Craig Franklin, assistant editor of The Jena Times, publishes his side of the Jena story in the Christian Science Monitor. (“Media Myths about the Jena 6”, October 24, 2007)
He attempts to right the records because, as he says: “I should know. I live in Jena. My wife has taught at Jena High School for many years. And most important, I am probably the only reporter who has covered these events from the very beginning.” So, he sets out to debunk 12 myths about Jena, Louisiana and the case against six black boys charged with “aggravated assault”.
According to Franklin:
Myth 1: The Whites-Only Tree. There has never been a "whites-only" tree… When a student asked during an assembly at the start of school last year if anyone could sit under the tree, it evoked laughter from everyone present – blacks and whites… the question was asked to make a joke...
Myth 2: Nooses a Signal to Black Students. An investigation by school officials, police, and an FBI agent revealed the true motivation behind the placing of two nooses in the tree the day after the assembly. According to the expulsion committee, the crudely constructed nooses were not aimed at black students. Instead, they were understood to be a prank by three white students aimed at their fellow white friends, members of the school rodeo team… Another myth concerns their punishment, which was not a three-day suspension, but rather nine days at an alternative facility followed by two weeks of in-school suspension, Saturday detentions, attendance at Discipline Court, and evaluation by licensed mental-health professionals...
Myth 3: Nooses Were a Hate Crime. Although many believe the three white students should have been prosecuted for a hate crime for hanging the nooses, the incident did not meet the legal criteria for a federal hate crime...
Myth 11: Jena Is One of the Most Racist Towns in America. Actually, Jena is a wonderful place to live for both whites and blacks. The media's distortion and outright lies concerning the case have given this rural Louisiana town a label it doesn't deserve.
Craig Franklin looks back on Jena’s history with blurred hindsight. A more accurate record can be gleaned from TownTalk.Com which provided a blow-by-blow daily account of Jena events from the first day the nooses were reported.
September 6, 2006 report: Black parents and students met Tuesday (09-05-06) to discuss what to do about a purported racial incident Friday (09-01-06) at Jena High School… The group met for about 45 minutes at L&A Missionary Baptist Church along U.S. Highway 84 West to discuss what response should be made to the discovery of two ropes fashioned as nooses found hanging from a tree on the school campus.
"I feel like something needs to be done," said parent Dan Brown... He has three children attending the high school. "They come to school, and this is what they come to... Friday's incident was the talk of the town over the Labor Day weekend, "and everyone's upset about it," Brown said. "I feel like they (school officials) took it like a joke."
Tracy Bowens, who helped organize the meeting, said she didn't witness the incident, but added that a teacher supposedly cut down the ropes. "I feel like if it was a black (person) who did something like that ... something would have been done. They would have been kicked out of school," she said.
Lawyer Krystal Todd, the main speaker at Tuesday's meeting, urged parents to contact the LaSalle Parish School Board office today and before Monday's scheduled meeting. Todd suggested that those involved be punished by being expelling for the rest of the school year, not suspended for three days or home schooled.
"We have to do something. It's time to take a stand and not let it get swept under the rug," Todd said. "As parents, we have to --- if we don't stop it now" such incidents will "continue the cycle."
"I have a son who goes to Jena High School, and I won't tolerate this," parent Renea Ogletree said. "This racism, this stuff, won't be tolerated at all."
Shirley Bowens, 55, of Jena, told the crowd that she was more concerned about the way the school officials handled the incident. "The right thing would have been to start action that day," she said. "This need not to happen anymore" she said to the students. "You're in school to take care of business."
About 16 students who claimed to have witnessed the incident were called to stand in front of the crowd. The students didn't speak publicly, but one later confirmed the incident.
Eddie Griffin Critique
Franklin’s Myth 11 declares that Jena is "a wonderful place to live for both whites and blacks". But following the September 1, 2006 noose incident, blacks in the community were meeting and expressing outrage. Do Dan Brown, Tracy Bowens, Krystal Todd, Renea Ogletree, and Shirley Bowens characterize Jena as “a wonderful place to live for both whites and blacks”?
Who is putting words into whose mouth and concocting a myth and a lie?
September 8, 2006: Three white Jena High School students now face expulsion after they allegedly taunted black students on Sept. 1 by fashioning ropes in the form of nooses and hanging them from a tree on school grounds… The racial tensions remained strong this week, with at least one fight among students reported at the school Wednesday.
The unrest prompted a student assembly Wednesday, where officials including District Attorney Reed Walters stressed the importance of remaining calm, said one student, Kieangela Nash, a sophomore... The Sept. 1 incident "kinda made people a little upset," Angela Nash said… She said news about the incident spread around town quickly, witnessed by a number of black and white students on the last day of school before the Labor Day weekend.
In an interview in his office Thursday, Jena High School Principal Scott Windham would say only that "the situation has been investigated, the ones responsible have been identified, and appropriate actions have been taken... Windham said he has recommended that the three students, all males, be expelled from school… LaSalle Parish Schools Superintendent Roy Breithaupt... and other school officials held a hearing Thursday morning at the school district office concerning the three teenagers' scholastic future...
The students have been taken out of Jena High and now are attending an alternative school in the parish usually reserved for suspended students, said Breithaupt, who would not reveal the students' names or grade levels... He did confirm that there was at least one fight Wednesday stemming from the provocation.
"Yes, there was an incident," Breithaupt said, and an investigation within the school system is ongoing of the altercation.
Neither the Jena Police Department nor the LaSalle Parish Sheriff's Office has been asked to investigate.
However, Kieangela Nash, the Jena High 10th-grader, said one student was handcuffed and taken to jail by city police Wednesday following a fight.
That assertion was denied by a city police officer, who said she knew of no student being arrested.
Kieangela also said there were at least five fights among students Wednesday, all along racial lines.
According to earlier news reports, the trouble started with black students' efforts to sit alongside white students outside, under the tree from which the ropes later were found hanging.
Following the discovery of the nooses, a group of black parents and students met Tuesday for about 45 minutes at L&A Missionary Baptist Church to discuss what to do about the incident. Breithaupt said the weeklong tensions are being quelled, the ones responsible are being dealt with… He also said the district would not tolerate racial bigotry.
Eddie Griffin Critique
Kieangela Nash, the 10th grader, gives insight into what happened in school during the first week after the nooses first appeared. In her own words, people were “kinda upset” after word of the noose incident spread around town. There were fights in school along racial lines- Kieangela asserts at least five fights, wherein LaSalle Parish Schools Superintendent Roy Breithaupt admits only one fight resulting from the “provocation”.
From Franklin’s Myth 2: According to the expulsion committee, the crudely constructed nooses were not aimed at black students. Instead, they were understood to be a prank by three white students aimed at their fellow white friends, members of the school rodeo team...
For the legal records, they record the noose incident as a prank “aimed at fellow white friends”. Did somebody forget to tell the black students before all the fights broke out? Or, are they pretending the rash of fights never happened, that black students were “not provoked” to violence? And, who was the student reportedly taken away from the school in handcuffs, which officials denied happened?
September 9, 2006: Three white Jena High School students have been suspended, not expelled, in the wake of an incident on Sept. 1 when hangman's nooses were found dangling from a tree on school grounds, inciting racial tensions in the LaSalle Parish seat.
LaSalle Parish Schools Superintendent Roy D. Breithaupt said Friday afternoon that an expulsion hearing committee, which also involved crisis management team officials, "came out with a different recommendation" than that of Jena High School Principal Scott Windham, who had recommended that the students be expelled for allegedly hanging the ropes… The students already had been taken out of Jena High and now are attending an alternative school in the parish usually reserved for suspended students, Breithaupt said earlier in the week.
As to reports Friday morning of a lockdown at Jena High School, Breithaupt said there had been rumors that the school was unsafe and that local law enforcement had come to check the school… LaSalle Parish Sheriff Carl Smith said Friday that one deputy had been at the school throughout the day on Thursday and Friday.
The sheriff said there had been no problems... at the school… no problems outside... Smith said he is aware of rumors circulating of problems in the town but said they were just that – rumors...
Breithaupt said there are no plans to bring the matter before the School Board at either its regularly scheduled meeting on Sept. 18 or a meeting Monday in which the board is scheduled to meet in special session concerning the school district's 2006-07 budget.
"We feel like we've handled this situation using our school policies and procedures," he said.
Tracy Bowens, one of the organizers of the church meeting, said Friday that she plans to attend the Monday meeting to voice her opinions on the decision made in the incident. Many of the parents who met Tuesday said they wanted the students involved expelled rather than suspended.
Myth 4: DA's Threat to Black Students. When District Attorney Reed Walters spoke to Jena High students at an assembly in September, he did not tell black students that he could make their life miserable with "the stroke of a pen... Mr. Walters had been called to the assembly by police, who had been at the school earlier that day dealing with some students who were causing disturbances… I said, 'Look, I can be your best friend or your worst enemy. With the stroke of a pen I can make your life miserable..."
Eddie Griffin Critique
There were reports from black students that Reed Walters’ warning was directed at them and even after the warning, white students continued to taunt black students. Franklin proceeds to concoct Myth 5 and Myth 6, based on December 1-2, 2006 off-campus incidents. (See below)
Myth 5: The Fair Barn Party Incident. On Dec. 1, 2006, a private party – not an all-white party as reported – was held at the local community center called the Fair Barn. Robert Bailey Jr., soon to be one of the Jena 6, came to the party with others seeking admittance… a white male named Justin Sloan (not a Jena High student) at the party attacked Bailey and hit him in the face with his fist… (and) was prosecuted for simple battery…
Myth 6: The "Gotta-Go" Grocery Incident. On Dec. 2, 2006, Bailey and two other black Jena High students were involved in an altercation at this local convenience store, stemming from the incident that occurred the night before. The three were accused by police of jumping a white man as he entered the store and stealing a shotgun from him. The two parties gave conflicting statements to police. However, two unrelated eye witnesses of the event gave statements that corresponded with that of the white male.
Eddie Griffin Critique
But there is no mention of the arson to the schools administration building reported on December 1, coinciding with these incidents. And, to date, no suspect behind the blaze has been found. However, in all three incidents, Jena officials denied that there were any connections to the noose incident- a line which it maintains today.
Myth 8: The Attack Is Linked to the Nooses. Nowhere in any of the evidence, including statements by witnesses and defendants, is there any reference to the noose incident that occurred three months prior.
Myth 7: The Schoolyard Fight. The event on Dec. 4, 2006 was consistently labeled a "schoolyard fight"… Several black students, including those now known as the Jena 6, barricaded an exit to the school's gym as they lay in wait for Justin Barker to exit… he was hit from behind by Mychal Bell. Multiple witnesses confirmed that Barker was immediately knocked unconscious and lay on the floor defenseless as several other black students joined together to kick and stomp him, with most of the blows striking his head. Police speculate that the motivation for the attack was related to the racially charged fights that had occurred during the previous weekend.
Eddie Griffin Critique
Robert Bailey, Jr. was assaulted by Justin Sloan on December 1, and the very next night has a shotgun drawn on him by another white male. Instead of charging the perpetrator with assault with a deadly weapon, Bailey and three of his fellow schoolmates were charged with robbery when they took the weapon.
On December 4, Justin Barker made a remark about Bailey getting his butt kicked at the party and the Gotta Go Grocery store incident. This provoked the fight that would lead to Bailey and five other black youth being charged with attempted murder and conspiracy to commit murder.
If there is a true myth, it would be this: The noose incident on September 1, 2006 led to an unbroken chain of events and eventually to black students’ retaliation upon a white student on December 4, 2006. This issue is not a question of assault, but whether black students were sufficiently provoked to retaliate.
The records speak for themselves, despite Craig Franklin’s hindsight fabrications of myths.
