Jena is currently a “happened” story.  The mainstream media reports on events, developments, action.  A story has a somewhat longer shelf-life with columnists in search of “news hooks” for their commentary–big, iconic events the reader can be presumed to know something about.  Toss together three or four news hooks related by a common theme and your column is half written–now you just have to come up with a point. 

Joseph Evans is a black pastor in Washington, DC.  His use of the Jena saga tells us a great deal about the settled state of public opinion.  What happened to people like the Jena 6 and Megan Williams in West Virginia, Rev. Evans says, “serve as constant reminders that we have not arrived to the founder’s ideal of ‘a more perfect union'”. 

People like Alan Bean and Craig Franklin can pontificate endlessly on what really happened in Jena, but hardly anybody is listening.  News consumers like the Rev. Joseph Evans checked out a few days after the September 20th march, and this is their verdict: what happened in Jena was a legal travesty.

That’s where the consensus ends.  Some go on argue that the rural South hasn’t changed as much as we were inclined to believe.  Some say that Jena is symptomatic of the unequal justice dispensed by the American legal system.  And then there are folks like Rev. Evans who acknowledge horrors like the Jena 6 and Megan Williams, insert a semi-colon, and move on to some form of “on the other hand” observation.

Jena is bad, Joseph Evans admits; on the other hand, black-on-black crime is worse. 

To make the point, Evans brings up another news hook: the case of slain Washington Redskins star, Sean Taylor; a black male killed by other black males.  If we’re going to be marching, the preacher says, we ought to be marching in protest of young hoodlums who spray bullets throughout their own communities.  Heck, you could probably draft the sainted Bill Cosby to lead a march like that!

But who and what would we be protesting?  Punks with guns?  Are the bangers going to see 20,000, placard waving zealots marching through their poor DC neighborhood and realize that the jig is up.  “Oh my God,” banger A says to banger B, “it appears that mainstream society frowns upon our irresponsible antics and is demanding change.  I guess we’ll have to turn our pieces over to the appropriate authorities and re-enroll in high school.”

Public protest doesn’t address the Megan Williams and Sean Taylor tragedies for a simple reason–these cases bear no relation to public policy or to the actions of public officials.  Jena isn’t primarily about black kids beating on a white kid, nor is it about white kids hanging nooses; Jena is a story about the abuse of power.  Public officials sometimes respond to public protest; racist sickos and ghetto thugs do not.

We should be concerned about grotesque expressions of white racism and we should care about black-on-black violence; but the response needs to be qualitatively different.  Organized protest and “ain’t-it-awful” hand-wringing will have no effect on these problems . . . except to establish the moral superiority of the hand-wringers.

Noose hangings and violent assaults are symptoms of a toxic social environment.  Rev. Evans calls for “quiet community-based results oriented, discussions within the African American community.”  A good idea, but if the discussion never addresses public policy, and the white politicians who shape it, we won’t get anywhere.  The black community can’t solve this problem on its own.  Nor can white politicians.  Conversations should begin in poor black neighborhoods and within the corridors of power, but eventually the poor and the powerful must listen to one another.

So long as we see the madness within society as a sign that poor people are making bad decisions nothing will change.  Similarly, if we assume that rich white folks share the full weight of responsibility for the problems of poor, black America, progress will be impossible.  We are dealing with a toxic social environment.  Because everybody is part of the problem, everybody must be part of the solution. 

Black-on-black crime?

By Joseph Evans

Few would argue that race relations in America remain in dire straits in many social stratus and classes. The so-called “Jena Six” in Jena, Louisiana, and the shameless event in southern West Virginia, involving a young African America woman, Megan Williams, serve as constant reminders that we have not arrived to the founder’s ideal of “a more perfect union.”
 

These horrific events attracted warranted public outrage and media coverage. Leaders from all segments of American culture were present to protest racism, perceived or otherwise. They should be applauded for civic responsibility and loudly denouncing these kinds of behavior as un-American and uncivil. Grassroots organizations and humble citizens — black, white, Asian, female and male — came from various sections of the nation unified to say no to these kinds of activities and to rightly demand justice.
 

Familiar African American public figures were at the forefront. They ardently spoke against what seems to be a too often reoccurring theme in American culture, whites victimizing blacks. Many of them are perceived to be leaders in African American public life; and by proxy, they are believed to serve as authoritative voices on African American contemporary culture and guardians of civil rights and African American pathos.
 

In light of these two incidents in Louisiana and West Virginia, how do we process Sean Taylor’s tragedy? Because he died, it seems to truncate these other crimes. Maybe it’s the distressing way his death happened. Many of the details surrounding this heinous act are still unclear. Sadly, details about those arrested for the crime are not. They are very clear. Mr. Taylor was slain with his girl friend and child in his home and the alleged assailants are young African American men. It seems like “black on black” crime.
 

