This CNN article by Ashley Franz provides the most in-depth coverage of the recent rash of noose incidents yet published. 

The most penetrating quote comes from Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center:

“Tens of thousands of white people, if not more, feel that the events in Jena were grossly misportrayed by a politically correct media that twisted what was [to them], really, a six-on-one, black-on-white hate crime into an instance of the oppression of black people.  That accounts, in part, for a backlash.”

I think Mark has it right.  This demonstrates how successful the right wing myth making has been.  But white conservative rage is also driven by the false impression that Black America has embraced the Jena 6 as heroes.  Many African Americans have told me that they identify vicariously with these kids, not because their alleged actions were acceptable, but because they are normal kids responding to a toxic social environment. 

Jena is like a Rorschach test: people find in the story what they want to find; and that is largely a reflection of personal experience.  Blacks and whites tend to see this story differently because they do not share a common, or even similar, life experience.  Social learning can only emerge from conversation; unfortunately there are few natural settings in which black and white Americans can sit down and talk about race in a personal way. 

Which reminds me of a joke my father used to tell.  The preacher was waxing eloquent on the subject of hell.  There, he told his congregaion, “Men shall wail and gnash their teeth.” 

“What if you haven’t got any teeth?” a toothless gramma asked.

“I assure you madam,” the preacher replied, “they will be provided.”

What if we haven’t got a place where people can talk across America’s racial divide?  Places must be provided.

Noose incidents: Foolish pranks or pure hate?

 CNN) — The media spotlight might have shone most intensely on Jena, Louisiana, but a symbol of racial violence has been hung across America lately, spurring anger, resentment and a big question.

A symbol of racial violence and hate, the noose is the focus of several alleged hate crimes cases across the U.S.

Do all the incidents of hanging nooses — many with hateful notes to their intended black audience — reveal an ugly truth about race relations in the United States, or are they just stupid pranks by a few foolish, attention-starved people?

Since September, nooses have been found in a Coast Guard office, a suburban New York police station locker room, a North Carolina high school, a Home Depot in New Jersey and on the campus of the University of Maryland.

A Brooklyn, New York, high school principal, who is black, received one in the mail recently, along with a letter that read, “White Power Forever,” The New York Times reported. In mid-October, a noose was discovered outside a post office at New York City’s “Ground Zero,” just days after a noose was hung on the office door of a black Columbia University professor.

Earlier this week, the head of a black mannequin was found hanging from a noose outside a home in Valley Stream, New York, police said. Beneath the noose, on the mannequin’s neck, was a piece of paper with the “n-word” written on it, said Detective Jeff Schilling of the Nassau County Police Department.

And days before Halloween, a Stratford, Connecticut, woman reluctantly removed from her yard a dark-hued figure hanging from a noose. It was among numerous innocuous lawn decorations, such as ghosts and a plastic grave marker.

“It’s unfortunate that now, we’re goingto have to think twice about what we display because someone might be offended,” Jennifer Cervero told CNN.

Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate crimes, said that the apparent increase in noose incidents is, in part, reaction to the news coverage of the “Jena 6”.

Since September, the SPLC has recorded between 40 and 50 suspected hate crimes involving nooses, one involving two people traveling the road to Jena during the protests in a pickup truck with nooses affixed to the bumper.

Tens of thousands of white people, if not more, feel that the events in Jena were grossly misportrayed by a politically correct media that twisted what was [to them], really, a six-on-one, black-on-white hate crime into an instance of the oppression of black people,” Potok said. “That accounts, in part, for a backlash.”

CNN and other news organizations devoted much time and effort covering the September protests in Jena. Led by black civil rights leaders, thousands of people gathered in the small Louisiana town to protest what they said was the racist treatment of six black high school students who were being charged as adults in the beating of a white high school student.

Racial tensions were already at a boiling point in Jena in September 2006, when three white teens hung nooses from a tree near the local high school. The day before, black students had received permission from school administrators to sit under the tree — a place where white students normally congregated.

The white students were briefly suspended from classes for hanging the nooses, despite the principal’s recommendation they be expelled, according to Donald Washington, U.S. attorney for the Western District of Louisiana.

It wasn’t long before the focus on Jena was diverted to other racially charged incidents involving nooses in the country. “I would say undoubtedly some of that is 12-year-olds doing the most obnoxious thing they can think of,” Potok said.

In early October, a student who recorded a re-enactment of the “Jena 6” incident and posted it on the social networking Web site Facebook apologized, saying the video was not intended to make fun of the six black students, according to The News-Star newspaper of Monroe, Louisiana.

The video, recorded by University of Louisiana-Monroe student Kristy Smith, shows students in blackface apparently acting out the beating of the white Jena student.

