Mel Hopkins

2017 and Google have made several are appearances in my life this month. @Delano Can you shed some light? Ok here’s some background - Google sent me a message about visitors finding my work on various platforms. They are also visiting one post that I wrote back in 2017. The creepy thing is they’ve been visiting this one post since December 2021.

@Pioneer1 You know that’s right! I would be a “Shirley Chisolm” candidate who fights for freedom. I’d also work to make folks get the “eff out of Black people’s way. Do you know how far we would be if the powers that be would stop putting up literal and figurative roadblocks to prevent our progress. Also, from where I sit, it doesn’t seem like people want to be “free.” Many people want to be “led” or need a “leader. I’m not a leader - I’m an organizer. But thanks to Stacey Abrams I see that can work too. Having said all that - the true power in politics is what you and I do -actually what we all do here support and work with movements that we believe in like helping @Troy with #readingblack.com This is where real policy is born.

@Delano Twin, check me if I’m wrong. But finance experts report the drivers of inflation is too much money chasing too few goods, a hot job market- (unemployment rate is 3.6 and US economy added 372000 jobs, high wages (hourly earnings rose 10 cents to $32.08 according to the July Jobs report) the strong dollar causing certain markets to rally AND gas prices are down. - @daniellegfny do you actually follow financial markets? Because if you did, you know now is the time to get rid of personal credit debt. The fed’s rate hike is to cool the economy and prevent a recession. Living above our means makes it difficult for any American to live comfortably. We are not in a recession -and inflation is tied to the consumer market. Biden can’t control our consumerism - no president can but at least he is working to keep folks employed. By the way, as with most republican presidents, 45 created the least amount jobs than any other president in recent history. If you’re self-employed, you may not care about employment numbers. But remember, unless you’re a multimillionaire living off investments, you also need a strong jobs market In order to get paid too.

Not in any Georgia polls thank goodness LOL! These are the same folks who left the presidential part of the ballot empty -so not to vote for 45. 😲 I'm working on a crowdfunding campaign for digital technology products.

😊 I hate when that happens LOL! I'm working on a campaign - and it's crunch time 😲

@Troy I'm wondering if you know inside information on Apple's pricing structure. Apple sells digital books for less, they have an open digital format, and if they offer better royalties than am*zon. (APPLE: You'll earn 70% royalties on all of your ebook titles, regardless of price point, with no hidden fees or exclusivity requirements. Payments are made within 45 days following the end of each month.) then more readers /writers would be better off purchasing/publishing through Apple. Do you have any insight to the contrary?

I’m not surprised. But the books are also less expensive. I would like to know why?If you have any insight as to why, please share.

Twin, two proverbs I live by. “the more I learn the less I know” ”You always learn a lot more when you lose than when you win”

Complacency: The space between the rock and the hard place. Shirley Chisholm, U.S. Representative, NY - 12th District, 1969-1983, ahead of time and on time!

Yep sadly Texas will have a new face for their “welfare queen” meme. Washington Post ran an article about a Texas (white-looking) teen who recently gave birth to twins. She says she missed the heart beat bill deadline and didn’t/ couldn’t leave the state for an abortion. Her boyfriend/ baby-father makes $9.75 an hour to support them and she stays home with the babies. He was a “surfer dude” but that life is over. He is the financial supporter of the family. (Texas does have a wic program.) But even if he leaves he’s also stuck with the 7-figure bill. nope. It’s all yours.

welp enjoy your award! 😆

LOL! Maybe later but for now... I missed you so much! 🥰

Greg, You do know this is a literature website?... Despite your low opinion of black people, you know we learned how to read, right? And guess what? Over here, we read A LOT! So let me gift you this article - - https://wapo.st/3HQOf9L Dude may have given out some checks, but the lion's share of forgivable loans, $6.6 Billion and counting, went to white folks.

Ok fair Ok. I've had this same experience... I misunderstood your perspective - it felt like you were saying we gave up. Because there are so many people fighting to make this better than we found it. And let me tell you, you working to help folks who can't/won't help themselves especially when they want the help is hella sexy. 😍

In 2018, the Federal Bureau of Investigation reported that 81% of white victims were killed by white offenders, and 89% of Black victims were killed by Black offenders. #ThoughtsandPrayers

I wish she didn't backpedal on that...I felt a kinship for her saying the quiet part out loud. lol

Most blacks live in the states where the abortion laws are going into effect, Greg. If you bothered to look at an actual report from an reputable agency that keeps all the statistical health records you'd see that majority of black people live in republican-run states. "The 10 states where 60 percent of African Americans resided were: New York, California, Texas, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, North Carolina, Maryland, Michigan and Louisiana. Five of these had more than 2 million Blacks each: New York, California, Texas, Florida and Georgia." - Census You'd also learn, that births are down in every ethnic group - while academic degrees are up. BUT THE ISSUE IS BODILY AUTONOMY!!! No one should have the right to tell you what to do with your body. Did you like the mask mandate? How about the vaccine mandate? How about a mandatory vasectomy? 😂😂😅 If I had a nickel for every time a man said that to me.. I'd be as rich as Elon Musk LOL

You may have seen some white people out there working with you but they make up the majority of the population. Pareto Principle - If 20 percent of the people do 80 percent of the work then you will see 8,200,000 black people working in the social movements alongside 46,200,000 white folks. AND we don't live in the same states! So please don't say black people aren't working - there are 41 million black people in the U.S. and as usual we are working twice as hard to get half as much.

