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Notes from a Boy @ The Window

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Notes from a Boy @ The Window

Tag Archives: Blogging

I’ve Been Blogging For a Decade, And…

06 Tuesday Jun 2017

Posted by decollins1969 in 1, Boy @ The Window, culture, Eclectic, Pittsburgh, Politics, Pop Culture, race, Religion, Work, Youth

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Tags

10 Years, Blogger, Blogging, Fear of a "Black" America, Giving, Highlights, Stats, Teaching and Learning, What's Next, WordPress, Writing


Me comatose on my MacBook keyboard, March 29, 2013. (Donald Earl Collins).

This was what I wrote for my first blog post on my former Fear of a “Black” America website on Monday, June 4, 2007.

It had taken me a month of brushing up on my HTML and a week of negotiating the code between Blogger.com and my former website (hosted by Earthlink) to embed my blog page. All so that I could post for the first time.

I was transitioning from being the writer and “recovering academician” on multiculturalism to the writer I am now, I guess. But I didn’t want to lose a website I’d spent months of self-taught HTML time and energy developing, and years of additions to attract views, comments, and the occasional interview. At the time, FearofaBlackAmerica.com averaged 1,200 unique visitors a month, after a high of 4,000 per month through 2004 and 2005, mostly the result of pumping my first book. Or possibly, the confusion between my book title and PE’s 1990 album, Fear of a Black Planet, but given the feedback, it was much more the former than the latter.

Kunta Kinte being whipped, Roots (1977) screenshot, July 6, 2012. (http://irvine.wikis.gdc.georgetown.edu). Qualifies as fair use under US Copyright laws because of screenshot’s low resolution.

So I went for it, not knowing if anyone would read any of my words, feel any of my emotions, or ever express a thought in support, solidarity, or disagreement. Once I started writing about poverty, racism, and child abuse while growing up in Mount Vernon, New York, though, it didn’t take long for random folks to start sending me missives about how I “deserved” my stepfather beating me up, or how grateful I should be for growing up in a city where Denzel Washington once lived. The kind of respectability politics bullshit that writing about a childhood full of pain tends to attract.

It wasn’t until I moved my blog to WordPress in 2010 that the work of writing and adding multimedia to my musings really took off. It helped that I managed to use contemporary events to tell my story, to provide commentary on human depravity beyond the world of research. By 2012, I was averaging more than 12,000 views a month, and had more comments from folks about my blogs than I could respond to in a timely manner. Excerpts from some of my blogs even made it into social and mainstream media.

Overall, there have been over 250,000 unique visitors to and 300,000 views of my blog off both the Blogger and WordPress platforms over the past decade. With this one, I’ve written 944 total posts, about 900,000 words since June 2007. Among my most popular are

  • Ex-Stepfather’s Balance Sheet (August 2010), 23,741 views
  • A Baseball Bat and a Father’s Absence (July 2011), 7,634 views
  • Why Ferengi Are Jewish & The Maquis Are Latino (January 2011), 4,961 views
  • World Book Encyclopedia’s Insidious Effect (March 2011), 3,555 views
  • Larry Glasco and the Suzy-Q Hypothesis (August 2011), 2,668 views

Standing ovation, opera house unknown, May 21, 2012.(http://www.thelmagazine.com).

I think that this is a good representation of what my blog has offered me as a writer and, hopefully, the tens of thousands of folks who read my musings every year. I have no idea what this blog will turn into over the next couple of years, as I continue to pursue more and more freelance writing projects, and maybe even, another book. But I thank all of you for your support, your criticisms, and your reads and views over the years. May I never take this for granted.

Social Media Trolls, In a Pic or Two

16 Saturday Aug 2014

Posted by decollins1969 in 1, culture, Eclectic, Movies, Politics, Pop Culture, race, Religion, Youth

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Blogging, Facebook, Harassment, Personal Attacks, Racial Harassment, Sentinels, Sexual Harassment, Social Media, Swarms, The Matrix (1999), The Matrix Revolutions (2003), Troll, Trolling, Trolls, Twitter, WordPress


Some folks who come at me through Twitter, my blog on WordPress, even in the “friend” zone on Facebook, are by definition trolls. According to Wikipedia (and apparently, an Indiana University webpage where the definition below comes from), a troll is

a person who sows discord on the Internet by starting arguments or upsetting people, by posting inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community (such as a newsgroup, forum, chat room, or blog) with the deliberate intent of provoking readers into an emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion.

