Jackson Teens Need Mentors, Opportunity
If Reeves and other state GOP officials really want to see crime come down in the capital city, are they ready to allocate resources to both academic education, early-education and after-school programs, and to equitably encourage 21st-century extra-curricular programs such as youth digital media projects?
If Donald and Melania Trump Were Black
Both Donald and Melania Trump have access to a certain “freedom”: The freedom of being white in America.
Keep Breaking the Glass Ceiling
A couple of weeks ago, I posted something to Facebook that I thought could possibly get some political backlash from my conservative friends and family: "Regardless of politics, the fact that a woman is a presidential candidate is incredibly inspiring to me. #whoruntheworld? #wedo"
Black, Gay and Christian: Balancing the Equality Scale
I am black, Christian, genderqueer and gay. I chose to be neither the former, nor the latter; it is a gift. None of my identities contradicts the other, despite which agenda society is currently pushing.
Stinker Quote of the Week: 'Law and Order'
We can all work toward a fair, orderly, inviting state (for all) and still hold cops accountable.
We Need Leadership, Organization, Openness
The only mayor any of us should elect is one with a laser focus on getting our city organized to solve our problems together. We need real leadership now.
On Depression and Suicide
Living in a way in which I'm intending to solve my problems instead of succumbing to them puts me in a position to actually affect a positive turnout to the things I don't like about my life.
The Rights of Working People
A longstanding French tradition upholds the rights of working people—and it goes back as far as the 1789 revolution with the so-called "sans-culottes" who were too poor to afford the nobility's fashionable silk knee-pants.
Mr. Trump, We Are All Immigrants
This is a nation built on immigration. Unless you are Native American, you are not indigenous to this country.
Crossing Into Equality
Regardless of where it happens, when a cop kills an unarmed, unthreatening black man, the lives that action touches don't stop with his mother, wife or children. It affects all of us, even those of us sitting in a training course trying to take instruction on how to better ourselves professionally.
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.
Mindsets Must Change to Stop Juvenile Crime
Assumptions that a citizen execution is appropriate for a property crime and that certain young people can't be helped and should be locked up are at the crux of our juvenile-crime crisis.
Mississippi’s Relentless Pursuit of the LGBT Community
"It feels like the state will never stop pursuing us," said Joce Pritchett as she testified under oath in a federal courtroom in Jackson recently. She was describing what it felt like to be a LGBT person living in Mississippi when HB 1523 passed this spring.
Police Killings: Action, Reaction
I believe that everything doesn't happen for a reason. Sometimes, reason is thrown out the window, and one simply becomes afflicted with either fortunate or unfortunate luck.
Education and Lessons from the Game of ‘Life’
Ask just about anyone, and they'll agree: Education is in a bizarre place. In most cases, though, the person you ask will follow up their answer with something about the federal or state government, or they'll say something about Jackson Public Schools, even if they truthfully don't know much or don't have much skin in the game.
In ‘Trying Times,’ Demand Safer Policing
The understanding that black (and brown) lives do matter even when it's someone doing something unpredictable in a poor neighborhood must break through all the noise.
I Have No Words
I was only 19 years old, headed to the mall with my girlfriend, and excited about attending a sorority party that night when police pulled me over for a traffic violation. Surrounded by two cops, I remember the moment he pulled out his gun and pointed it at me.
Wasting Resources on Lies
The state's leaders prioritize their conservative politicking above all else despite costs to the taxpayer that a federal lawsuit filed by Planned Parenthood after Senate Bill 2238 took effect July 1 will inevitably have.
Fighting the System
When America continuously witnesses the murder and harassment of black folks by those who are assigned to "protect and serve," one question pops up in my mind: Do they think we make this sh*t up?
The American Child’s Reality Of Violence
To be raised in America, no matter your ethnicity, is to be subjected to countless images of violence that our society presents to us as justifiable acts. Violence and force is what we know.
What the End of Bonding Really Means
With the end of bonding for misdemeanor offenses in the Jackson Municipal Court, the cost of freedom for indigent offenders prior to their trial seems to be the death of the local bonding industry.
Freedom in Its Truest Form
Freedom is an understanding that love is its counterpart. Therefore, any act of hatred is a controlled act. The homosexual attacked by the homophobe isn't the one who is without freedom. The homophobe is the one who is a slave to his own evil.
Recognizing Privilege, Taking Responsibility
In this day and age, in this country, the color of your skin may very well determine how a police officer treats you, and what assumptions are made about your intentions, about your movements and even about whether you are properly exercising your Second Amendment rights. Fact.
To Prevent Violent Crime, Engage with Experts Like Harlem’s Kai Smith for Ideas
In Jackson, and Mississippi in general, it is a sport to complain about crime, not to mention to sensationalize it. The TV stations love to milk crime, especially in the capital city, for viewers and ratings, often leading the evening news with it, as if nothing could be more important.
Rebelling Against the Rebellion
Newt Knight is described as a "deserter, renegade and assassin" on the website of the local Sons of the Confederate Veterans chapter in Jones County, but Lew Smith in nearby Sumrall has a different view.
Mississippi Pride
It saddens me that so much hate has taken root in the state where I grew up, but I am also proud to have overcome it. I am proud of the brave LGBT people and allies in Mississippi who are standing up against it.
Defending Our Blackness, Unapologetically
I didn't watch the 2016 BET awards last Sunday, but I did partake in the Black Twitter awards watch party where I retweet, lurk from afar and pop some tweets off for the sake of humor. It's probably one of the rare things that brings us together on social media. Well, that and exposing racists.
For the Love of Women, Kids, Everyone Else
The Legislature is already in a financial bind—calling a special session with two days left in the fiscal year clearly means things are bad. So quit making them worse by wasting tax dollars on lawsuits that go nowhere except as a bullet point on your campaign flyers for 2019.
Still Separate After Orlando Massacre
Where is our compassion, when because it happened at an LGBT nightclub and not a Presbyterian church, we choose whether to help or not? The idea is that although I am me and you are you, we share in each other's pain and glory as a people.
Jasper Died, But We Can’t Give Up
I was ready to give up: the work, Mississippi, everything. Jasper had been killed in Parchman. They say suicide, but anyone who is familiar with death in prisons knows that even if he was killed with his own hands, it wasn't suicide.