Youth Media Project

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EDITOR'S NOTE: Of Love, Ego and Believing in All of Our Children

The Mississippi Youth Media Project, Donna Ladd's passion project with its own newsroom next door to the Jackson Free Press, invites young people of various backgrounds, and doesn't shy away from accepting young people who have struggled in school or the community.

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OPINION: Racists Can Change After All

By the time I got to middle school, I'd come to terms with the world we live in. I was aware that people weren't always welcoming and that racists ruled the world.

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EDITOR'S NOTE: Celebrating Teen Excellence at Crossroads Film Fest

Little pleases me more than seeing teenagers from all parts of Jackson achieve great things and be recognized for them such as their inclusion this week in the Crossroads Film Festival.

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EDITOR'S NOTE: Our Journalism Seeks Solutions Over Blame and Partisanship

I'm a journalist to find solutions for issues such as youth crime. And that means seeking the various causes first to get there. That is why the journalism in the Jackson Free Press is different.

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The Road Less Traveled in Jackson

Young Jacksonians are literally the city's future. We must listen to them, take their advice, invite them into spaces where they've never been and introduce them to museums, restaurants and other cultures, as these teenagers were doing all summer.

You Can't Even Call Me Shallow for It

Youth Media Project

Though I bet some of you are going to try. This is a true recount of my weekend in New Orleans, a city whose vibe I really feel. And had things been different (financially), I would be attending Tulane. Can you believe 40k in aid and scholarships and still being 10k short? But I digress. This all started because I am a smart chick who has figured herself out, and therefore doesn't have to act a way she THINKS she should act.

The Invisible Woman

Youth Media Project

I've lived with this woman for quite a while now. She showed me how to care, allowed me to be different, and appreciate the little things, but I hated her. I hated the way she looked. How she let people treat her. How lumpy she was. I loved spending my down time fantasizing about leaving her, often equating my level of happiness with the distance away. But something happened. I wasn't paying attention and it happened. I was falling in love. I became more intrigued at how this woman treated the people she loved and I discovered how beautiful she really was.

The Rapper's Double Consciousness

Youth Media Project

It would be hard to describe the moment when I fell in love with Hip-Hop, for it would be like trying to explain when I fell in love with my people. Hip-Hop has indirectly been a part of me before birth. It is a present that was predestined for me. Hip-Hop is a culture and an intricate part of my heritage. It has influenced many aspects of my life. Hip-Hop, with its intoxicating lyrics, has started a movement, developed material culture, and charismas that have produced a generation of people. This hip-hop generation has been a voice for the youth, and me.

How to Know If You Are Alive

Youth Media Project

One simply can't exist and expect to be alive. Just as one may feel passion and expect there to be love also, that is not always the case. Sand put into a sieve simply falls out. To be alive you don't even have to act in the name of goodness or peace, you can be a terrible person out to corrupt. But please, for the love of humanity, act! Passive people have killed more human beings than Hitler, King Herod and the like ever did, because what do those people care? They're not even alive anyway.

A Response to an Article from The Clarion Ledger [Constance/Itawamba Co.]

Youth Media Project

All Mississippi needs is more negative media coverage, and here it is. People already think, all around the world, that Mississippi is full of closed-minded individuals whose main goal in life is to keep the state as conservative as possible.