A Sentinel cutting through the Nebuchadnezzar (screen shot), The Matrix (1999), August 16, 2014. (Donald Earl Collins). Qualifies as fair use under copyright laws - especially low resolution.

A Sentinel cutting through the Nebuchadnezzar (screen shot), The Matrix (1999), August 16, 2014. (Donald Earl Collins). Qualifies as fair use under copyright laws – especially low resolution.

But this isn’t a complete definition. Trolls are often anonymous, or, if not hiding in the shadows, often have few followers/follow few people in social media. They don’t just “start arguments” — they launch vitriolic personal attacks on individuals with whom they disagree in order to distract from that person(s) point or main topic. They often express every -ism and -phobia they have toward other humans, as if their own humanity and the humanity of the group they think represent is the only one that matters.

And when they find themselves engaged with other trolls, they swarm an individual in the social media world like Sentinels from The Matrix series, hoping to destroy the person in the process. It’s the virtual equivalent of bullying and harassment, and they deserve as much respect in the social media world as we’d give to a bully in the real world. The kind of respect that calls trolls out and puts them in check, the kind of respect that may well involve law enforcement and legal actions.

Swarm of Sentinels about to attack Neo in Machine City (screen shot), The Matrix Revolutions (2003), August 16, 2014. (http://www.cgw.com/images/). Qualifies as fair use under copyright laws - low resolution.

Swarm of Sentinels about to attack Neo in Machine City (screen shot), The Matrix Revolutions (2003), August 16, 2014. (http://www.cgw.com/images/). Qualifies as fair use under copyright laws – low resolution.

Trolls do one good thing, though. They remind us there are millions of people who want to sleepwalk through life unaware of power, privilege and injustice. Or maybe, they’ve become addicted to their own misery and narcissism. So though we may want to strangle them, the best way to deal with them is with a swarm of our own, to ignore, block and check them at every turn. Too bad we can’t also use an EMP on them.

Blogging Break

29 Friday Mar 2013

Posted by decollins1969 in 1, Boy @ The Window, Eclectic

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Blogging, Blogging Break, ebook, Finished Product, Publishing


Me comatose on my MacBook keyboard, March 29, 2013. (Donald Earl Collins).

Me comatose on my MacBook keyboard, March 29, 2013. (Donald Earl Collins).

As of today, I’m taking a blogging hiatus. It will likely last between two and four weeks. I’ve been trying to finalize the Boy @ The Window manuscript, write other articles, post on my blog at least twice a week, work out, run and sometimes play basketball between four and five times a week, teach three classes this semester, and pick up additional work. I can’t do all of that, not all at once. I’ve already cut back my workout schedule to three times a week, and pushed back some work in order to complete the finishing touches to the book ms.

But now, with Boy @ The Window so close to finally, finally, finally being done (at least from a technical perspective), I have more to do on the business and proposal side over the next couple of weeks. I don’t want to shoot the final product into the air, only for it to come crashing down, killing me and everyone else within fifty yards, like an old German V-2 rocket.

So, for the first time in nearly six years of blogging (including three years through WordPress), I’m taking a break. Not exactly a vacation, as my intent is to have my magnum opus out in ebook form, at least, by the end of April. But a break from waxing philosophical, being goofy and sharing anger, rage and tears of joy and pain here. The next time I do a full blog post, Boy @ The Window will be a real book.

In the meantime, there are 610 other posts to take in, and hopefully, to enjoy.

Beware of the Blogger

01 Sunday Aug 2010

Posted by decollins1969 in 1, Boy @ The Window, Eclectic, Work

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Bloggers, Blogging, Integrity, Journalism, Paying Dues, Print Journalism, Tony Kornheiser, Writing


Me the Evil Blogger

I have a haiku for Tony Kornheiser, host of ESPN’s Pardon the Interruption and ESPN DC 980’s The Tony Kornheiser Show:

Beware the Blogger, for he’s only right sometimes, but wrong all the time.

This not only sums up Kornheiser’s sentiment regarding bloggers, but those of many veterans of professional journalism. But since Kornheiser’s the most recent dissenter who’s used his microphone as a weapon to whack all bloggers over their heads about blogging, I’ll work with him. Apparently a person who wants to become a print journalist today must, absolutely must, “pay their dues” in order to be great at the profession. By Kornheiser’s definition as a long-time beat sports reporter, that means years of lousy pay, traveling to godforsaken towns and villages, staying in crappy motels and eating artery-clogging food in order to hone the craft of gathering sources and doing interviews.

