jobs require a Man at work, not a Mangina avoiding it.

DC Comics Plans on Killing John Stewart, the Black Green Lantern...Here we go again.

In the aftermath of Killing Damian Wayne the fourth Robin the Boy wonder, DC Comic is now planning on killing John Stewart the first Black Green Lantern. 

There was so much outrage to this plan Writer Joshua Hale Fialkov Quit writing Green Lantern Corps and Red Lanterns. 

I have to commend Mr. Fialkov for his integrity. It’s clear he cares more for the characters than DC Comics editorial these days. To them DC’s characters aren’t heroes that inspire their readers, they’re nothing more than cannon fodder to fuel their dysfunctional shock-and-awe model of storytelling. 

I’d be outraged about this latest planned death of a comic book character, but unfortunately, this is par for the course at DC Comics these days. Insecure editors like Dan Didio and Bob Harras believe that gimmicks sell comics rather than great stories. They don’t have faith in their writers and artists to create quality stories with those characters that readers will discover and enjoy on their own.

And that’s the sad part about this. Over the course of thirteen years John Stewart has built up quite the following. Among the younger generation of kids who grew up watching Justice League, Justice League Unlimited, Static Shock and reading DC Super Friends I can read books he IS Green Lantern. 

There was an opportunity for a new writer to take John Stewart and give him the push comparable to the one he got in mainstream media. But DC editorial wants a gimmick to divert people’s attention from the fact that Goeff Johns is leaving the main Green Lantern series after a nine-year run with the characters. 

Moreover, they want to deflect attention from the fact that DC’s editors have no plans on where to go with the Green Lantern series. DC’s editorial like the editorial of comic book publishers since the l990’s never plans for the departure of one star writer by preparing for their replacement with a comparable writer or creative team when their run finishes. 

As I’ve stated before in Why Comic book reboots fail, this lack of editorial preparation is the main reason why comic titles plummet in sales. As the blockbuster writing and art team leaves and a new one departs readers drop the title. 

And the reason why they depart is due to the poor planning and poor communication between both writing and art teams. Without editorial to bridge the gap between them, the new writer and artist have no idea on where to pick up where the old writer left off. This leads to a series of poorly written poorly drawn comics readers find to be frustrating to read. 

DC’s plan to stave off plummeting sales on Green Lantern in the aftermath of Goeff John’s departure was to kill off the popular John Stewart. But they didn’t need a gimmick to save Green Lantern from a sales drop. All they needed was some careful planning for the future. 

A smart editor plans for the departure of a comic book writer at least two years in advance. That’s so they can smoothly transition between writers and artists so the ongoing story never skips a beat and continues to flow smoothly. Traditionally, when one writer puts down his pen, he’s supposed to pass it on to the next man so he can pick up where he left off.

In that time they have other writers and artists do fill-in issues or annuals give their regular writers and artists breathing room and to gauge reader response to the new writers and artists’ work. If that response is positive and readers connect with that writer or artist, they bring those writers and artists in for a longer run on a series when the old writer and artist finally decides to take a break. 

With those smooth transitions books don’t suffer huge drops in sales. In fact, more readers tend to pick up the title in these periods. Examples of this can easily be seen in when Mark Waid took over for Bill Messner Loebs on the Wally west run of Flash. In between Loebs and Waid, the transition was so smooth Wally’s voice never changed as his character raced out of the shadow of Barry Allen.

I know everyone is going to protest the John Stewart’s planned death the same way they planned to protest Dan Didio’s plan to kill Dick Grayson in 2007 at the end of Infinite Crisis. But that’s just attacking a symptom of the problem. If one objectively looks at the situation the problem has been the same at DC since 2002: Dan Didio just doesn’t know how to run DC Comics.

The main problem at DC Comics is that they lack an editor with the publishing experience to lead the DC bullpen and give guidance and support to the writers and artists who work there. DC desperately needs someone at the helm with an understanding of how publishing works, how comic books work and the willingness to work with creators towards crafting the best stories possible. 

