Mel Hopkins

LOL! I agree!

@Troy Thank you for commenting on my first blog post! I have a few questions. Here are few off the top of my head. 1) Can I add audio files here? I use voice pro to record this mini podcast but I don't know how to add the file here directly. I used youtube this time. 2) Would you please explain the "promote" function. 3) Are there other ways to populate blog entries? 4) more to come.... How so? Isn't this statement confirming what I mentioned in characters? Assuming we know who people think they are - is akin to writing their story. How other people see themselves is a lot different than how they present themselves. Even when a person reveals themselves we see their behavior viewed through our prism. Your prism still gives you a peek at who you are - but not them.

and I'll ask again "WHY"? I feel pity for ANY man who needs encouragement and sexual intercourse to do anything. It seems like America did a really good job at teaching him to be a slave even without shackles and a whip.

No one can live up to the story that you create about them. If it's an amazing story, however, it doesn't matter. That is, if you remember this one thing. Listen to my podcast "Careful, or you'll end up in My Novel" Pilot episode: Characters

@Pioneer1 Not sure what you mean about support a black man or black men? What does that even mean? Talk is cheap..and even misguided when talking about going up against a very entrenched system such institutionalized racism ... If the president of the NAACP issues a travel warning for a state he lives in, then I'm going to support him in his observation that this spot ain't safe and there's nothing he can do to keep me safe should I choose to ignore the warning. All I got for him is "Thanks for the heads up". At least he gave a warning. Black men couldn't even keep us safe when it came to some of us being brought over by slave ships and enslaved... Maybe I missed it, but I don't remember the story of "African men saying leave the African women and take us only" I don't even think there were "his and her" slave ships. I think everyone was chained up together in the belly cargo-hold side by side top to bottom.. So please with that "our women" don't support us crap. Now you want black women to run to Missouri with you too? Sarah and n'em didn't bring black men into this world. Black women made that choice. But now it's not enough that black male babies come from our behinds? That we house black babies in our bodies for 10 months, have them suckle our breast for 24 more months and coddle black male babies at the expense of our black girl babies? Now we need to continue supporting black grown azz men in their shenanigans too? Just stop.

@Del Yes. Past lives or dna (genetic memory) would have the same result.

This is truth!!! @Troy This!!! When black women can stop marching in the streets begging white society to stop gunning down black men , that's when I'll take "black man bravado" seriously.

@Del I don't disagree. It's one of those either, or, and, type of conundrum. @Del Fair weather friend by Johnny Gill ? :"You need a love that will not changeYou want a lover to remainForever yoursOh, but you don't have to worryYou never have to fearThrough thick and thin I'll always be here"

You've said you don't have a lot of time so this statement makes sense. But both Colin and Black Lives Matters do work outside of the 'net.

Yes, I would imagine that would be the case. People don't like to be left out of anything. I tend not to care what everyone else does. I've read a few self-published books that would never make that list and they tend to be really good reads. There's one that I wished I had published , Indiscretions by Yolanda Hooks Buick. It never made any list but this book would rival any women's fiction bestseller. So, now I just listen out for the next great read. I did want to know though if black books and publishers were making any money.

@Troy I found the whole newsletter interesting and at first I attempted to read it in the order of the layout . Then I realized that I didn't want to. I didn't have the time to invest in reading everything - so instead of reading the subjective topic such as the most popular books, I decided to invest time in the "why" of how black books are doing.

There are no enslaved people on my maternal side. Not my mom,'s mom or my mom's father. We've gone back a bit in my father's side but I've only gone 4 generations to a sharecropper but not sure of his status prior to sharecropping, But still there'are no white folks in my family tree...

I really liked this month's newsletter! I didn't realize it was because it was shorter - I just liked the stories.

