mekkaokereke

mekkaokereke, 7 months ago to random

Oh what's that? San Francisco just started using bait cars to catch car break-ins crews? And they've already found that SF car break-in suspects are not homeless Black people in the Tenderloin, but professional car break-in experts that are mostly not Black that hit cars in touristy areas, to find laptops and cameras that they sell to fences that move the stolen goods to other cities?

Like Black folk in the Bay have been trying to tell y'all for years?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=w8Tr3R_9ZMY

mekkaokereke, 11 months ago to random

Juneteenth (June 19th) is not a "holiday celebrating when news of the end of slavery finally reached Texas." No. Just no. Y'all make it sound like network latency! Like we were playing Fortnite, and all the Black players were lagging.🤡

Juneteenth is when the racist state of Texas took another very public L. Texas did everything it could to keep slavery going as long as possible. They gave up land to Oklahoma, so they could be below the slavery line. The Alamo was a victory for abolitionists.

mekkaokereke, 9 months ago (edited 9 months ago) to aliens

If the US government really had alien bodies, then the US president would know about it.

If the US president knew about it, then Trump would know about it.

If Trump knew about it, he would have told everyone, bragged about it, kept boxes of documents about it at Mar-A-Lago, etc. There would be a ketchup stained original photograph of an alien autopsy on the floor of his bathroom.

Since we haven't heard him brag about having seen a photo of an alien, we know that he hasn't seen one.

#aliens

mekkaokereke, 9 months ago to random

Fantastic accomplishment!♥️👍🏿

https://19thnews.org/2023/07/chanda-prescod-weinstein-physicist-tenure-rare-feat/

And when she tried to join the Fediverse, she was greeted with a barrage of hate, sexism, racism, and anti-semitism that should have never been allowed to happen.

So now no one on Fediverse gets to interact with her directly about her work on here. Our loss. 😢

Which is why we'll make it so that this type of terrible welcome is unlikely to happen again. Allowing it to happen to her was a choice. We will make better ones.

#BlackMastodon

mekkaokereke, 8 months ago to random

♥️♥️♥️Shoutout to the staff of the hotel I stayed at for expertly de-escalating a Karen situation!

♥️♥️♥️And shoutout to the white hotel guests that stuck around to make sure that hotel security heard exactly what she was trying to do. My favorite comment: "Wow! A Karen situation in real life! I've only ever seen these online! This is surreal! What is she thinking?"

End result, yours truly did not get kicked out of the hotel for no reason, and feels slightly better about the state of the world.

mekkaokereke, 27 days ago to random

Again for people (racists), complaining about falling birth rates:

The birth rate for women over 40 is not falling. The birth rate for women over 30 is not falling.

What's happening, is girls 15 to 17 are having fewer babies. Kids are having fewer kids.

Also, this is an interesting way of saying that "Teen pregnancy is down, due to sex education and contraception."

In 1991 25% of 15 year olds gave birth before they turned 21. That's bad. Now it's 6%. That's better.

https://npr.org/2023/01/08/1147737247/teen-pregnancy-rates-have-declined-significantly

mekkaokereke, 9 months ago (edited 9 months ago) to random

When I tell you that your favorite VCs sit around in chat rooms with nazis, you think I'm joking. 🤷🏿‍♂️

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/richard-hanania-white-supremacist-pseudonym-richard-hoste_n_64c93928e4b021e2f295e817

Woke means Black. It's a Black saying.

Passing a law called "Stop woke" or saying "I'm anti-woke!" is equivalent to passing a law called "Stop Shabat Shalom" or "Stop Ni-Hao," but then trying to claim that you are not anti-semitic or sinophobic. It makes no sense.

Most of these VCs, writers, and politicians are irredeemably racist, and hate you on a visceral level.

mekkaokereke, 7 months ago to random

"🙏🏿Lord please grant me the confidence to deny a brilliant woman professor and researcher tenure track, demote her, push her out of my school, to be the adversity that she had to overcome in life... and when she overcomes me and wins the Nobel prize, to roll in like I did something. Amen!"

https://thehill.com/homenews/education/4234061-nobel-prize-winner-for-mrna-vaccines-discusses-being-demoted-by-upenn/

U Penn is bold! Real talk, I couldn't do that. I couldn't even fake that till I make that. Levels.

mekkaokereke, 1 month ago to random

People on Twitter are debating whether a person using uncommon words like "delve" are trying to sound smarter than they are, or worse, are ChatGPT bots, because "normal" people don't talk like that.

You don't have to get upset, or embroiled in the debate. Not worth the time or attention. But I'll share some important context as your friendly neighborhood Nigerian 🙋🏿‍♂️

Many Nigerians have bigger English language vocabularies and better command of grammar than the typical American or English person

mekkaokereke, 28 days ago to random

Most BLM protesters were white people advocating for Black civil rights.♥️ All their lives, they thought that they had the 1st amendment right to protest, because they had seen white supremacists march without being beaten by cops. They didn't realize that the right to free speech depends heavily on what you are speaking about, and who you are speaking for.

Now I'm seeing college professors and students learn the same lesson about what US cops will do to you if you speak up for the wrong thing.

mekkaokereke, 10 months ago to random

This is an important PSA for folks looking to make any place more inclusive. Do you want to be liked by everyone? Or do you want to make progress?

I don't know anyone that has both been successful in transforming a non-inclusive place, and hasn't been accused of sounding hostile.