Until the suits at Time Warner come to an understanding that Dan Didio just isn’t fit to lead DC Comics Division and his regime of Jim Lee and Bob Harras are only enabling Didio’s dysfunctional management style, nothing is going to change. The only way to get the attention of everyone at DC is for comic fans to just vote with their wallets. There are a ton of great comics, eBooks and paperbacks out there, give them your time money and support instead of wasting it with DC. 

If only Shawn James could become Editor in Chief at DC Comics. Maybe things could change for the better…

The Fall of Essence Magazine

Whoever controls the image of Black people controls how Black people see themselves.

Moreover, whoever owns the print media controls how Black people think about themselves. That’s why every effort has to be made to protect and preserve Black-owned publishing institutions and prevent them from falling into White Corporate hands.

Unfortunately, the original owners of Essence Magazine didn’t understand why they needed to protect and preserve their publication. Nor did they teach brothers and sisters why their magazine was valuable to the Black community. Like other Black newspaper and magazine and radio station owners over the past decade, the second generation of owners sold their business off in the face of declining profits to the big six corporate oligarchy instead of hunkering down and learning how to adapt to a changing publishing world so they could protect and preserve our Black media institutions for the next generation.

I was deeply saddened to read about the decline of quality in Essence Magazine. When it was independently owned and published back in the day it was forum where Black women could discuss the issues distinct to their struggles and social issues. A place where Black women could see themselves in a positive light. Where Sistas could be inspired to see other women like themselves and aspire to be like them.

Now Essence magazine is owned by Time Warner. Under their White Supremacist corporate leadership, the once great pro black-Pro Black female empowerment magazine has become a pale shadow of its former self.

Basically Essence Magazine today has become a chocolate covered version of Cosmopolitan. Blonde weave-wearing celebrities have replaced the dignified Black female leaders and Black entrepreneurs on the front cover. Articles about health, home ownership, career advancement, and business ownership have been replaced with articles about celebrities plugging their movies, celebrities plugging their products, fashion ads, hair care ads and Sex, sex, and more sex. The bestseller list for African-American fiction is alleged to be bought and paid for by Street Lit publishers who have enough cash to get the notice of editors under the table. Instead of an institution promoting Black womanhood it’s become a forum for niggerdom and whoredom.

Over the past decade, the magazine has clearly strayed away from its original mission. And that’s par for the course with most Black businesses. No one stayed behind to teach the next generation of publishing professionals the mission of Essence Magazine.

Time Warner’s White corporate executives clearly have no understanding that the issues of Black women are completely different than those of White Women. And that The Black woman’s world is not the same as a White woman’s.

But they try to shove the square peg into the round hole in the hopes of making profits.

Not understanding how their business decisions will impact how a generation of Black women see themselves and their roles in the Black community.

Presenting images of Black women like those in Today’s Essence is dangerous because they influence how little Black girls and young Black women today see themselves. When little Black girls see images of celebrities on the cover of a magazine like Essence, it makes them think that all they can be is an entertainer. When all they see are Black people promoting consumer products, all it makes them think about is buying things instead of finding new ways to produce them. And when all they read about is sex, it makes them think that all a woman can aspire to be is a sex object.

The Black woman is the transmitter of culture to the Black community. When she reads corrupt media like the compromised Essence, she teaches her children to focus on silly superficial things like celebrity worship and sex. With 70 percent of the Black community run by single parent female headed homes, that means the culture of the community isn’t focused on more important things like home ownership, business ownership, wealth building, nutrition, fitness, arts, culture and health, they’re focused on trivial matters like getting a man, getting the latest clothes, and getting laid. Things that aren’t at the essence of a strong community, but one that’s falling deeper into the abyss.

It’s been clear to me for years that the media Black people imbibing are one of the main reasons why the Black community is regressing instead of progressing. Brothers and sisters feed themselves mental junk food in these magazines, TV shows and movies and that’s why their minds aren’t right. It’s one of the reasons why our communities are dysfunctional and falling apart.