So far there's no evidence of this... what evidence does the NOI have? - Have you seen a drawing of this man or reconstruction? Are there remains? How old are the remains? What is the genetic make-up. The facial construction of early modern humans look nothing like anyone living today . Further people adapt to the climate they live in - we take on the phenotype of our environment. It's the environment that cause genetic mutation - this is why Y-DNA isn't reliable for tracing genealogy... It''s subjected to the the environment. That alone makes the NOI theory a bit suspect without evidence, that is. Again I'm not sold on there being in europeans or 'caucasians' in my family tree before I extended a branch to one. Any genetic memory of the place we call Rome would come from my maternal lineage -whose origins was about 80, 000 -104,000 years ago. As I mentioned they're not the oldest modern humans, according to genetic research they come from the oldest as they set up shop in East Africa. Your environment mutates your genetic code - so it could have been cooler in this area -due to the white Nile in Egypt that flows into the blue Nile in Ethiopia, Further, just because they set up communities in East Africa doesn't mean they didn't travel the world.

I've heard if a man ask an unknown woman a question he's interested in having sex . Yes, I'm sure Italian men spoke to me, but not it was not in a sexually suggestive way. Then again, it's rare that men would ever speak to me in a suggestive way. This is why I mentioned those Argentinian men who caught me off guard.

@Cynique , yes thank you! I couldn't describe the feeling but you nailed it. You know @Troy I would have missed the video premiere if not for your post. I, tend to stick with contemporary jazz, soul, funk and old school house these days - but this was a great find.

This is an example of hip hop music -next generation. Future is huge in the hip hop world as is Nicki Minaj- put the two together and you have a bona fide hit... Nicki looks amazing but she always does ... I love the way her body is sculpted but don't take away from Future's presence - he is a big draw too . Wait that's an understatement - He had back-to-back number 1 albums on billboard's 200 Check out this article lol The title is funny. Nicki has also had a few movie roles too - but her presence, so far, outside of the hip hop arena hasn't translated into a box office draw... But I wish she would promote black books too - because I find her another a-list talent that is moving into her own power.

So much to unpack here - This would appear to be redundancy - sort of like mixing flour and water together and then adding another mixture of flour and water to the original batter. Although this does happen, for example my ex-hubby is european (French-German mix ) ...Together we have a set of twin girls. Although they may display his phenotype - they carry the mtDNA of the first woman of our lineage from East Africa 80,000 - 104,000 years ago. From what I've read, so far using rCRS and RSRS (revised Cambridge Reference Sequence & Reconstructed Sapiens Reference Sequence ) to determine ancestry - the difference between someone from East Africa and someone from Europe is where there's a mutation point (s). Since women carry the mitochondrial DNA and passes to their offspring (girls and boys)- the mtDNA has proven to be more reliable in determining origin and movement of a population because the Y-DNA mutates much more quickly than mtDNA because its housed in the testicles. Speaking of which , there's no disagreement between the NOI and the western Human Genome project researchers. Both agree Y was found in either Asia or Africa but because it Y mutates so quickly pinning down first man was rough but both agree on Asiatic/African description. Y, however is not as old as the first woman they found - which is really interesting LOL...but not far-fetched because speciation began with X and then Y... By the way, I never toss out theories. I look for evidence... there's evidence of the NOI hypothesis. I can share some links I've found using "western science". That is, if you want to get totally mindf-cked and go down that rabbit hole. Needless to say, there's scientific evidence that we were all women before we split into women and men... but that's another story. @Pioneer1 I did answer but you and I speak a different language ... sort of like what @Troy just referenced when he compared debate vs fight ... I will be mindful of that. But my family calls a debate "fighting" and we literally debate everything... even the content of the cereal lol But I digress. "Hitting on" is physical in my dictionary - it assumes that I'm an object to be obtained. I didn't have that problem and neither did the Asian Flight Attendant I was with, meant Italian men didn't objectify us ... I used her as a measuring stick. If they didn't "hit" on me ...that didn't necessarily mean they weren't brutish - but when I noticed they didn't "hit" on her either, then I assumed they had respect for women. Same as how they are here in the states. Every Italian men I've dealt with or dated was respectful. Well, that is, except Victor in the 4th grade. He called me the N-Word.

@Troy Yes...and no. They found the patient first had to think through the goal of moving the prosthetic arm before it could move. This made me think a thought has to have matter to have an effect on other matter. Like electricity has an effect on matter although electricity isn't actually considered "matter" but is a component of matter... (from the article: "As time went by, Ray learned to modulate the signals from his implant just by thinking. ") Also, I do reject the idea that humans don't know all that exist in the universe. I believe we know all but haven't focused on it to name it in an effort to share it with others (although I don't even believe sharing is necessary either.) Naming and knowing are two different things. Humans create, discover then "name" it... and why do you want to fight all the time! LOL!!!

