NAM EthnoBlog

No, There Are No Vampires in My YA Novel.

By Laura Goode, Jan 13, 2010 12:15 PM

The Twilight phenomenon has monopolized media chatter for over a year now, and while many have vetted, bemoaned, and dissected the complicated sexuality of the ballad of Bella and Edward, few have done so in the greater context of Twilight’s paramount position in popular young adult fiction. Twilight, and our culture’s current vogue of vampires, reveals a subtly toxic sexual messaging still being slipped into the literature young American women are consuming en masse.

Full disclosure: I am a recovering teenage girl with a YA novel, Sister Mischief, coming out next year. In the early stages of conceptualizing SM, I realized that writing the book was a way of putting my money where my mouth was: giving young people access to candid, high-quality literature is important to me, so I figured I should try to produce some.

Naming the Barbarians

By Laura Goode, Dec 14, 2009 1:46 PM

Today’s New York Times publishes a new and confidential report, released by an unnamed “state agency,” that substantiates the shortcomings (to use a generous word) of the New York juvenile justice system.

Though little of it would surprise anyone who’s ever worked with the American juvenile justice system, it’s hard to know what horrifies me most about the new report’s findings. Is it the fact that an estimated half of these young people suffer from diagnosed mental illnesses, one-third have developmental disabilities, and the system fails to employ a single psychiatrist who can issue medication?

Where Has All the Youth Gone?

By Inga Buchbinder, Aug 21, 2009 12:33 PM

Our Editorial meetings are a lot like the fishbowl discussions I used to have in middle school and high school. Our intelligent staffs sits around discussing potential story ideas, but usually we get side-tracked into discussing current events.

This week, one of our sessions was dominated by the lack of activism amongst young people. All the young people who worked furiously to get their vote counted during the 2008 Election period; the young people who organized themselves in order to prevent "another 8 years." Most of our staff is not "youth" and therefore has a much more realistic view of politics and government. They realize that our black, democratic President could be a blip in the history books.

Tweets, Terrorism, and Translation

By Cristina Fernandez-Pereda, Jul 31, 2009 12:29 PM

The offending word was misery. The headlines were "Brits face Spain holiday misery after double bomb attack," by The Times. The BBC chose "disrupt. "Spanish bomb disrupts UK holidays".

It took 24 hours for The Times to change the wording even after their Twitter account was flooded with messages from offended Spaniards. But what if all those Spaniards were lost in translation?

Tags:
ETA,
ETAno,
Spain,
terrorism,
Twitter

Ten(ish) Questions with the Ethnic Media: Matthew Little

By Laura Goode, Jan 15, 2009 2:49 PM

NAM Blogwire contributor Laura Goode met Matthew Little of the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder at the 2008 Twin Cities Ethnic & Community Media Awards, co-hosted by NAM and the Twin Cities Daily Planet. Little, an 87-year-old columnist for MSR, Minnesota's oldest African-American newspaper, is a World War II veteran and passionate civil rights activist who, notably, led the Minnesota delegation to the historic 1963 March on Washington. At the NAM awards, Little won first place for best Editorial or Commentary coverage for his MSR column "Little By Little".

Categories:
Profiles,
Top Stories,
Word Nerds

On Representation: What Color Are Words?

By Laura Goode, Jan 15, 2009 2:32 PM

Recently, during a conversation with two close coworkers, an Indian woman and a Kenyan man, I was embarrassed to catch myself using the word "segregate." Let me clarify: I was using the term in the most banal possible context, in reference to visually distinguishing our website's news content from the blog content you're reading right now. Nonetheless, in using it, and in realizing I was using it, I immediately became the worst kind of equivocating white apologist, the kind who didn't mean anything by it and who has lots of black friends.

Categories:
Top Stories,
Word Nerds

EthnoBlog

Category: Word Nerds

No, There Are No Vampires in My YA Novel.

Naming the Barbarians

Where Has All the Youth Gone?

Tweets, Terrorism, and Translation

Ten(ish) Questions with the Ethnic Media: Matthew Little

On Representation: What Color Are Words?

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