Category
Opinion
Perspectives and reflections that challenge, question, and inspire.
Who’s doing child welfare better than Louisiana? Here’s the answer.
Of all the children taken from their families in Louisiana in 2024, 93% did not allege sexual abuse or physical abuse. Far more common are cases in which family poverty is confused with “neglect.”
A year ago, we killed Jessie Hoffman
Jessie represents everything that is wrong with Louisiana’s death-penalty system, which costs taxpayers roughly $15 million a year and has shockingly little reliability in its convictions, due to an 80% reversal rate.
Our culture, our food, our health: why we must confront the ‘Silent Killer’
Hypertension, often called the silent killer, continues to disproportionately impact Black Americans and contributes to higher rates of stroke, heart disease and premature death.
Trump’s rush to expand offshore oil leases in the Gulf is bad for the environment. It’s also illegal.
The Trump administration pushed lease sales through without environmental review. This is illegal because it violates several of the country’s bedrock environmental laws, writes Mathews, a lawyer for the Center for Biological Diversity, one of the environmental groups that has sued the administration.
The girlhood to prison pipeline: how Louisiana policy fails Black girls
The state of Louisiana is building a long-needed door for women leaving prison. But for girls leaving childhood detention, there is no threshold, much less a door.
A whisper from Angola: the case of Solomon Birdsong
His hope is for a second chance not to live a life of leisure, but to live a life of purpose under the weight of his past, to test the rehabilitation he claims in the real world.
Louisiana pipeline explosion shows deep dangers of LNG buildout for our communities, in Louisiana and beyond
As more gas moves hundreds of miles by pipeline to an increased number of LNG export terminals licensed by the Trump administration, more pipeline leaks and explosions seem inevitable.
Dying, tired communities: Cameron Parish is a constant warning, not an exception, to the dangers of LNG
“We are not just statistics,” the writers emphasize. “We are families living in the shadows of corporate greed, forced to inhale the very toxins that threaten our lives.”
Reason #1 Why I hate Mardi Gras: the masks don’t just hide faces
I remember float riders leaning forward, stretching toys and trinkets toward a sea of Black children, only to snatch them back at the last second, enjoying the pain they inflicted. I remember our tiny, chocolate-skinned hands crushed beneath the weight of white feet, sharp and satisfying to icy, piercing blue eyes.