Town Talk Chronicle of Jena Reports
• September 6, 2006: Jena High noose incident triggers parental protests
• September 8, 2006: 3 Jena students face possible expulsion
• September 9, 2006: Jena students suspended, not expelled, over incident
• September 12, 2006: LaSalle board skips over noose incident
• September 19, 2006: LaSalle Board hears Jena High incident complaint
• December 1, 2006: Investigators say arson is to blame
• December 1, 2006: District proposes use of existing buildings
• December 2, 2006: Jena High staff gets ready for school to resume Monday
• December 3, 2006: No arrests in Jena fire Saturday
• December 5, 2006: Jena High School reopens 4 days after arson blaze
• December 5, 2006: LaSalle board declares state of emergency after Jena fire
• December 5, 2006: Jena High School student beaten
• December 6, 2006: Arrests made in 2 Jena fights
• December 7, 2006: More arrests made in Jena High fight
• December 8, 2006: Jena High fight counts upgraded to attempted murder charges
• December 12, 2006: 4 teens booked in Jena school fight still jailed
• December 14, 2006: Clergy hold service to heal community
• December 16, 2006: Teen in Jena fight charged as adult
• December 21, 2006: Jena-based clergy meet tonight on school woes
• December 21, 2007: School Board to get report on students in Jena fight
• December 22, 2006: Jena ministers discuss next step in easing racial tensions
• December 27, 2006: Jena High fire, racial tension dominate news in LaSalle Parish
• January 3, 2007: Few have answers for Jena's next steps
• January 4, 2007: Ministers greet Jena students returning to classes Wednesday
• January 4, 2007: 3 of 6 youths charged in Dec. 4 Jena fight released on bail bond
• January 7, 2007: Relatives say 6 Jena High School students expelled
• January 9, 2007: LaSalle School Board receives $50,000 to refurbish Jena High
• January 25, 2007: LaSalle School Board meets Monday to hear expulsion appeals
• February 28, 2007: LaSalle officials look to future for new school
• May 3, 2007: Groups to protest until charges dropped or reduced
• May 11, 2007: Jena victim allegedly brought gun on campus
• May 12, 2007: Student may be expelled for a year
• May 22, 2007: 'Jena Six' trial delayed for more than month
• June 11, 2007: Documents give details about fight
• June 11, 2007: Case gets attention from all over world
• June 15, 2007: CNN postpones Jena segment
• June 26, 2007: Plea deals turned down; trial continues today
• June 27, 2007: All white jury selected for first 'Jena Six' trial
• June 28, 2007: Jury may get case today
• June 29, 2007: 'Jena Six' defendant faces years in jail
• June 30, 2007: Crowd of 30 says conviction was a 'miscarriage of justice'
• July 10, 2007: Part of Jena High to be demolished today
• July 14, 2007: Two men accused of running over sign
• July 26, 2007: Forum may ease tension in Jena
• July 27, 2007: Attendees at LaSalle forum on ‘Jena Six’ case lament lack of audience diversity
• July 27, 2007: Handling of ‘Jena Six’ case called ‘outrage’
• July 31, 2007: Official sought to clear up 'Jena Six' 'misinformation'
• July 31, 2007: Jena High 'noose' tree cut down
• August 1, 2007: Marchers rally to support Jena Six
• August 1, 2007: What was said in Jena on Tuesday
• August 2, 2007: Jackson, Sharpton plan trips to Jena
• August 5, 2007: Jena's Bell missing from Cenla's elite
• August 6, 2007: Civil rights leader visits LaSalle to back families
• August 6, 2007: Jena residents have mixed reaction to Sharpton's visit
• August 7, 2007: Sharpton learned of 'Jena Six' case about 4 weeks ago
• August 11, 2007: Sharpton, M.L. King III to speak in Jena Tuesday
• August 15, 2007: MLK III to continue fight for 'Jena Six'
• August 15, 2007: Bell's attorneys file motion to void his conviction
• August 16, 2007: Some intentionally stayed away from rally for 'Jena 6'
• August 16, 2007: Defense attorney says Bell case should be in juvenile system
• August 18, 2007: Calm marks first day at Jena High
• August 20, 2007: 'We lost Jena'
• August 25, 2007: Bell denied bond due to criminal history
• August 29, 2007: Jena High School bans 'Free the Jena 6' T-shirts
• September 5, 2007: Judge throws out one of Bell's convictions
• September 9, 2007: No rules governing how schools handle lawbreaking athletes
• September 9, 2007: 'Jena Six' all ran together -- on the field and off
• September 9, 2007: Jackson to speak today in Jena
• September 9, 2007: College coaches looking for standouts, stand-up citizens
• September 10, 2007: Jackson calls for Jena march
• September 11, 2007: Charges reduced for another 'Jena Six' member
• September 11, 2007: LaSalle official: No damage to Goodpine school
• September 14, 2007: Jena-area schools to be closed during sentencing of Bell
• September 15, 2007: Bell’s conviction overturned
• September 17, 2007: Officers from across state to help police LaSalle Parish march
• September 17, 2007: Area hotels booked solid prior to event
• September 18, 2007: Some Jena businesses will close Thursday because of rally
• September 18, 2007: Thousands traveling by bus to Jena for protest
• September 18, 2007: Attorney seeks Bell's release
• September 19, 2007: Facilities readied for Thursday events
• September 19, 2007: Mayor says order to be maintained during march
• September 19, 2007: Black entertainers plan to attend rally
• September 19, 2007: Rally planned in Alexandria today
• September 19, 2007: City bus terminal relocated Thursday
• September 19, 2007: Gay rights group to attend Jena rally
• September 20, 2007: On eve of huge rally, chaos reigns
• September 20, 2007: Sharpton says all eyes will be on Jena march
• September 20, 2007: City, jury not sponsoring events
• September 20, 2007: Local officers ready to handle traffic woes
• September 20, 2007: Supporters from across nation coverge
• September 20, 2007: Students flock to Jena in support of civil rights
• September 20, 2007: Jena Notebook
• September 20, 2007: Jena Timeline
• September 21, 2007: Town’s worst fears fail to materialize
• September 21, 2007: Full day of events began early in Jena
• September 21, 2007: Bell bond hearing may come today
• September 21, 2007: Thursday’s second rally held in Alexandria
• September 21, 2007: People from churches in 36 states attend events
• September 21, 2007: Few people go to NAACP town hall-style meeting
• September 21, 2007: Jena march, rally draw visitors from near and far
• September 21, 2007: March on Jena Notebook
• September 21, 2007: Rally peaceful, but heat too much for some
• September 22, 2007: Bell again denied bond
• September 22, 2007: Two teens charged after nooses spotted hanging from truck
• September 22, 2007: Barkers say they were duped in white supremacists's interview
• September 23, 2007: Days since Jena rallies marked by nooses, threats
• September 23, 2007: Communication, cooperation cited for rallies' success
• September 23, 2007: Jena resident upset officials didn't provide prior notice
• September 23, 2007: Teen released on bond after noose incident
• September 25, 2007: Students debate 'Jena Six'
• September 25, 2007: Officials say visitors, residents behaved well during rally in Jena
• September 26, 2007: Threats don't deter 'Jena Six'
• September 27, 2007: Blanco: Bell case to be decided in juvenile court
• September 27, 2007: New Black Panthers say they will patrol Jena
• September 27, 2007: LaSalle DA defends handling of 'Jena Six' case
• September 28, 2007: Bell out on bail
• September 28, 2007: Walters says victim's interests best served by not appealing
• September 28, 2007: 'Jena Six' notebook
• September 30, 2007: 'Jena Six' case shows power of Internet
• September 30, 2007: 'Jena Six' impacts high school students
• October 3, 2007: Bell has first hearing in juvenile court system
• October 3, 2007: ‘Jena Six’ case threats continue
• October 3, 2007: Alexandrian posts parody of ‘Jena Six’ incident
• October 3, 2007: Lafayette 'Jena Six' protest aimed at U.S. attorney
• October 4, 2007: Mellencamp ditty about 'Jena Six' case posted on Web
• October 4, 2007: Jena approves panel to study race relations
• October 4, 2007: 'Jena Six' parody video to lead to sensitivity training at ULM
• October 5, 2007: U.S. Senate passes Jena-related resolution
• October 8, 2007: Jena High rises above
• October 12, 2007: Mychal Bell taken back into custody
• October 13, 2007: DA group, Gov. Blanco say Bell's case routine
• October 16, 2007: 'Jena Six' hearings today in D.C., national rallies planned
• October 17, 2007: Justice Dept. pressed to probe handling of LaSalle controversy
• October 17, 2007: Students also discuss 'Jena Six' case
• October 19, 2007: Two of 'Jena Six' defendants present BET award
• October 23, 2007: Bell case records sought
• October 26, 2007: Attorneys file more motions to open Bell hearing, data
• October 27, 2007: Nationalist Movement plans to hold rally in Jena
• Timeline of the 'Jena Six' case
• Answers to frequently asked questions about 'Jena Six'
• Frequently asked questions surrounding the 'Jena Six"
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query jena. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query jena. Sort by date Show all posts
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Monday, September 17, 2007
Jena Black-Out Day: September 20
The defendants are known collectively as the Jena Six, and in the four months since their story broke to a broader public, the youths have emerged as an international cause celebre, latter-day Scottsboro Boys exciting outrage and organizing on their behalf and trying Jena itself in the court of public opinion…
"We're standing strong. We're not going to hand our kids over to them"- father of one of the Jena Six defendants
First came CNN report: “A Louisiana appeals court Friday vacated the remaining conviction of a teenager accused in a violent, racially charged incident in Jena, Louisiana” (“Louisiana judge tosses conviction against teen tried as adult”, 09/15/07).
It is too little, too late. 17-year old Mychal Bell has already been in jail since December, 2006, over a racially instigated schoolyard fight. It’s too late to give him back life as he once knew, full of prospects and hopes. Bell’s father, Marcus Jones, laments, “I want his credibility back, his eligibility, like this never happened. That’s the way it should be.”
It’s too late to turn back the hands of time to a time when this never happened.
It’s too little, because (as of this writing) Bell is still incarcerated. La Salle Parish District Attorney Reed Walters still has a sleuth of devilish options. He can harden his heart and appeal to the State Supreme Court. After his being humiliated in lower criminal court, this route would be impeachable in spirit and integrity of the law. At worse, it will be a juvenile court case, and the conspiracy theory to commit a “spontaneous” school fight will not stand the light of day. Only in Jena, Louisiana with an all-white jury would such racial injustice would be justified in a so-call kangaroo court of law.
African-Americans are incarcerated at nearly six times the rate of whites, and Hispanics nearly double the rate. Louisiana has a higher rate of black incarceration than the national average or that of nearby states such as Alabama, Mississippi and Georgia. But it has a lower rate than Texas, Florida and others. [source: Bureau of Justice Statistics]
Attorney Reed Walters has one of two options: Drop the case or Re-file it in Juvenile Court.
It’s too late to stop the caravan to Jena. People have already gone through the expense of organizing and filling up buses with demonstrators. D-Day is Jena 6 Black-Out Day: September 20.
The day has been dubbed “blackout day”, because supporters of the Jena youth who cannot make the trip to Louisiana will show their support by wearing black on that day.
IT IS SO ON!
Newsweek National Week reported that “Civil rights protestors are still planning to converge on tiny Jena, Louisiana”. (“The Jena Six”, 09/15/07).
The ongoing controversy has thrown Jena, population about 3,000, into an uncomfortable spotlight that isn’t likely to dim with the latest court decision. Civil rights activists, bloggers and black radio hosts helped spread the word about the case, demanding an end to what they see as unequal justice. On Saturday, some of the Jena Six and their relatives and lawyers joined the Rev. Jesse Jackson in Chicago at his Rainbow PUSH Coalition headquarters. “We will not rest” until all charges are dropped against the Jena Six, Jackson said. Meanwhile, the American Civil Liberties Union is reviewing data from the La Salle Parish district attorney’s office for evidence of racial disparities or violation of civil rights. The district attorney has declined to comment on the case, citing a gag order.
“What’s happened in Jena is indicative of the new Jim Crow racism that inflicts many parts of the country. There is a misuse of the criminal justice system as a kind of poverty control,” says Alan Bean, an activist with the civil rights group Friends of Justice. “We have basically criminalized poor people … I think Jena is a particularly egregious example of business as usual in the American criminal justice system.”
Billy Fowler, a white school board member, says most people in his hometown agree that the Jena Six were dealt with too harshly. But he bristles at the charges of racism. “They want to see our town as being the most racist town in the world. That’s what’s being painted of Jena. Obviously this is the Deep South. If we went back in time 50 years, maybe what they’re saying would have been true. But today we have come a 1,000 miles from that.”
Francis Holland reports: More than 200,000 people have signed ColorOfChange.org's online petition calling on District Attorney Reed Walters to drop the charges against the Jena 6, and have called on Governor Kathleen Blanco to intervene in the case. [UPDATE COUNT: 212,905]
Briefs & Commentary by Eddie Griffin
Over 200,000 people are allied in this one and same cause: To Free the Jena 6. That’s a lot of people. That’s a lot of votes. Presidential Candidate Barak Obama came out early in a statement supportive of the accused Jena youth. And after the courts overturned the second conviction of Mychal Bell, candidate Hillary Clinton applauded the appeal courts decision.
Clinton applauded the Friday decision by an appeals court in Louisiana tossing out the aggravated battery conviction that could have sent a black teenager to prison for 15 years in last year's beating of a white classmate in the racially tense town of Jena… "There is no excuse for the way the legal system treated those young people," she said. "We have had an attorney general who doesn't respect the rule of law or enforce the civil rights laws on the books"- Hillary Clinton speaking to a crowd of about 900 people at the annual Freedom Fund Banquet of the Charleston National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
FAMILY & Friends
"Everybody around the world -- China, France -- everybody knows about this," John Jenkins, the father of Carwin Jones, another of the six, recently told black students at Northwestern State University in Natchitoches.
Caseptla Bailey, mother of Robert Bailey, Jr. asked Dr. Alan Bean of University of Texas-Arlington, founder and director of Friends of Justice, a faith-based organization that works on criminal justice reform -- to come to Jena.
Bean, who is white, did what many black people do all the time when it comes to race: He connected the dots to reveal a pattern. But white people often look at the same scenario and see someone drawing lines in thin air.
“I realized if no one intervened, these kids were going to end up with felony convictions that they would be dragging with them through their lives,” Bean said. “I didn't really think they were going to get 80 years in prison, but I thought they might end up with a decade or two. . . .Young black males are going to prison in bizarre numbers.”
"We're standing strong. We're not going to hand our kids over to them"- father of one of the Jena Six defendants
First came CNN report: “A Louisiana appeals court Friday vacated the remaining conviction of a teenager accused in a violent, racially charged incident in Jena, Louisiana” (“Louisiana judge tosses conviction against teen tried as adult”, 09/15/07).
It is too little, too late. 17-year old Mychal Bell has already been in jail since December, 2006, over a racially instigated schoolyard fight. It’s too late to give him back life as he once knew, full of prospects and hopes. Bell’s father, Marcus Jones, laments, “I want his credibility back, his eligibility, like this never happened. That’s the way it should be.”
It’s too late to turn back the hands of time to a time when this never happened.
It’s too little, because (as of this writing) Bell is still incarcerated. La Salle Parish District Attorney Reed Walters still has a sleuth of devilish options. He can harden his heart and appeal to the State Supreme Court. After his being humiliated in lower criminal court, this route would be impeachable in spirit and integrity of the law. At worse, it will be a juvenile court case, and the conspiracy theory to commit a “spontaneous” school fight will not stand the light of day. Only in Jena, Louisiana with an all-white jury would such racial injustice would be justified in a so-call kangaroo court of law.
African-Americans are incarcerated at nearly six times the rate of whites, and Hispanics nearly double the rate. Louisiana has a higher rate of black incarceration than the national average or that of nearby states such as Alabama, Mississippi and Georgia. But it has a lower rate than Texas, Florida and others. [source: Bureau of Justice Statistics]
Attorney Reed Walters has one of two options: Drop the case or Re-file it in Juvenile Court.
It’s too late to stop the caravan to Jena. People have already gone through the expense of organizing and filling up buses with demonstrators. D-Day is Jena 6 Black-Out Day: September 20.
The day has been dubbed “blackout day”, because supporters of the Jena youth who cannot make the trip to Louisiana will show their support by wearing black on that day.
IT IS SO ON!
Newsweek National Week reported that “Civil rights protestors are still planning to converge on tiny Jena, Louisiana”. (“The Jena Six”, 09/15/07).
The ongoing controversy has thrown Jena, population about 3,000, into an uncomfortable spotlight that isn’t likely to dim with the latest court decision. Civil rights activists, bloggers and black radio hosts helped spread the word about the case, demanding an end to what they see as unequal justice. On Saturday, some of the Jena Six and their relatives and lawyers joined the Rev. Jesse Jackson in Chicago at his Rainbow PUSH Coalition headquarters. “We will not rest” until all charges are dropped against the Jena Six, Jackson said. Meanwhile, the American Civil Liberties Union is reviewing data from the La Salle Parish district attorney’s office for evidence of racial disparities or violation of civil rights. The district attorney has declined to comment on the case, citing a gag order.
“What’s happened in Jena is indicative of the new Jim Crow racism that inflicts many parts of the country. There is a misuse of the criminal justice system as a kind of poverty control,” says Alan Bean, an activist with the civil rights group Friends of Justice. “We have basically criminalized poor people … I think Jena is a particularly egregious example of business as usual in the American criminal justice system.”
Billy Fowler, a white school board member, says most people in his hometown agree that the Jena Six were dealt with too harshly. But he bristles at the charges of racism. “They want to see our town as being the most racist town in the world. That’s what’s being painted of Jena. Obviously this is the Deep South. If we went back in time 50 years, maybe what they’re saying would have been true. But today we have come a 1,000 miles from that.”
Francis Holland reports: More than 200,000 people have signed ColorOfChange.org's online petition calling on District Attorney Reed Walters to drop the charges against the Jena 6, and have called on Governor Kathleen Blanco to intervene in the case. [UPDATE COUNT: 212,905]
Briefs & Commentary by Eddie Griffin
Over 200,000 people are allied in this one and same cause: To Free the Jena 6. That’s a lot of people. That’s a lot of votes. Presidential Candidate Barak Obama came out early in a statement supportive of the accused Jena youth. And after the courts overturned the second conviction of Mychal Bell, candidate Hillary Clinton applauded the appeal courts decision.
Clinton applauded the Friday decision by an appeals court in Louisiana tossing out the aggravated battery conviction that could have sent a black teenager to prison for 15 years in last year's beating of a white classmate in the racially tense town of Jena… "There is no excuse for the way the legal system treated those young people," she said. "We have had an attorney general who doesn't respect the rule of law or enforce the civil rights laws on the books"- Hillary Clinton speaking to a crowd of about 900 people at the annual Freedom Fund Banquet of the Charleston National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
FAMILY & Friends
"Everybody around the world -- China, France -- everybody knows about this," John Jenkins, the father of Carwin Jones, another of the six, recently told black students at Northwestern State University in Natchitoches.
