Publishing Crisis – Feeding Racism
Blame, Anger and Rage Creates Adversity, for Which...
There is a Solution
Opening Insights: A History of Unrest
Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent.
It takes a touch of genius — and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction.
E.F. SCHUMACHER
America is currently smack in the middle of the COVID-19 crisis. The virus itself is a very real threat, but isn't the principle enemy of the people. The manner in which governments have instituted measures to curtail the spread of infection is what has crippled our nation and left us divided. As a result, fear and anger are spreading like wildfire.
To make matters worse, America has a history of conflict as it relates to social, economic and racial inequality. Many wrap up those three elements under the single heading of racism. It is common today for people to call "racism" when they perceive something to be inequitable.
COVID-19 attacks those with preexisting conditions the hardest. Consider, if a preexisting condition of unrest due to a perception of racial inequality plagued a group of individuals, then the COVID-19 crisis would serve to further divide people and amplify their fear and anger.
A recent article by Entertainment Weekly was published online and recirculated by MSN.com. It highlighted six authors who would have been at center stage to promote their books, had it not been for the government imposed restrictions on congregating due to the COVID-19 crisis.
Racism was a central topic in 50% of the books presented by these authors, and the timing of their promotion is no accident. The question is, will these books serve to educate those seeking to expand their perspective, or will they fan the flames of unrest and broaden the divide?
How do we bridge the divide of inequity, adversity and unrest?
Informational Insights: A Timely Discussion
The following article was presented by Entertainment Weekly and published by the Meredith Corporation, covering film, television, music, Broadway theatre, books, and popular culture. It was written by Seija Rankin, Los Angeles-based features editor for EW.
EW assembled a literary panel featuring Emily M. Danforth, Robert Jones, Jr., Charlotte McConaghy, Tiffany McDaniel, Nadia Owusu, and Sara Seager.
Like so many things, the book world has been rocked by the aftershocks of the global pandemic. While many more readers are at home, voraciously tearing through titles, the publishing industry is grappling with national book tours turned virtual, manufacturing delays, constantly changing release dates, and the cancellation of in-person book festivals that have been a bedrock of the literary calendar. This year's BookExpo and BookCon (the annual trade fair and fan convention that follows it) were, of course, canceled, denying the six authors who received the sought-after "Buzz" distinction — used to highlight the breakout books for the upcoming year — the chance to take the stage at the Javits Center in New York City.
EW gathered the authors, debut and returning alike, with tomes running the gamut from dystopian fiction to heartbreaking memoirs, over (what else?) Zoom to discuss what it's like to be a writer in the world right now and what fans can expect from their upcoming releases, which will hit shelves starting next week and into early 2021. You can watch the panel right here, and read more about each of these books below.
Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M. Danforth
This is Danforth's sophomore work — she made her debut as an author with the 2012 YA favorite The Miseducation of Cameron Post, but Heroines is her first foray into adult fiction and it's a feat in its own right. The tome is 640 pages long, and about as sweeping a plot as one can get: It flashes back and forth in time between a girls school in the early 1900s, when several students who are all obsessed with the same author die mysteriously, and current-day Hollywood, during a film shoot for the adaptation of a novel about said mysterious deaths. But despite all that, the current pandemic seems to loom largest when she compares the experiences of publishing the two books. "All of the conversations are different and I'm aware of not wanting to take up conversational space with my own promotion," she says of the pending October 20th release. "I think, maybe there are better things for me to be doing than telling people to read my gothic novel." Despite Danforth's humility, EW can attest that the book is very much worthy of a read — and a perfect escape for these times. (Find out more about those mysterious private school deaths.)
The Prophets by Robert Jones Jr.
"I hope they find the novel to be of some value to the culture, if not to themselves," Jones says of his debut The Prophets, which uses the love story of enslaved teenaged boys to explore the many abuses of a Southern plantation and the way that human connection is forged in the face of not only crisis but blatant racism. "What I hope readers take away from it is a renewed sense of humanity — that they read the book very closely and wrestle with the ideas put forth about what responsibilities we have to one another in creating a world in which we can coexist without being a danger to each other and all living things." The Prophets will hit stores on Jan. 5, 2021, but you can enter to win an Advanced Reader Copy here.
Migrations by Charlotte McConaghy
It's hard to conjure a more heartbreaking compilation of tragedies than those that befall Migrations' Franny Stone: There's the personal (a disastrous marriage and career), the global (climate change has devolved to such an extreme degree that animal life on earth is nearly nonexistent), and the familial (parental abandonment). The book follows Franny, an aspiring scientist, as she convinces a ship and its crew to follow the migration of the very last flock of arctic terns. "I set the book in the near future because I didn't want it to be dystopian," she explains of the Aug. 4 release. "I wanted it to be an existential look at how the deaths of animals will affect us on an emotional level — the loneliness of being here alone." As Franny's husband — a leading expert on extinction — says in this excerpt, the only true threat to birds that has ever existed is us.
