EDITORIAL: Dear Mississippi Politicians, Criminal Justice Reform Is More Than Rhetoric
This week the Mississippi Department of Corrections will host a re-entry symposium in Jackson, a necessary step to re-engage stakeholders involved with the criminal justice system, from lawmakers and mental-health professionals to judges and experts.
OPINION: ‘Don’t Yuck My Yum’
As a food educator, I spent many hours in classrooms doing taste tests, interactive cooking demos and nutrition lessons. I've seen elementary schoolers, even the so-called picky eaters, taste everything from sauteed Swiss chard, to beet smoothies to chickpea cookie dough, and ask for seconds.
EDITOR'S NOTE: America, We Must Stop De-humanizing Our Children
As a child in the 1960s and 1970s, I was a bit of a freak of nature in my hometown of Philadelphia, Miss. You could call me sensitive or soft-hearted, or as the odd insult still goes, I had a bleeding heart.
EDITORIAL: Transparency in Officer Shootings Needs to Improve, Not Worsen
We now get even less information about officer-involved shootings. The Mississippi Bureau of Investigations does not have to disclose information concerning any open or closed investigations except to law enforcement.
OPINION: New Orleans, A Good Idea
A different kind of musician, Bob Dylan, says New Orleans is a city where the ghosts of the dead and the laughter of the living are never far apart.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Lessons in Stepping up from ‘Friday Night Lights’
It may be the peak of the baseball season, but my clear eyes and full heart have been fully set on football, thanks to my latest TV nostalgic kick. For those that don't speak outdated pop-culture references, I've been re-watching all of the show "Friday Night Lights."
OPINION: Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba Is a Man
In the current political climate, where the American president and Mississippi governor are people who lie to cover their evil plans, it is rare when an elected official does the right thing and accepts ownership of a wrong, simply because he is the leader and all responsibilities lie with him, regardless of the ineptitude of those working under him.
EDITORIAL: Low Primary Turnout Should Force Voter Engagement
The sickest part of our elections is that people who run campaigns don't think voters here are very smart or that they have evolved at all as an electorate in recent decades.
OPINION: Finding the Good in Jackson, Miss.
Someone asked me recently what I think about the state of Jackson. After my immediate chuckle, I responded: "It's home. It's my hometown, where I have become who I am, and where I raise my children. Good and bad, it's mine."
EDITOR'S NOTE: Move ... Because Your Life Depends On It
Running is an intense exercise, so while it may be amazing for some people, it may be tough for others. But find a thing you can do, and do it.
EDITORIAL: City Should Prioritize ‘Rainy Day’ Funds for Emergencies
Despite recent catastrophes, the Jackson City Council has been using its fund balance or "rainy-day" fund for city-clerk salaries and festivals—items that are fundamentally non-essential.
OPINION: The Right Way to Respond to Drug Addiction
Today in Mississippi, taxpayers fund two contradictory approaches to people struggling with drug addiction. One results in an arrest and possibly jail time. The other offers people health-based treatment.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Midterm Madness Comes to Mississippi
Editor-in-Chief Donna Ladd and Publisher Todd Stauffer started Best of Jackson almost 16 years ago to uplift the city because back then it was in a bad place, much worse than it is now.
EDITORIAL: City Must Become Proactive, Not Reactive to Problems
Now that a promising young woman has died because of a massive systems failure in the City, allow us to repeat ourselves: This administration cannot afford to be reactionary to the mounting issues in the City.
OPINION: The Holy Land, Israeli or Palestinian?
"I've come to the conclusion that the Palestinians have been given a raw deal and are being treated unfairly by Israel, by the American media and particularly now by the White House."
EDITOR'S NOTE: Jackson, Get Your Community Together
Sure, if you come from a bigger city, there may be less to do here in Jackson, but you have many options, even if it's just going to the Mississippi Farmers Market on a Saturday morning.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Jackson, Lil Lonnie Must Not Die in Vain
When Lil Lonnie died in his car near the home where a white supremacist shot down Medgar Evers in 1963 in front of his children, in a neighborhood where kids still have far too few opportunities or positive things to do, the young man was 22.
EDITORIAL: Feds Must Stop Cruel Deportations, Rethink ‘War on Drugs’
Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers are arresting more undocumented immigrants now than under the previous administration—nonviolent undocumented men and women as Donald Trump uses scare tactics about dangerous immigrant gangs to justify deportations and splitting up families for just the crime of being undocumented.
EDITORIAL: Citizens, Be Informed and Vigilant About ‘One Lake’ Project
If you haven't paid attention to the proposed flood-control/development project called "One Lake" along the Pearl River, now is the time to help vet the ambitious plan.
OPINION: Immigration and the First Amendment
My late friend Marty Fishgold, a longtime labor writer in New York City, liked to say that "good journalism is a subversive activity" because it tells truth to power.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Celebrating, Not Submitting to Mississippi Food
Mississippi has so much great, healthy food already, and I'd love for the rest of the world to realize that we're not just cupcakes, sugar water, grits and danger.
EDITORIAL: City Council, Stop Posturing and Start Preparing
Ward 3 Councilman Kenneth Stokes, dare we say, stoked the fire at last week's Jackson City Council meeting during the heated conversation on moving the Jackson Zoo.
OPINION: Making Daddy Proud
My middle name, Folayan, means "to walk with dignity." But each minute of the day I spent working in a system I didn't believe in, lending my power there, my dignity was compromised.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Love, Good Deeds and the Jackson Zoo
One can't really have it both ways—everything can't be about race when you want it to be, but not when it makes you uncomfortable.
OPINION: Anti-Abortion Laws Won’t Stop Abortions. Eradicating Poverty Could.
"Making it more difficult for residents to access abortions won’t stop women from doing so. ... We must first address the No. 1 factor that appears to drive the demand for abortion: poverty."
EDITORIAL: Reform Requires Long-Term Planning, Reducing Private Prisons
Bipartisan criminal-justice reform is something to sing about, and we applaud the Mississippi Legislature and the governor for passing and signing House Bill 387 into law this session.
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.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Simple Ideas for Effecting Change
A study from the Journal of the American Art Therapy Association shows that 45 minutes of visual art-making can lower stress levels in adults, and other studies show that for kids, creating art is often helpful in their development.
EDITORIAL: Leaders, Roads and Bridges Trump Your Tax Cuts
Gephyrophobia translates into fear of bridges, and it's perfectly rational for Mississippians around the state to be suffering from that phobia following the closure of more than 100 "dangerous" bridges.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Time for Mississippi to Get Smarter on Crime
Dozens of officers from 15 federal, state and local law-enforcement agencies gathered in a circle in front of the new colorful Jackson mural facing State Street meant to symbolize a better capital city. The Clarion-Ledger's cops reporter was invited to join the nighttime gang hunters with her video camera.