One of the men in the tape runs onto a beach acting as if he is holding a noose, and three others — covered in river mud — pretend to knock him to the ground, punch and kick him. At least one racial epithet can be heard.

While the Department of Justice doesn’t keep track of noose-specific offenses, the government published a report in 2000 showing an increase of nooses in professional environments.

And The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission says the race-baiting technique still creeps up in professional environments. There have been at least 20 lawsuits involving nooses in the workplace since 2001.

Of the 5,500 racial harassment charge filings in 2006, anecdotal information from EEOC field offices suggests that some involved nooses, but the agency is unable to quantify that data, according to EEOC spokesman David Grinberg.

On Wednesday, seven black workers employed by an Oklahoma-based drilling company won a $290,000 settlement in a discrimination lawsuit which claimed they felt threatened by the display of a noose on a Gulf of Mexico oil rig.

“It’s time for corporate America to be more proactive in preventing and eliminating racist behavior,” said EEOC Chairwoman Naomi C. Earp. “The EEOC intends to make clear that race and color discrimination in the workplace, whether verbal or behavioral, is unacceptable and will not be tolerated.”

In this exhaustive and detailed post, Eddie G. Griffin provides a thorough refutation of Craig Franklin’s column in the Christian Science monitor.  Eddie has combed through all the Jena-related articles published by the Alexandria TownTalk since the noose incident in September.  No one can read this material (much of it written by reporter Abbey Brown) without realizing that the black community was outraged by the noose incident and the way it was handled by public officials.  This impression is actually deepened by articles in the Jena Times that describe a locked-down campus bristling with tension.  Craig Franklin can replace history with fantasy if he wishes; but the facts speak for themselves.  Please give Mr. Griffin’s post a careful reading. 

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5g_B895UEtV38cUvZWav9zg08hh3QD8SJQK600  

Judge Steps Out of Jena Six News Case

By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN – 15 hours ago

 NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A judge has disqualified himself from hearing a request from news media to open juvenile court proceedings for a black teenager charged with beating a white classmate in Jena, a case that has drawn thousands of protesters.

After the recusal of state District Judge J.P. Mauffray Jr., the Louisiana Supreme Court on Tuesday assigned colleague Thomas Yeager to decide whether the case against 17-year-old Mychal Bell should be open to the public.

Yeager, who sits in the central Louisiana city of Alexandria, said he set a tentative court date of Nov. 21 to hear the petition filed by The Associated Press and more than two dozen newspapers, television networks and network affiliates.

The news organizations are seeking permission to attend new hearings in Bell’s case, to review transcripts of previous hearings and other court records, and to lift a gag order against participants in the case.

Bell, 17, originally was charged with attempted murder for his suspected role in a December 2006 attack on Justin Barker at Jena High School. That charge was reduced before a jury convicted him in June of aggravated second-degree battery. Mauffray presided over the trial.

The charges against Bell and five others — the so-called “Jena Six” — sparked a huge civil-rights demonstration in Jena last month. Critics accused prosecutor Reed Walters of treating blacks more harshly than whites, because his office didn’t file charges against three white teens accused of hanging nooses in a tree at the high school shortly before the attack on Barker.

In September, a state appeals court vacated Bell’s conviction and ruled that he shouldn’t have been tried as an adult. Bell is due in juvenile court early next month — also before Mauffray — and has a tentative trial date of Dec. 6.

In a one-page ruling, Mauffray indicated he recused himself because he was named as a defendant in the news media’s litigation. Mauffray is the only judge assigned to the Lasalle Parish court where Bell’s case is being heard. Dan Zimmerman, an attorney for the news organizations, said the judge would have been in a “difficult position” if he had to review his own decision.

Criminal cases involving juveniles in Louisiana are usually sealed, but lawyers for the news organizations argue that aggravated second-degree battery is one of the violent offenses that allows a juvenile court case to be opened to the public.

Five other students were charged with the attack on Barker, who was knocked unconscious.

Charges against three other teens — Robert Bailey Jr., 18; Carwin Jones, 19; and Theo Shaw, 18 — also have been reduced from attempted murder to aggravated second-degree battery. Bryant Purvis, 18, has not yet been arraigned, and a sixth suspect was charged as a juvenile.

