Mel Hopkins

I'm referring to your claims Do you have any psychological studies to prove how black girls and women dress up is a result of low self-esteem? @Pioneer1by the way, there are plenty of psychological studies that indicate hypermasculinity in men and hyperfemininity women are imbalanced. Even gender stereotypes are social constructs. So I'll just take your observations as a personal opinion - and we all have those.

Except black and indigenous women have the highest rates of homicide rates with more than half being killed by their spouse or intimate. But yes, statistic show women have a low rate of murder and/or state-execution in the street. The most recent DeCynthia Clements Elgin, IL in March

@Pioneer1 , Do you have any proof or evidence of this claim?

@DelanoThank you for the correction. Then this is even better because according to an article in Essence BeyGood lends muscles to the 501 (c) 3 that are already doing the work and raises funds for them to carry out their missions. The articles states Beyonce' also gives money but it's her celebrity that gets others involved such as Gucci giving $1million for clean water in Burundi African nation. *Link Essence.com Beyonce Gucci BeyGood-4-Burundi Clean Water

@DelanoI haven't read this article but Joy Reid interviewed Michael Tubbs, the Black Mayor of Stockton, CA earlier this year and he is already experimenting with the concept...I'd have to dig up the articles I read last year on UBI but Finland started last year . $500 a month extra can help people follow their passions. I wouldn't be surprised if quite a few people start a lot of new businesses. Link: http://www.msnbc.com/weekends-with-alex-witt/watch/how-will-free-cash-for-residents-change-the-face-of-stockton-ca-1158647363681 https://sf.curbed.com/2018/2/1/16959714/stockton-universal-income-economy-families https://qz.com/876985/finland-hopes-to-dispel-one-of-the-biggest-critiques-of-a-basic-income/

@Delano, First I believe it's important to define feminism before we can determine who is a feminist and who isn't. In Beyonce's last performance (Coachella) she defined what feminism means to her via soundbite from Chimamanda Adichie’s TED Talk (“a person who believes in the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes”) . For the record, I subscribe to that definition of feminism too. I believe feminism is about equality wherever law governs a country. To date we still haven't had Equal Rights Amendment ratified in the U.S. constitution. We've been fighting for this inclusion since 1923 - this year the 37th state has ratified the amendment. One more to go or I think we have to start all over again. Bell Hooks is on some other stuff , not quite sure what? but I appreciate her right to have her view too. Sometimes, I think she just wants to eradicate men altogether... As far as Beyonce' being a corporation I agree. She is. Who wouldn't want to be in this day and age lol... Especially with the new tax reform legislation. I think most of us better get a EIN and have our employers sign over checks to our corporation. And you aren't that far behind the curve, BeyGood is her foundation and through it she collects donations and also gives money here and abroad.

@Delano what are your thoughts?

@TroyI heard the Coachella founder is a controversial figure . I had never paid attention to the festival until this year - I Link : Profile of Philip Anschutz on Complex.com

And recently Beyonce's father, Matthew Knowles, admitted that his own mother told him not to date a woman with a dark complexion. - He admitted he thought Miss Tina was white. I think that might be another reason Beyonce' goes hard for Black women and our struggles. She didn't choose her complexion but she never let's folk forget that she's a Black woman.

It all begins with the character. The story has its genesis in the character. Without the character - there is no story. Whenever I'm having a problem writing fiction, ( or even in my own life) I know I have to return to the protagonist. If she's fully developed then I have to concede that maybe she's in the wrong story. -Originally Posted in The Thriving Writer

@Troy , maybe not a video (although I think I did see large women in her formation video) but Beyonce' tours with plus-size dancers and singers. I saw them in the coachella performance. I was surprised too - because I don't know of any mainstream artists who uses nontraditional singers and dancers.

