Mel Hopkins

Searching for a birthday card the other day, I noticed in Rite-aid there were no hallmark cards only American greetings and in Publix grocery store, they only stocked Hallmark greeting cards.   What was noticeably absent, or not, because I can't really recall hearing about them until today was "African-American Expressions. Founder, Gregory Perkins, indicates on the  company profile , AAE has been existence for 26 years.  "Today, African American Expressions sells over 2,500,000 cards annually with over 500 original designs. This multimillion dollar operation has expanded to include many other inspirational gifts such as calendars, handcrafted figurines, journals, mugs, magnets, bookmarks, Christmas decorations and more."  Visit African American Expressions  at http://www.black-cards.com  and download their catalog, http://www.black-cards.com/aaexp/pdf/common/WS_catalog.pdf

OCEAN'S 8  Warner Bros. Pictures' and Village Roadshow Pictures' all female Caper Heist flick
Music Superstar Rihanna is coming to a big screen near you.  She is set to join a group of A-list Film, Television and Web actresses in the updated Ocean's 8 caper heist flick set in New York City.  Ocean's 8 expected release June 8, 2018
Photo Credit: Barry Wetcher

In this edition of Black Minds, Black Power: Powers-that-Be who ignore Black minds do so at their own peril and demise.

 According to the Milwaukee Community Journal article, Anari Sengbe, offered up "Go Vote" an app to the 2016 Hillary Clinton presidential campaign but they declined. The app would allow volunteers to wait in in line for voters and donors to cover the cost for rideshare for health-impaired or disabled voters to get to the polls.  While the Clinton campaign may have said "no" Mercedes Benz and Direct Tv are saying yes to his apps that allow drivers to pay direct from their cars using bitcoins and giving a gift for pay per-view programming...

More at Community Journal

#programmer #gamer #developer

"Severed", A Novel,  is a crime thriller and an entertaining whodunit but I recommend it as a self-help book in my commentary "Severed", A Novel | A Black Woman's Burden

Short Synopsis | Severed, a Novel

"Someone is a few digits short of a hand in Nakadee, Louisiana.  What’s worse, someone may be torturing and holding the finger-less victim captive in this small river town.   Head of Nakadee Police Department Criminal Investigations Unit Captain Nate Padgett enlists the help of Forensic Anthropologist Lula Logan, PhD whom he feels he can trust since she’s having an affair with his direct report Junior Detective Devon Lemonde.

Padgett needs Logan to find out if the victim is still among the living.  Dead or Alive means the difference between a local investigation or handing it over to the Feds.   Meanwhile Dr. Logan has her own project underway.  She’s in town to work on research project that will tell the story of the enslaved Africans who revolted against their captors in 1830 on a former plantation.

Dr. Logan has her finger on the pulse of present missing fingers case and that of the enslaved Africans of the past …the question remains, however, which case will be her undoing."

From the Library of Congress "Rare Book of The Month W..E.B. Du Bois "The Brownies' Book."

"A Monthly magazine for the Children of the Sun. Designed for All Children but Especially for Ours" 

Serial published in 1920-1921.

Blogger Elizabeth Gettins of the Library’s Digital Conversion Team writes its the "First magazine of its kind, written for African-American children and youths. 

Visit the digital collection 22 back to back chronological issues at Library of Congress dot gov.

  CCBC Publishing Statistics of Children’s Books by and About People of Color -

Currently reading Severed by VL Towler.  I started this book some time ago, then I got really busy and put it on the back-burner.  Then I thought, make time to read. Make a commitment to a book like you used to do in your youth.  

Reading like writing, forces you to close out your thoughts and enter the world of someone's making or into a world of your own making.  Reading/Writing a book is a selfish undertaking.  One that you owe to yourself. 