I've pulled up enough links today to support my position. So, I'm going to ask you to pull up our record of social and civil movements, voting history and institutions since black men got the right to vote in 1870... That gives you 5 years grace period from enslavement. And then tell me with evidence, that we haven't continuously moved to make this place equitable since 1870. Note: Black Women didn't get to vote until 1920.

Support these bigoted stereotypical generalizations with evidence or you both win the "greg/nels troll award for the day"...

OMG, whyte people CAUSED our history of instability! 😂 Every time we set up shop somewhere, they make laws to knock them down. Are you kidding me? Have you been drinking "Flint Water"... Do you remember the Emergency Manager law in Michigan that led to poisoning the water? https://ccrjustice.org/home/press-center/press-releases/law-led-poisoned-flint-water-racially-discriminatory-civil-rights How about the law that Robert Moses used to build the cross Bronx expressway that allowed the Bronx to be decimated? https://pages.vassar.edu/realarchaeology/2019/11/10/the-cross-bronx-expressway-and-the-ruination-of-the-bronx/ How about the law passed in South Carolina that is displacing families... https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/interactive/2021/highways-black-homes-removal-racism/ NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. — Weary-eyed and feeling all of her 85 years, Hattie Anderson doesn't want to fight anymore. For most of her life, she held on to the large plot of land that she and her late husband Samuel pinched pennies to buy — even after the state ran a freeway through their mostly Black community after the city used eminent domain to take nearly nine acres for a sewage drain, and after the state added a beltway. But now, as state officials plan another major road expansion, Anderson is offering to sell them her land and leave. "If they don't take my house," she said, "I'm going to be just in a little corner, in a little hole by myself. Where I am, it's like a dead end." How about the whole ass beach front property whyte folks took from a black family, destroying their legacy, any opportunity to build generational wealth and have a place for black families to go when they weren't allowed anywhere else... After 93 years of fighting, they are finally getting their property back! https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/la-county-return-bruces-beach-black-family-descendants/2923656/ Black people have never stopped working to get this country to live up to its ideals of a more perfect union that Madison, Hamilton, and 'em drafted. Whyte folks keep displacing us, so we must do our work on the run. But every time they knock us down, we get up again. Eff their disappointment. I call B.S. on those "worthless whyte women."

When you have a breakfast of eggs and bacon - you'll see the chicken made a contribution but the pig made a commitment. As you can see in a supremacists' nation, 'white' women contribute. They can go back to their neighborhoods and blend in. But Black Men like Martin Luther King, Jr, Malcolm X, Medgar Evers, Fred Hampton et al, made commitments. It's those commitments that leave our community with PTSD . We don't give up we just fall back for a moment. Those who are with us - stay with us. So betrayal in this context is disingenuous. And this one... that speaks to commitment

Exactly! They are down with the greys nationalism. I read a thread yesterday, where one white woman suggested something similar to what women did in Iceland in 1975 to get equal rights. Nearly every other comment stated "we can't do that" But in Iceland 90% of women in Iceland went on strike for one day 24 October 1975 - and that strike changed their entire trajectory of their country. https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-34602822 My home girl and rap partner produced this short film. 😁 FYI YouTube won't let me embed the video because YouTube gave it a mature rating 🙄 https://youtu.be/pdjQdT--MNk

Interesting . @Stefan I didn't set out to troll when I created this thread. I shared an "out of the mouths of babes" view of how the world responds to a black man's presence. I'll never let trolls dampen my celebration of Black men.

Yes!” Fall Back and regroup” That is definitely a Black woman thing. After the decision was handed down -a black out should have followed. With leaders and others saying “No comment. Then every women retreating indoors. Just go home or stay home. We would act like we were “sitting shiva” over a dead relative. One - It would have been unexpected and two - it would have absolutely scared the sh*t out of SCOTUS and the world. It would have been “a world without women” even if it only lasted 7 hours. But of course, here in the U.S., white women must perform. And of course, some dude ran over them with a truck. Phoenix law enforcement tear-gassed protesters. A Black woman, who is running for state senate in RI decided to march, only to get punched in the face twice by her republican opponent who is also works as a cop. It might have worked in her favor, since he dropped out of the race but the optics distract while reinforcing the message of brute force against women. The State was prepared for disruption. But total silence and no presence would h e rocked them to the core. Sort of like when a Black woman says, “I’m Fine.” But you know, All Hell is about to break loose and you’re about to have a come-to-Jesus meeting”