Caseptla Bailey, mother of Robert Bailey, Jr. asked Dr. Alan Bean of University of Texas-Arlington, founder and director of Friends of Justice, a faith-based organization that works on criminal justice reform -- to come to Jena.
Bean, who is white, did what many black people do all the time when it comes to race: He connected the dots to reveal a pattern. But white people often look at the same scenario and see someone drawing lines in thin air.
“I realized if no one intervened, these kids were going to end up with felony convictions that they would be dragging with them through their lives,” Bean said. “I didn't really think they were going to get 80 years in prison, but I thought they might end up with a decade or two. . . .Young black males are going to prison in bizarre numbers.”
Friday, September 21, 2007
House Judiciary Committee To Hold Hearings On The Jena Six, Reports "Too Sense" AfroSpear Blog
Friday, September 21, 2007
By Too Sense, Afrosphere Associated Press (AAP) blogger.House Judiciary Committee To Hold Hearings On The Jena Six
Via Carpetbagger, it looks like the Feds are finally paying attention in Jena. It's amazing really, the effect twenty thousand people demanding justice can have on Congress. The House Judiciary Committee is set to hold hearings on the incidents in Jena, Louisiana. They will led by Chairman John Conyers.
(Washington, DC)- Today, House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI) told a crowd gathered on the Capitol grounds that he is holding a forum next week and plans to hold hearings to address the case of six teenagers in Jena, Louisiana who were charged with attempted murder for a schoolyard fight. Conyers spoke during a rally of support for the students, now being called the “Jena Six,” in Washington, in coordination with rallies in Jena and other U.S. cities.This is bad news for Reed Walters, since evidence of his misconduct in this case is growing. The third district court in Louisiana ordered that Bell's bail hearing be held within 72 hours yesterday, just two days after Walters and a judge failed to show up to a previous bail hearing for Bell.
Yesterday Walters reiterated his commitment to pursuing charges against the Jena Six, insisting that "the victim had been forgotten" in this controversy.
The only thing that has been forgotten are the charges against Barker for bringing a loaded shotgun to school after the beating. This seems particularly convenient given that Barker was a prop at the press conference Walters held yesterday. Walters has now failed to press charges in every incident involving the aggression of a white student in Jena, including the beating of Theo Shaw at a an all white party. Shaw is one of the Six charged in the beating of Justin Barker.
Last week, the same appeals court vacated Bell's June conviction for aggravated second-degree battery, ruling that Walters had improperly prosecuted him as an adult rather a juvenile. Walters has vowed to appeal that ruling and has already initiated juvenile proceedings against Bell. The prosecutor also said Wednesday that he would vigorously pursue his cases against the rest of the teenage defendants, insisting that their white victim had been forgotten amid the controversy.
In her column yesterday Amy Goodman artfully debunked a statement from a member of the Jena school board, who says that the young kids "didn't know the meaning of the noose".
I recently visited Billy “Bulldog” Fowler in his office. He’s a white member of the LaSalle Parish School Board. He says Jena is being unfairly painted as racist. He feels the hanging nooses were blown out of proportion, that in the high school setting it was more of a prank: “This is the Deep South, and [older] black people know the meaning of a noose. Let me tell you something—young people don’t.”If that seems like a completely unsubstantiated assumption, that's because it is. Robert Bailey, one of the Jena Six, knew clearly what the noose meant when he saw it.
That night, I went to see the Baileys in their mobile home in Ward 10, one of the black neighborhoods in Jena. Two of the Jena Six, Robert Bailey and Theo Shaw, were ironing their clothes. I asked them what they thought when they saw the nooses. Robert immediately said: “The first thing came to mind was the KKK. I don’t know why, but that was the first thing that came to my head. I used to always think the KKK chase black people on horses, and they catch you with rope.”So much for that argument.
In addition, Goodman revealed in her column yesterday that Walters refused to allow the Jena School Board to review the school's investigation of the noose incident, a proper response to which could have ended the turmoil in Jena just after it began. The white students who hung the nooses were suspended for several days. The principal of the school resigned in disgust. At the School Board meeting, Walters denied the Board access to vital information before they were asked to vote on the expulsion of the Jena Six.
The African-American teens were dealt with differently. They were expelled, but appealed to the school board. The school district had conducted an investigation, but the school board was not allowed to review it. The school board’s lawyer was none other than the prosecuting district attorney, Reed Walters.
Board member Fowler recalls the January meeting: “Our legal authority that night was Mr. Walters.”
I asked, “And he told you, you couldn’t have access to the school proceedings, or the investigation?”
Fowler replied: “That’s right. [Walters said] it was a violation of something.” The board voted, without information. Fowler recalls: “It was unanimous. No, no it wasn’t. There was one board member who voted no, and that was Mr. Worthington.” Melvin Worthington, the only African-American on the school board, voted against upholding the expulsion of the black students.
Clearly, Mr. Walters had a particular outcome in mind. Hopefully, his intentions and conduct will be closely scrutinized by the House Judiciary Committee.
President Bush commented on the events in Louisiana yesterday:"The events in Louisiana have saddened me," the president said. "And I understand the emotions. The Justice Department and the FBI are monitoring the situation down there. And all of us in America want there to be, you know, fairness when it comes to justice."How carefully and deliberately ambiguous.
Friday, August 31, 2007
Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco Responds to “Day of Blogging for Justice”
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco Responds to “Day of Blogging for Justice”
Office of the Governor
Attn: Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco
P.O. Box 94004
Baton Rouge, LA 70804-9004
RE: Pardon Mychal Bell & Free the Jena 6
Monday, July 30, 2007
Dear Governor Kathleen Blanco:
Please stop the prosecution of the Jena 6. Drop all charges and pardon Mychal Bell.
This is a classic case of racial injustice much like the Scottsboro boys. Do realize that these are children, high school students, who were caught up in a race tense situation. The Jena High School administration is the blame for allowing a white prank to go unpunished. The Jena police have acted as protectorates of white wrongdoers. The Jena district attorney’s office leveled some of the heaviest criminal offenses against six young black boys. Reading the sequence of events, you cannot help but realize that the “alleged” crimes were nothing more than a schoolyard fight, common to most high schools. But every high school does not take racial sides when administering punishment, as in the case of Jena, Louisiana.
The reputation of this great state is at stake.
Sincerely,
Eddie Griffin (BASG)
[Posted by Mary Mitchell on August 30, 2007 11:47 AM]
Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco's statement re Jena 6
From Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco's press office:
“I have received hundreds of calls, letters and emails from citizens concerned about the situation involving the case of the high school students in Jena, La. As Governor, as a citizen of the State of Louisiana, and as a mother, without rushing to judgment, I condemn racism in any form, and I fully expect that those involved in this case, including all parties, will act with fairness and in complete good faith.
“I must clear up a widespread misunderstanding of my authority in this case. Our State Constitution provides for three Branches of State Government - Legislative, Executive, and Judicial - and the Constitution prohibits anyone in one branch from exercising the powers of anyone in another branch. This issue is currently a matter in the Judicial System, and should those involved in this case suffer any defects, it is their right to address them in that system through the appeals court.
“Again, the oversight regarding how this case was handled, from arrest to prosecution, lies within the Justice System. Therefore, I have consulted Attorney General Charles Foti and Donald Washington, the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Louisiana, regarding these events in Jena. As a result, General Foti has been and is in consultation with U.S. Attorney Washington and other members of the Justice System. Regardless of the outcome of this case, the Jena community has much healing ahead of it, and I urge all those citizens to come together for the common good of their community and their state. Our children deserve nothing less.”
[Posted by: Yolanda, August 30, 2007 02:57 PM]
It's ashame that we go through the things we do as African Americans. It's a shame the Jena 6 had to experience the torture they experienced. Where are our leaders? Yea. That letter sounds very nice. It's professional and for sure its POLITICALLY correct, but how can Gov. Blanco say that she expects ". . .that those involved in this case, including all parties, will act with fairness and in complete good faith."… If we leave Mychel Bell and the other young men's fate strictly in the hands of Blanco and Walters, we may as well do nothing. We need to write the congressman who represent that parish or ward in Jena, we need to petition the US Dept. of Justice and hell - tell Bush about it. Maybe if Condi whispers in his ear, he'll make a call to one of his good ole boys down in LA and they'll "act" like they care and do something like investigate the OBVIOUS miscarriage of Justice.
Eddie Griffin responds:
The Governor says:
Regardless of the outcome of this case, the Jena community has much healing ahead of it, and I urge all those citizens to come together for the common good of their community and their state. Our children deserve nothing less.
For the Common Good
The community of Jena can come together, as the Governor suggests. This is hindsight leadership that led to the Hurricane Katrina hysteria. Isn’t this the Queen of New Orleans who had a nervous breakdown and issued the order to “shoot to kill” all looters and scavengers during those hectic days. And, now she “urge” Jena to come together, but she does not lead in order to pull them together, as a community.
Much of this nonsense can cease with good leadership, a quality I hope the State of Louisiana will find in their next governor.
Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco Responds to “Day of Blogging for Justice”
Office of the Governor
Attn: Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco
P.O. Box 94004
Baton Rouge, LA 70804-9004
RE: Pardon Mychal Bell & Free the Jena 6
Monday, July 30, 2007
Dear Governor Kathleen Blanco:
Please stop the prosecution of the Jena 6. Drop all charges and pardon Mychal Bell.
This is a classic case of racial injustice much like the Scottsboro boys. Do realize that these are children, high school students, who were caught up in a race tense situation. The Jena High School administration is the blame for allowing a white prank to go unpunished. The Jena police have acted as protectorates of white wrongdoers. The Jena district attorney’s office leveled some of the heaviest criminal offenses against six young black boys. Reading the sequence of events, you cannot help but realize that the “alleged” crimes were nothing more than a schoolyard fight, common to most high schools. But every high school does not take racial sides when administering punishment, as in the case of Jena, Louisiana.
The reputation of this great state is at stake.
Sincerely,
Eddie Griffin (BASG)
[Posted by Mary Mitchell on August 30, 2007 11:47 AM]
Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco's statement re Jena 6
From Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco's press office:
“I have received hundreds of calls, letters and emails from citizens concerned about the situation involving the case of the high school students in Jena, La. As Governor, as a citizen of the State of Louisiana, and as a mother, without rushing to judgment, I condemn racism in any form, and I fully expect that those involved in this case, including all parties, will act with fairness and in complete good faith.
“I must clear up a widespread misunderstanding of my authority in this case. Our State Constitution provides for three Branches of State Government - Legislative, Executive, and Judicial - and the Constitution prohibits anyone in one branch from exercising the powers of anyone in another branch. This issue is currently a matter in the Judicial System, and should those involved in this case suffer any defects, it is their right to address them in that system through the appeals court.
“Again, the oversight regarding how this case was handled, from arrest to prosecution, lies within the Justice System. Therefore, I have consulted Attorney General Charles Foti and Donald Washington, the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Louisiana, regarding these events in Jena. As a result, General Foti has been and is in consultation with U.S. Attorney Washington and other members of the Justice System. Regardless of the outcome of this case, the Jena community has much healing ahead of it, and I urge all those citizens to come together for the common good of their community and their state. Our children deserve nothing less.”
[Posted by: Yolanda, August 30, 2007 02:57 PM]
It's ashame that we go through the things we do as African Americans. It's a shame the Jena 6 had to experience the torture they experienced. Where are our leaders? Yea. That letter sounds very nice. It's professional and for sure its POLITICALLY correct, but how can Gov. Blanco say that she expects ". . .that those involved in this case, including all parties, will act with fairness and in complete good faith."… If we leave Mychel Bell and the other young men's fate strictly in the hands of Blanco and Walters, we may as well do nothing. We need to write the congressman who represent that parish or ward in Jena, we need to petition the US Dept. of Justice and hell - tell Bush about it. Maybe if Condi whispers in his ear, he'll make a call to one of his good ole boys down in LA and they'll "act" like they care and do something like investigate the OBVIOUS miscarriage of Justice.
Eddie Griffin responds:
The Governor says:
Regardless of the outcome of this case, the Jena community has much healing ahead of it, and I urge all those citizens to come together for the common good of their community and their state. Our children deserve nothing less.
For the Common Good
The community of Jena can come together, as the Governor suggests. This is hindsight leadership that led to the Hurricane Katrina hysteria. Isn’t this the Queen of New Orleans who had a nervous breakdown and issued the order to “shoot to kill” all looters and scavengers during those hectic days. And, now she “urge” Jena to come together, but she does not lead in order to pull them together, as a community.
Much of this nonsense can cease with good leadership, a quality I hope the State of Louisiana will find in their next governor.
Monday, July 30, 2007
RESUBMITTED JENA SIX PROTEST
Why Black Children are being sent from Schools to Jails
Resubmitted By Eddie Griffin
Monday, July 30, 2007
The case of the Jena 6 black youth is hereby being resubmitted for your consideration, along with the following explanation of why certain children as harshly disciplined and prosecuted through our education system.
CONTACT INFORMATION
Office of the Governor
Attn: Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco
P.O. Box 94004
Baton Rouge, LA 70804-9004
866-366-1121
225-342-0991
225-342-7015
Fax: 225-342-7099
RE: Pardon Mychal Bell & Free the Jena 6
BACKGROUND OF CASE:
On July 31, 2007, there will be a national rally behalf of six Jena juvenile defenders from further prosecution by the state of Louisiana. It is a fact that, in public schools around the United States, black children are disciplined more than white children. The harshest form of punishment is doled out through criminal prosecution. We find black boys being disproportionately criminalized.
The town of Jena, Louisiana, its public school system, and law enforcement allowed white children to tease, threaten, intimidate, and assault black children with impunity. When black youth defend themselves by retaliating, the local dominant white population assailed them with Jim Crow law and discriminatory practices. They prosecuted the black youth, while letting their own pass with egregious wrongdoings, along race lines.
Monday, July 30, 2007
Dear Governor Kathleen Blanco:
Please stop the prosecution of the Jena 6. Drop all charges and pardon Mychal Bell.
This is a classic case of racial injustice much like the Scottsboro boys. Do realize that these are children, high school students, who were caught up in a race tense situation. The Jena High School administration is the blame for allowing a white prank to go unpunished. The Jena police have acted as protectorates of white wrongdoers. The Jena district attorney’s office leveled some of the heaviest criminal offenses against six young black boys. Reading the sequence of events, you cannot help but realize that the “alleged” crimes were nothing more than a schoolyard fight, common to most high schools. But every high school does not take racial sides when administering punishment, as in the case of Jena, Louisiana.
The reputation of this great state is at stake.
REMEMBER: One out of every three African-American males, who go through the nation’s public school systems end up going to jail and prisons. Why so?
The Jena 6 case takes a common school yard fight, which grew out of racial tension, and treats it as a serious criminal offense. The application of law is so arbitrary that it can be said: The white people in Jena make the law up as it goes along. In so doing, they suppress the minority black population in submission, albeit aided by the school system, prosecution office, and local judicial system.
There are hundreds of school disciplinary incidents prosecuted each year as criminal offenses against black youth. The result is a pattern of misdemeanors, leading to incarceration.
In Paris, Texas, a 14-year old teenager shoves a teacher’s aide while trying to enter a school building. They charged her with “aggravated assault upon a public servant”. The minor incident then became a major felony by local officials and school administrators arbitrarily applying the Texas Criminal Code.
