I came to this thread after a Google search hoping to find information about African American Vernacular English and the dialectical use of the first person standalone possessive pronoun "mines." Instead, I found one of the most racist string of comments I've ever seen about a topic in linguistics. I highly recommend that the moderators of this post address this issue.

There are two types of possessive pronouns in English. The first type always accompanies a noun (e.g. my book, your book, her book, our book). The second type is called an independent possessive pronoun and does not accompany a noun (e.g. the book is mine, the book is yours, the book is hers, the book is ours).

Look at the pattern followed by the independent possessive pronouns. Mine, yours, his, hers, theirs, ours. They all end in -s.... except for mine. The word "mines" MAKES MORE GRAMMATICAL SENSE THAN THE WORD "MINE" DOES.

The use of the word "mines" is a dialectical difference and has nothing to do with intelligence, laziness or education level; these assertions are so racist and harmful.

The field of linguistics is about observing and learning, not judging. Remember that scene from Ted Lasso? "Be curious, not judgmental."