When a writer is censored, hacked, monitored, and other stories with helpful takeaways. Updated 7/30/2025
7/30/2025
Details on the impact of AI on side hustles, self-employment, or freelance work go to Editor’s note, subheading Links Found.
7/28/25
638 words
The photograph of Emmett Till
The following post was inspired by an incident related to a veteran blogger and information professional who suggested using the story to educate others on the importance of reframing thought.
Emmett Till was fourteen when he was murdered in the 1950s in a Southern state. I was not born.
Decades later, as an adult, I heard about him periodically on the news during Black History Month. A picture had been taken at his open casket funeral and published in one of the popular African American magazines, I learned.
I made a conscious decision never to see that photograph.
The strategy worked well until the summer of 2010.
I enrolled in an online college class about photography and multicultural America… how photographs are used to influence public perception, socially and politically in historic and modern times.
From the American Civil War to Civil Rights to Dolce & Gabbana.
One day, without warning, the professor uploaded the Till photo onto our computers as part of an assignment in which we were to observe and write on the board for all students to view.
Suddenly, a long-heard tragedy, now horrifically illustrated 12 inches from my face.
It was a shocking photograph, and I sucked in my breath. I posted that the criminals responsible were insane and depraved.
My observation offended an adult female student of color whom I did not know. She vigorously maintained the killers were not insane but rednecks with a hatred of …
She began to argue with me. She was angry. By labeling them insane, I was excusing their conduct, she said.
No. That was not my intent. I kept my composure and refused to back down…restating what I meant and not what she believed I meant.
Each time I replied, she wrote I was wrong, and it felt as if I had wandered into a mud fight.
Where, oh, where was the instructor?
A male student of color commented that he too felt they were not insane, that’s how those southerners were, but he was courteous, and again I restated my position, wondering in the back of my mind if I was somehow wrong, but did not think so.
Back then, I understood little about the real history, cultural, and socio-political landscape.
I never backed down. And she ceased her barrage. And when she later discovered we were in another class at the same time, she instantly withdrew.
Weeks later, I told one of the female department directors the image should not have been uploaded without warning students.
I further explained I had experience taping reading material for graduate students studying for their PhDs, and the content included graphic crime scene material, which was disgusting, but I did the job as required.
However, there is no telling who was in the class of students, and that picture could have been very upsetting, I said.
The comments were an afterthought while talking about the accelerated summer course in general.
It was not a complaint. I was not angry, so I thought.
Recounting the incident several days ago, I received an insightful reply.
Reply excerpt
“I suppose you and that woman may both be correct. The murders were depraved, but in that setting, depravity was societally normalized.”
Whoa.
The angry student never made that point, only repeated hostile comments on my written observations of the photograph.
But today, I instantly understood the concept of legally, culturally sanctioned murder. Back then, I did not fully understand the history and culture of that era.
I suspect the woman’s outrage may have been in part based on the image.
In retrospect, I now believe uploading that photograph without warning was more than oversight but gross disrespect.
The mystery of a painful incident now understood. And I allowed a tear or two after all these years.
Peace Emmett Till.
Sources
Photography of Multicultural America
Emmett Till, 1955, JET, pp.8, 9…Caution graphic content
https://books.google.com/books?id=57EDAAAAMBAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
Source: Roger O. Green, Ramblin with Roger.com
7/26/2025
Editor’s note: I have no affiliation with the following author.
I am publishing the article link below, which the author left for non-subscribers, as it reinforces points made in my initial entry.
Relevant information for writers and entrepreneurs concerning the use of third-party platforms. According to one reader comment, even Etsy can be problematic.
Substack Banned My Newsletter Without Warning — Here’s What You Should Know, subheading
10 Months of Work, Gone in Seconds: A Cautionary Tale for Writers
Brinda Koushik, Medium, 4 min read, Jun 26, 2025
https://medium.com/write-a-catalyst/substack-banned-my-newsletter-without-warning-heres-what-you-should-know-9793aa8045fe
And consider a recent eye-opening news report about what some businesses experience when mistakenly flagged and locked out of their social media accounts.
Graphic references included:
ABC7.com
https://abc7.com/post/instagram-users-say-been-wrongfully-suspended-app-turn-7-side/17264251/
Updated 7/16/2025
When misinformation leads to job loss: Six Ways to Prevent It from Happening.
How U.S. Congresswoman Lateefah Simon lost a job…
You can find this updated previous paywall article under Editor’s Note, subheading Articles Republished.
July 15, 2025
9-minute read
You will be monitored. I have never read such strict rules in an NDA. — Remark by one of the lawyers working on my civil lawsuit, many summers ago.
Too angry to ask what he meant exactly, I stared instead at the documents before me.
Only one thing was missing from the NDA, I thought: no carrier pigeons.
The rigid gag order took me by surprise, but it should not have.
Based on police reports, I dictated an article about what took place leading to the lawsuit, but set it aside until the case ended… at the request of the lead attorney.
Unfortunately, the defense lawyers learned about the draft.
I refused to sign away the literary rights to the incident. The defendants were not going to tell me what I could or could not write about…
Eighteen months earlier
Attacked during a routine errand one afternoon because of an admitted store error, the incident took place before a large crowd and was caught on tape.