The child was tried in a court of law by a judge, who applied adult standards equivalent to that of an assault of a prison inmate upon a guard. ShaQuanda Cotton was incarcerated in the Texas Youth Commission (TYC) lockup facilities, hundreds of miles from home and family.
If she was a “good girl”, she could go home in 9 months. If she received any prison infractions, her stay could be extended up to her 21st birthday. As a prerequisite to gaining her freedom, little Ms. Cotton must confess and show remorse for the crime of assaulting a “public servant”- a dubious and concocted offense. Otherwise, she would not be released. In fact, her nine-month stay was extended, because of a TYC disciplinary report for the offense of “possession of contraband”, to wit an extra pair of socks.
The Texas legislature was so appalled at the case of ShaQuanda Cotton that the teenager was immediately released. She and hundreds of other incarcerated teens were released immediately because their original sentences had been arbitrarily extended.
It seems ironic that, during the Texas legislature’s investigation into the children sexual abuse scandal by TYC prison officials, district attorneys around the state fought vigorously against the mass release of these youth. And, small rural Texas prison towns who, otherwise would not exist except for these lockup facilities, protested depopulating the youth prison system. To them, it would mean the loss of jobs- but, to us, it would be jobs that depended on the continued rate of incarceration of our children.
Texas Governor Rick Perry has seen fit to shut down two or three of these facilities as a result of trying to reform the Texas Youth Commission. And, many Texas counties are beginning to look at keeping their own youth offenders and working at finding an in-house solution to juvenile delinquencies, rather than send the kids off to these scandalized facilities.
But the statistics speak for themselves. More black youth are being sent to prison straight out of the school system- a practice condoned by the office of many district attorneys and courtroom benches.
The case of the Jena Six should never have been prosecuted as a criminal offense, but handled as a school disciplinary matter, in context of the overall tense racial climate. Only as last resort does a public school disciplinary action warrant being processed through the criminal justice system. It appears that teachers and administrators are using the punitive concept of “Zero Tolerance” to comport youth behavior and language to server forms of social control. It is a bully weapon against minority children and their parents.
The only way to correct the egregious injustice in Jena, Louisiana would be:
1. CEASE PROSECUTION OF ALL JENA SIX YOUTH
2. DROP ALL THE CHARGES
3. PARDON Mychal Bell
4. REFORM SCHOOL POLICIES ON DISCIPLINE
Resubmitted By Eddie Griffin
Monday, July 30, 2007
The case of the Jena 6 black youth is hereby being resubmitted for your consideration, along with the following explanation of why certain children as harshly disciplined and prosecuted through our education system.
CONTACT INFORMATION
Office of the Governor
Attn: Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco
P.O. Box 94004
Baton Rouge, LA 70804-9004
866-366-1121
225-342-0991
225-342-7015
Fax: 225-342-7099
RE: Pardon Mychal Bell & Free the Jena 6
BACKGROUND OF CASE:
On July 31, 2007, there will be a national rally behalf of six Jena juvenile defenders from further prosecution by the state of Louisiana. It is a fact that, in public schools around the United States, black children are disciplined more than white children. The harshest form of punishment is doled out through criminal prosecution. We find black boys being disproportionately criminalized.
The town of Jena, Louisiana, its public school system, and law enforcement allowed white children to tease, threaten, intimidate, and assault black children with impunity. When black youth defend themselves by retaliating, the local dominant white population assailed them with Jim Crow law and discriminatory practices. They prosecuted the black youth, while letting their own pass with egregious wrongdoings, along race lines.
Monday, July 30, 2007
Dear Governor Kathleen Blanco:
Please stop the prosecution of the Jena 6. Drop all charges and pardon Mychal Bell.
This is a classic case of racial injustice much like the Scottsboro boys. Do realize that these are children, high school students, who were caught up in a race tense situation. The Jena High School administration is the blame for allowing a white prank to go unpunished. The Jena police have acted as protectorates of white wrongdoers. The Jena district attorney’s office leveled some of the heaviest criminal offenses against six young black boys. Reading the sequence of events, you cannot help but realize that the “alleged” crimes were nothing more than a schoolyard fight, common to most high schools. But every high school does not take racial sides when administering punishment, as in the case of Jena, Louisiana.
The reputation of this great state is at stake.
REMEMBER: One out of every three African-American males, who go through the nation’s public school systems end up going to jail and prisons. Why so?
The Jena 6 case takes a common school yard fight, which grew out of racial tension, and treats it as a serious criminal offense. The application of law is so arbitrary that it can be said: The white people in Jena make the law up as it goes along. In so doing, they suppress the minority black population in submission, albeit aided by the school system, prosecution office, and local judicial system.
There are hundreds of school disciplinary incidents prosecuted each year as criminal offenses against black youth. The result is a pattern of misdemeanors, leading to incarceration.
In Paris, Texas, a 14-year old teenager shoves a teacher’s aide while trying to enter a school building. They charged her with “aggravated assault upon a public servant”. The minor incident then became a major felony by local officials and school administrators arbitrarily applying the Texas Criminal Code.
The child was tried in a court of law by a judge, who applied adult standards equivalent to that of an assault of a prison inmate upon a guard. ShaQuanda Cotton was incarcerated in the Texas Youth Commission (TYC) lockup facilities, hundreds of miles from home and family.
If she was a “good girl”, she could go home in 9 months. If she received any prison infractions, her stay could be extended up to her 21st birthday. As a prerequisite to gaining her freedom, little Ms. Cotton must confess and show remorse for the crime of assaulting a “public servant”- a dubious and concocted offense. Otherwise, she would not be released. In fact, her nine-month stay was extended, because of a TYC disciplinary report for the offense of “possession of contraband”, to wit an extra pair of socks.
The Texas legislature was so appalled at the case of ShaQuanda Cotton that the teenager was immediately released. She and hundreds of other incarcerated teens were released immediately because their original sentences had been arbitrarily extended.
It seems ironic that, during the Texas legislature’s investigation into the children sexual abuse scandal by TYC prison officials, district attorneys around the state fought vigorously against the mass release of these youth. And, small rural Texas prison towns who, otherwise would not exist except for these lockup facilities, protested depopulating the youth prison system. To them, it would mean the loss of jobs- but, to us, it would be jobs that depended on the continued rate of incarceration of our children.
Texas Governor Rick Perry has seen fit to shut down two or three of these facilities as a result of trying to reform the Texas Youth Commission. And, many Texas counties are beginning to look at keeping their own youth offenders and working at finding an in-house solution to juvenile delinquencies, rather than send the kids off to these scandalized facilities.
But the statistics speak for themselves. More black youth are being sent to prison straight out of the school system- a practice condoned by the office of many district attorneys and courtroom benches.
The case of the Jena Six should never have been prosecuted as a criminal offense, but handled as a school disciplinary matter, in context of the overall tense racial climate. Only as last resort does a public school disciplinary action warrant being processed through the criminal justice system. It appears that teachers and administrators are using the punitive concept of “Zero Tolerance” to comport youth behavior and language to server forms of social control. It is a bully weapon against minority children and their parents.
The only way to correct the egregious injustice in Jena, Louisiana would be:
1. CEASE PROSECUTION OF ALL JENA SIX YOUTH
2. DROP ALL THE CHARGES
3. PARDON Mychal Bell
4. REFORM SCHOOL POLICIES ON DISCIPLINE
Thursday, November 8, 2007
Radio Personality Michael Baisden Challenged
Michael Baisden
13901 Midway Road, #102 - 437
Dallas , TX 75244-4388
Re: Broadcast of Jena 6 Fundraising Improprieties
Dear Michael Baisden:
As a writer and international advocate of the Right of the Child, I commend you for your conscious raising work on behalf of the Jena 6. But I am disappointed at your allegations against Color of Change, an organization which has a long and impeccable history of struggling on behalf the oppressed and dispossessed. Now people’s spirits are dampened by the allegations. You have created an air of suspicion across the nation.
Let’s be clear and fair about on-air allegations and the damages it can cause to a movement still struggling to free the six Jena youth. And, while we are at it, let’s call up the integrity of everybody involved.
First, it is reported that $10,000 was donated by David Bowie to the Jena Defense Fund and that the money is unaccounted for. But according to this NAACP press report:
“We are gratified that rock star David Bowie was moved to donate to the NAACP’s Jena campaign,” said NAACP National Board of Directors Chairman Julian Bond. “Mr. Bowie shares our outrage. We hope others will join him.” It is evident that Bowie ’s donation went to the NAACP’s Jena campaign.
As for the other monies, Color of Change has provided images of cancelled checks made out to the Jena 6 defense lawyers. (See images of deposited checks and family authorization for payment).
It is not unusual for the good that people do to be evil spoken of. But we never expected it to be from you.
We note that you are sponsoring a Foundation Charity Fundraiser on November 9 and 10. And, we assume that, because it features Marcus Jones, father of Mychal Bell (one of the Jena 6) and two of his lawyers (Louis Scott and Carol Powel-Lexington), that the fundraising will be on behalf of the Jena Six defendants.
Will Marcus Jones say that he did not authorize payment to his son’s lawyers in the amount of $35,339.78? Will Louis Scott deny receiving $33,150.00? The documents speak for themselves. And, what does Color of Change get for its diligent fundraising effort?
Other people have criticized Marcus Jones as an “absentee father”, who only came back into Mychal Bell’s life after the Jena 6 publicity. And, we have resisted taking the bait. But does Jones thank groups like Color of Change and Afrospear bloggers who have relentlessly elevated this case, long before radio stations got involved? No! Instead, we, as bloggers, are now cast under a cloud of suspicion.
There is nothing that says that the monies raised by the Foundation Charity Fundraiser will go to the Jena 6 defense, and nothing said about how equally the funds will be disbursed. At least, Color of Change has provided each defendant with the same approximate amount. What would Marcus Jones have- that all the funds to go to his son’s defense?
There is no honorable way to clean up this mess of your creation, except to give Color of Change the right to present its proof to the public, on the same airways where they were slandered. They should also be included in all your future fundraising effort on behalf of Jena 6, even if no more than to help you, Michael, restore your integrity on the airways. Or shall you challenge us and persist in this lie, believing the airways are more powerful than the blog? Truth will always win.
Sincerely,
Eddie Griffin (BASG)
13901 Midway Road, #102 - 437
Dallas , TX 75244-4388
Re: Broadcast of Jena 6 Fundraising Improprieties
Dear Michael Baisden:
As a writer and international advocate of the Right of the Child, I commend you for your conscious raising work on behalf of the Jena 6. But I am disappointed at your allegations against Color of Change, an organization which has a long and impeccable history of struggling on behalf the oppressed and dispossessed. Now people’s spirits are dampened by the allegations. You have created an air of suspicion across the nation.
Let’s be clear and fair about on-air allegations and the damages it can cause to a movement still struggling to free the six Jena youth. And, while we are at it, let’s call up the integrity of everybody involved.
First, it is reported that $10,000 was donated by David Bowie to the Jena Defense Fund and that the money is unaccounted for. But according to this NAACP press report:
“We are gratified that rock star David Bowie was moved to donate to the NAACP’s Jena campaign,” said NAACP National Board of Directors Chairman Julian Bond. “Mr. Bowie shares our outrage. We hope others will join him.” It is evident that Bowie ’s donation went to the NAACP’s Jena campaign.
As for the other monies, Color of Change has provided images of cancelled checks made out to the Jena 6 defense lawyers. (See images of deposited checks and family authorization for payment).
It is not unusual for the good that people do to be evil spoken of. But we never expected it to be from you.
We note that you are sponsoring a Foundation Charity Fundraiser on November 9 and 10. And, we assume that, because it features Marcus Jones, father of Mychal Bell (one of the Jena 6) and two of his lawyers (Louis Scott and Carol Powel-Lexington), that the fundraising will be on behalf of the Jena Six defendants.
Will Marcus Jones say that he did not authorize payment to his son’s lawyers in the amount of $35,339.78? Will Louis Scott deny receiving $33,150.00? The documents speak for themselves. And, what does Color of Change get for its diligent fundraising effort?
Other people have criticized Marcus Jones as an “absentee father”, who only came back into Mychal Bell’s life after the Jena 6 publicity. And, we have resisted taking the bait. But does Jones thank groups like Color of Change and Afrospear bloggers who have relentlessly elevated this case, long before radio stations got involved? No! Instead, we, as bloggers, are now cast under a cloud of suspicion.
There is nothing that says that the monies raised by the Foundation Charity Fundraiser will go to the Jena 6 defense, and nothing said about how equally the funds will be disbursed. At least, Color of Change has provided each defendant with the same approximate amount. What would Marcus Jones have- that all the funds to go to his son’s defense?
There is no honorable way to clean up this mess of your creation, except to give Color of Change the right to present its proof to the public, on the same airways where they were slandered. They should also be included in all your future fundraising effort on behalf of Jena 6, even if no more than to help you, Michael, restore your integrity on the airways. Or shall you challenge us and persist in this lie, believing the airways are more powerful than the blog? Truth will always win.
Sincerely,
Eddie Griffin (BASG)
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
Jena 6 Backlashers
Jonny Cochran of the Newport News writes: “I think the Jena 6 in Jena, La., greatly overreacted at the sight of nooses hanging from a tree next to their school… I don't know what those who put them up meant them to symbolize. But even if that was their way of expressing that they didn't want black students to hang out under that tree, they weren't justified in beating a classmate.” (“Jena 6 Overreacted”, October 8, 2007)
Now here is a pundit who admits not knowing what the noose-hangers meant “to symbolize”. Nevertheless, he proceeds to give his expert opinion on why he thinks “the Jena 6 in Jena, La., greatly overreacted at the sight of nooses hanging from a tree next to their school”.
On the other hand.
“I do not want to diminish the impression that the hanging of the nooses has had on good people,” Jena Mayor Murphy R. McMillin wrote. “I do recognize that what happened is insulting and hurtful… To put the incident in Jena in the same league as those who were murdered in the 1960s cheapens their sacrifice and insults their memory.”
Commentary
It is one thing to claim that all this stuff is a product of my imagination, but what about this counter-argument of an “overactive imagination” and an “over-reactive response”? Other than “insulting and hurtful”, we would be led to believe the whole Jena 6 case is blown out of proportion.
How can anyone “cheapen” the sacrifice and “insult” the memory of African-Americans who were lynched in the South? Every time I hear about nooses made for lynching black people, I remember the words of Mrs. Mamie Till Bradley: “Look at what they did to my boy”, she cried. Her son was Emmitt Till, a black boy lynched in Money, Mississippi in August 1955.
I was 10-years old and can remember, unto this day, the words of the grieving mother, insisting that the casket be opened at the funeral so she could show the world what race hatred looked like. I saw the horrible picture published in Jet Magazine and never forgot it. Emmitt Louis Till was only 14 years old when he was slain.
This was not just a lynching. Emmitt Till was the most tortured person in human history. Two white men came to the home of Till’s great-uncle in the middle of the night, wanting to talk to the boy about “wolf whistling at a white woman”, which was another ex-post facto Jim Crow Law. They dragged the young man away as he screamed and hollered for his helpless uncle to save him. In a barn, they tortured him all nights, according to the testimony of a passerby who heard Till’s un-muffled screams.
They beat him, gouged out his eye, smashed his head in, draped him in barbwire, dangled him over the Tallahatchie River Bridge, and shot him in the head. When they found him dead with the weight of fan tied around his neck in the river, hamstrung and handcuffed with barbwire, the local newspapers initially reported it as a suicide.