Understandably, across the land, many are grieving; some participate in the National Football League and some are simply moved by this violation of privacy and property that resulted in murder. Maybe it’s because his life was a symbol of what hard work and getting the right breaks complimented by God-given talents can produce. Mr. Taylor found material success. He was living the American dream, proving that all things are possible. His American dream was ascending but eclipsed by needless violence, apparently at the hands of African American males. Maybe that is why so many of us are depressed.
 

Statistics reveal that more African American men are in a penal system for similar crimes than in colleges, universities or trade schools. Still, staggering numbers are commonplace as Bill Cosby states in his book “Come on People: On the Path From Victims to Victors”: “Homicide is the number one cause of death for black men between fifteen and twenty – nine years of age and has been for decades.” Where is the public outrage and demand for justice and answers? Is public ambivalence – black and white — a sign that “black on black” violence is not as offensive? Can blacks, whites, Asians, females and males convene around a proverbial table and say “No more. We want justice”?
 

Is it too much to hope that Mr. Taylor’s needless murder causes diverse leadership across this nation to begin honest dialogue about African American male rage, dysfunction and displacement? Can we ask some of the familiar African American public figures to organize rallies in some of the most plagued cities where murder and crime occur mostly at the hands of our young African American men? Can they lead high profile or quiet community-based results oriented, discussions within the African American community, stating that “we cannot survive like this?”
 

Is there a correlation between inner-city schools failing to educate and prepare young people for their futures and the fact that currently much of African American family life is at its lowest ebb, partly because fathers are not in many homes? We do know that there is a clear and present danger of fatalism threatening to destroy our thinly veiled fabric of African American social stability. Can we find some leaders who will call for a moratorium finally, to discover if these plagues are causes and effects for African American males’ rage?

As disgusting as the Jena Six and Meagan Williams’ episodes remain, Sean Taylor died. Perhaps his death will force American culture to face this reoccurring nightmare, African American men are killing each other. Why?
 

The Rev. Joseph Evans is pastor of Mount Carmel Baptist Church in Washington.

Andrew Sullivan’s article on Barack Obama is the best piece of political writing I have seen in this election season.  Consider this:

At its best, the Obama candidacy is about ending a war – not so much the war in Iraq, which will continue into the next decade – but the civil war within America that has prevailed since Vietnam and has crippled the country at the very time the world needs it most. It is a war about war – and culture and religion and race. And in that war, Obama – and Obama alone – offers the possibility of a truce.

Sullivan’s take on Obama’s religion reveals a rare sensitivity and insight.  His treatment of Obama’s measured response to Jena is brilliant.

Friends of Justice is politically non-partisan; as an organization we have no political affiliation and we don’t endorse candidates.   Here, I write as a Canadian who is trying to become an American citizen so he can vote.   Unfortunately, the Homeland Security people don’t seem to like my criminal justice reform work.  At any rate, my application has been on hold now for over three years because, I am told, I have failed to obtain security clearance.  I doubt Jena helped my candidacy that much.  Although I cannot vote, I have a powerful investment in the coming election. 

Three of us Beans heard the leading three candidates debate in June (my wife, Nancy, and my daughter, Lydia were with me in Washington).  At the time I was leaning toward John Edwards.  Hillary Clinton was by far the most polished performer–on that occasion at least.  But there is something about Obama that moves me, and this article helped me understand why. 

From The Sunday Times

December 16, 2007

The new face of America

Once written off, Barack Obama is suddenly surging in the polls and could become the first African-American president . The reason is because he is the only man who can halt the racial, religious and cultural civil war that is tearing America apart. (more…)

This Commonweal article by Joe Petit came as a great relief.  Finally, somebody in America appears to understand the true significance of Jena.  Throwing charges of racism at people like Jena prosecutor Reed Walters can be counterproductive, Pettit argues, because it deflects attention from the systemic nature of American injustice.  Changing hearts isn’t enough; we need to change public policy.  On the other hand, Pettit understands that you can’t change public policy without changing hearts and minds–particularly the hearts and minds of white people.  Pettit’s black students ask him why white America is so unconcerned about the plight of poor black Americans.  Jena raises the same question.

This penetrating column focuses on the nature of freedom.  When we say, “Free the Jena 6!” what are we saying?  To me, the phrase meant that justice would not be served until the Jena 6 were freed from the spiteful prosecution of Reed Walters and the overheated and grossly biased judicial context of LaSalle Parish.  But many white observers have taken the phrase to mean that black offenders should not be held accountable.

The misunderstanding, Pettit suggests, is rooted in the underreporting of critically important events–primarily Reed Walters’ September threat to destroy the lives of those who continued to protest the school’s handling of the noose incident.   This bizarre statement suggests that (a) Walters helped create the toxic atmosphere that led to a weekend of racial violence, and that (b) the prosecutor’s bias means he cannot fairly represent the interests of justice.  Only when these facts are understood can we get a feel for the familiar cry, “Free the Jena 6”.

November 23, 2007 / Volume CXXXIV, Number 20  

SHORT TAKE

Free at Last?