Pushed and pulled 25 feet with a tight grip on my wrist, at 5’3′, losing my balance, and hanging at an angle in the stranger’s grasp…
Charges were filed, but the assailant fled.
At the time, a full-time adult college student on summer break, I did not use a computer for assignments; instead, I wrote longhand.
Later that night, sharp pain and swelling in my hand appeared…
An ER physician diagnosed a wrist sprain and had my lower arm bandaged…pain meds were excluded for intolerance.
Eighteen months later
En route to court-ordered mediation, a driver failed to yield and broadsided the vehicle in which I was the passenger.
Months later
The opposition relented, and the NDA was revised to read that if the real names of the defendants were not used, I could write about the case.
“You may write under your name,” another attorney advised. But I used a pen name. For a while, the true crime memoir landed on a bestseller Kindle list in three legal categories.
Using the true crime memoir, I extracted chapters and wrote a supplemental PDF lesson for students and adults about the marketplace and racial profiling… meanwhile…
Strange and disruptive situations, including reinjury, kept happening, further delaying plans…
1. Shadowbanned from marketing platforms. No explanation.
Rethink, reflect, and reimagine ways to market outside the reach of algorithms, gatekeepers, and conservative rules on reporting factual racial issues. Own your platform.
Think inside and outside the box. Innovate. Improve marketing skills. Evaluate companies such as *SkillShare for starters.
*No affiliation.
2. Niche Creativity logo found attached to a mugshot of a murder suspect and a news photo of a naked male fleeing from police… on a major platform, on a group board for second-grade teachers, where I contributed news stories about pint-sized entrepreneurs.
Not a good look.
Alerted users in the board forum.
The hacker used crime stories from the same TV news station that I had sourced for entrepreneurial content.
Support restored only partial access without explanation. The login entry is still blocked to my archived content.
3. Key communication… from emails, sales copy, and articles, found with obvious errors missing from my final drafts.
A hard copy printout before sending or taking a screenshot offers some protection.
4. In 2021, my supplementary lesson on racial profiling, first published in 2014, was removed from a primary sales platform without warning after seven years.
Issue: Howard Zinn’s textbook quote about slave masters’ conduct was deemed unacceptable, but the quote has been included since 2014.
Declined robo offer to remove the quote and resubmit…reread tip #1.
Unfortunately, this meant the available format left was three times more costly, with the majority of the book’s purchase price going to middlemen.
5. Niche Creativity email add
*Learned not to link one’s business email address to personal ones or vice versa. Not to
depend on the site host, which may provide email, to advise of widespread hacking.
Ensure the email has high-level security. Check the internet for company breaches periodically.
6. My Hire Me page: Found riddled for months with typos and formatting issues, despite being checked and approved via screenshare by a veteran publisher and a SCORE counselor before posting.
Page corrected, but again found in total disarray. Bought an SSL certificate and upped security. Pulled the Hire Me page permanently.
7. Submitted an independently published title about the lawsuit to a major book distributor with an industry reputation for strict production guidelines.
The manuscript passed inspection and went live, but the title was discovered to be ruined with typos not present in the original submission.
I pulled the title permanently.
8. *Two niche magazines published my classified ads for an entrepreneurial title before the lawsuit. Later refused my ads for the same updated title. No explanation. Reread #1.
*Both publications are now defunct.
The list above is only 10 percent of the documented incidents that have occurred…
Billions of Americans are hacked annually. Censorship for writers of color has increased. Things happen.
So it was, I thought, a terrible run of bad luck complicated by a long-term injury and the resulting financial challenges.
Incidents did not all happen at once.
Then, in 2022, a records request and accidental release of several thousand pages revealed that the life-changing run of bad luck was anything but…
Conclusion
I know for sure that many twists and turns experienced in my civil lawsuit could have been avoided had I learned about non-police racial profiling as part of life skills.
Race was not discussed in the household as I grew up.
Attending schools in good areas in the U.S., living in two countries, and several parts of the U.S. through my teens, in retrospect, did nothing to enlighten me.
Much of what I knew or thought I knew about race came from what I read, assumed from TV, and based on my experiences. What I did not understand was that those experiences were not typical.
As a plaintiff for four years in a racial profiling case, I learned the hard way.
Only 10 percent of crime victims can take their case to civil court.
Starting next month, content on this page will focus on useful, overlooked takeaways from past and present, including pop culture, business, legal, and medical topics with overt and covert racial themes.
Sometimes, race will not be an issue…just incompetence.
SOURCES
*Ethnic studies freebie with printable lessons and two answer keys.
https://nichecreativity.com/ethnic-studies-freebie/
Howardzinn.org
*A People’s History of the United States – Howard Zinn
*The Writer Got Screwed (but didn’t have to): Guide to the Legal and Business Practices of Writing for the Entertainment Industry, by Brooke A. Wharton, March 1997, Harper Perennial.
In 2025, evergreen content remains relevant despite other significant changes in Hollywood.
*The information about myths surrounding big-money lawsuits is revealing.
*33+ Tips, Tricks, Resources for Copyright Beginners
Niche Creativity.com
Examples of creative theft, the subheading: And some cases are outrageous
https://nichecreativity.com/33tips-tricks-resources-for-copyright-beginners/
Views: 32