Here's Margaret Seltzer, the con-artist/liar responsible for the memoir Love and Consequences, in which she faked a past as a foster child raised by a black family of gang members in South Central L.A. Her publishing company, which pulled her book as soon as she was outed (by her big sister no less!) as a privileged young woman who hailed from a two-parent home in Sherman Oaks, Calif., surely didn't want you to see this. In the video, Seltzer, as "Margaret Jones," tells her fake story in a fake accent. Watching it, it's hard to imagine that this woman didn't think she'd be found out.

To make matters even worse, the actual book is not only offensive, it's also terrible — despite the glowing review it received in the New York Times. Click through for an excerpt.

CONTINUED »

Wherein you, the readers, talk amongst yourselves.
My favorite book is Their Eyes Were Watching God. Janie under the pear tree? Are you kidding? It definitely takes first place, followed closely by Catch-22, and The Accidental Diva, written by my very talented big sister.

A new Harris Poll finds that Americans rank The Bible as their number one book, but while the book that takes second place overall is Gone With The Wind, most blacks chose Dan Brown's Angels & Demons as their second favorite. I'm dumbfounded on that one. What's your favorite book?

• Republicans are ignoring the GOP this election season? Okay, well, that means everything is status quo, then. [LW]

• A group of Maryland students are collecting interviews from several of the states oldest blacks for a project that is turning out to be the most comprehensive studies of black life in the region. [WP]

• What happens when your own past intersects with your work. [USAT]

• "What gives you cause for hope or despair when it comes to race in America?" [MSNBC]

• The South African "urine stew" video is just a tip of the iceberg. [AA]

Margaret Seltzer thought she could write a memoir claiming that her name was Margaret B. Jones, she was half-white and half-Native American, she was raised by a black foster mother, and she spent her youth in South Central LA running drugs for the Bloods. She thought she could do this and get away with it. She was wrong!

Seltzer was really raised in Sherman Oaks, Calif., by her biological family. Her older sister outed her after Seltzer (as Jones) appeared in a New York Times article to promote her critically acclaimed memoir, Love & Consequences.

“Love and Consequences” immediately hit a note with many reviewers. Writing in The Times, Michiko Kakutani praised the “humane and deeply affecting memoir,” but noted that some of the scenes “can feel self-consciously novelistic at times.” In Entertainment Weekly, Vanessa Juarez wrote that “readers may wonder if Jones embellishes the dialogue” but went on to extol the “powerful story of resilience and unconditional love.”

In the vividly told book, Ms. Seltzer wrote about her African-American foster brothers, Terrell and Taye, who joined the Bloods gang when they were 11 and 13. She chronicled her experiences making drug deliveries for gang leaders at age 13 and how she was given her first gun as a birthday present when she was 14. Ms. Seltzer told The Times last week, “One of the first things I did once I started making drug money was to buy a burial plot.”

Seltzer's editors said they were shocked to find out that the story was a lie. For her part, Seltzer claims that she wrote the book after being moved by stories she heard through her work to combat gang violence in LA. Her publisher has cancelled her book tour and recalled all copies of the book. Well, there you go. Shamelessly stealing the stories of poor black people for your own financial gain probably makes for some bad karma. She better just thank her lucky stars Oprah Winfrey didn't make this part of her book club. This chick would have hell to pay. [NYT]

UPDATE: Read the original story about the "gang member" here. Please.

• "Local rapper" strikes again, this time in Baton Rouge. [MR]

• A new graphic novel portrays blacks' resistance to Jim Crow. [ST]

• Wings Over Jordan was a radio show that brought black listeners together across the country during the '30s and '40s. [NPR]

• A New York bar hosting a Barack Obama party used a discriminatory dress code that excluded blacks. Nice. [Newsday]

• The subprime mortgage catastrophe dashed so many dreams. [MG]

A daily Black History Month fact that has nothing to do with George Washington Carver, MLK, Jr., or Harriet Tubman. Promise!

Octavia Butler made her career as a science fiction writer despite the dearth of other black female authors in the genre. Butler overcame dyslexia to become a highly successful, award-winning author, publishing her first novel, Patternmaster in 1976. Butler used traditional science fiction themes to explore issues of race, sexuality, and class — in 1979's Kindred, she used time travel as a vehicle to tell a story about American slavery. In 1995, Butler became the first and only science fiction writer to win a MacArthur Foundation Genius Grant. She died in 2006 at the age of 58.

A daily Black History Month fact that has nothing to do with George Washington Carver, MLK, Jr., or Harriet Tubman. Promise!