@Pioneer1 You've raised another perspective that I didn't think of when talking about Beyonce' performances and music documenting the black woman's experience in America - but since her mother was a hair stylist and owned a beauty salon , you're correct she even displays the aesthetic experience of black woman in America - one that she undoubtedly saw when visited her mother's hair shop. I know I did when I visited my aunt's beauty salon. Black -women have been donning blonde wigs (now weaves) for as long as I've been alive and definitely before I was born - because I've seen them in my familyphotos.. Still I can see from your perspective as a black man thinking that black women such as Beyonce are emulating the white woman look - but as a black woman I can share with you this is par for the course of black womanhood. We've adorn ourselves with crowns of all colors since times immemorial ... our crowns are our glory - and you're correct many of us do suffer psychologically when our hair ain't did. I think any woman who is trying to look like Beyonce is simply a fan... I wore a baseball cap and ponytail pulled through when Janet did Rhythmnation - in fact, a lot of us did. It's just fun. Now as for her light complexion - you already know we come in all colors sometimes right in our immediate family. My maternal grandmother was fair-skin with hazel-green eyes. I have cousins who are whiter than paper - and they had two black parents. I think the fact that she goes hard to represent black womanhood through all our stages - means a lot to young women. There's one young Black woman on twitter who went viral because she learned Beyonce's recent choreography from coachella - and executed it flawlessly. This young woman looks pretty much how you described those who might be harmed by Beyonce's aesthetics and all I saw from her was high self-esteem. Still you may see different cross section of young women in the black community so I can't speak to that with any conviction, Links: Twitter imbriyounce

@Delano Yes, it does and it doesn't discriminate either! A lot of people think it's too scary to invest or they don't have enough knowledge. I used a few hundred dollars to day trade and it was exciting. My method was purchase shares where I shop and pay attention - since the market is very emotional. Your suggestion is also an intuitive as well. With this new "tax reform" taxes are higher on earned income while it seems it will go easy on investment income. @Pioneer1 I absolutely agree and according to several reports inspired by #bankblack campaign there are at least 38 blackowned banks and credit unions in the united states as of 2016. There are even two black-owned banks in Detroit, Michigan Since the #bankblack campaign, black-owned banks such as the largest One United Bank boast $650 M in assets. It's not $2 TRILLION + chase bank type-assets but it's black-owned. I joined in on all the hype and this is my next bank for my savings account. Links: WatchtheYard.com 38 Black Owned Banks And Credit Unions: Putting Your Money Where It Counts Essence.com #BankBlack: A Listing Of Black-Owned Banks & Credit Unions In The United States Oneunited.com ONEUNITED PRESS RELEASES & MANAGMENT MX.com Money Summitt Biggest US Banks by Asset Size (2018)

@Delano , exactly! and the use of ignorance here is not derogatory! At least I'm not offended because money, banking and finance are not easy topics. Yes, home economics is and was a powerful tool. I benefited from it growing up - and I actually can feed my family on a budget, make their clothes, repair furniture and balance a check book to name a few things that fall under the umbrella - BUT what I could have benefit from early on is learning how to feel comfortable asking for payment when I share my IP with others. Understanding value and worth and compensation didn't come naturally for me. Coupled that with a system set up where a person of color or a woman are usually under-compensated, chances are it's going to be difficult accumulating and keeping wealth. If you are black woman, employers feeling justified to pay you 66 cents on the dollar they would pay a white man in the same position. And that's if you're hired in the first place. We see the same disparity in funding technology businesses founded by black women compared to black or white males. Just today, I read the U.S. Senate is going to vote (or may have already voted) to roll back consumer protections that insure that auto dealers don't charge minorities higher interests rates on their auto loans. Here in Georgia they just past a law where taxes are higher on used cars, than new. So put those two together and you penalized for not buying a brand new car and if you have to borrow then you'll pay a black tax too! I probably could go on - but I'll end with this - we know that most of our wealth is in real estate and personal home ownership. Yet, here's the catch, most minorities are regulated to areas where properties are undervalued because their owners are minorities. My home that bordered Clinton Hill, Bed-Stuy Brooklyn sold for about $350 K in 1992 - My family's brownstone was in peak condition and even had a drive-in garage. Most of our neighbors were Black. Today, after gentrification and white flight back to takeover of Brooklyn, the house is in worse condition and the garage is gone... but the property is selling for $2 million. Even if minorities move to areas where the properties have a high value - those values go down if the balance of white-to-black ratio shifts... BUT If the real goal is wealth-building then we're going to need to invest that money into keeping education PUBLIC! This way all the schools don't become private forcing minorities to take out even more high-interest loans even sooner than college just to educate their children. If we really want to get serious about wealth-building then return state colleges to low-cost and free again. Then most young people will start employment accumulating assets on the job instead being $100-200k in debt before they get their first paycheck.