Betty by Tiffany McDaniel
This family saga might be the saddest novel you'll read all year. It follows a family in Appalachian Ohio — eight children born to a white mother and Cherokee father — as they grapple with unspeakable tragedies and unbearable racism. But thanks to a heavy focus on their Cherokee culture and the mysticism and earthly knowledge it provides them, the lightness pokes through the dark. It's a novel, but strongly based on McDaniel's mother (the title character). "The seed for Betty began nearly 20 years ago when my mother told me a family secret," the author explains. "I began to discover even more about the family, and if I hadn't written this book most of these stories would have died with that generation." Learn the family's origin story in this excerpt. Betty hits shelves Aug. 18.
Aftershocks by Nadia Owusu
This earth-shattering memoir uses the aftershock — both literal and metaphorical — as a framing device and inspiration. Owusu explores the geopolitical, geological, and psychological traumas that have marked her young life, from moving between countries across Africa and Europe as the daughter of a United Nations employee to her estrangement from her mother and her father's eventual death, as well as living through a civil war in Ethiopia and the 9/11 attacks (to name a few!). "I began to think of my life as existing on fault lines," she says. "I was a global citizen and a person without a clear home and I've often felt like an outsider. So Aftershocks was a way for me to grapple with the multiplicity of identity, the meaning of home, and the ripple effects of trauma." Watch EW's exclusive reveal of the book trailer for Aftershocks. The memoir will be released on Jan. 12, 2021.
The Smallest Lights in the Universe by Sara Seager
Sara Seager is one of the world's leading astrophysicists. She's won a MacArthur Genius Grant, she works at MIT, and she discovers exoplanets for a living. But in her memoir, she explores something much more interior. "My memoir is about outer space as well as inner space," says the author who, fittingly, arrived at EW's panel with a very otherworldly Zoom background. "It tracks a kind of fall-off-the-cliff depression from grief and a bounce back." Seager tragically lost her father and husband to cancer in close succession, and Smallest Lights, out Aug. 18, tells of her attempts to keep her career and her children from crumbling. You can read about the day that she stumbles upon a group for widowed women at a sledding hill in this exclusive excerpt.
This article was published by ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Six of the year's buzziest authors discuss bringing their books into the world during cultural upheaval
Possibilities for Consideration: What Will WE Do?
When we make somebody else responsible for having created our problems, then assign them the responsibility for fixing those problems, we may wait forever for resolution. Hurt from being powerless to fix our problems grows into rage and now we are ready to lash out and punish the perceived source of our pain.
The books containing racism as a central topic will either broaden the divide and the hurt, or if presented in the correct manner, they will help us to understand the struggles of others, prompting communities of people to band together and face our common problems through unity.
When topics like inequity are introduced into a collaborative environment and discussed from a perspective of, there are many answers to the problem, then we can begin to explore the root cause and collaborate on the complementary cure. The principle idea here is to get people together to clearly define the root problem. Only then will the many answers to the problem of racial inequality be revealed.
When the answers are known, then a real solution may be chosen and implemented, therefore resolving the root cause. The challenge these books identify is racism, but is racism the true problem?
Racism exists because there is racial inequality. The obvious answer is to promote equality, but this answer is of no use without an implementable solution.
The AwareComm® Co-Lab™ – An Implementable Solution
Note: the picture above was taken from the A Dream Awakened eMod eBook™. 
AwareComm® offers a collaborative solution in its ePublishing methodology, founded on a unique principle based process that changes adversity to diversity to community prosperity through commerce. In the eyes of their creator, all people are equal, but for economic disparities to be resolved, we walk the path of commerce.
The beauty of the AwareComm® solution is that it isn't a single, one-size-fits-all approach, nor is it a list of answers to problems, it is a process of discernment. The process is what must be practiced and mastered. The memorization of answers will not be helpful, as our environment constantly shifts. Without a process of true resolution, today's solution becomes tomorrow's problem.
AwareComm's discernment process is illustrated by Adaptive Intelligence (AdI™) models
Raising AdI™ – Building our Strategy
With the global disruption of COVID-19 came the government enforced necessity for us to congregate over distance by digital means in online video conference rooms. Many people adopted a work-from-home approach to accomplishing their job responsibilities and many traditionally in-person meetings have evolved into online encounters.
The physical distance may help prevent the spread of disease but it is costing us our humanity. Without the physical proximity we lose out on the warmth of touch – a firm handshake; the face-to-face expression; the expression and witnessing of emotion; the sharing of a space and the energy we create within it.
The challenges of racial inequality and of social distancing are addressed by this process of developing AdI™ by building a strategy of Tele-Skill™ adoption and implementation.
First, we develop an awareness of what guides our perception, then an ability to identify ALL our choices so we can make the best decision to take the appropriate action and to be accountable for the results.