YES & NO

Joe Pettit

 Late last year six black teenagers were charged-as adults-with attempted murder, for beating a white classmate in rural Jena, Louisiana. The beating followed a series of racially charged incidents, including the hanging of nooses from a tree on school property. Though the district attorney eventually reduced the excessive charge to battery, widespread outrage had already been aroused, and in August tens of thousands of civil-rights protestors descended on Jena, bringing with them intense national media coverage.

Large-scale civil-rights marches are uncommon these days, and the protests against the treatment of the “Jena 6,” as the young men came to be known, provided a glimpse of racial tensions that all too often get papered over. This revelation followed on the heels of a hotly contested Supreme Court decision narrowly overturning school integration plans in Seattle and Louisville. Taken together, the two events make it clear that Americans remain as divided as ever over how to think about the legacy of racism in the United States-and what to do about it.

As a white professor who teaches social ethics at a historically black university, I reflect on this question almost daily. The debate is unnecessarily confused. Everyone seems to be talking about freedom, yet few acknowledge that the word is being used in very different ways. The difference lies in how freedom relates to opportunity. On the one hand, freedom can mean the choices we make with the opportunities we are given. But it can also mean the amount of opportunity available to us. Being born into a community rich in opportunity-or one lacking in it-has profound implications for our freedom. Many white people think that the thirty-odd years since most legal discrimination was abolished, plus the decades of social-assistance programs, mean we can stop worrying about race. And many black people know that a disproportionately high number of African Americans remain mired in poverty, crime, and hopelessness.

The scriptures of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam contain another way to frame the two dimensions of freedom. Each religious tradition exhorts its adherents to live up to divine expectations of righteousness. God, speaking through the prophets, also expects that the poor and the vulnerable will be protected by a commitment to justice. In biblical times, whenever societies allowed this justice to fail, and the poor to remain isolated and ignored, they incurred the prophet’s wrath. But how would a prophet speak today about race and social justice in a way that would enable Americans to move beyond the current impasse?

First, despite the enduring legacy and the persistence of racism, it needs to be said that lobbing accusations of racism is not helpful. Indeed, such accusations can have the paradoxical effect of reducing the problem to the need for a change of heart, rather than the need for a change in public policy. Instead, we should focus on responsibility. Both the rich and the poor have responsibilities. Those who live in opportunity-rich communities, for example, often work to keep lower-cost housing out of their neighborhoods. They need to be reminded that “personal responsibility” should include not only taking care of one’s own family but also addressing injustice.

On a broader scale, we need to recognize that the very structure of our political system perpetuates the isolation of those who live in opportunity-poor neighborhoods, concentrating poverty and hopelessness in relatively few political districts, thereby further diminishing the political power of the residents. And the courts haven’t helped much of late. The Supreme Court ruling on public-school integration in Louisville and Seattle failed to help us understand how to reduce racial inequality. Chief Justice John Roberts’s attempt to minimize the scope, meaning, and implications of Brown v. Board of Education was, at best, naive. In fact, Brown was a judicial intervention designed to curtail the ability of federal, state, and local governments to perpetuate racial inequality by giving blacks an inferior education.

Yet the dissent by Justice Stephen Breyer was not as “eloquent and unanswerable” as Justice John Paul Stevens seemed to believe. Breyer spent over half his sixty-eight-page opinion arguing that integration programs are permissible. But lots of unfortunate things are constitutionally permissible; and Breyer’s attempt to clarify why such programs might be desirable was unconvincing. He cited no instance of actual harm caused by the Seattle and Louisville school systems. (In fact, both systems offered an unsually wide choice of schools for all students, making them something of a racial Shangri-La compared with systems in which students are limited to the school district in which they reside.) Finally, although Breyer appealed to the “democratic” value of creating educational systems that reflect a “pluralistic society”-an argument that makes racial diversity a legitimate concern-he never explained how much diversity is enough. Nor did he help us understand the rather confusing claim by the Louisville school administration that schools where 85 percent of the students are white are racially acceptable, while schools where 51 percent of the students are black are unacceptable. What’s a self-respecting black student to make of that?

The Jena 6 protests were another missed opportunity to advance the discussion on racial inequality. The protests made clear that racism still drastically affects people’s lives, especially when it is bolstered by judicial and political power. But the demand to “Free the Jena 6” gave many outsiders the impression that protestors thought the six teens should not be held responsible for the attack on the white student. What casual observers could not see was the background of the incident: that groups of white students had previously attacked blacks with impunity; that the white district attorney in Jena had allegedly threatened black students at the school, warning them he could ruin their lives with the “stroke of a pen.” These facts were underreported, and so the message the wider public took away from “Free the Jena 6” was that demands for racial justice are at odds with the demands of personal responsibility.