That was the way I remembered it from 1955, although there have been many white revisions of history before and since. Nevertheless, it is still a story some people do no want school children to hear. They would rather they hear a whitewashed version of the Civil Right Movement. As a result, our children are totally ignorant of these happenings, although this is where the movement began to stir, when the white defendants were acquitted and later confessed to a Look Magazine writer.
This made us sick for a whole generation, which generation still lives today, not to mention how James Byrd was dragged behind a pickup truck in Jasper, Texas in 1998. The blood of the dismembered body parts is still soaked into the back roads of this small East Texas town.
I can still hear the screaming in my ear, at night, in my dreams, and whenever I hear men like Jena Mayor McMillin and District Attorney Reed Walters trying to minimize the terrorism black people feel at the sight of a lynch noose. The graves of lynch victims are screaming- screaming not to be forgotten- screaming for justice. For too long, their stories have been silenced.
And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held: And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth? (Revelation 6:9-10)
From the collection of Milford F. Plaines’ African American Holocaust.
Now here is a pundit who admits not knowing what the noose-hangers meant “to symbolize”. Nevertheless, he proceeds to give his expert opinion on why he thinks “the Jena 6 in Jena, La., greatly overreacted at the sight of nooses hanging from a tree next to their school”.
On the other hand.
“I do not want to diminish the impression that the hanging of the nooses has had on good people,” Jena Mayor Murphy R. McMillin wrote. “I do recognize that what happened is insulting and hurtful… To put the incident in Jena in the same league as those who were murdered in the 1960s cheapens their sacrifice and insults their memory.”
Commentary
It is one thing to claim that all this stuff is a product of my imagination, but what about this counter-argument of an “overactive imagination” and an “over-reactive response”? Other than “insulting and hurtful”, we would be led to believe the whole Jena 6 case is blown out of proportion.
How can anyone “cheapen” the sacrifice and “insult” the memory of African-Americans who were lynched in the South? Every time I hear about nooses made for lynching black people, I remember the words of Mrs. Mamie Till Bradley: “Look at what they did to my boy”, she cried. Her son was Emmitt Till, a black boy lynched in Money, Mississippi in August 1955.
I was 10-years old and can remember, unto this day, the words of the grieving mother, insisting that the casket be opened at the funeral so she could show the world what race hatred looked like. I saw the horrible picture published in Jet Magazine and never forgot it. Emmitt Louis Till was only 14 years old when he was slain.
This was not just a lynching. Emmitt Till was the most tortured person in human history. Two white men came to the home of Till’s great-uncle in the middle of the night, wanting to talk to the boy about “wolf whistling at a white woman”, which was another ex-post facto Jim Crow Law. They dragged the young man away as he screamed and hollered for his helpless uncle to save him. In a barn, they tortured him all nights, according to the testimony of a passerby who heard Till’s un-muffled screams.
They beat him, gouged out his eye, smashed his head in, draped him in barbwire, dangled him over the Tallahatchie River Bridge, and shot him in the head. When they found him dead with the weight of fan tied around his neck in the river, hamstrung and handcuffed with barbwire, the local newspapers initially reported it as a suicide.
That was the way I remembered it from 1955, although there have been many white revisions of history before and since. Nevertheless, it is still a story some people do no want school children to hear. They would rather they hear a whitewashed version of the Civil Right Movement. As a result, our children are totally ignorant of these happenings, although this is where the movement began to stir, when the white defendants were acquitted and later confessed to a Look Magazine writer.
This made us sick for a whole generation, which generation still lives today, not to mention how James Byrd was dragged behind a pickup truck in Jasper, Texas in 1998. The blood of the dismembered body parts is still soaked into the back roads of this small East Texas town.
I can still hear the screaming in my ear, at night, in my dreams, and whenever I hear men like Jena Mayor McMillin and District Attorney Reed Walters trying to minimize the terrorism black people feel at the sight of a lynch noose. The graves of lynch victims are screaming- screaming not to be forgotten- screaming for justice. For too long, their stories have been silenced.
And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held: And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth? (Revelation 6:9-10)
From the collection of Milford F. Plaines’ African American Holocaust.
Friday, October 12, 2007
Jena Vendetta
When the Jena 6 defendants went to court on yesterday (Thursday), expecting a “routine hearing” related to a schoolyard fight that has drawn international attention, presiding Judge J. P. Mauffrey remanded 17-year old Mychal Bell into custody, supposedly on the grounds that the fight violated his probation on previous juvenile convictions.
What part of world opinion don’t these inbred retards of Louisiana understand?
First, it was three nooses dangled over a segregated schoolyard tree after black students had requested to sit under its shade during lunchtime like the white students. When black students protested, District Attorney Reed Walters came in and made his infamous threat directed at the black students- how that he can wipe out their lives with “the stroke of a pen”.
There are the nooses on one hand and the law on the other. (Talk about being caught between a rock and a hard place). How can this not be interpreted as suppression of a people by use of fear and intimidation? (Fear of the lynch rope and Intimidation by the law). What choice does these black children have, except to "accept it" or fight against it?
Some people want us to fast-forward our minds to December 4, 2006, without taking into account the chain-reaction of events leading up to the schoolyard fight.
They called the nooses “a prank”. How did they know the purpose of the nooses and the intent of the heart of the noose-hangers? (Am I missing a secret conversation somewhere?) How are African-Americans supposed to automatically know that the nooses were only a prank, in a state with the highest number of recorded lynching, deep in the middle of KKK country, where (heretofore) no outside media dared to venture? (If a black person screamed in Jena, no one would hear it, because the traditional press doesn’t carry small town stories like this).
What the nooses could not do legally, rest assured that DA Reed Walters can do with just the stroke of his pen- lynch by law.
Stacking the jury with all-white citizens, including friends of the so-called victim, is ho-hum business as usual to Jena, but it is an aberration of justice in the eyes of the world. (A recent DA manual on how to exclude minorities from jury panel created some local controversy in my hometown). Nevertheless, this follows a southern tradition: Accuse a black man of anything and you can get a conviction, the odds being better with an all-white jury. And, if a man is falsely accused and convicted, who will hear him scream, anyway? (The Innocence Project has exonerated some 208 people who have been wrongly convicted. It is no wonder district attorneys oppose the establishment of Innocence Commissions to investigate claims of wrongful convictions).
Jena: A Rule by Terroristic Fear and Intimidation
When some 50,000 people heard the cry of the Jena 6 teenagers, they descended on the small backwoods town of 3,000. To avoid the protesting crowd and the media spectacle, the whole town closed its doors on the September 20 march.
The case of Mychal Bell was overturned by the appeals court and returned to be heard in juvenile court. The case was an international embarrassment. President George Bush spoke out about the injustice- likewise presidential candidates Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco “urged” the citizens of Jena to come together and resolve their race problem.
With one hand, they give. With the other, they take away.
In his lamentations about how his town as been mischaracterized, Jena Mayor Murphy McMillan, bemoans the continued protest. He speaks about how hospitable the people of Jena were to allow the protesters to come into his community (not to mention, everybody closed shop and went fishing). On the other hand, DA Reed Walters goes on public record to make a statement from God. Had not Jesus Christ intervened, he asserts, the protesters would have destroyed the town. (This reminds me of assertions during slavery- how God protected the minority white people against the red savages and rebellious black slaves.) How did God do it? Through “divine intervention”, says Walters. In the past, God always protected his “blessed people” from the cursed race of people, by putting his hands on them and keep them “in their place”.
It is no surprise that the popularity of this myth continues in the South, which only emboldens the Jena absurdities.
Do not connect the dots.
If the DA can prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the act of assault happened in a vacuum- disconnected from surrounding circumstance-the daily taunting of by white students, and all the previous assaults upon black students- then there is no such thing in nature as cause and effect. Things just happen out of a spiritual nowhere, and one day, out of the sky-blue, here comes the assailant Mychal Bell with some crazy obsessed notion to hurt somebody (and it’s important that the DA points out that that somebody is white, not just a high school teenager like his counterpart). It was an “assault” upon a “white person”, the most heinous crime imaginable because it defies the social (divine) order.
What part of world opinion don’t these inbred retards of Louisiana understand?
First, it was three nooses dangled over a segregated schoolyard tree after black students had requested to sit under its shade during lunchtime like the white students. When black students protested, District Attorney Reed Walters came in and made his infamous threat directed at the black students- how that he can wipe out their lives with “the stroke of a pen”.
There are the nooses on one hand and the law on the other. (Talk about being caught between a rock and a hard place). How can this not be interpreted as suppression of a people by use of fear and intimidation? (Fear of the lynch rope and Intimidation by the law). What choice does these black children have, except to "accept it" or fight against it?
Some people want us to fast-forward our minds to December 4, 2006, without taking into account the chain-reaction of events leading up to the schoolyard fight.
They called the nooses “a prank”. How did they know the purpose of the nooses and the intent of the heart of the noose-hangers? (Am I missing a secret conversation somewhere?) How are African-Americans supposed to automatically know that the nooses were only a prank, in a state with the highest number of recorded lynching, deep in the middle of KKK country, where (heretofore) no outside media dared to venture? (If a black person screamed in Jena, no one would hear it, because the traditional press doesn’t carry small town stories like this).
What the nooses could not do legally, rest assured that DA Reed Walters can do with just the stroke of his pen- lynch by law.
Stacking the jury with all-white citizens, including friends of the so-called victim, is ho-hum business as usual to Jena, but it is an aberration of justice in the eyes of the world. (A recent DA manual on how to exclude minorities from jury panel created some local controversy in my hometown). Nevertheless, this follows a southern tradition: Accuse a black man of anything and you can get a conviction, the odds being better with an all-white jury. And, if a man is falsely accused and convicted, who will hear him scream, anyway? (The Innocence Project has exonerated some 208 people who have been wrongly convicted. It is no wonder district attorneys oppose the establishment of Innocence Commissions to investigate claims of wrongful convictions).
Jena: A Rule by Terroristic Fear and Intimidation
When some 50,000 people heard the cry of the Jena 6 teenagers, they descended on the small backwoods town of 3,000. To avoid the protesting crowd and the media spectacle, the whole town closed its doors on the September 20 march.
The case of Mychal Bell was overturned by the appeals court and returned to be heard in juvenile court. The case was an international embarrassment. President George Bush spoke out about the injustice- likewise presidential candidates Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco “urged” the citizens of Jena to come together and resolve their race problem.
With one hand, they give. With the other, they take away.
In his lamentations about how his town as been mischaracterized, Jena Mayor Murphy McMillan, bemoans the continued protest. He speaks about how hospitable the people of Jena were to allow the protesters to come into his community (not to mention, everybody closed shop and went fishing). On the other hand, DA Reed Walters goes on public record to make a statement from God. Had not Jesus Christ intervened, he asserts, the protesters would have destroyed the town. (This reminds me of assertions during slavery- how God protected the minority white people against the red savages and rebellious black slaves.) How did God do it? Through “divine intervention”, says Walters. In the past, God always protected his “blessed people” from the cursed race of people, by putting his hands on them and keep them “in their place”.
It is no surprise that the popularity of this myth continues in the South, which only emboldens the Jena absurdities.
Do not connect the dots.
If the DA can prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the act of assault happened in a vacuum- disconnected from surrounding circumstance-the daily taunting of by white students, and all the previous assaults upon black students- then there is no such thing in nature as cause and effect. Things just happen out of a spiritual nowhere, and one day, out of the sky-blue, here comes the assailant Mychal Bell with some crazy obsessed notion to hurt somebody (and it’s important that the DA points out that that somebody is white, not just a high school teenager like his counterpart). It was an “assault” upon a “white person”, the most heinous crime imaginable because it defies the social (divine) order.
Friday, September 14, 2007
Beyond Jena
By now, we should be three miles down the road past Jena, with contingency planning as to where do we go from here. The role of the vanguard is frontline strategic planning.
There are two roads ahead from Jena:
Either Mychal Bell will be set free or we will be force to escalate to stage 2- the legal battle ahead and defense fund-raising. Then, on the other hand, we must weigh the punitive consequences upon the State of Louisiana, for the loss of good will and fairness under the law.
The public response to the Jena 6 has been nothing less than overwhelming. The planned September 20 demonstration has magnified the issue: Racism and the misuse and abuse of legal powers for the purpose of malicious prosecution.
Many African-American parents are concerned about how their children will be treated in similar circumstances. Therefore, we have exceeded the bounds of Jena, Louisiana to look at the greater issue of why black boys are punished more frequently and more harshly than their peers, both in school and in the courtroom.
Of all the people who are going to Jena, there is one authentic voice of this movement. Mos Def has it all, including the real history of the struggle. He also has a profound passion in his advocacy that might bring America back to its collective sanity, without compromising the voice of black people everywhere. We must hear more of what Mos Def has to say. In fact, Mos Def would be the man that I would chose to speak about this outcry. He will not hee-haw with words.
Also, what some people may not see will be the thousands upon thousands of people who will be wearing black. They will be wearing black, not only in solidarity with the six African-American youth, but in mourning all of our forefathers who were lynched in American history. Forever lives the memory of Emmit Till, lynched at age 14.
Everybody in Texas will be wearing black. It is the biggest non-kept secret in my home state. We will mourn to loss of every black children lynched by the legal system, including Genarlow Wilson and SheQuanda Cotton. And even better, we will have no need to debate the flak behind the Jena 6 Movement. For the first time in over 40 years, we have a viable movement for social justice.
Here in Texas, the dominoes of injustice are falling. Another man, condemned under the law of parties like Kenneth Foster, Jr., was spared execution by the intervention of the new Dallas black district attorney, Craig Watkins, who has also initiated an innocence project that resulted in the release of over 25 innocent men. Runaway justice runs amok in Texas and Louisiana, and Georgia.
The Jena 6 are about the same age as the young Black Panthers were when they first came together to defend the community against racist attacks. Herman Bell, one of the NY 3 (otherwise known as the Black Liberation Army) went to prison over 30 years ago in the COINTELPRO Wars against the Panthers and remains in prison today, almost forgotten. He, too, is a political prisoner and one of my best friends, the same as the Jena Six are a new breed of political prisoners.
They did what they thought they had to do, in order to preserve their dignity and gain some respect. God forbid, they can receive 20 years or more for a schoolyard fight.
Will we fight for them forever? Then how did we forget about Herman Bell who, after all these years of incarceration, is now going to be tried all over again in a different state, just to prolong his incarceration. Thanks to Mos Def, he reminded me of Bell’s current status.
There are two roads ahead from Jena:
Either Mychal Bell will be set free or we will be force to escalate to stage 2- the legal battle ahead and defense fund-raising. Then, on the other hand, we must weigh the punitive consequences upon the State of Louisiana, for the loss of good will and fairness under the law.
The public response to the Jena 6 has been nothing less than overwhelming. The planned September 20 demonstration has magnified the issue: Racism and the misuse and abuse of legal powers for the purpose of malicious prosecution.
Many African-American parents are concerned about how their children will be treated in similar circumstances. Therefore, we have exceeded the bounds of Jena, Louisiana to look at the greater issue of why black boys are punished more frequently and more harshly than their peers, both in school and in the courtroom.