We are born with a set of values, good, kindness, gentleness, gratitude, curiosity, and the list goes on and on. If you doubt that, simply look into the face of an infant or a puppy’s eyes. Notice what they respond to. Beliefs, on the other hand are the decisions that we make about ourselves in relationship to the world around us. Based upon our experiences.
A set of values and accompanying belief structure are established by the age of 7. For many, the childhood experience was less than ideal and resulted in things learned that aren't necessarily true. An awareness of that which directs our Perception, Attitude, Thinking and Beliefs grants us the ability to stop what doesn't work and replace it with something that does.
In order to be accountable (recognized) for the results of our actions there must be a foundation of maturity, which is created from a process of: Authority, Responsibility and Accountability. Those three elements come together to create maturity.
With a foundation of maturity we are able to adopt a thinking process that takes into account each element of the equation and presents a process that makes sense of a swirling cloud of information and choices.
Now, with a strong foundation in thinking and maturity we can better assess the real problem behind our challenges. This process empowers us to identify ALL the answers and to see ALL of our choices. As a result, with a mature thinking process, a decision can be made and an implementable solution is chosen and applied, thus correcting the root cause of the problem.
By implementing the models: Gears, Maturity, Thinking and Problem-Solving in an effective way that everyone agrees upon, we don’t need a unique cure for each one of our challenges, we have a process that, when followed, is the key to addressing any challenge. This is a teach-a-man-to-fish approach, an empowerment approach, not a give-a-man-a-fish approach.
This is the process that we implemented into the AI+BI+HI+SI = Adaptive Intelligence (AdI™) Algorithm and built a gateway to it in the Microsoft teams program.
By using these basic strategy models we are able to enlighten others and to help expand their reach, gaining an awareness of cause and effect and getting to the real truth. When the Tele-Skills™ process is learned and applied, individuals will no longer require an outside authority to fix their problems for them. They will possess the tools to band together and apply the synergistic strength of a united people with collaborative goals.
Now we can face the challenges of disparity from a common foundation and process of thinking.
Partnering with God
Now that we understand the foundation thinking process and the algorithm for maturity we are ready to put it all into action. This is how the AwareComm® leadership partners with God. This is how others may become partners with AwareComm®.
AwareComm establishes the Co-lab research institute in partnership with spiritual leadership to offer the power of technology to support the message of solidarity.
Inequality can be resolved with equality. Equality comes from Love. The Graphic above depicts the roadmap to putting inequality behind us and implementing Love. Many areas currently face the need to grow equality, for instance, the graphic above lists: unemployment, homelessness and economic imbalance, which are framed by Skills, opportunity and the collaboration of a team.
This is what the founder had to say,
"If, or even though, we attempt to fulfill these needs without collaboration, our folly becomes clear. We assess how these needs must be fulfilled, then when they are fulfilled, we discover the fulfillment is not adequate. For those whose needs/wants are fulfilled by another, too much will never be enough. They must be the instrument of their own salvation, of the change in their lives, otherwise they will resent the change and never be satisfied."
What we do is to build team skills. WE don’ just train people we train people and create teams. A company will hire a team of people.
Back to Publishing...
If the powerful messages contained within books and other interactive content were published within the collaborative environment of the AwareComm® Co-Lab™ then the messages within could become implementable applications. The foundation AdI™ Tele-Skills™ thinking process and strategy are implemented through Application eMods™, developed in a Co-Lab Research Institute partnership.
The Application eMods™ will not just help the content developers promote their message and increase the market appeal for the book, they become a foundation for a process that invokes problem, answers, and solution. This is one way we can address racism by addressing racial inequality, emotional inequality and physical inequality. It is a far less costly alternative to riots.
will be used by a Seasoned Priest in Uganda
Note: the picture above was taken from the A Dream Awakened eMod eBook™.
Implementing the Ecosystem – A Model Community
Bringing Churches together through:
- Faith - Hope - Love
- Human Development
AwareComm initiated this ecosystem with a partner in Uganda. The problems to overcome are immense. Within great adversity comes great opportunity. AwareComm is banding together with Churches for practical application of this ecosystem and its associated collection of models and methodology.
The incredible complexities of the political web become overwhelming.
Only undeniable principle based Boolean Logic can effectively communicate the real and whole truth.
The above insight forms a foundation from which common people can learn how to transcend an original thought into a thinking process. Following this process enables each person to recognize the deception behind the divide and resulting defeat.
Add Your Insight
Take a moment and examine…
- As you reviewed the material above, what stood out to you?
- What is the potential impact, economically and/or socially?
- What action is needed to stop or support this idea?
- You may want to consider whether you:
- want to be aware of,
- should become supportive of,
- would want to be active in this topic?
I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply.
Being willing is not enough; we must do.
LEONARDO DA VINCI