@Cynique The way you put this made me laugh (inappropriately I might add. Good thing I was alone) I read the first few chapters of that book and maybe it was the way his brain was formed but from the book - he nailed the art of the deal way before he got to college. He was made for wall street because he was a street smart hustler according to the book's opening, It is an interesting book.

@Cynique you nailed it! Beyonce actually submitted a trademark application through her trademark holding company, BGK Trademark Holdings, llc.. Blue Ivy Carter , Rumi Carter and Sir Carter ; BGK stands for (Beyonce Giselle Knowles)

@Pioneer1 Also, I didn't have a problem with the Italian men - they were cool. I was with an asian woman and she didn't get hit on either. They were cordial when I did notice them. The place where I had to beat the men off with an effing stick - was Argentina... I don't understand why they are like they are but they are very "handsy" close talkers. It kind of creeped me out.

@Pioneer1 First , most black Americans are from West Africa. They are from the Haplogroup L 1 and L 2 , they are the original people. I just happened to be from East Africa (Ethiopia) according to my mtDNA . I come from L3 haplogroup, a mtDNA mutation from the first and second modern human. This means I'm a progeny of most black Americans here, and I'm a progenitor of Europeans and Asians. Caucasians from the Caucasus region also come from my L3 haplogroup . Not the other way around. I'm their biological mother as my mtDNA is about 80,000 - 104,000 years old and Caucasians arrived here about 11,500 years ago. Caucasians have AFRICAN (and some Neanderthal) ancestry. In researching , ancient Rome I found out there were a lot of Africans there - and a lot of the architecture is influenced by northern Africans - as it is in Peru too. Oddly, when I was in Peru, a a native woman asked me if so-and-so was my mother - a woman who lived there. All this to say, when you leave the united states you will see the world looks a lot more like me, Del, Cynique, Troy (and maybe you - but I've never seen you ) than most fair-hair folks with the pinkish hue. Anyway, Rome feels like a playground to me, so most likely I (my ancestors) did a lot of trading, living and playing there. Brazil felt like heartache, and I had no love for England and it felt like a place I did a lot of studying. Peru feels like home, so I (ancestors) probably settled there for a while... In all my travels I haven't visited the motherland yet - but if I do, I know I'll most likely want to stay. Also I didn't disagree with you - I said they could be the same thing... @Cynique I'm so thankful and grateful that we had this opportunity to connect! Isn't it amazing how we know what we do for no obvious reason! It's that kind of stuff (for lack of a better word) that makes this life so fascinating and worth living. Aside: I just read today there is software that people control using their brainwaves - (thoughts) so I got to thinking about a lot of conversations here - and realized "Thoughts are Matter" or it wouldn't be able to control software. Didn't you and @Troy have this debate before?

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@Pioneer1 I do not necessarily believe in reincarnation or past lives. As I mentioned. A past life could be nothing more than genetic memory. In the simplest explanation I can muster - DNA is code and within code there's information. Why couldn't that information give detail of our ancestors events? As for what was revealed when I died or information given to me by others... I don't operate that way. I think for myself. Much of what I speak of comes from this process call deductive reasoning that leads to synthesis. I read a lot , experience a lot and listen to others, usually those who are experienced. Once I gather information from several sources including first-hand experience, I then formulate a hypothesis. Next, I look for more evidence to support or dismiss my theory. On this particular subject, I happened to sit next to a neurosurgeon on one of my flights. I asked him if there was such a thing as genetic memory. He said he didn't think so but in his studies he did find that a newborn primate didn't fear anything but a hissing sound. He said he couldn't explain how a newborn could have an innate fear of something that was actually a threat to its existence. He concluded it was wired into his genes. Because of that information he couldn't rule out genetic memory. There's a lot of information on the subject but to date there's no verifiable evidence. When I first arrived in Rome, Italy - I didn't get lost once. It was if I knew my way around, like I had been there before. It felt extremely familiar. The weird part is I have a poor sense of direction. I didn't feel like I was there in a past life - I felt like my ancestors were there... and I literally followed in their footsteps.