Of all the people who are going to Jena, there is one authentic voice of this movement. Mos Def has it all, including the real history of the struggle. He also has a profound passion in his advocacy that might bring America back to its collective sanity, without compromising the voice of black people everywhere. We must hear more of what Mos Def has to say. In fact, Mos Def would be the man that I would chose to speak about this outcry. He will not hee-haw with words.
Also, what some people may not see will be the thousands upon thousands of people who will be wearing black. They will be wearing black, not only in solidarity with the six African-American youth, but in mourning all of our forefathers who were lynched in American history. Forever lives the memory of Emmit Till, lynched at age 14.
Everybody in Texas will be wearing black. It is the biggest non-kept secret in my home state. We will mourn to loss of every black children lynched by the legal system, including Genarlow Wilson and SheQuanda Cotton. And even better, we will have no need to debate the flak behind the Jena 6 Movement. For the first time in over 40 years, we have a viable movement for social justice.
Here in Texas, the dominoes of injustice are falling. Another man, condemned under the law of parties like Kenneth Foster, Jr., was spared execution by the intervention of the new Dallas black district attorney, Craig Watkins, who has also initiated an innocence project that resulted in the release of over 25 innocent men. Runaway justice runs amok in Texas and Louisiana, and Georgia.
The Jena 6 are about the same age as the young Black Panthers were when they first came together to defend the community against racist attacks. Herman Bell, one of the NY 3 (otherwise known as the Black Liberation Army) went to prison over 30 years ago in the COINTELPRO Wars against the Panthers and remains in prison today, almost forgotten. He, too, is a political prisoner and one of my best friends, the same as the Jena Six are a new breed of political prisoners.
They did what they thought they had to do, in order to preserve their dignity and gain some respect. God forbid, they can receive 20 years or more for a schoolyard fight.
Will we fight for them forever? Then how did we forget about Herman Bell who, after all these years of incarceration, is now going to be tried all over again in a different state, just to prolong his incarceration. Thanks to Mos Def, he reminded me of Bell’s current status.
Thursday, October 11, 2007
NATIONAL MARCH AGAINST HATE CRIMES
For Immediate Release
October 7, 2007
NATIONAL MARCH AGAINST HATE CRIMES:
MEGAN WILLIAMS: KIDNAP, TORTURE AND RAPE VICTIM IS FOCUS OF NATIONAL CALL TO ACTION
When: Saturday November 3, 2007 12:00 noon
Location: Charleston, West Virginia. Beginning in front of West Virginia State University and Marching to the West Virginia State Capitol in Charleston.
March Purpose: To bring national and statewide support to Charleston resident Megan Williams, the Williams Family and victims of other hate crimes nationwide. The Jena 6 case, the rise in the hanging of nooses and other current acts of injustices and intimidation against Blacks/African Americans will all be highlighted at this National March against Hate Crimes. Families and victims of hate crimes that are occurring throughout the nation will attend. Black Lawyers For Justice, the Williams Family and organizers are demanding that Federal Hate Crimes charges be brought in the instant case. They are also demanding Congressional hearings on hate crimes against Black residents as well a wide range of actions to combat the growing attacks on Blacks in America.
Who are the Organizers? The primary march organizers are Black Lawyers For Justice (BLFJ) and the Support Committee For Megan Williams. This march will be endorsed by at least 100 Black organizations, student groups, clergy and leaders of every stripe. An initial endorsement list will be produced on 10-15-07.
Contact: Black Lawyers For Justice (BLFJ) / Malik Shabazz, Esq.
Attorney/ advocate for Megan Williams and the Williams Family
Ph: NATIONAL (202) 397-3577 local (304) 657-1493
E-mail: shabazzlaw@aol.com
Website: Blacklawyersforjustice.org
WHY A MARCH TO SUPPORT MEGAN WILLIAMS AND OPPOSE HATE CRIMES?
On November 3, 2007 a historic National March will take place in Charleston, West Virginia. This call to action is to support young Megan Williams, who is the victim of one of the worst hate crimes in United States history. The March is also called to address an unacceptable rise in hate crimes and incidents of injustices currently perpetrated against Blacks or African Americans. On September 12, 2007, and in subsequent preliminary hearings, it was revealed that Megan Williams, a twenty year old Black Woman, was lured into a nearby Logan county trailer house of hatred. Young Megan, who also has special disability needs, was repeatedly raped, choked, stabbed, forced to eat dog and rat feces as her six white tormentors berated her calling her “nigger” incessantly. According to evidence gathered, Megan was sodomized with a stick and a noose was tied around her neck for lengthy periods during this week long ordeal that is verified by several of co-defendants signed confessions. This is an this ugly and outrageous ordeal. Prosecutors said. “Every time they stabbed her, they called her ‘nigger.” Carmen Williams, the mother, told The Charleston Gazette. “She wakes up in the middle of the night screaming, ‘Mommy.’ What’s really, really bad is, we don’t know everything, and they did to her. She is crying all the time.” No doubt, had she not been rescued they were going to kill her and throw her in a nearby lake.
Arrested are: Frankie Brewster, 49, and her son Bobby Brewster, 24., Karen Burton, 46; her daughter Alisha, 23; Danny Combs, 20, and George Messer, 27 –six whites from nearby Logan County, West Virginia. The suspects took turns beating, stabbing, choking and sexually abusing Williams, while consistently threatening her with death, according to criminal complaints. A rope was placed around Williams’ neck, her hair was ripped out and she was made to eat dog and rat feces, drink from a toilet and lick up blood, the complaint charges. At one point, she was sexually assaulted while scalding water and melting hot wax from a candle was poured on her body. At another point she was forced to lick the toes of the sadistic defendants. She was stabbed in the leg at least four times and both of her ankles were cut by a female suspect who allegedly taunted her, saying, “This one is for Kunta Kinte, and that’s what we do to niggers around here.”
“The Megan Williams case is beyond a doubt, one of the worst hate crimes in U.S. History. The Megan Williams case is even worse than the case of the Jena 6”…said Attorney Malik Shabazz Esq., Megan Williams Family Attorney and Spokesman for Black Lawyers For Justice, speaking at the October 3rd preliminary hearing in Logan County, West VA.
Shabazz also said, “The number of outright hate crimes and injustice cases against Blacks is rising so rapidly it’s hard for our office to keep track of. We are calling for every concerned person in our community to respond to this national crisis with vigor and due diligence. The November 3rd March in Charleston is a big step in the direction of organizing to challenge the tide of attacks occurring against Blacks”.
HATE CRIMES DOCUMENTED
In addition to the Megan Williams case, criminal acts of hatred and intimidation using hanging nooses have sprung up all over the nation. The hanging noose, central to the Jena case, is used by racists as an actionable threat to the safety and well being of Blacks, who have suffered innumerable historical injustices via hanging ropes and lynchings. On Sept 7th, a three foot noose was found hung at the University of Maryland, College Park, roiling the campus. On October 4th, the Pittsburgh Tribune Review reported that police were investigating several cases in which nooses were left at workplaces to intimidate black employees in the Pittsburgh area. The Tribune reported, “a supervisor at the Verizon Wireless Business Services Center in Marshall found a black doll with a noose around its neck and racial slurs directed at it.” Several similar hate crime incidents have been reported in the Pittsburgh area in the last month. In Long Island, New York last month, police found a noose hanging in the locker room. Many believed it was hung by a police officer and was in response to the newly elected Black police chief. Last month, in North Carolina, nooses were found hung at a public school. On October 3rd in Washington D.C., white students and historical Galluadet University for the deaf, reportedly held a Black student hostage for over an hour and repeatedly wrote “KKK” all over his body with markers. All over the U.S., Police assaulting and killing unarmed Black victims is on the rise again.
A FOLLOW UP TO JENA
The November 3rd National March against Hate Crimes is also an effort to end the continued persecution of the Jena 6. Mychal Bell and the Jena 6 are still facing jail after responding to racist persecution at the High school in Jena, Louisiana. Also the addresses and phone numbers of the Jena 6 Families were posted on Neo-Nazi/Klan websites, subsequently, white supremacists have committed acts of aggression near their homes and BLFJ has copies of letters from various Ku Klux Klan organizations directly threatening the Jena 6 families. Members of the Jena 6 are endorsing and are expected at this march.
Over 100 organizations, student groups, youth organizations, clergy, rappers, and leaders are set to endorse the November 3rd March (a list will be released on 10/15/07) Like in Jena, organizers going to get busses, travel the highway and organize to support Megan Williams and organize against these attacks.
SCHEDULE OF EVENTS
Friday November 2nd 7:00 pm: A pre march remembrance/ prayer vigil will take place at the Logan County trailer home where Megan Williams was kidnapped and tortured
Saturday November 3rd 12:00 noon: National March against Hate Crimes, Charleston, West VA. March will begin in front of West Virginia State University.
Saturday November 3rd 5:00 pm: Fundraiser for Megan Williams and Town Hall Meeting on Race Relations to take place at Rehoboth Cathedral of Christ in Charleston, West Virginia- Bishop James Carter III is the host pastor.
To Endorse This March Or For Updates And Further Details, Visit The Website: Www.Blacklawyersforjustice.Org Or Call (202) 397 -4577 The Email Is Shabazzlaw@aol.Com
October 7, 2007
NATIONAL MARCH AGAINST HATE CRIMES:
MEGAN WILLIAMS: KIDNAP, TORTURE AND RAPE VICTIM IS FOCUS OF NATIONAL CALL TO ACTION
When: Saturday November 3, 2007 12:00 noon
Location: Charleston, West Virginia. Beginning in front of West Virginia State University and Marching to the West Virginia State Capitol in Charleston.
March Purpose: To bring national and statewide support to Charleston resident Megan Williams, the Williams Family and victims of other hate crimes nationwide. The Jena 6 case, the rise in the hanging of nooses and other current acts of injustices and intimidation against Blacks/African Americans will all be highlighted at this National March against Hate Crimes. Families and victims of hate crimes that are occurring throughout the nation will attend. Black Lawyers For Justice, the Williams Family and organizers are demanding that Federal Hate Crimes charges be brought in the instant case. They are also demanding Congressional hearings on hate crimes against Black residents as well a wide range of actions to combat the growing attacks on Blacks in America.
Who are the Organizers? The primary march organizers are Black Lawyers For Justice (BLFJ) and the Support Committee For Megan Williams. This march will be endorsed by at least 100 Black organizations, student groups, clergy and leaders of every stripe. An initial endorsement list will be produced on 10-15-07.
Contact: Black Lawyers For Justice (BLFJ) / Malik Shabazz, Esq.
Attorney/ advocate for Megan Williams and the Williams Family
Ph: NATIONAL (202) 397-3577 local (304) 657-1493
E-mail: shabazzlaw@aol.com
Website: Blacklawyersforjustice.org
WHY A MARCH TO SUPPORT MEGAN WILLIAMS AND OPPOSE HATE CRIMES?
On November 3, 2007 a historic National March will take place in Charleston, West Virginia. This call to action is to support young Megan Williams, who is the victim of one of the worst hate crimes in United States history. The March is also called to address an unacceptable rise in hate crimes and incidents of injustices currently perpetrated against Blacks or African Americans. On September 12, 2007, and in subsequent preliminary hearings, it was revealed that Megan Williams, a twenty year old Black Woman, was lured into a nearby Logan county trailer house of hatred. Young Megan, who also has special disability needs, was repeatedly raped, choked, stabbed, forced to eat dog and rat feces as her six white tormentors berated her calling her “nigger” incessantly. According to evidence gathered, Megan was sodomized with a stick and a noose was tied around her neck for lengthy periods during this week long ordeal that is verified by several of co-defendants signed confessions. This is an this ugly and outrageous ordeal. Prosecutors said. “Every time they stabbed her, they called her ‘nigger.” Carmen Williams, the mother, told The Charleston Gazette. “She wakes up in the middle of the night screaming, ‘Mommy.’ What’s really, really bad is, we don’t know everything, and they did to her. She is crying all the time.” No doubt, had she not been rescued they were going to kill her and throw her in a nearby lake.
Arrested are: Frankie Brewster, 49, and her son Bobby Brewster, 24., Karen Burton, 46; her daughter Alisha, 23; Danny Combs, 20, and George Messer, 27 –six whites from nearby Logan County, West Virginia. The suspects took turns beating, stabbing, choking and sexually abusing Williams, while consistently threatening her with death, according to criminal complaints. A rope was placed around Williams’ neck, her hair was ripped out and she was made to eat dog and rat feces, drink from a toilet and lick up blood, the complaint charges. At one point, she was sexually assaulted while scalding water and melting hot wax from a candle was poured on her body. At another point she was forced to lick the toes of the sadistic defendants. She was stabbed in the leg at least four times and both of her ankles were cut by a female suspect who allegedly taunted her, saying, “This one is for Kunta Kinte, and that’s what we do to niggers around here.”
“The Megan Williams case is beyond a doubt, one of the worst hate crimes in U.S. History. The Megan Williams case is even worse than the case of the Jena 6”…said Attorney Malik Shabazz Esq., Megan Williams Family Attorney and Spokesman for Black Lawyers For Justice, speaking at the October 3rd preliminary hearing in Logan County, West VA.
Shabazz also said, “The number of outright hate crimes and injustice cases against Blacks is rising so rapidly it’s hard for our office to keep track of. We are calling for every concerned person in our community to respond to this national crisis with vigor and due diligence. The November 3rd March in Charleston is a big step in the direction of organizing to challenge the tide of attacks occurring against Blacks”.
HATE CRIMES DOCUMENTED
In addition to the Megan Williams case, criminal acts of hatred and intimidation using hanging nooses have sprung up all over the nation. The hanging noose, central to the Jena case, is used by racists as an actionable threat to the safety and well being of Blacks, who have suffered innumerable historical injustices via hanging ropes and lynchings. On Sept 7th, a three foot noose was found hung at the University of Maryland, College Park, roiling the campus. On October 4th, the Pittsburgh Tribune Review reported that police were investigating several cases in which nooses were left at workplaces to intimidate black employees in the Pittsburgh area. The Tribune reported, “a supervisor at the Verizon Wireless Business Services Center in Marshall found a black doll with a noose around its neck and racial slurs directed at it.” Several similar hate crime incidents have been reported in the Pittsburgh area in the last month. In Long Island, New York last month, police found a noose hanging in the locker room. Many believed it was hung by a police officer and was in response to the newly elected Black police chief. Last month, in North Carolina, nooses were found hung at a public school. On October 3rd in Washington D.C., white students and historical Galluadet University for the deaf, reportedly held a Black student hostage for over an hour and repeatedly wrote “KKK” all over his body with markers. All over the U.S., Police assaulting and killing unarmed Black victims is on the rise again.
A FOLLOW UP TO JENA
The November 3rd National March against Hate Crimes is also an effort to end the continued persecution of the Jena 6. Mychal Bell and the Jena 6 are still facing jail after responding to racist persecution at the High school in Jena, Louisiana. Also the addresses and phone numbers of the Jena 6 Families were posted on Neo-Nazi/Klan websites, subsequently, white supremacists have committed acts of aggression near their homes and BLFJ has copies of letters from various Ku Klux Klan organizations directly threatening the Jena 6 families. Members of the Jena 6 are endorsing and are expected at this march.
Over 100 organizations, student groups, youth organizations, clergy, rappers, and leaders are set to endorse the November 3rd March (a list will be released on 10/15/07) Like in Jena, organizers going to get busses, travel the highway and organize to support Megan Williams and organize against these attacks.
