Ive also been thinking the thoughts you have now.. (heh... think i posted it and it is somewhere in the archive itself, in the "next level" post i think.) I mean, with an archive like the one of okayactivist it is natural for many to think about compiling it into a book.


>- What should the very theme
>and goal/agenda of the book be?

The theme and goal/agenda of okayactivist in general..at its best. I know it's easy to say but tougher to do. It takes effort to present that essence. But if there is to be a general theme of activist (at its best), then it is the more or less afrocentric one, isnt it...

So out of your two options:
>-Making it a book based wholey on
>a topic related to Afrocentricity

yes, it is the best part of okactivist.

>-Making it a book based on a topic
>of something more humanly "universal".

...but such topics have been very good as well, and i think it would be good to include them in this book (to some extent), because of the variation it brings.

>I believe it would work best as something
>targeted to us (Black people) and not
>mainstream american society (as in the
>way the school system operates in dominant
>eurocentricity).

damn right. if not, it wouldnt be okayactivistic.
These posts can be like poison to eurocentric thought... and they're more powerful if they come from below and indirectly, compared to throwing them in the direction of mainstream society. (Because the mainstream western monsterous system got its ways of delegitimizing or at best watering down anything that doesnt go in the direction it is going..)

>I hope most of all of you would agree that it
>would be best if we left out ideas that don't
>match up with the collective image of
>OkayActivist (unless it was shown from the
>personal point of view of an indivisual or
>subgroup). By that I mean racist posts
>(anything dealing with white people being
>devils, "created" human experiments or similar
>views expressed in publications like the Isis
>papers) or posts which blindly promote a
>specific religion (e.g. Islam, Christianity)
>or govermental ideology (e.g. Communism) or
>anything else related to that kind of surreal
>contraversy.

Yep.. but it's important not to make it homogenic. So yeah, it's like "i may not agree with what you say, but as long as you say it decently and with respect for the right to say it, i will tolerate you."
Tolerance for the poster... and respect for the game. As long as that is present, utamaroho can talk about his plans of most effectively erasing the aryan race as much as he wants to :) (its really better when he does it)

>Moving on to the publishing. I'm sure that
>between all of us and our connections in
>various fields and jobs that somebody could
>find a willing publishing co. Especially if
>a significant buying audience was there. But
>that's something to think about later.

Yep. (if finding a publisher ends up being impossible, it's always possible to distribute it in the underground.. indy.. That would take more efforts, but the content would still be the same. And it would still be spread about, perhaps just not to the same extent.)

>As far as potential world reaction goes, I think
>it could make a stake in whatever area were
>trying to reach.
>It could end up going farther than we imagined or
>it could just be a humble publication that makes
>some small noise in the literary world for OKP
>(if that's what is decided should happen). I
>really think that if this were to reach
>progressive and "liberal" audiences (and the
>Black audience especially) that it would introduce
>a new school of thought to people that had never
>thought in these ways prior.

What about never mentioning okayplayer and okayactivist? No addresses, but from a strong written community... To make it more special, give it a more interesting hidden face.. eh, you know what i mean. (Hard to explain..)
But first of all to protect okayactivist. Because i suddenly pictured the board in the future, flooded with readers of that book, and that could be a too interesting mix of people (or probably too uninteresting mix) for a small place like this....

I mean, most of these strong knowledgefilled posts only come from a handful of posters anyway. To make this book is to show respect to what they have shared and together built, and to pass that on. The book shouldnt destroy what it documents, the okayactivist athmosphere... Weve seen how easily that athmosphere can be changed or watered down when a large amount of people come along with intentions that aren't for the good of this athmosphere. So, i think that would be nice..

>But if it were up to me, it would just be a book
>based on a strong Afrocentric topic that could
>still apply to virtually any audience. I was
>thinking about it being formatted as a guidance
>writing, where the reader is taken on a journey
>from ignorance, confusion and oppression to
>knowledge, enlightnment and higher thinking (and
>if one chooses: the Continental reclaimation).
>Maybe called something like "The Path Back Home"
>with a young Black child walking through a
>wooded trail with a home in the distance for the
>cover.

I like the idea of writing it as a guidance story.. But then i'm also not too sure about the posts being formatted. Then they loose their surrounding and background, i think. Perhaps instead, how would it be if the posts were compressed to the essence and presented in the same way as on the boards... and perhaps THEN you'd have written text in between, every now and then, to hold the journey together, as a guidance. (Those text, small chapters in between different sections of posts, could be partly summary partly essay, opening up for further understanding if possible. It would provide variation, while the posts would be presented the way theyve always been.)

love the book cover idea, btw.. an okaypainter could do it

I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. (Tolerance.)

our word is our weapon -el SUP, the Zapatistas