It saddens me to see that storied Black publishers can’t adapt to a changing Publishing world like I have. 15 years ago I saw the direction of American media changing headed when Bill Clinton signed the telecommunications bill of 1996 into law. That law allowed corporations to own more than one newspaper or TV stations. It led to the rise of the conglomerated media oligarchy of the Big Six (Time Warner, Disney, Sony, NewsCorp, Comcast, and Viacom) And as this power base rose American media became a world of bland, stale programming, with no life and more importantly, no color or culture. Outside of a few token negroes portraying racist stereotypes Black people have been ERASED from American media over the last 15 years.

With the Fall of Essence, can another entrepreneur rise to create a publication that will be a clear objective voice that talks about the issues of Black women? I believe so. In this digital age it costs next to nothing to start up a blog or have a You Tube account like I have. It costs nothing to produce an e-zine. In this digital age, black people have the power to take control over their own image like I’ve been doing over the past decade with SJS DIRECT. When a people control their own image they define the lines what the world sees and how they see it. They transmit the culture that shapes the lives of young Black boys and young Black girls. More brothers and sisters have to start taking control of the horizontal and vertical and carving out their own niche in this new digital age. 

Avoiding the Trick Bag at the Workplace

When I was working at the a College Library back in 2008, one of my co-workers approached me about overtime. She walked up to me saying “Shawn, I can’t work all these hours.” in a cutesy tone.

My instincts told me something was wrong by the way she approached me about the overtime. And I was on the money. A few years later as I was getting schooled on game, I realized this chick was trying to put me in the trick bag.

What is the trick bag? “It’s a place where women try to set guys up for a disaster. Guys who try to help these women think they’re doing some good deed for this woman, but they have no idea it’s going to eventually lead to them getting jammed up on the job.

What dudes in the trick bag don’t know are that this woman doesn’t like them. And she’s looking for a way to flip the game on them and get them fired.

Me being smart about the situation, I didn’t budge from my position. I told my co-worker I couldn’t work overtime. Why? Because I knew it was a trap. 90 days into a new job I knew something was up by the way she asked me that question in such a flirtatious manner. I was smart enough to know ain’t no woman I barely knew was gonna approach me like that out of nowhere. We weren’t friends for her to come at me all cutesy.

Now in the later weeks she tried to have co-worker friends of hers from other departments come at me with shaming language talking about how I’d be disrupting her life. But I saw through the bullshit and stayed firm to my position. I knew it was a set-up. And If I deferred I’d be the one to lose my position not only as an employee in the workplace, but as a man.

Having worked on several other jobs, I knew the difference between professionalism and someone running a game on me. If this woman were professional she would have approached me differently. She would have come at me talking about how things related to the company. Not in some cutesy tone trying to be flirtatious.

I knew when she said “I can’t work all these hours,” She was trying to bait me into donning my cape and playing Captain-Save-A-Hoe. And If I had reacted that way, she would have seen me as a weak man she could easily manipulate and control. Someone she could drop into the Trick Bag.

Instead she got pissed off when I said no. And I just didn’t give a shit.

Guys who are Simps and Tricks are the type to respond to bait language like this with an offer of help. They have no idea that they’re being baited into a dangerous situation by a predatory female.

Chicks who put dudes in the Trick bag at work are looking for a way to set them up to get fired. Usually these women are mediocre workers like hoodrats with minimal talent and no real skills outside of their big breasts or loud mouths. These chicks feel threatened by any man who has talent and potential they know will eventually surpass them in the workplace. And they know if this guy gets ahead of them, they’ll be the one that’ll be fired and replaced with someone with some actual talent and skills.

So whenever they see an intelligent hardworking educated man in the workplace who has his shit together they’re looking for a way to eliminate the competition in the workplace. So they try to use their feminine wiles to con an unsuspecting dude into getting involved with her on a personal level at work.

The hope is that a dude will cross his personal and professional boundaries and get stupid enough with her to make some sort of comment she’ll find “offensive” or make a sexual advance on them so they’ll say they were sexually harassed. Then they’ll run off to their supervisors painting a man as the villain and themselves as the victim.

