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In this legislative session, Louisiana Republicans flipped the meaning of discrimination | Jarvis DeBerry
During a committee meeting where he voted against legislation that sought to protect Louisiana’s LGBTQ renters from housing discrimination, Rep. Danny McCormick (R-Oil City) spoke firsthand about the discrimination he himself has been facing: “Personally I don’t wear a mask, and I get discriminated against,” he said. In defense of what might be property managers’ […]
Dying in jail is bad; dying without being found guilty is worse | Jarvis DeBerry
More than 14% of the 786 people who are known to have died behind bars in Louisiana between 2015 and 2019 hadn’t even gone to trial yet. Two of those who died before getting their day in court were juveniles. To be sure, that doesn’t mean that most of the other deaths aren’t alarming; only […]
Where were the ‘good’ police when Ronald Greene was being brutalized? | Jarvis DeBerry
During a May 11 debate on the floor of the Louisiana House of Representatives over a bill that would make it easier to sue bad police officers, Rep. Denise Marcelle (D-Baton Rouge), a supporter of the bill, said that about 99.9% of police officers are good. Marcelle was reiterating a point that had previously been […]
Sheriffs oppose marijuana legalization because sheriffs profit from marijuana’s prohibition | Jarvis DeBerry
During that embarrassingly brief moment when Louisiana moved from the world’s most prolific incarcerator to the world’s second most prolific incarcerator, the Louisiana Sheriffs’ Association went running to the Legislature for more money. While the general public likely interpreted fewer people locked up as a good thing, the sheriffs saw it as a problem that […]
In Louisiana, you’ve got your water bill and your drinking-water bill | Jarvis DeBerry
Do you remember the start of the pandemic when people rushed grocery stores and bought as much water as they could? And how those stores had to impose limits on how much individuals could purchase, lest they leave none on the shelves? Grocers in Tallulah imposed such limits — 3 gallons of water per shopper […]
Nothing but racism explains Black women’s higher rate of horrible birth stories | Jarvis DeBerry
Tatyana Ali, who starred as Ashley Banks on “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” from 1990 to 1996, entered Harvard the next year where she double majored in government and African-American studies. In 2016, Ali and her husband, an English professor at Stanford, welcomed their first child, but only after mother and baby were roughly treated […]
Heartbreaking stories of Black maternal deaths, pregnancy complications, racism related at hearing
WASHINGTON — When U.S. Rep. Cori Bush of Missouri was pregnant with her first child, Zion, she saw a sign in her doctor’s office encouraging her to speak up about anything unusual she was feeling. She did so, telling her physician that she was having severe pains, but her concerns were swiftly dismissed. The doctor […]
Ray Garofalo won’t get to pass his shaky grasp of history down to Louisiana’s students | Jarvis DeBerry
If Louisiana Rep. Ray Garofalo, a Chalmette Republican, had been engaged in some noble purpose Tuesday — that is, if he had been putting forward a bill that would have been an actual benefit to anybody — then his statement that the state’s teachers should be made to teach “the good, the bad, the ugly” […]
Winner of Louisiana’s 2nd Congressional District to be determined in Saturday’s runoff
Karen Carter-Peterson and Troy Carter, two veteran state lawmakers — both from New Orleans and both Democrats — go head-to-head Saturday in a runoff to fill the open seat for representative of Louisiana’s 2nd Congressional District. The seat was left open when Cedric Richmond, who was first elected to Congress in 2010, took a role […]
Supreme Court ruling may doom more Louisiana juveniles to permanent imprisonment | Jarvis DeBerry
Since the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2012 ruling that mandatory sentences of life without parole for juvenile defendants don’t jibe with the Eighth Amendment’s ban on “cruel and unusual punishment” and be imposed on the rare juvenile who is “permanently incorrigible,” Louisiana has acted as if incorrigibility isn’t rare at all. It has acted as if […]
Losing mothers and their babies remains a big problem in Louisiana | Jarvis DeBerry
Motorists in Baton Rouge may have seen a billboard on I-12 depicting a balding White man holding open his shirt to reveal a long surgical scar down his chest. “THIS IS WHAT HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE LOOKS LIKE,” the sign reads, as it shows a blood pressure measurement of 145/90. Yes, a scar from open heart […]
The novel coronavirus has no politics, but people threatened by it obviously do | Jarvis DeBerry
It is accepted as a truism in the public health world that health information should be communicated to the public by someone other than elected officials — lest that information be rejected by everybody who doesn’t care for those officials or their party. However, people elect mayors, governors and presidents whom they expect to be […]