When Big Easy Magazine broke the story about a performer wearing a swastika shirt at Ohm Lounge, we expected backlash. What we didn’t expect was how many people rushed not to condemn the symbol, but to defend it—not to stand against hate, but to invoke “free speech” as if that somehow settled the matter. To […]
This week, the U.S. Department of Justice quietly closed the book on one of Louisiana’s longest-standing school desegregation orders—first issued in 1966 to Plaquemines Parish, a place whose history of racial exclusion was once so notorious it had a name: Leander Perez. The DOJ framed the decision as “correcting a historical wrong.” But let’s call […]
In a significant move toward rectifying a long-standing injustice, the Louisiana State Senate Judiciary Committee voted 5-1 on April 29, 2025, to advance Senate Bill 218, authored by Senator Royce Duplessis. The bill seeks to provide a legal pathway for individuals still incarcerated due to non-unanimous jury convictions—a vestige of the Jim Crow era. Non-unanimous […]
How Big Tech tracks us all—and targets the most vulnerable, a core concern in the rise of surveillance capitalism. In today’s economy, privacy is a luxury good. If you use social media, browse the internet, or even walk down the street with a smartphone in your pocket, chances are you’re being surveilled. Not for safety. […]
The U.S. Supreme Court is once again positioned to decide the future of Black political power in Louisiana. This time, the case centers on whether a congressional district map—drawn under court order to comply with the Voting Rights Act (VRA)—should be struck down as unconstitutional. The consolidated cases, Louisiana v. Callais and Robinson v. Callais, […]
Sparked by the death of George Floyd, the Black Lives Matter movement has become a polarizing discourse worldwide. It’s understandable—the campaign raises issues about personal biases that are uncomfortable to acknowledge. The situation is unpleasant because there’s truth to the idea that everyone is biased in some way. Even if you feel that you’re […]
On August 28th 1963, Martin Luther King stepped onto a podium in front of 250,000 people and begin to speak. The speech he delivered would eventually go down in history as one of the greatest examples of American rhetoric that has ever been composed. Nearly midway through his speech, King was prompted by Mahalia […]
As a person that grew up in a modest middle-class home in Memphis, I was never short on anything I needed. Whether it was support from my mom despite her working two jobs along with my grandmother or the fact that I had name brand clothes and shoes, I don’t ever recall a time in […]
As the Louisiana State Legislature convened for its first week of the Regular Session, a number of issues promise to take the political stage. While the regular topics like equal pay, coastal restoration, education, tort reform, and civil rights characterize much of the proposed legislation, one Senator is apparently concerned about another issue: the genitals […]
A new report issued by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights states that the Trump administration is “undoing decades of civil and human rights progress.” The independent, bipartisan advisory agency issued a 621-page report, “Are Civil Rights a Reality?“. In this report, the commission found that under Trump, agencies that are supposed to protect civil […]
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