A different slogan-say, “Equal Lives, Equal Justice”-could have focused more clearly on the problem of racial disparity in the criminal-justice system. But in the end, will anyone change his or her political convictions in order to defend criminals? Reducing racial inequality requires seeing the consequences of history and policy not on criminals, but on human beings. And while much can be accomplished through changes in public policy, what’s most lacking is what’s most needed: the sympathy and support of mainstream white America. This is what perplexes my students. While many of them are willing to accept that greater attention to personal responsibility is necessary in many poor black neighborhoods, they also wonder why so few white people feel a responsibility to eliminate the legacies of slavery and discrimination.

We hear it all the time: Americans are a believing people. But belief in God demands empathy and solidarity with those who suffer, even when this means supporting people who have made bad choices. Too many Americans have concluded that persistent racial inequality is not their problem. This denial of responsibility lies at the heart of our abiding racial problem.

Barack Obama is currently running neck-and-neck with Hillary Clinton . . . among black voters.  His caution on issues like race and justice is understandable (white voters like to believe that racial equality is a done deal in America).  Obama may have figured that black voters would support him simply because Hillary is white, but that reasoning hasn’t worked, so the first African American presidential candidate with a fighting chance of success is reaching out to the black community . . . and Jena is part of his pitch.

This suggests that the Obama camp is making two assumptions: (1) their candidate must address the issues raised by the Jena case forthrightly if he hopes to win the hearts of black voters; and (2) that doing so won’t hurt him with the white voters currently supporting his candidacy. 

I suspect the Obama people are right on both counts.

I was particularly gratified by a statement at the very end of this piece in the Chicago Tribune: “I’m tired of reading about Jena.  I’m tired of reading about nooses and I’m tired of hearing about a Justice Department that doesn’t understand justice.”

Barack Obama may be the only presidential candidate (in either party) capable of inspiring passion in his followers.  To win, he needs to feed that passion.

Obama brings his message to Harlem

By Mike Dorning | Tribune national correspondent

November 30, 2007

NEW YORK – Sen. Barack Obama invoked Rev. Martin Luther King’s “fierce urgency of now” as he made his first visit as a presidential candidate to America’s most famous black neighborhood, Harlem, venturing within sight of Bill Clinton’s office.

“I want to stand up for those who still hunger for opportunity, who still thirst for justice,” Obama said Thursday night. “I don’t want to wake up and find out four years from now that we missed this opportunity. … We cannot wait.” The last quote is a reference to King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail.”

Most of the local African-American political leadership, led by House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Rep. Charles Rangel, have lined up behind New York’s favorite daughter, Sen. Hillary Clinton.

But long lines of overwhelmingly black supporters waited outside for a $50-a-seat fundraiser at the Apollo Theater, a cultural institution. The Harlem Gospel Choir sang the gospel standard “Oh Happy Day” while waiting for the candidate.

“How does it feel to be part of history?” asked scholar Cornel West, bringing the crowd to its feet.

“You’d be real embarrassed if he won and we wasn’t down,” said comedian Chris Rock, introducing Obama. “I had that white lady. What was I thinking? What was I thinking?”

Obama also spoke about the Jena 6 case of black teens charged in a racially tinged incident in Louisiana.

“I’m tired of reading about Jena,’ he said. “I’m tired of reading about nooses and I’m tired of hearing about a Justice Department that doesn’t understand justice.”

Obama used the visit to pay homage to Rev. Al Sharpton, one of the few prominent local leaders who has not yet chosen whom to back, though he said he will “very shortly.”

The two dined on corn bread, coconut shrimp and fried chicken wings at Sylvia’s, a famous soul food restaurant.

Speaking later with reporters, Sharpton said, ‘Tonight he came to Harlem, and he came with a message that Harlem likes [and] wants someone to discuss at a presidential level, that is hate crimes.”

If you have been looking for the precise details of Mychal Bell’s plea agreement this piece by Sherrel Wheeler Stewart should answer all your questions.  

Jena Six’s Mychal Bell Accepts Plea Deal, Gets 18 Months in Juvenile Custody for Beating

Date: Tuesday, December 04, 2007
By: Sherrel Wheeler Stewart, BlackAmericaWeb.com

Mychal Bell, a former standout high school football player in Jena, Louisiana, was sentenced Monday to 18 months in juvenile custody for his role in the beating of a white classmate one year ago.

The sentence is part of a plea agreement accepted by LaSalle Parish Judge J.P. Mauffrey three days before Bell was set to go to trial in juvenile court for the fight with Justin Barker on Dec. 4, 2006. The case captured national attention because of the severity of the initial charges and the fact that whites who committed offenses in the town were handled differently, parents and activists said.

Under the plea, Bell:

· Admitted to second degree battery, which would be a felony punishable by up to five years in prison if he in adult.

· Was ordered to serve 18 months in the custody of the Office of Youth Development, receiving credit for time already served.

· Agreed to pay his pro rata share of restitution to the Barker family for medical costs not covered by insurance.

· Agreed to pay court costs.

· Agreed to testify truthfully in the cases of any of the five co-defendants who goes to trial.

Bell’s parents also agreed to continue paying the state child support until their son reaches the age of 18. He is 17 now.