And the Manginas in management and Human Resources will take their story for truth. Which leads to a man getting fired.

Now many a Simp or a Trick will fall for the games of a woman trying to put them in a trick bag. And they’ll lose their job. But Real Men like myself see through the bullshit and know something is up. Again, women who step to a man in cutesy and playful ways trying to play “sweet and innocent” aren’t these women in peril that need to be rescued out of a jam. They’re looking for a way to get leverage over a man in the workplace and find a way to eliminate the competition.

A Real Man maintains professional distance with women in the workplace. He keeps it all about work with co-workers, especially female ones. While most of the women he works with will be professional, a Real Man knows there are some he needs to keep his distance from. And these are women at work are looking for a way to get a guy jammed up on a sexual harassment charge so they can get paid on a lawsuit or keep themselves in a dead-end job.

A Real man listens to what a woman says and watches her actions. And whenever a woman tries to cross that imaginary line, he checks her. Because he knows any woman who tries to cross that line is usually someone who is trying to put a dude in the Trick Bag and destroy his way of making a living for himself.

Brothers, you have to keep your eyes open when it comes to women in the workplace. Not every pretty face you come up on the job is friendly. Some of these women are smiling in your face and are working on a way to take your place. Catch the knife before they use it to stab you in the back. Don’t let these women put you in the Trick Bag.

Could Shawn run DC Comics?

Could Shawn run DC Comics?

I’d like to think I could. We’ve had a decade of Dan Didio at DC and things are worse now than when he became the publisher back in 2003. After 10 years of chaos, I believe it’s time for a new direction at the storied brand.

DC Comics needs a publishing professional who truly cares about the characters and their rich history. Someone who respects the source material and all the hard work of the creators who came before them. Someone who wants to work with today’s writers and artists towards creating the highest quality stories for readers of all ages. Someone who respects the artists and the writers and gives them the creative freedom they need to tell the stories they want to tell within the guidelines and standards of good taste.

And most importantly, someone who appreciates and respects all the longtime comic fans and wants to create content they can share with their children as they pass their favorite heroes onto them. An editor who understands that readers form bonds with these characters and won’t abuse the relationship by killing off fan favorite characters for a short-term sales boost.

Moreover, they need someone who understands the business of a publishing world post 2008. That world is a fast-paced place where print and digital publishers must produce strong story-based content to grab the attention of new readers who are being bombarded from all sides by the internet, video games, apps, and other digital content.

Why should that person be Shawn James? On paper I’d like to think I have a lot to offer Time Warners’ struggling comic book division. In a post publishing collapse world, I have worked hard at learning the skills needed to build a publishing brand during my decade building the SJS DIRECT publishing brand.

Since 2002, I have over a decade of publishing experience. Over the course of ten years building the SJS DIRECT publishing imprint I have successfully launched over seven paperbacks and twenty-eight eBooks. I currently manage a catalog of over 35 print and digital titles.

In my efforts to reach a growing audience of new readers over the past two years, I have successfully launched over a dozen eBook campaigns such as the Summer Young Adult eBook Exclusive series on Smashwords, The August Hot N’Steamy Series and Free Weeekend Kindle promotions. These free campaigns have led to numerous customers who come back to pay for eBooks and paperbacks as they continue following stories like the ongoing Isis series and All About Nikki screenplay series.

I have effectively used blogging and social media to promote eBooks and get the word out to readers. In that time I have built up a large audience of readers in the blogosphere and the e-Reading world.

As a writer I understand that story comes first. If I were hired as editor-in-Chief at DC Comics my focus would be on working with writers and artists towards publishing quality stories. I understand it’s stories that sell comics, not events, gimmicks or any other form of marketing. If the stories aren’t good, then the reader has no incentive to buy the comics.