In addition to The Associated Press, news organizations seeking to open Bell’s case are The New York Times; USA Today; the Chicago Tribune; the Los Angeles Times; the Houston Chronicle; the San Antonio Express-News; The Beaumont Enterprise; The Dallas Morning News; CNN; ABC News; WDSU-TV and WWL-TV in New Orleans; WAPT-TV in Jackson, Miss.; WFAA-TV in Dallas; KHOU-TV in Houston; KVUE-TV in Austin, Texas; KENS-TV in San Antonio; The (Houma) Courier; The (Thibodaux) Daily Comet; The (Alexandria) Town Talk; The (Monroe) News-Star; The (Shreveport) Times; The (Lafayette) Daily Advertiser and The (Opelousas) Daily World.

The NAACP is now taking credit for exposing the injustice in Jena.  No surprise there; they also took credit for the Tulia debacle.  In both cases, the NAACP dithered and dawdled while Friends of Justice got the facts straight, worked the media and drafted more responsive allies into the fight.  In both cases, the NAACP rushed to the forefront at the eleventh hour.

I have been criticized for beating up on white people while giving black America a pass.  If I lose my patience with white folks because they call the shots, in America and in tiny towns like Jena, Louisiana.  This combination of unfettered power and blissful ignorance has stirred up a witches brew of trouble, but the people making public policy decisions live in blessed isolation from their own mischief.

Ultimately, white people must come to the table.  We cannot be ignored because, in the public policy poker game, we hold all the cards.  Notice, I said “we”.  I am part of white America and there ain’t a damn thing I can do about it.  The leopard, as the Good Book says, cannot change its spots.

The September 20th march on Jena was a virtually all-black affair.  Several hundred white people showed up, but in a crowd that immense you had to look really hard to find us.  If a white person was asked to speak even once it escaped my attention.  Peter, Paul and Mary set the stage for Martin’s “dream speech”, but in Jena we weren’t invited to the dance.

Ironically, white people brought the Jena story to the world.   Friends of Justice was on the ground for over a month before Tory Pegram, a gifted, and incurably white, activist with the Louisiana ACLU, answered our call for help.  Tory didn’t necessarily come with the blessing of her organization; she came because she cared. 

White people investigated and framed the Jena story.  A white reporter named Howard Witt broke the story in the mainstream media.  A white journalist named Jordan Flaherty introduced the story to the independent media and the blogosphere.  A white law professor named Bill Quigley gave the story credibility with veterans of the civil rights movement.  A white BBC correspondent named Tom Mangold broke the story in the international media before it caught fire in America.  Amy Goodman gave the story a big boost by featuring it on Democracy Now (Amy performed a similar service in the early days of the Tulia fight).  The reporters who brought the story to Goodman’s attention were also white.

I must also point out that high-profile black organizations didn’t flock to the banner of the Jena 6 until after the trial of Mychal Bell, that is, after the story clearly had legs. 

Don’t get me wrong, our organizational meetings in Jena were overwhelmingly black from the beginning.  It should also be noted that King Downing, a highly effective black organizer with the national ACLU, joined the fight early on at the request of Tory Pegram.  In addition, several NAACP representatives from the Jena region contributed to the organizing and Tony Brown, a black radio host in Alexandria, was the first journalist to give the Jena 6 sympathetic coverage.  Also, James Rucker, the black leader of Color of Change, multiplied the organizing capacity of the Jena 6 movement by bringing the story to the attention of his vast network. 

But if white people brought Jena to the attention of the nation, black Americans transformed the story into a phenomenon.  Once black bloggers and radio talk show hosts latched onto the Jena 6, momentum began to build behind the massive protest we saw on September 20th.

The tipping point came in late July in the wake of a rally in Jena that attracted 300 people, a third of them white, to the LaSalle Parish courthouse.  By that time, Color of Change had already collected over 100,000 petition signatures and donations were beginning to roll into the Jena 6 defense fund.  For the first time, representatives of the Nation of Islam and the New Black Panther Party were on hand.  They didn’t seem comfortable around white folks like me.  One woman ostentatiously refused to shake my hand because I was white.  I have felt a similar reserve from many black activists; although most have been too polite to make their feelings explicit.

The critical moment came late in the day as torrential rain was beating down on the enormous tent the Jena 6 families had rented for the Ward 10 ball park on the black side of Jena.  All the out of town guests had gone home and only the Jena 6 families and the primary protest organizers: Alan Bean, Tory Pegram, King Downing, and James Rucker, remained. 

A cell phone rang and somebody said,  “It’s Al Sharpton.  He wants to talk to the families.”

I wasn’t surprised.  Sharpton’s people had called Friends of Justice earlier in the week asking for contact information for the Jena 6 families.  That was the last time they would talk to us, or to any of the original organizers.

Days later, Jesse Jackson flew to Alexandria via private jet, picked up one of the parents of the Jena 6, then jetted back to Chicago for interviews, photo opportunities and fund raising.