Bell’s share of Barker’s medical bill is about $935, said Bill Furlow, a spokesman for LaSalle Parish District Attorney Reed Walters. The amount of court costs is yet to be determined, Furlow told BlackAmericaWeb.com.

Bell is one of six youths charged in the case that touched off one of the largest civil rights protests in recent history. He and Carwin Jones, Bryant Purvis, Theo Shaw, Robert Bailey Jr., and an unnamed juvenile were charged in the fight, which followed weeks of unrest in the rural Louisiana town of 3,000. Originally five of the six were charged with felonies in adult court.

The amount of their bonds ranged as high as $135,000, and the potential sentences on the felony charges for those being handled as adults could have ranged as high as 75 years, attorneys have said.

Bell was the first to be convicted as an adult in June, but an appeals court overturned that conviction, saying that the matter should have been handled in juvenile court because of Bell’s age at the time of the incident.

LaSalle Parish District Attorney Reed Walters said in a prepared statement Monday that he hopes to wrap up the other cases early next year.

A trial date of Jan. 28 has been set for both Jones and Shaw, said Bill Furrow, a spokesman for Walters.

Alan Bean, head of Friends of Justice, a group that began working in January to bring attention to the case, said Bell’s agreement sets a pattern, but not a blueprint for the handling of the remaining cases.

“This shows that the D.A. is willing to consider plea agreements in the best interest of the people of Jena, the defendants and himself,” Bean told BlackAmericaWeb.com.

Bell‘s team of lawyers, led by Louis Scott, were getting ready for trial and the opportunity to call witnesses to Bell‘s defense. In his earlier trial, a court-appointed lawyer did not call witnesses in defense of Bell.

His new lawyers say the plea was best for their client.

“We were prepared to go forward with the trial, but you have to do what’s best for the client,” said Carol Powell Lexing, one of Bell’s attorneys.

Attempts to reach Scott were unsuccessful.

Several activists, including the Rev. Al Sharpton, had said previously that Bell should be released based on the time he already has served. He was locked up on adult charges immediately following the incident last year. He remained in jail until late September after his conviction was overturned.

Days later, the judge ordered Bell to a juvenile facility, saying that by fighting on Dec. 4, he had violated the terms of probation for earlier unrelated offenses. He was given 18 months of juvenile time for those offenses. With the acceptance of the plea agreement, the time served will now run concurrently. Still, however, Bell could be in jail at least another year. He also will be given credit for time served on the sentence in connection with the Dec. 4 incident.

Bean said that there is an upside to the plea agreement. “At least now there is some certainty. Mychal Bell knows that there is a date where he can return to the free world,“ he said.
 
Walters said he would try to work out plea deals with the other teens charged in Barker’s beating. He said his decision to work out a deal was not influenced by the intense media coverage and civil rights demonstrations.

Barker spent several hours in the emergency room after the attack, but was discharged and attended a school event soon afterward.

Critics said prosecutors have treated blacks more harshly than whites in LaSalle Parish, pointing to an incident three months before the attack on Barker in which three white teens were accused of hanging nooses from a tree at the high school. The three were suspended from school but never criminally charged.

—

Associated Press contributed to this report.

Mychal Bell’s plea bargain caught me, and almost everyone else, by surprise.  Mr. Bell’s attorneys were talking tough–as if they were prepared to go to trial this Thursday; a surprising move considering that any competent attorney would have been putting off the day of reckoning by filing motions to recuse Reed Walters and change the venue.

Mychal’s attorneys were able to get a reasonable plea offer from the LaSalle Parish District Attorney because Reed Walters doesn’t want to face a recusal hearing that would draw media attention to his complicity in the sad events of December 4, 2006.  It was a year ago today that Justin Barker was felled by a single punch; but the animosity between black and white students dated back to the first week of September when Walters tried to intimidate black students into dropping their protest with a stroke of his pen. 

When the legal process in Mychal’s case was opened to public scrutiny, Reed Walters saw the writing on the wall.  Plea agreements draw a few lines of passing interest from the media; a full-blown trial would have placed the Jena 6 back on the front page and on the evening news.  That wouldn’t have been good for Walters, it wouldn’t have been good for Jena, and it probably wouldn’t have helped the defendants either.

Hopefully, yesterday’s plea agreement has sucked the wind from the sails of the March for Hate scheduled for Jena on Martin Luther King Day.  Read Craig Franklin’s recent article on the event (at the bottom of the page–you have to wait a minute for it to come up) and tell me if he sounds enthusiastic about the impending event, horrified by it, or if he has mixed feelings.  Franklin clearly spent a long time chatting with event organizers.  Jena officials aren’t officially endorsing the march-from-hell; but they aren’t distancing themselves from it either.

Hopefully, if all these cases are resolved (or near resolution) by mid-January, these twisted individuals will keep their confederate flags flapping in the back yard instead of parading them down main street.  If so, Jena will have dodged a bullet.  A well-publicized hate march would solidify the community’s reputation as the most racist town in America.  It is time for community leaders to take the stand against overt bigotry they failed to take in September of 2006.  I can’t think of a better way to change public perception.