Robinne Lee, Actor,  who stars in 50 Shades Darker, that opened this month on the 10th, is scheduled to release her debut novel "The Idea of You" June 2017 .  The synopsis reads a bit like a scandalous love affair between a popular boy band member and an single mom art gallery owner almost 20 years his senior... Normally, I don't read romance but this one appeals to me because it's feels like a mix between "Beyond the Lights" and "How Stella Got her Groove back '  - Don't want to plug another website but Lee's publisher St. Martin's Griffin is hosting a book giveaway... If I win; look for my review!

Kiese Laymon: A Writer's Writer

Writing takes far more than talent to be great. One most also possess courage to be at the top of her craft.  At least that's the takeaway from the essay "You Are the Second Person" by Kiese Laymon. 

Laymon is identified as an essayist and novelist but a few paragraphs into "You Are the Second Person" you begin to realize those aren’t just his job titles, he’s the embodiment of those skills.

Prior to reading his essay, the definition of hack eluded me.  Now I know it identifies someone who eschews writing for expression and instead kowtows to a publisher for a check.  Check out Guernica Magazine and "You're Are the Second Person"

U.S. Senators Demand Study on Federal Advertising in Black-owned Media

A 2007 report revealed the federal government agencies spent more than $4 billion in advertising but " a pittance of that amount (5% from 5 agencies) was spent with minority media publications."  In a letter sent, November 3, 2016, to the Government Accountability Office by the 5 U.S. Senators request-

"As one of the largest advertisers in the United States, the federal government should play an active role in ensuring that minority-owned media outlets have fair opportunities to compete for and be awarded federal advertising contracts."

Maybe some of those advertising dollars might find its way to websites with  large audiences too... Follow or contact these five senators .S. Senator Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) was joined by fellow Democratic Senators Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), and Cory Booker (D-N.J.) for updates on how to bid for these advertising contracts. 

"There’s no excuses for fathers/men who choose to be absent. Nor is it a woman’s responsibility to get him to return.  A mother/woman raises her children but it’s not her responsibility to raise, repair or rehabilitate a broken man or the relationship from which he walks away.  That is all very much an inside job. His job. " #Imnotyourmule

#blackhistory

According to " Why Do We Take Pride in Working for a Paycheck?"  by Livia Gershon,
The early American Labor movement didn't include black men or black women. 

Around 150 years ago, it was allegedly beneath white society to sell their time for wages thus bringing the term, wage slavery into the American lexicon when referring to corporate jobs. 

It's reported that in an effort to entice white workers including white working class women, whom worked the farms for their husbands, wages and working conditions were made more palatable.  This fight came from an organized labor union "Knights of Labor" however their advances didn't include black people.  

Today, black women only earn .68 cents on a dollar earned by a white man.  

12-year-old Activist Lands Book Publishing Deal

Marley Dias, Pictured

Photo credit: Andrea Cipriani Mecchi

Tired of the school's reading list filled with white boy and dog protagonist, Marley Dias kicked off her own hashtag #1000BlackGirlBooks, last January, which featured Black girls as stars of their stories.  She achieved her goal of collecting and donating books with black girls as the protagonist.   

Today Scholastic announced Dias will pen her own story about social activism.

“Marley is using her voice to advocate for social justice, a commitment reflected by her ambitious life goals: she dreams of becoming an editor of her very own magazine and plans to use media to spread positive messages and to perpetuate more socially conscious pop culture”

Scholastic, Inc. reports the book will be released in the Spring of 2018 . 

Why White Folks Love Hidden Figures by BAR editor and columnist Dr. Marsha Adebayo

“It’s a feel good movie that demonstrates that even during one of the vilest and most racist periods of American history white saviors rose to the occasion.”

SoulJourn: "Celebrating Black Women Filmmakers"

"On the occasion of the recent restoration and re-release of Julie Dash’s 1991 masterpiece Daughters of the Dust, BAMcinématek celebrates the black women directors who blazed the trail for that landmark film. The filmmakers represented in this series all worked far outside the mainstream, often with limited resources, overcoming a historically hostile system in order to tell their stories on screen. Taken together, their work represents a rich history of long-undervalued independent filmmaking.