SCHEDULE OF EVENTS
Friday November 2nd 7:00 pm: A pre march remembrance/ prayer vigil will take place at the Logan County trailer home where Megan Williams was kidnapped and tortured
Saturday November 3rd 12:00 noon: National March against Hate Crimes, Charleston, West VA. March will begin in front of West Virginia State University.
Saturday November 3rd 5:00 pm: Fundraiser for Megan Williams and Town Hall Meeting on Race Relations to take place at Rehoboth Cathedral of Christ in Charleston, West Virginia- Bishop James Carter III is the host pastor.
To Endorse This March Or For Updates And Further Details, Visit The Website: Www.Blacklawyersforjustice.Org Or Call (202) 397 -4577 The Email Is Shabazzlaw@aol.Com
Thursday, September 6, 2007
HAT TIP to Alan Bean at Friends of Justice
This comes to us Live from Jena
Posted: 05 Sep 2007 03:46 PM CDT
CNN Reporting on the Jena 6 Case
An enormous CNN truck was parked at the LaSalle Parish courthouse all day yesterday and it’s still there today. You can imagine how surreal it feels to walk into the lobby of the Townsmen Inn in Jena, or sit down with an Egg McMuffin at the Jena McDonalds and see the Jena story broadcasting live on CNN. The coverage hasn’t always been accurate, but the response has been immediate (my cell phone has been ringing every five minutes).
I will have more to say about developments in Jena when I get home. The big news is that Mychal Bell now faces a maximum of 15 years in prison after the conspiracy conviction was vacated by judge JP Mauffray. That is still unacceptable, of course, but it is a baby step in the right direction.
The courtroom was crammed throughout the day–at times it was difficult to get a seat. Half of the people in attendance appeared to be attorneys, many of them recent recruits to the legal fight. When a story gets the kind of round-the-clock coverage the Jena 6 has been receiving from CNN it is on the verge of becoming a national story. I was on a Pacifica radio program from Washington, DC this morning with Charles Ogletree of Harvard Law School (who has agreed to lend his prestige and expertise to the legal struggle). Dr. Ogletree told the host that Jena was the most important civil rights legal case since the Tulia drug sting (the case that created Friends of Justice). I think he’s right.
More when I return to Arlington.
Alan Bean
Friends of Justice
3415 Ainsworth Court
Arlington, TX 76016
806-729-7889 or 817-457-0025
Posted: 05 Sep 2007 03:46 PM CDT
CNN Reporting on the Jena 6 Case
An enormous CNN truck was parked at the LaSalle Parish courthouse all day yesterday and it’s still there today. You can imagine how surreal it feels to walk into the lobby of the Townsmen Inn in Jena, or sit down with an Egg McMuffin at the Jena McDonalds and see the Jena story broadcasting live on CNN. The coverage hasn’t always been accurate, but the response has been immediate (my cell phone has been ringing every five minutes).
I will have more to say about developments in Jena when I get home. The big news is that Mychal Bell now faces a maximum of 15 years in prison after the conspiracy conviction was vacated by judge JP Mauffray. That is still unacceptable, of course, but it is a baby step in the right direction.
The courtroom was crammed throughout the day–at times it was difficult to get a seat. Half of the people in attendance appeared to be attorneys, many of them recent recruits to the legal fight. When a story gets the kind of round-the-clock coverage the Jena 6 has been receiving from CNN it is on the verge of becoming a national story. I was on a Pacifica radio program from Washington, DC this morning with Charles Ogletree of Harvard Law School (who has agreed to lend his prestige and expertise to the legal struggle). Dr. Ogletree told the host that Jena was the most important civil rights legal case since the Tulia drug sting (the case that created Friends of Justice). I think he’s right.
More when I return to Arlington.
Alan Bean
Friends of Justice
3415 Ainsworth Court
Arlington, TX 76016
806-729-7889 or 817-457-0025
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Why Jena, Why Now?
Why did the black kids at Jena High School feel it necessary to ask permission to sit under a schoolyard shade tree that traditionally had been reserved and enjoyed by white students? Why couldn’t they just sit under the tree with any questions asked (since, here in 2007, all things are supposed to be fair and equal)? Did the black kids perceive a differential in treatment- that the white students had a privilege that black students could not enjoy?
Why did the white students drape three nooses over the tree? Considering the fact that these white kids were too young to remember how blacks were once lynched throughout the south, who reminded them this practice of dangling ropes with nooses before the eyes of black people? What was the intended affect?
Racism begins with the older generation and is passed down to the children, and to the children’s children, and so on. In the shadows of a shade tree, the black children in Jena, Louisiana must have grown up with a sense of insecurity, such that they felt the need to “ask permission” for a privilege that should have been taken for granted and enjoyed by all.
The nooses represented race hatred and open bigotry. Who would even challenge white supremacy in this little town of 3,000 where whites outnumbered blacks ten-to-one? Who would even care enough to pull back the covers of America and peer into her vile biles?
The privilege of supremacy is preserved and protected by the local police establishment. The Jena school administration turned a blind eye to the open display of bigotry but the minute black students protested the discrimination school officials call in the police. And here, the school system and the police force worked hand-in-hand to perpetuate the disparity in treatment.
Lackeys, like Jason Whitlock of FOXSports.com, would dig up as much dirt as possible on one of the black youths in order to spread the blame among all the parents. However, it seems that the only way black parents could have prevented their children from falling into this trap and getting in trouble would have been to advise their children to acquiesce to white supremacy and to go along to get along, and not rock the boat in race relations. With no such warning (neither from parent nor from black leaders who know how racism works), these six young men had no guidance but instincts. Would Mr. Whitlock like to give black teenage boys a lesson in turning the other cheek after they had been insulted and assaulted? What did Mr. Whitlock say of the First Law of Nature? Don’t strike back? Or does the “irresponsible” parent miss something in this sports jock’s critique?
Racism is not racism unless it is back by authority, police powers, and the institution of justice. White supremacy means that blacks can legally be punished if they refuse to go along with the program. And, blacks can be assured of punishment from the courts (disguised under the cloak of the "criminal justice system")if they buck the tradition in race relations in Jena.
Clearly, all things are not fair and equal in race relations in Jena, and probably never have been. But the civilized world and the American public seems so appalled that such atrocities are still being carried out in the 21st century. Young African-Americans are baffled because, growing up in an integrate world and going through a desegregated public school system, they have been brainwashed into believing that racism was dead. Had not the spotlight been put on the Jena, they would probably still be going through life, living a fairytale in Cookie Land, dismissing the fact that they, as blacks, are always targets of suppression.
Just to mention of this fact of life will get a commentator branded as a “race hater”. So, what do we do, Mr. Whitlock? Keep silent and let it happen? Let the Jena authorities devour our kids like a ham samich?
Living under the shadow of racism for so long, some things seem to just come naturally. An inferiority complex is one. Adopting an alien white value system is another.
Black people point the finger at each other and find every fault that white society has pegged to them. They develop the Pogo Syndrome: “We have seen the enemy, and it is us.”
But what if it is not we? Suppose it is “the system”?
God forbid! That would mean our distorted euro-concept of civil rights, which disguises itself as measuring up to white supremacist standards, would all be in vain. Oh no! The system has got to be perfect. It’s got to be the people who do not measure up. It’s got to be the Negroes’ fault.
From the perspective of a pious nose from a court bench, the judge can only see young black men charged with a serious crime. Never mind what happened before the December 4th assault. It’s irrelevant to the case.
The prosecutor, on the other hand, only wants an all-white jury to see one thing: A young black thug punching and kicking an innocent young white boy. White speaking to whiteness, it could have been their son or daughter. Oh horrors! But black speaking to blackness, it could have been our son or daughter. And, it usually is.
Why did the white students drape three nooses over the tree? Considering the fact that these white kids were too young to remember how blacks were once lynched throughout the south, who reminded them this practice of dangling ropes with nooses before the eyes of black people? What was the intended affect?
Racism begins with the older generation and is passed down to the children, and to the children’s children, and so on. In the shadows of a shade tree, the black children in Jena, Louisiana must have grown up with a sense of insecurity, such that they felt the need to “ask permission” for a privilege that should have been taken for granted and enjoyed by all.
The nooses represented race hatred and open bigotry. Who would even challenge white supremacy in this little town of 3,000 where whites outnumbered blacks ten-to-one? Who would even care enough to pull back the covers of America and peer into her vile biles?
The privilege of supremacy is preserved and protected by the local police establishment. The Jena school administration turned a blind eye to the open display of bigotry but the minute black students protested the discrimination school officials call in the police. And here, the school system and the police force worked hand-in-hand to perpetuate the disparity in treatment.
Lackeys, like Jason Whitlock of FOXSports.com, would dig up as much dirt as possible on one of the black youths in order to spread the blame among all the parents. However, it seems that the only way black parents could have prevented their children from falling into this trap and getting in trouble would have been to advise their children to acquiesce to white supremacy and to go along to get along, and not rock the boat in race relations. With no such warning (neither from parent nor from black leaders who know how racism works), these six young men had no guidance but instincts. Would Mr. Whitlock like to give black teenage boys a lesson in turning the other cheek after they had been insulted and assaulted? What did Mr. Whitlock say of the First Law of Nature? Don’t strike back? Or does the “irresponsible” parent miss something in this sports jock’s critique?
Racism is not racism unless it is back by authority, police powers, and the institution of justice. White supremacy means that blacks can legally be punished if they refuse to go along with the program. And, blacks can be assured of punishment from the courts (disguised under the cloak of the "criminal justice system")if they buck the tradition in race relations in Jena.
Clearly, all things are not fair and equal in race relations in Jena, and probably never have been. But the civilized world and the American public seems so appalled that such atrocities are still being carried out in the 21st century. Young African-Americans are baffled because, growing up in an integrate world and going through a desegregated public school system, they have been brainwashed into believing that racism was dead. Had not the spotlight been put on the Jena, they would probably still be going through life, living a fairytale in Cookie Land, dismissing the fact that they, as blacks, are always targets of suppression.
Just to mention of this fact of life will get a commentator branded as a “race hater”. So, what do we do, Mr. Whitlock? Keep silent and let it happen? Let the Jena authorities devour our kids like a ham samich?
Living under the shadow of racism for so long, some things seem to just come naturally. An inferiority complex is one. Adopting an alien white value system is another.
Black people point the finger at each other and find every fault that white society has pegged to them. They develop the Pogo Syndrome: “We have seen the enemy, and it is us.”
But what if it is not we? Suppose it is “the system”?
God forbid! That would mean our distorted euro-concept of civil rights, which disguises itself as measuring up to white supremacist standards, would all be in vain. Oh no! The system has got to be perfect. It’s got to be the people who do not measure up. It’s got to be the Negroes’ fault.
From the perspective of a pious nose from a court bench, the judge can only see young black men charged with a serious crime. Never mind what happened before the December 4th assault. It’s irrelevant to the case.
The prosecutor, on the other hand, only wants an all-white jury to see one thing: A young black thug punching and kicking an innocent young white boy. White speaking to whiteness, it could have been their son or daughter. Oh horrors! But black speaking to blackness, it could have been our son or daughter. And, it usually is.
Friday, June 29, 2007
Can We Save a Black Boy?
The only way to save a black boy is one child at a time. Today, it is Genarlow Wilson, The Jena Six, and Memory of Ron Pettiway.
Immediate Update:
Memory of Ron Pettiway
From: Cruse Pettaway said...
No Matter whats happens, My brother Ron I will Always Love U, I Miss the Days we spent together. I still remember the days you walk me back and forth to school. Even tho I know I couldn't see you at graduation, I know you were there. Before I go I wanted to say sorry for not making that song that night, not going bowling when u asked, and for leaving u there at Frozen Palace. But when we meet again I promise to make it up. Just know that I'll take everything u taught me and make it happen. But untill then I'm still waiting for you to walk through the front door.
shamaca Pettaway said...
OFFICERS ASSIA WARE AND MICHEAL BERNARD WILSON now have warrant application filed by my brother Roy Pettaway. We are not going to let the murder of my brother Ron die.
Our hearts go out to the Pettaway Family for The Loss of Ron. As reported by Francis L. Holland Blog:
http://francislholland.blogspot.com/2007/04/media-discusses-ron-and-roy-pettaway.html
Ron and Roy Pettaway, Shot from Behind by Fulton County, GA Police
Ron and Roy Pettway, Black men in Fulton County, GA, were partying in a bar when an argument broke out over an insult. Five minutes after the argument ended, the Fulton County Police arrived and ordered Ron Pettaway into the street. His brother Roy followed and saw police beating Ron, and he tried to help his brother. But, police shot Ron Pettaway in the back of the head, killng him, and they shot Roy in the back.
Both black men were unarmed, and both were shot in the back.
We need to ASK the Right People THE RIGHT QUESTIONS:
• Is there a current investigation of this shooting? If so, who is doing the investigating? Where is the Justice Department Civil Rights Division?
Here are the Telephone Numbers for Fulton County Board of Commissioners.
Telephone Numbers for Fulton County Board of Commissioners.
Gloria, Secretary to (African-American) Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard (404) 330-6100, said the District Attorney Howard had "just got the case," and she was unable to readily provide a statement about the status of the investigation.
We must hold law enforcement officers accountable for the actions and culpable to excessive use of force and murder-in-the-name-of-the-law. We have enough proof to show that the State of Georgia has returned to the type of lawlessness and violence against minority like in the days of Dr. Martin Luther King.
Call: Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue: (404) 656-1776
All-White Jury in Jena, Louisiana Swiftly Convicts Black Teenager
(The Jena Six Trials)
JENA, Louisiana -- Tears streamed down Melissa Bell's face Monday as the judge ruled in favor of LaSalle Parish District Attorney J. Reed Walters' motion to continue her son's trial more than a month. (“Racial demons rear heads”, Chicago Tribune, May 18, 2007)
According to the story, the white students guilty of the rope incident were suspended for three days. Black parents, who felt that the nooses signified a greater danger and threat, protested the ruling. It should have been treated as a racially motivated hate crime, in light of these subsequent events and chain reactions:
First, a series of fights between black and white students erupted at the high school over the nooses. Then, in late November, unknown arsonists set fire to the central wing of the school, which still sits in ruins. Off campus, a white youth beat up a black student who showed up at an all-white party. A few days later, another young white man pulled a shotgun on three black students at a convenience store.
Finally, on Dec. 4, a group of black students at the high school allegedly jumped a white student on his way out of the gym, knocked him unconscious and kicked him after he hit the floor. The victim—allegedly targeted because he was a friend of the students who hung the nooses and had been taunting blacks—was not seriously injured and spent only a few hours in the hospital.
But the LaSalle Parish district attorney, Reed Walters, opted to charge six black students with attempted second-degree murder and other offenses, for which they could face a maximum of 100 years in prison if convicted. All six were expelled from school.
Louisiana teen guilty in school beating case
Witnesses provide conflicting testimony
By Howard Witt
Tribune senior correspondent
Published June 29, 2007
HOUSTON -- An all-white jury in the central Louisiana town of Jena swiftly convicted a black teenager Thursday for attacking a white student in an incident that capped months of racial unrest and attracted the scrutiny of civil rights leaders concerned about the application of justice in the town.
Jurors convicted Mychal Bell, 17, of aggravated second-degree battery and conspiracy charges despite conflicting testimony from witnesses about whether Bell was among a group of black students who allegedly jumped the victim as he emerged from the gymnasium at the local high school on Dec. 4, knocking him unconscious.