Did Mychal Bell administer the knock out punch to Justin Barker?  I still don’t know.  True, his plea agreement involves a frank, and presumably sincere, admission of guilt.  But innocent people frequently admit to crimes they didn’t commit if they think it will improve their legal standing.  Nonetheless, as a point of law, it is now established that Mychal Bell knocked Justin Barker cold. 

Like me, the parents of the Jena 6 have mixed feelings about yesterday’s ruling.  Something there is that loves a court fight.  The media is praying for such a dispensation.  But, as I suggest below in Howard Witt’s article in the Chicago Tribune, it would be in the best interest of all if this saga is resolved out of court.  My prayer is that none of the remaining defendants will face additional prison time–but I don’t get to make that call.

It has always been my primary concern to see these kids represented by competent legal counsel with the media (mainstream and independent) looking on.  The legal system tends to work properly when attorneys know their business and the public takes an lively interest.  Stay tuned.

chicagotribune.com

TRIBUNE UPDATE

Plea deal arranged for teen in Jena 6

No trial, lesser charge may ease way for rest

By Howard Witt

Tribune senior correspondent

December 4, 2007

HOUSTON

The district attorney in the racially-charged Jena 6 case in Louisiana agreed to a plea bargain Monday that sharply reduced the charges against the first of the six black teenagers who was facing trial, while attorneys for other defendants said the prosecutor appeared eager to settle their cases as well.

LaSalle Parish District Atty. Reed Walters, whose initial decision to charge the black teenagers with attempted murder for beating a white youth was condemned as excessive by civil rights leaders, dropped a conspiracy charge against Mychal Bell, 17, and agreed to let him plead guilty to a juvenile charge of second-degree battery, with a sentence of 18 months and credit for time he has served in jail.

District Judge J.P. Mauffray approved the plea agreement Monday afternoon, just three days before Bell’s trial in juvenile court was to have begun. Bell’s attorneys said Walters offered them the plea agreement Thursday, a week after a coalition of U.S. media companies, led by the Chicago Tribune, successfully sued Mauffray to force him to open the trial to the public and the press.

“This case has been a very difficult chapter in the town’s life and for the individuals involved,” said David Utter, an attorney for another of the Jena 6 defendants who was charged as a juvenile. “My sense is that the district attorney would like to close this chapter now.”

Utter and attorneys for several other Jena 6 defendants confirmed that they were engaged in plea negotiations with the district attorney, heralding a potential conclusion to the controversial case that drew more than 20,000 protesters to Jena in September and earned the small Louisiana town a portrayal by civil rights leaders and the national media as a racist backwater.

The latest turnabout

The decision to reduce the charges against Bell was the latest turnabout for Walters, who had vowed to aggressively prosecute the six black youths for their alleged roles in assaulting Justin Barker at Jena High School on Dec. 4, 2006, and kicking him while he lay unconscious.

The incident capped months of racial unrest in the town set off when three white students hung nooses from a tree traditionally used by whites at the high school after black students sought permission to sit beneath its shade.

Black students and their parents regarded the noose incident as a hate crime and demanded that the white perpetrators be expelled, but school officials dismissed the incident as a prank and issued lesser punishments. A series of fights ensued between black and white youths, but civil rights leaders asserted that the schools and the courts in Jena treated black students more harshly than whites for similar offenses.

After the Jena story gained national attention last spring, Walters backed away from the attempted murder charges and instead charged the six teenagers with aggravated second-degree battery and conspiracy. He tried Bell on those charges as an adult in June and won a conviction, but an appeals court reversed the verdict in September, ruling that Bell should have been prosecuted as a juvenile.

Since then, Walters has come under growing political pressure to conclude the Jena 6 cases. Local leaders have been dreading a drawn-out series of criminal trials that would keep Jena in the spotlight throughout 2008. And Louisiana’s departing governor, Kathleen Blanco, directly pressed Walters not to pursue an appeal of the decision that struck down Bell’s adult conviction.

Walters did not address the question of political pressure, but he said in a statement Monday that he hopes to have the remaining Jena 6 cases resolved early next year.

“My goal and intention has always been to find appropriate justice for Justin Barker, and I believe this plea accomplishes that,” Walters said.

A potential perfect storm

Before Walters made his plea offer, Bell’s attorneys said they had been preparing pretrial motions seeking to recuse both the prosecutor and Mauffray from the case. The attorneys said evidence contained in those motions would have embarrassed both men.

“A trial would be very bad for the town, very bad for Reed Walters, very bad for anybody in Jena associated with the process, and it could turn out very bad for the defendants as well,” said Alan Bean, head of a small civil rights group called Friends of Justice who was the first activist to call attention to the Jena case. “It had the potential for being a perfect storm in which everybody lost.”

Parents on both sides of the case agreed.