Suddenly, mainstream media coverage of Jena was primarily coverage of Al Sharpton.  This wasn’t necessarily the reverend’s doing; it appears to be the way the media game is played in America.  A legitimate civil rights story is whatever story Sharpton has latched onto.  It’s a lot like professional wrestling: Sharpton mugs for the cameras, Jesse Jackson fumbles for the microphone, black folks clap and whistle, white folks hiss and throw rotten fruit, and the media people are happy because . . . hay, everybody’s paying attention!

This format was on display in the days leading up to September 20th.  The media scrum chased after Rev. Sharpton and his sizable entourage whenever his stretch limo pulled into sight.  Talk show host Michael Baisden stood at Sharpton’s side outside the courthouse (clearly a power-sharing arrangement of some kind had been worked out behind the scenes).  Baisden boasted that 50,000 of his listeners were descending on Jena even as he spoke.  The Rev. Al thanked the Bad Boy of Talk Radio for taking on the Jena 6 “at considerable commercial sacrifice”. 

The Nation of Islam was given a precious two minutes in front of the cameras; just long enough for an articulate young man with a scowling visage to announce, on behalf of the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, that Allah intended to punish the white racists in Jena with a natural disaster (details were not disclosed).

Then Al and Michael climbed into their limos and it was back to Alexandria for a book signing and the closest thing to a posh hotel Central Louisiana affords.

Then, at long last, the state NAACP swept into Jena in full force.  They were organized, articulate and effective.  We could have used this show of support back in March, but were happy to have it in September.  Jesse Jackson threw in his lot with the NAACP folks from Baton Rouge and New Orleans; Al Sharpton and Michael Baisden proceeded with a parallel rally.

In the end, everything worked out amazingly well.  The crowd was exuberant, energized and positive.  They were there for the kids and, blissfully ignorant of the power struggles going on behind the scenes, the ordinary people made the show.

Neither Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson nor Michael Baisden made the slightest effort to involve the original organizers (white or black) in the planning process.  In fact, Baisden told his listeners that they should send their Jena 6 contributions directly to him.  The implication was that the existing Jena 6 defense fund was tainted in some fashion.  Calls from the original organizers to Baisden’s people were not returned.

This didn’t mean that groups like Friends of Justice and Color of Change have been rendered impotent.  Color of Change has raised a sizable war chest for the legal teams representing the defendants, every penny of which will soon be placed in the hands of the families and their attorneys.  Original organizers, including Friends of Justice, have been working behind the scenes to draft civil rights groups, church organizations, and some of the best attorneys in America into the fight.  

As the media circus winds down, the legal fight is roaring into high gear.  The Jena 6 still face charges that could put them in prison for a decade.  The Rev. Sharpton et al don’t seem too concerned about the legal fate of the Jena 6–so long as the white kids get hammered just as hard. 

Meanwhile, the court of public opinion has fractured along racial lines.  Most black people think the Jena 6 are the victims of a corrupt criminal justice system; most white people can’t see what all the fuss is about.

I got into this struggle for two reasons: the defendants needed solid legal representation, and America needed to talk.  By bringing the plight of the Jena 6 to the attention of the nation, I hoped to spark a long-deferred conversation about race and the criminal justice system.  The more lively this conversation became, I believed, the better the chance that Mychal Bell, Robert Bailey, Theo Shaw, Bryant Purvis, Carwin Jones, and Jesse Ray Beard would some equal justice. 

It isn’t my job to dictate outcomes to the criminal justice system–I just want the system to operate according to its own rules.  That’s why Friends of Justice called for a change of venue (no one in LaSalle Parish can be considered objective after the dramatic and highly polarizing events of recent months).  And we have called for DA Reed Walters and Judge JP Mauffray to recuse themselves (I will leave it to the lawyers to explain why this is needs to happen). 

The Jena 6 will get the kind of  legal representation every American deserves, but this will not happen because Al Sharpton and Michael Baisden crashed the party; it will happen because a dedicated and gifted coalition of organizers, defendant families, and local supporters cared enough to bring a complicated collection of facts to the attention of the nation.

The folks currently at the helm of the Jena 6 media show have inadvertently sparked a vicious backlash in large segments of white America.  The white progressives who initially rallied to the Jena 6 banner are beginning to back away.  Racists are merrily hanging nooses and “hang the Jena 6” zealots are making their presence felt.

On a more positive note, the Jena 6 story has forced opinion leaders in the African American community to admit that the new civil rights movement needs to focus on young people like Mychal Bell.  The cruel machinations of the New Jim Crow are coming to public awareness, and not a moment too soon.