I feel over the past decade storytelling has taken a back seat to marketing at DC Comics and that’s led to a decline in quality for the DC Brand. I’d like to get back to selling comic books in single 32-page issues, not in long over-reaching 100 issue arcs. I know from experience a publisher only has one chance to make a first impression with one story. If the reader doesn’t like the first book, they aren’t going to buy any more in the series. Readers need to be sold in one book, not be forced to by hundreds.

As an editor, I understand that I have to remain objective and not impose my personal preferences on readers. I know that the editor is the readers’ eyes and ears and the person who advocates for them to the writers and artists. They’re the person who makes sure that writers and artists stay true to the characters and keeps the characters consistent so the next writer doesn’t have a bunch of baggage to unload before they start writing the stories for their run on the book.

As a publisher, I’d like to return to a focus to all-ages entertainment. I feel comic book publishers are selling themselves short by targeting readers over the age of 18. I feel they should be targeting readers under the age of 8. There’s a baby boom going on and DC is missing the opportunity to reach those younger readers who could be the twenty million new customers who buy DC for the next twenty-five years. DC Comics should be competing with Scholastic for the independent readers and Young Adult readers, not abdicating these core demographics. These are the readers who made Harry Potter and Twilight multi-billion dollar franchises, why can’t they be targeted by the publisher of Superman and Batman?

My long-term vision for DC Comics is to make it a place where readers of all ages can enjoy comic books in numerous genres. While I’d like to traditional make 32-page comics for longtime comic readers, I’d love to develop an expanded graphic novel program to reach new Independent readers, Young Adult readers and adult readers who are new to comic books.

To reach those readers I’d like to offer them all-new original comic stories are told in one volume. These titles would feature no continuity and the story structure would resemble a screenplay or a novel with a story told in three or five acts. Some comic stories just don’t work in 32-pages. They need a full novel format to be told effectively.

A full graphic novel format will allow DC Comics to reach long overlooked readers who see comics as children’s material. I believe the line between comics and novels can be crossed and it’s possible to get mainstream America to re-think what the comic book medium is. I’d love to launch a series of genre fiction graphic novels in mystery, romance, fantasy and sci-fi.

I also believe the graphic novel will allow DC to reach an audience of parents who want to share comics with their children but don’t want to deal with decades of continuity or a characters’ history. Sometimes people just want a simple Superman story. Or a Batman Story. A Wonder Woman story, a Green Lantern Story or a Flash Story or a Justice League Story. And they want it to start and finish in a single book they can read together similar to the ten-page I can read books I’ve seen for young kids at the Barnes & Noble. Basic stories with characters in classic costumes fighting bad guys, stopping crime and teaching a good moral message. A cheap, easy-to-read trade paperback that can be used as a gateway to reading.

As part of my rebuilding plan And I’d make sure to make every effort to get rid of that Damn New 52 and bring back the classic DC Universe and character designs people have loved for generations. I feel New 52 splits the DC reading audience and alienates veteran readers. I want to bring readers together and I feel New 52 prevents families from sharing DC’s catalog of characters with their children.
As an editior I’d focus less on continuity and more on telling one story at a time. I feel if the stories are good enough no one is going to care about the minutiae of how things fit in historically with other things. From my experience stories are bought in one volume and sold in one volume.

In addition to rebuilding the DC Brand, I’d make an effort to resurrect the Milestone line. I feel that brand is incredibly underrated and has tremendous growth potential. Reading those comics growing up I know that catalog of characters is ready to be taken to the next level. I’d like to honor the late Dwayne McDuffie by making efforts to share his characters with a new generation of readers.

Long-term my Business plan for rebuilding the DC Brand is in two stages:

A hard focus on digital content. Today’s readers want comics on their e-readers or other digital devices. And they want them to be affordable. All eComics would be 99 cents.

In addition to the standard digital comic catalog I’d be offering a free rotating weekly digital comic. For over two years I’ve used rotating free eBooks as a way to win over new readers. And many of the free readers soon became paying customers. I’d love to bring this strategy over to DC to help them build an audience of new readers.

And a renewed focus on print content. Comics have always been best sold in the print medium. However, the way DC publishes comics just prevents them from selling. I would work towards making the comic book industry more in line with the rest of the publishing world so comics could compete with trade publishers.