“If the district attorney makes an offer to us and my son doesn’t have to do any jail time, that would be fine,” said Tina Jones, who insists that her son, Bryant Purvis, was not involved in the school attack. “I’m ready to get this all over with.”

Plea bargains “would be the best solution, as long as they don’t get away with no punishment at all,” said David Barker, the father of Justin. “This case has taken its toll on everybody. Justin has ulcers now. Letting it drag on for years would just be additional stress for him.”

Bell’s attorneys said they urged their client to agreed to the plea bargain to spare the former high school football star the danger of being convicted of more serious charges.

In October, Mauffray sentenced Bell to 18 months for four prior juvenile convictions for battery and destruction of property. But under the plea deal, that time will be served concurrently with the new sentence for the 2006 attack, and Bell will get credit for the nine months he spent in jail while awaiting trial. His attorneys said the teen could be released by June.
   

It’s 5:00 am and I’m about to jump in the car for Louisiana, but this is something you need to know. What does this stunning development tell us about the rest of the cases?  More later.

Lawyer: ‘Jena Six’ Teen Near Plea Deal
By MARY FOSTER – 7 hours ago

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A black teenager whose prosecution in the beating of a white classmate led to one of the largest civil rights protests in years is close to a deal that would allow him to plead guilty to a misdemeanor and avoid a second trial, his attorney said Sunday.

Mychal Bell, 17, could enter the plea as early as Monday, said attorney Carol Powell Lexing. He has been charged with aggravated second-degree battery and conspiracy.

“We were prepared to go forward with the trial, but you have to do what’s best for the client,” Lexing said.

LaSalle Parish District Attorney Reed Walters did not return a call Sunday evening requesting comment.

Bell, who is black, is scheduled to go to trial Thursday on the felony charges for his suspected role in an attack on Justin Barker, a white student at Jena High School in central Louisiana.

Barker spent several hours in the emergency room after the attack but was discharged and attended a school event the night after the attack, which occurred about a year ago.

Bell was originally charged as an adult with attempted murder. That charge was reduced before a jury convicted him in June of aggravated second-degree battery. In September, that verdict was thrown out by an appeals court that said Bell should be tried as a juvenile.

The charges against Bell and five other black students led to a civil-rights demonstration in Jena in September. Felony charges against the other students are pending.

Critics said prosecutors have treated blacks more harshly than whites in LaSalle Parish, pointing to an incident three months before the attack on Barker in which three white teens were accused of hanging nooses from a tree at the high school. The three were suspended from school but never criminally charged.

Walters has said there was no state crime to charge them with.

This informative piece, published in the New York Times highlights the research of the Southern Poverty Law Center.  Particularly helpful, is a map graphic dealing with the most disturbing noose hanging incidents in the post-September 20th period.

The title of Juan Williams’ recent book,  Enough: The Phony Leaders, Dead-End Movements and Culture of Failure That Are Undermining Black America, tells you everything you need to know about his political philosophy.  This New York Times op-edpresents Obama as the champion of “the rising number of black people who tell pollsters they find themselves in sync with most white Americans on values and priorities”.  From Juan Williams’ perspective, that’s a good thing.

Mr. Williams is a senior correspondent with National Public Radio’s Morning Edition.  Significantly, he also provides commentary for Fox News Channel.   It may be a stretch to call Williams a “black conservative”, but he has little appreciation for prominent black leaders like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, and he uses this quote from Obama to suggest that America’s first serious black presidential hopeful shares his perspective: “In the history of African-American politics in this country there has always been some tension between speaking in universal terms and speaking in very race-specific terms about the plight of the African-American community,” he said. “By virtue of my background, you know, I am more likely to speak in universal terms.”

Barack Obama has been derided for issuing guarded statements about the legal travesty in Jena, Louisiana.  Jesse Jackson even suggested that Obama was talking like a white man.

I was neither surprised nor offended by Obama’s caution.  Presidential candidates who harbor serious aspirations must be cautious.  True, if Jackson and Sharpton were running for president this year, they would make Jena the centerpiece of their campaigns.  But then, Jackson and Sharpton threw their hats into the presidential ring, they weren’t really trying to get elected; they were trying (successfully) to increase their visibility and credibility as self-appointed spokesmen for black America.

Maybe that’s what Williams is getting at here.  Much of the rhetoric we hear from black civil rights leaders is self-referential; that is, it is aimed primarily at their base in the black community.  There is little serious attempt to connect with Middle America.  This allows men like Sharpton and Jackson to dish out the kind of strident, unequivocal statements CNN and NBC love to capture for the evening news, and it also ensures that Al and Jesse will maintain their status as media go-to-guys for every prominent race-related story.

White Republicans (thus far at least) have been able to serve up red meat for the political base and still capture that magical 51% of the vote.  Black politicians like Barack Obama don’t have that luxury.  Martin Luther King Jr. reached out to mainstream, white America because he knew that public policy change would prove illusive without white support. 