William Wells Brown was born a slave in Kentucky in 1815. According to legend, he's the grandson of Daniel Boone. As a boy working on a steamboat in the Mississippi River, Brown escaped to Canada, where he made a living as a steward on a ship that sailed the Great Lakes. During this time, he taught himself to read and write, married a free black woman, and became active in th Underground Railroad.

Through his work as an abolitionist, he became a renowned public speaker and a writer. He published several works — including an autobiography called The Narrative of William W. Brown, a Fugitive Slave and Three Years in Europe, a travel memoir. With his 1853 novel, Clotel (or President's Daughter), which was based on the love affair of Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson and published in England, he became and became the first African American to publish a novel. He was also the first African American to publish a play. He died in Massachusetts in 1884.

This concludes your daily dose of BHM.

A daily Black History Month fact that has nothing to do with George Washington Carver, MLK, Jr., or Harriet Tubman. Promise!

Alexandre Dumas is one of the most famous writers in French history. He popularized the serial novel with his books, the most famous of which are the Les Trois Mousquetaires (1844, The Three Musketeers) and Le Comte de Monte-Cristo (1844-45, The Count of Monte-Cristo). Alexandre Dumas was also black.

The grandson of a French nobleman and a Haitian slave, Dumas left his village for Paris to find work at a young age. He soon became a playwright and then segued into serialized novels. His writing made him a fortune, which he quickly spent. Called the "King of Paris," Dumas had a reputation for his liberal spending habits and penchant for mistresses and parties.

Although he rarely addressed his black heritage, but his books were very popular with 19th century black audiences, who saw The Count of Monte Cristo as pro-emancipation.

This concludes your daily dose of BHM.

Send tips to lauren AT stereohyped.com!

Mr. Serv-On is bringing you the truth. Are you ready?

If you're asking yourself who Mr. Serv-On is, I'll enlighten you. He's a former No Limit soldier who has refashioned himself into a dating and advice expert. With his new book, Inside the Mind of Brothas: A Young Black Man’s Guide for Black Women Trying to Survive the Dating Game in Today’s Hip-Hop Generation, he's trying to solve the problems of African American couples.

A tidbit:

“Seventy percent of the time, Black Women’s hearts get broken because of their own blind misjudgment and greediness for a man based on outside attributes,” explained Mr. Serv-On.

I'm inclined to think Mr. Serv-On needed a ghost writer. [AHH]

For all of his childlike poutiness and tantrum-throwing, Kanye West has picked up a lot of wisdom over the years. And it's wisdom he wants to share with us all — for a price, of course.

West has written a book of "Kanye-isms" called Thank You and You're Welcome, in which he teaches the reader to "Get use [sic] to being used," because there is nothing wrong with getting used as long as there is not an "over" or "ab" in front of the word. And that we should all be leery of the free gift bag, because nothing in life is free, kids. Then there's the "Missing Banister Theory," which… well, I'm not going to give it all away!

CONTINUED »

• There's some race joke about Obama and Oprah's face being plastered on gourmet chocolates, but I'm just too tired. [SJMN]

• In an effort to avoid a being like the New York Times with its Harlem piece, I'm going to put it this way: they don't necessarily hate Barack Obama in Butte, Montana. [AN]

• More ignorance at firehouses. [WCP]

• The largest African American bookstore chain closes down. Meanwhile, Amazon continues to grow! [BN]

Lupe "What The Hell Is He Talking About" Fiasco, who can pretty brilliant in his songs and pretty ridiculous in interviews, said that he is going to do one more album and then retire to put his creativity into writing a book about a window washer. The window washer will probably not listen to A Tribe Called Quest.

"I have one more album in me and then I'm out. I've been doing this music hustle for eight years and have more things I still want to do."

"There are other ways besides putting out an album that allow me to channel my creative energy and I'm writing a book about a window washer. I will have more than enough to keep me busy."

Fiasco will name his final album LupEND, for obvious reasons. And although the topic of his book gave me pause, if every rapper out right now wrote a novel, Lupe Fiasco's would probably be the best.

Lawrence Otis Graham, the one-track mind behind Our Kind of People: Inside America's Black Upper Class — the title is pretty self-explanatory, even if you've never heard of it — is at it again with The Our Kind of People 800 Register, "the first national directory of the richest and most socially elite black families and people in America." Okay.

Graham's original book had merit from an African American history perspective, I think. But a lot of people hated it for the class-separation and snobbery it seemed to celebrate and for Graham's pompousness. This register takes the controversial issue to another level. Graham says he's just trying to shift attention from rappers and athletes to black families with lots of education, lots of money, and lots of history, whether they want the attention or not.

CONTINUED »