Hi Tanny, This proposal assumes educational attainment is tied directly to wealth. If it were then how could we explain white males who have less than or only a high school diploma have more wealth than blacks who have obtain doctorates in their field? Currently only about 33% of all americans over the age of 25 have a college degree or higher - 37 % of those who identify as white ; 23% of African-Americans; 55% of Asian-Americans; 16.4 % Hispanic - Americans - And Africans from Sub-Saharan countries are the highest educated of all imimgrants to the US with 41% of them holding bachelors degree and higher ...Yet it is estimated by 2053 black wealth will be at 0 if we keep on this path. So I don't think education is the answer to the wealth problem. I'm all for an educated populace but it's not the answer to wealth disparity. Links: Demos.org Why White High School Drop Outs Have More Wealth Than Black College Graduates Fortune.com More Education Doesn't Always Mean More Money Among Minorities, Study Finds TheHill.com Census: More Americans have college degrees than ever before Latimes.com African immigrants are more educated than most — including people born in U.S. The Guardian.com Median wealth of black Americans 'will fall to zero by 2053', warns new report @Pioneer1 that's not a black problem that's a human defective behavior problem - - one of the billionaire Mellon's just passed away allegedly due to his oxycontin abuse problem. He was only 54... Aside: @Troy I didn't even last a year on facebook. I had to delete my account again. Not only did I begin to feel like I was losing brain cells... I just can't go there with Mark Z and his scheming ways. I'm getting ready to delete instagram next. Soon AALBC will be the only social network I'll use. And of course, anyone who wants to visit me or track my movements on my websites can but I've had enough of this being a "product" for social network billionaires . Ok back to the education question

Not sure how this author, Minerva Stewart found me but I'm glad she did or I wouldn't have heard of her book, "My Awfully Wedded Husband". I'm going to go out on a ledge here and suggest that she might have found my blog post through a search engine because in the post, I have the phrase "dark comedy". I didn't review a dark comedy - but still she found my post useful enough to leave a message. I'll most likely pick up her book because I happen to like dark comedies... Anyway, search engines can be another tactic to finding your book's audience. I'm not sure if there's software that will help you sort out your exact target but at least you'll find websites that may lead you to your market. Ms. Stewart found me - a black divorced woman who writes, is a media junkie who also enjoys dark comedies. If she hadn't left a message on my blog I wouldn't have known she or her book existed - but now I'm a "fan". Who knows, I could be easy mark - but it's worth a try to get directly to your audience.

I hope Beyonce wins next year. She's the only artist I can recall who has used their platform to communicate the complexities of life for black women in America . Kendrick Lamarr's experiences are not mine and I've lived the african-american experience far longer than he . I would have preferred the membership designate this prize for his ability to capture the complexity of modern life of a black man in America... Still, congratulations to KL for being recognized by a body that I hold in high esteem.

DAMN by Kendrick Lamarr won a Pulitzer Prize for music...

Listening is the easy part of the conversation. The intake/input is stimulating. Once someone belabors a point then the conversation is a wrap. I know then the person isn't convinced of her/his own ramblings.

LOL! I'm going to look for the oldest record I have relating to this topic and see if I can find it through google today.

@Delano It means that I'm a purist when it comes to source material or at least when I was reporting for public record. At that time I couldn't even use the newspaper as a source. I could only use primary sources to write the story for publication. So, don't get it twisted when I stick up for Wikipedia but I recognize it's a good reference starting point. @zajiI agree and that's what makes me feel bad for not participating in the editing. But I do have adobe's convert this webpage into a pdf and before that I used to copy & paste and I have files that no longer exist on the web - which is a bit scary to me too!

Yes! And I even have an account to edit entries ( @Troy does too ) but I just don't have time to fight with those others nerds...

@Troy Wikipedia is a resource that contains primary and secondary source information. There is no need to dismiss Wikipedia when you can actually challenge and update information. Besides, if it doesn't come directly from personal experience everything is to be attributed as "reported by /referenced" ... And who writes a dissertation and cites Wikipedia, anyway? That's not what it's for...it's a collaborative work that is neither conclusive nor definitive. Anyway, Shirley Chisholm's page contains 71 reference sources - so unless you dispute all those references then Chisholm's Wikipedia page is a good source. Oh, and signed a veteran journalist who wasn't even allowed to use the newspaper as a source when researching and reporting

I added this press release to support what @Cynique wrote . Black Panther was just an in to get us to spend $1.5 trillion that we beg borrow and steal to spend - because we surely haven't amassed that fortune in our community.. Economist say by 2053 if we continue to trend - black wealth will be 0.. right now it's >1 percent.