Ebay is bordering on Censorship with their New Anti Black Americana Manifesto!

[ekmadonna]

I believe Ebay is crossing a very fine line with their NEW SELF IMPOSED MANIFESTO on BANNING Important Historical Afro American works of Literature. I just had another listing removed in BOOKS & BLACK AMERICANA.

  This book is a Important and rare piece of literature penned by  a Afro American Reverend from South Carolina who was a preacher and the book is a book of his own Sermons in his own writing style which was crude and uneducated  prose because he lacked schooling. His writing may have been  crude but his message was of Faith and Family. My book is titled "Darkey Sermons from Charlestown County by John Palmer Lockwood Alias Rebrin Isrel Manigo. This is a RARE 1st edition 1925 1st printing. Told in the Reverends own prose and word selection.

  This book should not be BANNED and that is what Ebay is doing lately BOOK BANNING and trying to ban History. What authors are next? W.E.B. Du Bois, Langston Hughes. Maya Angelou, Alex Haley and ROOTS??? They should just get on with it and take down the whole Black Americana Category.

[gracieallen01]

Perhaps next on the list will be "Fahrenheit 451".

[aldente28]

I read ebay's policy on removing culturally/racially sensitive/offensive materials. The intent is not to "ban history". You can always appeal the removal. At the very least, see what they say. At best, maybe your book will be relisted.

[ekmadonna]

It's a $250.00 book I will take the sale elsewhere.

[gracieallen01]

Many have noticed that appealing a removal and gaining a 'Yea' for relisting can often garner a policy violation, at least.  It seems that the 'bots seldom participate in the appeal process.

[ekmadonna]

I have had your exact scenario happen to me two times in the past a few years ago.

[this*old*attic]

My guess is that the problem is the term “darkey” in the title. I don’t think your book is on any list, or bots caught it - I think you might have been reported by a user.

[gracieallen01]

I would hate to try and recount the number of times I've heard that here on the boards.

[coolections]

You might as well get very used to it as it is all of America not just Ebay. No need to blame Ebay, blame the fanatics and the politicians. No need to rant here about it. Sell elsewhere or just burn the stuff.

[southern*sweet*tea]

As much as it pains me to say this...

it is Ebay's right as a business to disallow anything they want from being sold.

It has nothing to do with censorship, which is done by a government against its people. A business not allowing an item to be sold is not censorship. You're free to sell it anywhere else. There is no governmental ban against the sale of Black Americana.

Personally I think it's a stupid move, and many people take it quite rightly as a slap in the face to black people. Sellers posted about having  MLK memorabilia removed. If that's not a slap in the face to race relations and civil rights, I don't know what is.

[pburn]

@ekmadonna wrote:

  This book is a Important and rare piece of literature penned by  a Afro American Reverend from South Carolina who was a preacher and the book is a book of his own Sermons in his own writing style which was crude and uneducated  prose because he lacked schooling. His writing may have been  crude but his message was of Faith and Family. My book is titled "Darkey Sermons from Charlestown County by John Palmer Lockwood Alias Rebrin Isrel Manigo. This is a RARE 1st edition 1925 1st printing. Told in the Reverends own prose and word selection.

What authors are next? W.E.B. Du Bois, Langston Hughes. Maya Angelou, Alex Haley and ROOTS???

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@ekmadonna 

This is what happens when sellers don't perform research on the items they're listing. I don't have any idea where you came up with the above information (in red), but John Palmer Lockwood was a white man who mocked the ideas and vernacular of the American black religious figures of his time by using the insulting alias of "Rebrin (instead of "Reverend") Isrel Manigo." 

Did you look inside the book you're selling? It has an image of John Palmer Lockwood. White as the day is long. He certainly shouldn't be listed with the other authors you so adamantly defend in your post.

Darkey Sermons from Charleston County

"First (and only?) edition of a collection of three sermons, written in "Gullah," more-or-less (that is, in "eye-dialect" of a white man observing African-American speech). Lockwood was a white man from a prominent Charleston family, who assumed the alias of Rebrin Isrel Manigo (Reverend Israel Manigo) to sermonize."

"From early boyhood he was intimately acquainted with the plantation life of the old Regime, for his people had been in South Carolina. For two hundred years.

His interest in current events, political and social, was keen and critical; his conversation, abounding in wit, repartee and bubbling humor made him ever a welcome guest, and, time and again, he would set the table in a roar at his own hospitable board or at the homes of his many friends. His improvised sermons vividly reproduced the thought and language of our coast negro."

[ekmadonna]

please look up the definition of CENSORSHIP in the Webster's Dictionary. Government or Corporation or School  or Business it matters not, it still CENSORSHIP.

[ekmadonna]

I stand corrected, but it's still CENSORSHIP PERIOD.

[lightlily_arts]

eBay is incapable of managing this type of policy.  What they should have done was phase it in and definitely not at a time when they don't even have customer support for sellers impacted by this change.  They just banned anything with  a hammer with Black Americana in the title and think that makes them politically compliant. Unfortunately, that sweep caught a lot of unrelated items which affected numerous sellers.  I read complaints from sellers who had all their 1000+ listings removed even though they didn't have any listings related to the Offensive Materials Policy.  When they screw up they won't fix it either.  Customer support doesn't have the brains to determine what is offensive either.  They are too uneducated.  When a listing of golf clubs identified with a black dot gets taken down that demonstrates the level of intelligence on this site.

[*madison]

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@ekmadonna wrote:

It's a $250.00 book I will take the sale elsewhere.

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Yes, you will have to do that, because the book is banned on ebay..