For example, Comic publishers currently launch new comic series and graphic novels during the busy periods of the year. Today Comics are launched in the slowest months of the publishing year. February, March, April, August, September and October.

Those are DEAD periods in the trade publishing world. Periods where books go to DIE. During those times people just don’t have any money to buy anything and aren’t thinking about buying anything to read for leisure. They’re thinking about going back to school, and back to work. There’s no opportunity to grab the reader.

New comics, trade paperbacks and graphic novels need to be launched in November, December, January, May, June, and July along with all the best-selling paperbacks and eBooks. Periods when people are going on vacation. When they have time to read. When they have lots of disposable income and are willing to part with it.

It’s during these times that new readers discover new writers. And It’s during these times I believe they’ll discover comics again. Especially at Christmastime when people have lots of disposable income in the form of gift cards. Gift Card buyers are more willing to take risks and try new things like graphic novels or eComics. I feel DC should be there to capitalize on that opportunity to gain new readers.

Along with launching product at times where they’d be competitive, I’d like to make DC Comics and graphic novels fully returnable.

On the creative front, If I were hired as editor-in-chief at DC I’d like to extend an olive branch to every creator who has been alienated over the past 10 years. People like George Perez, Mark Waid, Chuck Dixon, Rob Lifeld, Warren Ellis, Greg Rucka and many more. I’d love to just sit down with them face-to-face (even Liefeld) and let them know that the way Didio did business isn’t the way Shawn James does business. That if they came to work for me, things would be different. That I’d stand behind them and support them in their creative endeavors at DC.

And if I could I’d love to promote Gail Simone to an editorial position. Maybe even co-publisher. She’s worked hard over the past two decades and I feel she’s ready to teach some new writers about the craft of comics.

After I reach out to the creators, I’d like to work towards changing the archaic compensation model to give writers and artists the incentive to get creative again in the 21st Century. Today the comic model is work-for-hire. This means whatever work the writer and artist does for DC Comics is the property of Time Warner. This model has all but stalled creativity at the big two over the last twenty years as creators have taken ownership of their best characters and taken them elsewhere.

I’d like to scrap that work-for-hire model altogether. In addition to their fees for work, and the return of their artwork, I feel creators should be given a percentage of any licensing and merchandising in perpetuity for any new characters or designs they create. Maybe if creators were paid for their hard work, they’d have a reason to create some new characters for a new generation.

And I feel creators should get a bonus if a book sells over 100,000 copies. 5 percent for 100,000 copies, 10 percent for 250,000 copies and 20 percent for 500,000 to one million copies. I feel that’d give a creator an incentive to really get out and promote their books at the cons and shows instead of staying home.

And I’d like to make comics returnable. Returnability is what’s keeping comics from returning from grocery stores, drugstores and non comic shop retailers. I believe that comics have to return to retail if they’re going to get the readership back.

And I believe that comics need to return to retail so DC can get an objective assessment of how they do. No one really knows how a comic is doing until the returns come in. Those returns will really tell a publisher if a book is selling or if it’s not.

I really get tired of this false sense of success presented when comic shops buy thousands of non-returnable comics. Only to find out from the shop owners the books aren’t selling when they’re forced to put back issues in dollar and quarter boxes to clearance them. With the shops struggling to stay in business, I’d like to take the heat off them by making books returnable.

Could Shawn run DC Comics? Who knows? I’m just brainstorming ideas of what a Shawn James led DC would look like. Maybe my vision isn’t perfect, but I’d like to think I have something to offer longtime comic fans and families of new readers.

Why eBooks should NOT be Returnable

Some people think that eBooks should be returnable.

I’m not one of those people. 

I work hard to publish these eBooks and do my best to give the public a quality eBook to read. With me being out of work for the past four years I really need that revenue to pay my bills and eat.

Personally, I think that all sales should be final on all digital products including eBooks. The only returns should be in these two circumstances:

If an eBook purchased in error. If a person buys a book by mistake and returns it within 30 minutes to an hour UNREAD they should get their money refunded. 

