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7 Simple Rules for Being Black and Happy in America

The odds are stacked against us, but we don’t have to let them keep us down.

Jeremy Helligar
5 min readJul 2, 2022
Photo: Depositphotos

Several years ago, someone suggested to me that a writer can measure their success by how many angry comments they receive. I don’t know if that’s true, but it never ceases to amaze me how far some readers will go to unleash their anger directly at me. The most common trigger is a predictable one: anything I write involving race that makes White people look less than perfect.

I’m not on Twitter or Instagram, so readers who feel compelled to communicate with me outside of the comments have to come up with creative ways to find me. A friend warned me when I started blogging that the ones who bothered to reach out usually would have something negative to say, and boy, was she right. The last person who tracked me down accused me of always playing the victim (yawn!), as if pointing out obstacles while clearing them automatically makes someone a victim.

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Jeremy Helligar
Jeremy Helligar

Written by Jeremy Helligar

Brother Son Husband Friend Loner Minimalist World Traveler. Author of “Is It True What They Say About Black Men?” and “Storms in Africa” https://rb.gy/3mthoj

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