Barack Obama is following King’s example.  As Juan Williams notes, “The alienation, anger and pessimism that mark speeches from major black American leaders are missing from Mr. Obama’s speeches.”

Much of the “alienation, anger and pessimism” that forms the subtext of high-profile civil rights rhetoric is rooted in the realization that the message, however on-point, will never penetrate to the corridors of power.  Al Sharpton’s popularity with disaffected African Americans ensures that he will be written off by the vast majority of white Americans (which is precisely why Bill O’Reilly gives Sharpton airtime).   But celebrity comes with a steep price–for both Mr. Sharpton and his followers.

Black leaders should not be blamed for playing the hand white America has dealt them.  There are many things Barack Obama cannot say if he seriously hopes to be our next president–things that desperately need to be said.  I don’t share Williams’ naive enthusiasm for post-civil rights America  We need our prophets. 

But, somehow, some way, reformers must enlist the support and active involvement of Americans, white, black and Latino, who identify with Middle America.  If we don’t, the problems that haunt the poor and the powerless will flourish unchecked.  Only a broad-based coalition of progressives and moderates can effect change; and if we’re not about change, what are we about?

November 30, 2007

Op-Ed Contributor

Obama’s Color Line

By JUAN WILLIAMS

BARACK OBAMA is running an astonishing campaign. Not only is he doing far better in the polls than any black presidential candidate in American history, but he has also raised more money than any of the candidates in either party except Hillary Clinton.

Most amazing, Mr. Obama has built his political base among white voters. He relies on unprecedented support among whites for a black candidate. Among black voters nationwide, he actually trails Hillary Clinton by nine percentage points, according to one recent poll.

At first glance, the black-white response to Mr. Obama appears to represent breathtaking progress toward the day when candidates and voters are able to get beyond race. But to say the least, it is very odd that black voters are split over Mr. Obama’s strong and realistic effort to reach where no black candidate has gone before. Their reaction looks less like post-racial political idealism than the latest in self-defeating black politics.

Mr. Obama’s success is creating anxiety, uncertainty and more than a little jealousy among older black politicians. Black political and community activists still rooted in the politics of the 1960s civil rights movement are suspicious about why so many white people find this black man so acceptable.

Much of this suspicion springs from Mr. Obama’s background. He was too young to march with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. His mother is white and his father was a black Kenyan. Mr. Obama grew up in Indonesia and Hawaii, then went on to the Ivy League, attending Columbia for college and Harvard for law school. He did not work his way up the political ladder through black politics, and in fact he lost a race for a Chicago Congressional seat to Bobby Rush, a former Black Panther.

In an interview with National Public Radio earlier this year, Mr. Obama acknowledged being out of step with the way most black politicians approach white America. “In the history of African-American politics in this country there has always been some tension between speaking in universal terms and speaking in very race-specific terms about the plight of the African-American community,” he said. “By virtue of my background, you know, I am more likely to speak in universal terms.”

The alienation, anger and pessimism that mark speeches from major black American leaders are missing from Mr. Obama’s speeches. He talks about America as a “magical place” of diversity and immigration. He appeals to the King-like dream of getting past the racial divide to a place where the sons of slaves and the sons of slave owners can pick the best president without regard to skin color.

Mr. Obama’s biography and rhetoric have led to mean-spirited questions about whether he is “black enough,” whether he is “acting like he’s white,” as a South Carolina newspaper reported Jesse Jackson said of him. But the more serious question being asked about Mr. Obama by skeptical black voters is this: Whose values and priorities will he represent if he wins the White House?

As he claims to proudly represent a historically oppressed minority, Mr. Obama has to answer the question. Too many black politicians have hidden behind their skin color to avoid it.

Fifty percent of black Americans say Mr. Obama shares their values, according to a recent poll by the Pew Research Center. But that still leaves another half who dismiss him as having only “some” or “not much/not at all” in common with the values of black Americans.

There is a widening split over values inside black America. Sixty-one percent of black Americans, according to the Pew poll, believe that the values of middle-class and poor blacks are becoming “more different.” Inside black America, people with at least some college education are the most likely to see Mr. Obama as “sharing the black community’s values and interests a lot.” But only 41 percent of blacks with a high school education or less see Mr. Obama as part of the black community.

Overall, only 29 percent of people of all colors say Mr. Obama reflects black values. He is viewed as the epitome of what Senator Joe Biden artlessly called the “clean” and “articulate” part of black America — the rising number of black people who tell pollsters they find themselves in sync with most white Americans on values and priorities.

And in a nation where a third of the population is now made up of people of color, Mr. Obama is in the vanguard of a new brand of multi-racial politics. He is asking voters to move with him beyond race and beyond the civil rights movement to a politics of shared values. If black and white voters alike react to Mr. Obama’s values, then he will really have taken the nation into post-racial politics.

Whether he and America will get there is still an open question.

Juan Williams, a political analyst for National Public Radio and Fox News Channel, is the author of “Enough: The Phony Leaders, Dead-End Movements and Culture of Failure That Are Undermining Black America.”