Bell, a former high school football star who has been jailed since the incident, faces the possibility of more than 20 years in prison when he is sentenced July 31…
The aggravated battery charge against Bell involved the use of a dangerous weapon. Although no evidence of a gun, knife or other weapon was introduced, Walters argued, and the jury agreed, that the tennis shoes Bell was wearing at the time of the attack qualified as a dangerous weapon…
Bell's court-appointed public defender, Blane Williams, had urged the teenager to accept a plea bargain on the eve of the trial, but Bell declined. Williams, who is black, did not challenge the composition of the jury pool, which included no African-Americans, and the defense rested without calling any witnesses. He also excluded the teenager's parents from the courtroom.
"Blane Williams did not want to go to trial, he was not prepared to go to trial and he was angry when he was forced to go to trial," said Alan Bean, director of Friends of Justice, a Texas-based civil rights group that has closely followed the Jena case. "So he just sort of plowed ahead and decided to go through the motions."
SAVE A BLACK BOY FROM THIS UNDESERVED FATE:
Sign the Petition
Petition to the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice
This is a petition to request that the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice review events surrounding the prosecution of six Black students in Jena, Louisiana, for evidence of racial discrimination. The six students are reportedly facing prosecution for second degree attempted murder — and possible prison sentences of up to 100 years — for allegedly participating in an unarmed school brawl that resulted in no serious injuries.
The brawl followed months of racial tension after hangman's nooses were reportedly hung from a tree at the students'; school.
The prosecution of these young men represents a gross miscarriage of justice, punishing Black students for opposing segregation of their schools while ignoring the threatening and provocative acts of those engaging in segregation.
From a Chicago Tribune article on the cases:
"There’s been obvious racial discrimination in this case," said Joe Cook, executive director of the Louisiana chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, who described Jena as a “racial powder keg” primed to ignite. "It appears the black students were singled out and targeted in this case for some unusually harsh treatment."
In view of these facts, we the undersigned respectfully request that the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice launch a full investigation into events in Jena, Louisiana, beginning with the noose incident of August 31, 2006, and culminating in the alleged fight of December 4, 2006 to determine whether the civil rights of Jena residents have been violated.
PLEASE SIGN THE PETITION HERE
THE CASE OF Genarlow Wilson
A Sin, Not a Crime
Friday, June 29, 2007
Once, he was the homecoming king at Douglas County High. Now he's Georgia inmate No. 1187055, convicted of aggravated child molestation.
When he was a senior in high school, he received oral sex from a 10th grader. He was 17. She was 15. Everyone, including the girl and the prosecution, agreed she initiated the act. But because of an archaic Georgia law, it was a misdemeanor for teenagers less than three years apart to have sexual intercourse, but a felony for the same kids to have oral sex.
He's 20 now. Just two years into a 10-year sentence without possibility of parole, he peers through the thick glass and bars, trying to catch a glimpse of freedom. Outside, guard towers and rolls of coiled barbed wire remind him of who he is…
[Who he was] Genarlow Wilson was a good student with a 3.2 G.P.A. and football scholarships across the country. Maybe that is why his story broke into ESPN NEWS.
June 13, 2007 Genarlow Wilson Update
On Wednesday, July 13, Monroe County Superior Court Judge Thomas Wilson ordered the release of Genarlow Wilson. Calling Genarlow’s eleven year sentence a “miscarriage of justice,” Judge Wilson declared: “If this court, or any court, cannot recognize the injustice of what has occurred here, then our court system has lost sight of the goal our judicial system has always strived to accomplish… Justice being served in a fair and equal manner.” Additionally, Generalow will not be placed on the Georgia sex offender registry.
Unfortunately, Genarlow’s struggle is not over. A few hours after Judge Wilson’s decision, Georgia Attorney General Thurbert Baker filed for an appeal, meaning that the Georgia Supreme Court will now determine Genarlow’s fate. We asked the District Attorney to agree to bond but he did not, so we have to wait until July 5th to try and get a bond from the Douglas County Superior Court.
[Excerpt]
Civil rights activists work to free Wilson
Prayer vigil planned July 5 at Douglas County Courthouse
By JEREMY REDMON
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 06/26/07
A group of African-American civil rights activists spoke out today in support of freeing Genarlow Wilson from prison on bond pending an appeal of the 10-year prison sentence he got for having oral sex with a 15-year-old girl when he was 17.
The activists also announced plans for a prayer vigil on July 5 at the Douglas County Superior Court, where a bond hearing has been scheduled for Wilson
"Injustice to anyone is a threat to justice to everyone," the Rev. Joseph Lowery, a veteran civil rights activist and former Southern Christian Leadership Conference president, said at an afternoon news conference today.
"And we need to learn that. White people need to learn that. If they tolerate injustice for black folks, it is just a matter of time before injustice puts them on the calendar."
Lowery was joined by several other civil rights leaders and lawmakers, including Sens. Vincent Fort (D-Atlanta) and Emanuel Jones (D-Decatur) and Reps. Tyrone Brooks (D-Atlanta), Roberta Abdul-Salaam (D-Riverdale) and Rep. Al Williams (D-Midway), chairman of the Legislative Black Caucus.
What Can You Do?
1) Let District Attorney David McDade and other politicians of the state of Georgia know your outrage with the unjust incarceration of Genarlow Wilson. Sign our online petition demanding his freedom and that he not have to register as a sexual offender.
2) Donate to the Wilson Defense Fund. Monies collected will go to legal expenses and when released, an education fund for Genarlow Wilson.
3) Contact Attorney General Thurbert E. Baker
Phone: 404-656-3300
FAX: 404-657-8733
E-mail: agbaker@law.ga.gov
[ref. baby moses project]
Immediate Update:
Memory of Ron Pettiway
From: Cruse Pettaway said...
No Matter whats happens, My brother Ron I will Always Love U, I Miss the Days we spent together. I still remember the days you walk me back and forth to school. Even tho I know I couldn't see you at graduation, I know you were there. Before I go I wanted to say sorry for not making that song that night, not going bowling when u asked, and for leaving u there at Frozen Palace. But when we meet again I promise to make it up. Just know that I'll take everything u taught me and make it happen. But untill then I'm still waiting for you to walk through the front door.
shamaca Pettaway said...
OFFICERS ASSIA WARE AND MICHEAL BERNARD WILSON now have warrant application filed by my brother Roy Pettaway. We are not going to let the murder of my brother Ron die.
Our hearts go out to the Pettaway Family for The Loss of Ron. As reported by Francis L. Holland Blog:
http://francislholland.blogspot.com/2007/04/media-discusses-ron-and-roy-pettaway.html
Ron and Roy Pettaway, Shot from Behind by Fulton County, GA Police
Ron and Roy Pettway, Black men in Fulton County, GA, were partying in a bar when an argument broke out over an insult. Five minutes after the argument ended, the Fulton County Police arrived and ordered Ron Pettaway into the street. His brother Roy followed and saw police beating Ron, and he tried to help his brother. But, police shot Ron Pettaway in the back of the head, killng him, and they shot Roy in the back.
Both black men were unarmed, and both were shot in the back.
We need to ASK the Right People THE RIGHT QUESTIONS:
• Is there a current investigation of this shooting? If so, who is doing the investigating? Where is the Justice Department Civil Rights Division?
Here are the Telephone Numbers for Fulton County Board of Commissioners.
Telephone Numbers for Fulton County Board of Commissioners.
Gloria, Secretary to (African-American) Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard (404) 330-6100, said the District Attorney Howard had "just got the case," and she was unable to readily provide a statement about the status of the investigation.
We must hold law enforcement officers accountable for the actions and culpable to excessive use of force and murder-in-the-name-of-the-law. We have enough proof to show that the State of Georgia has returned to the type of lawlessness and violence against minority like in the days of Dr. Martin Luther King.
Call: Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue: (404) 656-1776
All-White Jury in Jena, Louisiana Swiftly Convicts Black Teenager
(The Jena Six Trials)
JENA, Louisiana -- Tears streamed down Melissa Bell's face Monday as the judge ruled in favor of LaSalle Parish District Attorney J. Reed Walters' motion to continue her son's trial more than a month. (“Racial demons rear heads”, Chicago Tribune, May 18, 2007)
According to the story, the white students guilty of the rope incident were suspended for three days. Black parents, who felt that the nooses signified a greater danger and threat, protested the ruling. It should have been treated as a racially motivated hate crime, in light of these subsequent events and chain reactions:
First, a series of fights between black and white students erupted at the high school over the nooses. Then, in late November, unknown arsonists set fire to the central wing of the school, which still sits in ruins. Off campus, a white youth beat up a black student who showed up at an all-white party. A few days later, another young white man pulled a shotgun on three black students at a convenience store.
Finally, on Dec. 4, a group of black students at the high school allegedly jumped a white student on his way out of the gym, knocked him unconscious and kicked him after he hit the floor. The victim—allegedly targeted because he was a friend of the students who hung the nooses and had been taunting blacks—was not seriously injured and spent only a few hours in the hospital.
But the LaSalle Parish district attorney, Reed Walters, opted to charge six black students with attempted second-degree murder and other offenses, for which they could face a maximum of 100 years in prison if convicted. All six were expelled from school.
Louisiana teen guilty in school beating case
Witnesses provide conflicting testimony
By Howard Witt
Tribune senior correspondent
Published June 29, 2007
HOUSTON -- An all-white jury in the central Louisiana town of Jena swiftly convicted a black teenager Thursday for attacking a white student in an incident that capped months of racial unrest and attracted the scrutiny of civil rights leaders concerned about the application of justice in the town.
Jurors convicted Mychal Bell, 17, of aggravated second-degree battery and conspiracy charges despite conflicting testimony from witnesses about whether Bell was among a group of black students who allegedly jumped the victim as he emerged from the gymnasium at the local high school on Dec. 4, knocking him unconscious.
Bell, a former high school football star who has been jailed since the incident, faces the possibility of more than 20 years in prison when he is sentenced July 31…
The aggravated battery charge against Bell involved the use of a dangerous weapon. Although no evidence of a gun, knife or other weapon was introduced, Walters argued, and the jury agreed, that the tennis shoes Bell was wearing at the time of the attack qualified as a dangerous weapon…
Bell's court-appointed public defender, Blane Williams, had urged the teenager to accept a plea bargain on the eve of the trial, but Bell declined. Williams, who is black, did not challenge the composition of the jury pool, which included no African-Americans, and the defense rested without calling any witnesses. He also excluded the teenager's parents from the courtroom.
"Blane Williams did not want to go to trial, he was not prepared to go to trial and he was angry when he was forced to go to trial," said Alan Bean, director of Friends of Justice, a Texas-based civil rights group that has closely followed the Jena case. "So he just sort of plowed ahead and decided to go through the motions."
SAVE A BLACK BOY FROM THIS UNDESERVED FATE:
Sign the Petition
Petition to the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice
This is a petition to request that the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice review events surrounding the prosecution of six Black students in Jena, Louisiana, for evidence of racial discrimination. The six students are reportedly facing prosecution for second degree attempted murder — and possible prison sentences of up to 100 years — for allegedly participating in an unarmed school brawl that resulted in no serious injuries.
The brawl followed months of racial tension after hangman's nooses were reportedly hung from a tree at the students'; school.
The prosecution of these young men represents a gross miscarriage of justice, punishing Black students for opposing segregation of their schools while ignoring the threatening and provocative acts of those engaging in segregation.
From a Chicago Tribune article on the cases:
"There’s been obvious racial discrimination in this case," said Joe Cook, executive director of the Louisiana chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, who described Jena as a “racial powder keg” primed to ignite. "It appears the black students were singled out and targeted in this case for some unusually harsh treatment."
In view of these facts, we the undersigned respectfully request that the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice launch a full investigation into events in Jena, Louisiana, beginning with the noose incident of August 31, 2006, and culminating in the alleged fight of December 4, 2006 to determine whether the civil rights of Jena residents have been violated.
PLEASE SIGN THE PETITION HERE
THE CASE OF Genarlow Wilson
A Sin, Not a Crime
Friday, June 29, 2007
Once, he was the homecoming king at Douglas County High. Now he's Georgia inmate No. 1187055, convicted of aggravated child molestation.
When he was a senior in high school, he received oral sex from a 10th grader. He was 17. She was 15. Everyone, including the girl and the prosecution, agreed she initiated the act. But because of an archaic Georgia law, it was a misdemeanor for teenagers less than three years apart to have sexual intercourse, but a felony for the same kids to have oral sex.
He's 20 now. Just two years into a 10-year sentence without possibility of parole, he peers through the thick glass and bars, trying to catch a glimpse of freedom. Outside, guard towers and rolls of coiled barbed wire remind him of who he is…
[Who he was] Genarlow Wilson was a good student with a 3.2 G.P.A. and football scholarships across the country. Maybe that is why his story broke into ESPN NEWS.
June 13, 2007 Genarlow Wilson Update
On Wednesday, July 13, Monroe County Superior Court Judge Thomas Wilson ordered the release of Genarlow Wilson. Calling Genarlow’s eleven year sentence a “miscarriage of justice,” Judge Wilson declared: “If this court, or any court, cannot recognize the injustice of what has occurred here, then our court system has lost sight of the goal our judicial system has always strived to accomplish… Justice being served in a fair and equal manner.” Additionally, Generalow will not be placed on the Georgia sex offender registry.
Unfortunately, Genarlow’s struggle is not over. A few hours after Judge Wilson’s decision, Georgia Attorney General Thurbert Baker filed for an appeal, meaning that the Georgia Supreme Court will now determine Genarlow’s fate. We asked the District Attorney to agree to bond but he did not, so we have to wait until July 5th to try and get a bond from the Douglas County Superior Court.
[Excerpt]
Civil rights activists work to free Wilson
Prayer vigil planned July 5 at Douglas County Courthouse
By JEREMY REDMON
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 06/26/07
A group of African-American civil rights activists spoke out today in support of freeing Genarlow Wilson from prison on bond pending an appeal of the 10-year prison sentence he got for having oral sex with a 15-year-old girl when he was 17.
The activists also announced plans for a prayer vigil on July 5 at the Douglas County Superior Court, where a bond hearing has been scheduled for Wilson
"Injustice to anyone is a threat to justice to everyone," the Rev. Joseph Lowery, a veteran civil rights activist and former Southern Christian Leadership Conference president, said at an afternoon news conference today.
"And we need to learn that. White people need to learn that. If they tolerate injustice for black folks, it is just a matter of time before injustice puts them on the calendar."
Lowery was joined by several other civil rights leaders and lawmakers, including Sens. Vincent Fort (D-Atlanta) and Emanuel Jones (D-Decatur) and Reps. Tyrone Brooks (D-Atlanta), Roberta Abdul-Salaam (D-Riverdale) and Rep. Al Williams (D-Midway), chairman of the Legislative Black Caucus.
What Can You Do?
1) Let District Attorney David McDade and other politicians of the state of Georgia know your outrage with the unjust incarceration of Genarlow Wilson. Sign our online petition demanding his freedom and that he not have to register as a sexual offender.
2) Donate to the Wilson Defense Fund. Monies collected will go to legal expenses and when released, an education fund for Genarlow Wilson.
3) Contact Attorney General Thurbert E. Baker
Phone: 404-656-3300
FAX: 404-657-8733
E-mail: agbaker@law.ga.gov
[ref. baby moses project]
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