EC Hopkins is calling it quits.
It's a dark day for the 'sphere. EC was the last existential partner, and I feel like I ought to build a group blog just for the purposes of accomodating his absence as an expository writer. I want to call it Existential Partners. But for now, I've already built one called The Brother's Cup. I'm going to invite a bunch of brothers to it and if it fails, I'll build EP.
Hopkins is one of the most rigorous minds ever to inhabit the online world of black writers. He made a splash in a very short period of time, and like with Aaron McGruder, I felt a personal burden lifted from my expository burden just by his mere presence. There was a point of view I could depend on being expressed with Hopkins around.
Hopkins (was) precise to a fault. His deep grounding in philosophy and law and his extensive reading practically overwhelmed his personality. I imagine him a large erect kind of fellow with exquisite manners and a merciful demeanor - like Colin Powell without ever a scowl. He was a man vitally engaged in developing an ethos which made clear his own love for righteousness and mankind. In that regard I think he explained too much - I could take it all just being EC. But then there he was, Mr. E. C. Hopkins. Ask me his first and middle name and I wouldn't be able to tell you. Dennis Miller over uses the phrase but I like the cut of his jib.
On his blog, EC engaged subjects that flew over most of our heads, but he was never far from touching vital nerves in my way of thinking. I feel, of all the bloggers, I owe him and New Black Man the most for keeping the highbrow touch alive despite the rest of our eagerness to get more gully on occasion. And in that regard EC obliged us with his patience in offering his blog as a grand arena for debate. It might have become a regular thing, but in one way I'm glad EC had not been reduced to being a referee and interpreter for an audience too lazy to decrypt the running debates and great controversies in the black haunts of the blogosphere. He was the right man for the job, but perhaps the job should never have existed. And now it certainly won't.
For every EC Hopkins who ventures out to speak, I imagine and hope that there are dozens in silence who audit our bloviation. Feeburner tells me that I get the most hits on the keyword "doggy style" at my blog, and so perhaps all my fervent hope is wishful thinking. But from those anonymous mists, he arose and for many bright moments he brought us a piece of his mind. We are grateful for those moments, and look forward to the future he'll be ushering in through his real world works.
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