I have no argument against honing one’s craft. We all should do it, regardless of profession, in order to make the most of our talents and eventually become successful. What I do have a problem with, though, is the idea that bloggers somehow are taking a shortcut. It’s as if we’ve all decided to warp space-time itself instead of seeking to break the speed-of-light-barrier in order to become successful journalists and writers.

All we do, according to Kornheiser and numerous others, is “spew” and “spout opinions,” not based on anything except our guts. Apparently we’re all supposed to become old, gray and grizzled in order to have the privilege of making a decent living and being able to have a radio show and a half-hour TV gig. Still, I get it. Andrew Breitbart’s blogging crusade against anything that he considers politically left managed to drag Shirley Sherrod, Ben Jealous and NAACP and the White House along for his pitiful ride into the mud.

Yet I don’t remember too many people complaining about the blogosphere when the story about former presidential candidate John Edwards broke into the mainstream two years ago. A story that bloggers and the National Inquirer had been banging around for eight months before the real professional journalists got a hold of it. I don’t recall Kornheiser and his buddies giving folks like Mitch Albom (Detroit Free Press, bestselling author of Tuesdays With Morrie) or Bob Ryan (long-time sports reporter and columnist for the Boston Globe) too hard a time over stories that they should’ve never filed or were completely inaccurate. I don’t remember Kornheiser complaining about the plight of print journalism when the Jayson Blair plagiarism scandal (New York Times, 2003) or the Mike Barnicle fabrication scandal (Boston Globe, 1998) broke.

I take offense to any journalist or writer insisting that every blogger is an unadulterated hack with zero skills necessary to be — or become — good writers or journalists. I take offense because I’ve paid my dues, thank you very much. I’ve been writing on the topic of race, culture and diversity for more than twenty years, and have been a published writer for the past seventeen years. Five and a half years of graduate school to become an American and African American historian, and the past ten years to make myself more than an academic writer. Maybe I just imagined my days without food and with holes in my sneakers back then.

Within that, years of archival research hunting for sources much more obscure than “Deep Throat.” Interviews with people in authority, with people long forgotten by the press. A year of my life just learning how to do statistical analysis. Two and a half years of post-graduate unemployment and underemployment, taking crap work and teaching part-time in order to become a better writer and a better historian. But, alas, I haven’t “paid my dues.”

I blog for three reasons. One, because it serves as a form of a journal for me, to be able to track my mood, my progress as I pursue the publication of my memoir Boy @ The Window. Two, because as long as I have something to say about a subject I know quite a bit about — and through my years of experience, I know quite a bit about a lot of things — I can write about that subject. Three, I blog because I want to build an audience, to have an honest presence in the blogosphere, where I spew more than vitriol, where what I have to say is based on research, interviews, sources, and, of course, my biases and my opinions.

To Kornheiser, I say, based on a quote from Vernon Jordan’s memoir, Vernon Can Read! (2001): “Read, Tony, Read!” Read an occasional blog like mine. Don’t just spew your opinion, you dope!

Boy @ The Window: A Memoir

Boy @ The Window: A Memoir

Places to Buy/Download Boy @ The Window

There's a few ways in which you can read excerpts of, borrow and/or purchase and download Boy @ The Window. There's the trade paperback edition of Boy @ The Window, available for purchase via Amazon.com at http://www.amazon.com/Boy-Window-Donald-Earl-Collins/dp/0989256138/

There's also a Kindle edition on Amazon.com. The enhanced edition can be read only with Kindle Fire, an iPad or a full-color tablet. The links to the enhanced edition through Apple's iBookstore and the Barnes & Noble NOOK edition are below. The link to the Amazon Kindle version is also immediately below:

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Boy @ The Window on Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/Boy-The-Window-Memoir-ebook/dp/B00CD95FBU/

iBookstore-logo-300x100

Boy @ The Window on Apple's iBookstore: https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/boy-the-window/id643768275?ls=1

Barnes & Noble (bn.com) logo, June 26, 2013. (http://www.logotypes101.com).

Boy @ The Window on Barnes & Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/boy-the-window-donald-earl-collins/1115182183?ean=2940016741567

You can also add, read and review Boy @ The Window on Goodreads.com. Just click on the button below:

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