Or: 

An eBook with a coding issue that makes it appear unreadable on an e- reading device or PC. This happens sometimes due to all the software issues between Microsoft Word, Adobe PDF and converters like the ones at Amazon, Smashwords and Barnes & Nobles’ Pubit! mistranslating the files. In this case the reader didn’t get a book they could read and deserves a full refund of the purchase price.

As a publisher I’ve personally had to deal with eBooks I’ve published crashing on these devices when I read the sample pages, files not loading chapters, and typos that weren’t in the original text somehow magically appearing. I’ve had to deal with some fonts getting BIG then small .in a converted eBook.

I understand these problems arise. And I try to fix them whenever they appear in my books.

But not liking a story is not a valid reason for a return. 

Here’s the problem about returning digital content: neither the author nor the retailer know what the consumer has done with those digital files in the short time they were in their possession. If an eBook is DRM free there’s no telling whether or not they’ve bought the book and made multiple copies to share with their friends. 

Or if they really hate the author, sending their eBooks to filesharing sites like Kazaa or BiTTorrent. Some more malicious readers will do spiteful things like this to deprive an author of revenue.

Again, a consumer not liking an eBook is not a valid reason to return an eBook. Customers can’t return other digital content like Mp3s and TV shows they download when they buy them from other retailers. And they shouldn’t be allowed to return eBooks. Especially if they’ve been read past a certain point.

Reading an eBook in partiality or its entirety and returning it constitutes Theft of Service. Depriving an author and a retailer of revenue and royalties they need to take care of their families. 

At some point the onus has to be on the reader to take responsibility for their actions. Ultimately it’s their choice to buy that eBook or the eBook of another author. 

A reader has plenty of chances to learn whether or not to make an informed choice about a eBook. Most websites like amazon’s kindle Bookstore, Barnes& Noble’s Pubit! Smashwords, or the itunes bookstore offer free samples of all the ebooks on that site. Some like Smashwords offer multiple formats for readers to download. So the reader has an opportunity to read a part of that story and sample a writer’s style. 

Consumers also have a chance to scroll down and read the category the book is in, the number of pages it has, file size and the name of the publisher to find out what kind of book they’re buying and who they’re buying it from. They also have a chance to read the reviews from others who have read the book to get a consensus of whether or not the book will be something they’d like to read. 

In addition to those resources on the webpage, eBook customers can access reader networking sites like Shelfari.com and goodreads.com to read reviews and find out what other readers think of a certain eBook. 

Now I understand some readers’ frustration about errors in eBooks, Yes, some authors and self-publishers including myself have to work on issues regarding spelling and punctuation. 

Unfortunately, some errors are unavoidable. There’s no such thing as a perfect print book or an eBook. Readers who buy eBooks from publishing houses often run into the same typos and coding issues self-published authors like myself have in our eBooks.

In those cases, is that all the editor’s fault? Is all that the author’s fault? 

I don’t think so. 

Now I know there are a lot of crap eBooks out there. There are a lot of eBooks with poor formatting, bad storytelling and weak sentence structure. Nonfiction books that are filled with factual inaccuracies.

Unfortunately, this is par for the course in the post 2008 publishing world where 95 percent of the new eBooks out there are self-published. And it’s those writers’ first Amendment right to publish that work. A retailer like amazon, Smashwords or Barnes & Noble can’t make these authors change their content. Nor do they have the resources or the time to vet that content for issues a reader has with what they read.

So the consumer has to make every effort to do their homework before making a purchase. No customer in their right mind would spend thousands of dollars on a car without doing research on it. 

And they shouldn’t buy an eBook for 99cents or $9.99 without doing their research.

In this information age there’s nearly no excuse for returning an eBook outside of coding issues or an error purchase. Readers have too many options to learn about a book, its genre or the writer’s style before making a purchase. I know the customer is always right, but there comes a point where they have to take responsibility for the digital content they purchase.