“One Way or Another” is co-programmed by BAMcinématek’s Nellie Killian and Michelle Materre; founder, host-producer, Creatively Speaking Film Series; Associate Professor of Media Studies and Film at The New School."

Source: 'One Way or Another: Black Women's Cinema, 1970–1991'
BAMcinématek
February 3–23, 2017

SoulJourn: "Not all Blacks in America were enslaved 

but laws enacted against their freedom haven't changed since colonial times.

Source:  The Black North: A Social Study by  William Edward Burghardt Du Bois  November 17, 1901

SoulJourn: "Deciding to work where you're not welcomed"

Marlyn Thomas English Instructor Alabama A&M University talks about the hypocrisy black female artists face when going against the grain of popular opinion.

 In the book, Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly

"Black females working at West Computing in Hampton, Virginia worked on a government job that provided them neither the transportation or public area rights as white counterparts; however, they continued to work and eventually began to see where they could win battles one at a time."

Many have stated the film “Hidden Figures” and the actions of those black women featured were inspiring.  However, when Chrissette Michelle decided to perform at Trump’s presidential inauguration, she faced black twitter backlash and was all but black-listed among “progressive” Blacks.

So, what’s the difference?  Thomas states it goes back to the Madonna and Whore archetypes and the policing of black women’s movement must be checked and stopped.  Source: "The hypocritical attacks on black female artists that perform for Trump"

SoulJourn : A Portrait in Community Artivism

REGEN PROJECTS, contemporary art gallery, presents Theaster Gates' exhibit "But To Be A Poor Race" 

January 14- February 25, 2017

6750 Santa Monica Blvd Los Angeles, CA 90038 Tel 1 310 276 5424 Fax 1 310 276 7430

Theaster Gates, Urban Planner  & Conceptual Artist  whose $2 million Chicago Southside project The Arts Incubator in partnership with the University of Chicago was profiled in The New Yorker   (01/20/2014), presents an interpretative display of paintings and pieces  based on content from Jet Magazines and WEB DuBois'  hand drawn info-graphic charts depicting the economic contributions  in "Exhibit of American Negroes  displayed at the 1900 World's Fair in France.

According to Gates, this is his protest.  He says in the LA Times article,

“The show says, I am going to continue to go to work. I’m going to continue to make art. I’m going to continue to sing. I’m going to keep working as a protest.”

This morning before dawn, I had a dream of a talking rat who was exposing what was supposed to be hidden.  Not sure of the context but I remembered Chinese New Year. (01/28/17) - Welcome the Year of the Rooster!

We as individuals may not be able to heal the world; we can share out talents to help one another. 

Status: Default

Project: Communication Plan

Thought of the day: "Fast and Wrong... Is still wrong."

Song of the Day: SOS Band: "Take your time"

Currently Writing: "A Promise Broken", A fictionalized Romance Memoir

Currently Reading: "Severed" by VL Towler

Professor, Author and Feminist Roxane Gay took a stand and told her agent to pull her upcoming project "How to be Heard" from Simon and Schuster.  Reports indicate she refuses to use a platform that would also give voice and $250k to an alleged white supremacist...

Could you leave a book deal behind to take a stand?

Status: Agitated

As humans our default mode is happy.   It may be hard to tell but we are a community-oriented species... Just watch us when shit hits the fan and you'll see our true nature.  We come together with one mission - "to make everyone whole again".   Yet, there are forces in this world that prefer we stay agitated. 

Upgrade: remaining agitated eventually leads to submission.  

Today's MISSION:  Shine bright like the Sun! 

Wanted:  Information on "Free Negro" a British Legal status  for those never enslaved in America but reemerged on the Americas as early as 1513... Also, looking for black female polymaths from baby boomers, generation x, y, millennials even budding polymaths.   Polymaths are defined for this purpose as those who know a lot, can do a lot and have a body of peer-reviewed work and accomplishments in varied areas.  Thank you!