Mel Hopkins

My photo timestamp says 2013 🤔

I'm not sure but it appears we can no longer post updates on our profiles. This is a really good site. I'm glad you didn't dump the forum 🙏🏽

The First Chapter celebrates impactful storytelling, featuring Malaika Mutere's Bantu Waltz, where music, identity, and colonial survival intertwine through a powerful, evocative narrative. Bantu Waltz : Nya's Archangel Story by Malaika Mutere Reviewed by MELEvery writer knows: the first chapter is a promise. It’s where you bring your best pen forward. And if done right, that first chapter becomes a map, a mood, and a motive. That’s why I bring to you, The First Chapter, a feature dedicated to honoring the artistry and ambition of Chapter One. Our inaugural entry belongs to Bantu Waltz: Nya’s Archangel’s Story by Malaika Mutere—a novel that doesn’t tiptoe onto the page but dances in with rhythm, rage, and reverence. Mutere’s prose is at once a celebration and a lament, a reminder that the stories we tell about music, memory, and colonial survival are neither linear nor light. They’re layered. Underneath the first chapter’s sun-drenched opening scene—students dancing, families gathering, a new year rising—lurks a tension that is anything but decorative. In a flashback, the protagonist, Nya, shares a memory that recalls British invasion music floating over Kenyan airwaves; the reader is reminded that even joy carries the echo of conquest. It’s not just a song; it’s a symbol. That static hums with identity theft, cultural interruption, and ancestral resistance. And like any song worth listening to twice, this chapter delivers a syncopated truth: music in the wrong hands is deception. But in Mutere’s hands? It’s a key. A call. A coded language meant for the descendants of Bantu lineage—those with the ancient mitochondrial DNA to decipher the message carried in the melody. I read this chapter before Black Music Month slipped away, and I’m glad I did. Because what Bantu Waltz makes clear is that Black music is more than a beat; it’s a genealogy. And sometimes, a first chapter is more than a beginning—it’s a remembrance. So if you’re looking for fiction that blends Soul, Sorrow, and Sound into one artful opening, I recommend Bantu Waltz to readers of Soul/R&B fiction, social anthropology, and cultural memoirs dressed as novels. Because The First Chapter isn’t just a feature. It’s a feeling. Originally posted Art intersects MEL June 30, 2025

The Black man who killed my father while he was trying to prevent a robbery of his uncle store was convicted with life with no expected parole. He is free today and has been for some time, so I suspect there are a lot who are free today. But that crime spree back in the day - sent me fleeing NY so, I'm not mad at that crime bill that saved other Black families who couldn't leave New York. If there were people falsely imprisoned my heart breaks for them and I hope some liberal project got them out. But it wasn't like Black people caught up in that bill were innocent. They left a lot of Black families without fathers, sons, mothers and daughters. In other news, Hi @ProfD ! I hope you are doing well on this Memorial Day!

I love learning too much to focus on just one subject. A dissertation is limiting, and the only subject I know better than communications and marketing, is scheduled passenger airlines. I initially enrolled in GSU to take some classes and then decided to upgrade my journalism experience by incorporating data science.

Welcome back! 🙋🏽‍♀️👋🏽 I was in HIST class while Troy was tinkering and missed the upgrade entirely!

Brooklyn was a bloodbath in the 90s -I had to hit the deck a couple of times with the twins in my arms because they were shooting in the playground across from my Bed-Stuy home. One night DEA and Narc cops from NYPD jumped my mother's fence chasing drug dealers. Her Clinton-Hill brownstone was on the corner and our drive-in garage sat on the side of the house that bordered our backyard. It was a perfect getaway. Nope you didn't have to be in the drug trade to get runover by it. I was terrified for my girls. You were lucky to be oblivious to the crime - it was ugly. I'll never forget walking to the J Train and stepping over brainmatter. This became a regular occurence for me. That's exactly why we left. I wanted better for my girls. I got it too! The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) 1990-1994 Actually it started in the 1980s maybe even before my father's off-duty shooting The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) 1980-1985

College grads today may need to board a flight to Latin America to find their next job. And this time it is not because corporations are looking for cheap, low-skilled labor. U.S.-educated LATAM professionals, including lawyers, finance specialists, and HR directors, are filling back-office roles that used to sit in American cities. This has been quietly accelerating since the early 2000s. This week, a VP of Global Services Finance at a major Dow company, Johnson and Johnson departed to 'pursue external opportunities' — the same week senior procurement postings went live in Bogotá. This is the pattern. Sad part is, the current administration has halted immigration while U.S. corporations export the jobs immigrants were supposedly taking. If this feels like it should be bigger news, consider who funds the news. History does tell us all of this may backfire because I left Brooklyn when the Colombian Drug Cartel ran roughshod through parts of Brooklyn.

History class was kicking my butt! It was a short semester class jammed packed with a lot of work including up to the very present. I did get an "A" and learned a lot about the United States that even I didn't know! And I read a lot! Some of it was so depressing I felt like I was struggling through PTSD. Thank goodness my professor was a Black woman with a PhD - she held the light towards the finish line. I took the summer off from school. I needed a break. 👋🏽🙋🏽‍♀️

No lies detected - Was Curry's father a high profile baller?

Pareto principle - 80/20% Or 20% of the people do the work. While 80% folly. "vital few", "trivial many" And the vital few group is usually very diverse.

In a similar vein to "Watermelon Man", I need to add, "The Blackening," which I initially overlooked, but I was drawn in once I saw it on Netflix's "before it leaves soon" page. It's genuinely hilarious and the best satire horror comedy I've seen in a while! It's about a group of college friends meeting up at a cabin in the woods after a hiatus - you know, the "life 'be lifing'" type of excuse for absence. So, like any cabin in the woods horror flick scenario, the first to die is a black person - but who's the first when everybody is Black? Well, surely it has to be the Blackest one, right? I hollered when they pointed to the actual African in the group. Anyway, that's the premise of this satirical flick, and it is really funny. Tongue-in-Cheek funny! So, although The Blackening was released in 2023, it should be a contender for this list because it absolutely has staying power.

Maybe the DOJ, IRS, or FINRA paid them a visit. 👀

"Between nine and fifteen thousand years ago, scholars believe that a land bridge existed between Asia and North America that we now call Beringia. The first inhabitants of what would be named the Americas migrated across this bridge in search of food. When the glaciers melted, water engulfed Beringia, and the Bering Strait was formed." ( Mack 1.1) We just walked on over to the Americas. There were Black people here before Columbus It was easy to migrate to the Americas - heck most indigenous people and Hawaiians were Black first.. Heck "erry body" was Black. I truly believe that is the only way would could initially survive the UV rays from the sun. -