It takes a huge amount of energy to dance on eggshells, and I don't have time to do it. So I don't. I'm a big boy. I crack sidewalks when I walk. So eggshells would have no chance anyway. 🤷🏿‍♂️

https://hachyderm.io/@mekkaokereke/110676207295654527

mekkaokereke, 3 months ago to random

If every unemployed person in the USA took one of the unfilled job openings, there would still be 2 million unfilled job openings. Because the US labor pool is significantly smaller than it was before the pandemic. Because a lot of people died. We're missing >1.7 million workers.😢

https://www.uschamber.com/workforce/understanding-americas-labor-shortage

Extra cruelty:
So don't tell me about a "migrant crisis." People literally smuggle themselves from Venezuela to NYC just to work for you, and you're like "Nah! No work permit for you!"

mekkaokereke, 3 months ago to random

My hot take on the Vision Pro is the same as my hot take on every AR/VR/Mixed Reality headset produced in the past checks notes 20 years: "If most women can't use your product for 4 hours straight without throwing up, don't try to tell me that it's the future of anything." I said what I said.

Women can use a smartphone indefinitely without nausea. They can use a laptop indefinitely. A gaming console and TV indefinitely. But XR headsets cause motion sickness in most women in under an hour. 🤷🏿‍♂️

mekkaokereke, 8 months ago to random

🤔The News is a strange industry.

If every auto company owner stopped buying newspapers, the newspapers wouldn't even notice. That's only like, 1000 people. But if every auto company employee stopped buying newspapers, the industry would feel significant pain. That's over 2 million people.

And yet, UAW stories are framed from the perspective of owners, not employees? Tik-Tok and other social media coverage frames it from the perspective of employees.

And we wonder why paper sales are down.

mekkaokereke, 2 months ago to random

It's 2024, and I'm still being invited to speak on all men panels. AKA Manels.

If I'm invited to speak on an all men panel, or present on stage with all men presenters, the answer is no.

If I say "Yes I'll join!" but you only have 1 woman on the panel, and she has to drop out last minute, then I drop out last minute too.

If you say "We looked, but we couldn't find any women!" then I will look for you, and find a woman. If there aren't enough spaces to add her, then she can take my spot.

mekkaokereke, 1 month ago to random

Something a lot of white folk don't realize happens to Black people a lot:

When there is a competition between a Black person and a white person for a coveted prize, if the white person wins, they're celebrated. If the Black person wins... they're asked to share the prize with the white person that came in second place.😮

This happens to Black women more often than Black men.

Literary awards (https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/oct/15/bernardine-evaristo-margaret-atwood-share-booker-prize-award)

Whitehouse invitation for championship teams:
https://www.npr.org/2023/04/04/1167965013/iowa-lsu-jill-biden-ncaa-basketball-championship

mekkaokereke, 10 months ago (edited 10 months ago) to random

This graph is making the rounds again on other social media sites. It begs the question "Why do men pay off their student loans, but women can't/won't?"

It's not Black history month, but you already know the answer!

Black women are forced to borrow more for their education. Then Black women are paid less when they graduate, even for the same degree.

A disproportionate amount of the $1.7 Trillion of loan debt (not a typo. Trillion. With a "T.") is held by Black women that did everything right)

mekkaokereke, 8 months ago to random

I don't care what Trump's height and weight is. At all. I care that he was allowed to lie on his prison intake form.

We just can't stop giving him special treatment. Even for things as silly and inconsequential as this.

mekkaokereke, 6 months ago to random

Reminder that it's really hard to get hired in October, November, and December. So if you've been job seeking and have gotten very little traction the past few months, know that it's not you. Don't give up hope!

• Hiring teams have the fewest open roles left at year's end

• It's tough to put interview schedules together because everyone is on vacation

• Even with the interviews, it's tough to schedule the debrief + hiring committee + offer review

Etc

#fedihired #BlackMastodon

mekkaokereke, 2 months ago to random

PSA: How to open a Tesla door in an emergency

I have friends that happily drive their kids around strapped into child seats in Teslas. I ask them a few questions about this, and I've never had a friend of mine who is a parent answer these questions satisfactorily:

1. Do you know that Tesla doors might not open if there's no power?

2. Do you know how to manually open the doors?

3. Have you timed how long it would take you to get your kids out?

Here's how to get out
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6PbRBbIGnv4

mekkaokereke, 7 months ago to random

Periodic reminder that a place that is safe for white trans people, but is not safe for Black trans people, is not a "safe space for trans people."

mekkaokereke, 1 year ago to random

All of the posts on Mastodon about how the Blue Sky team was silly for releasing a social media network in 2023 without blocking and moderation, even in private beta, and that the Blue Sky team should have known what would happen...

...are being written on Mastodon: a social media platform that in 2023, still doesn't take into account that Black users face a disproportionate amount of very specific types of abuse, and is missing key features that would make the Black population safer. 🙂🙃

mekkaokereke, 22 days ago to random

I told y'all, cops don't do what you think they do.🤷🏿‍♂️

Black folk know this from lived experience. Some white folk only learn this when they go to report a theft or sexual assault and find out that the $11B/year NYPD are not equipped to handle that.

15K NYC bikes stolen a year!

https://www.404media.co/nypd-bike-lock-chain-kryptonite-columbia-university-protests/

1/n

mekkaokereke, 3 months ago to random

Happy #BlackHistoryMonth !

I'm still not up to Black History! I'm still working through white US history. Bear with me! Almost there!

Q: Why does it seem like everything has to be woke now? Even our scientists?! It never used to be that way! Why does it seem like these days, even higher education has to think about race, when it didn't before?

A: Higher education, including STEM, did think about race before. That history has just been hidden from you. Because racism.

#BlackMastodon