Why was it left to white folks to discover the Jena 6 story?  Why weren’t black journalists the first on the scene?  Why were traditional civil rights organizations like the NAACP and the Legal Defense Fund so slow to step up?  Because everybody is looking for the next Rosa Parks.  The civil rights movement can’t come to terms with the social dynamics of the New Jim Crow because it’s still operating out of an Old Jim Crow paradigm.  The victims of a flawed criminal justice system are routinely overlooked because . . . they have been accused of crimes.

A lot of liberal white people backed away from Mychal Bell as soon as it was revealed that he had “issues”; a lot of black people distanced themselves from Mychal because he didn’t look like Rosa. 

On November 7th, attorneys for four of the Jena 6 defendants will file into the LaSalle Parish courthouse.  Inevitably, media coverage will shift from the sins of the children to the transgressions of grown-ups like Reed Walters and School Superintendent Roy Breithaupt.  Attorneys who prefer to do their talking in the courtroom will finally get a chance to talk. 

My fervent prayer is that, as the focus changes, the painful perception gap between white and black America will begin to narrow.  The Jena 6 story has produced lots of heat; now maybe we’ll see some light. 

The grandstanding self promotion we have seen around this case might be an inevitable part of the process.  Maybe this is just the way we do things in America.  Perhaps the only realistic alternative to the Jena 6 media show is a deadly and deafening indifference.  If it takes a circus to get a little justice in America, then bring on the clowns.  I just hope the media can tell the difference between a celebrity with a pocketful of one-liners, and a defense attorney with a briefcase crammed with facts.

 http://www.diversityinc.com/public/2628print.cfm 

After Jena 6 Noose Case, More Blacks Feel Courts Are Unfair

Compiled by the DiversityInc staff

In the wake of the Jena 6 noose case, CNN polled black and white Americans and found they continue to have widely different views of race relations in this country. Blacks’ increased attention to perceived judicial inequities at least partly explains the furor in the black community over the Jena 6 case. See the DiversityInc Noose Watch for regular updates on noose-hanging incidents across the country and how local and federal officials are responding to them.   

The poll found that more blacks pay attention to news stories that imply the justice system is unfair to blacks. Here are a few key findings:

 

• Of the total respondents, 35 percent of whites compared with 10 percent of blacks said that they did not know enough about the Jena 6 case to respond to questions
• Seventy-nine percent of blacks compared with 33 percent of whites knew enough about the case to say that the six black teenagers in Jena, La., were treated unfairly by the town’s justice system
• Twenty-nine percent of whites and 10 percent of blacks thought that the black teenagers were treated fairly

The poll conducted for CNN by Opinion Research Corp. included 1,212 telephone interviews from Oct. 12 to Oct. 14 with adult Americans, including an over-sample of blacks, reported CNN. The question of whether race relations will improve in America nearly split black respondents, with slightly more saying they will not improve. Of black respondents, 49 percent said race relations will improve, while 51 percent said they will not. Meanwhile, most white respondents thought race relations will improve; 66 percent said they will and 33 percent said they will not.  When blacks were asked if they felt whites or blacks were treated more harshly by the justice system, an overwhelming majority of black respondents, 79 percent, said that blacks are treated more harshly than whites. Only 19 percent of black respondents said the justice system treats blacks the same as whites and only 1 percent said whites are treated more harshly.  Whites, however, are nearly split on the question of who is treated more harshly by the justice system. While 48 percent of white respondents feel the justice system treats blacks and whites the same, 47 percent feel the justice system treats blacks more harshly and 3 percent think whites are treated more harshly.

Stephanie Holmes of the British Broadcasting Corporation may be the first journalist to focus on the issue of birds-of-a-feather self-segregation.  According to Anita L. Allen, a University of Pennsylvania professor, “American society is much too full of what are metaphorically ‘white-only shade trees’ and ‘black-only shade trees.  We are much too content to let these pockets of segregation persist.”The Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity recently published a paper called “The Dangers of Not Speaking About Race.”  According to the authors, America now practices a “racism without racists,” based on four primary assumptions (what Friends of Justice calls “the four pillars of the New Jim Crow”).  The first assumption is that race no longer matters in America.  The second assumption is that whatever vestigial traces of racial tension may exist are driven by the dysfunction within underclass minority communities.  Third (and most critical for our present purposes), is the assumption that voluntary self-segregation is natural, normal, and essentially healthy.  The final assumption flows from the first three: America is a meritocracy with a level playing field. The article below pays particular attention to pillar number three: self-segregation. We all know that America is a highly segregated society.  A drive through most affluent suburbs, most inner city neighborhoods, or a visit to most Protestant churches on Sunday morning would illustrate the point.  But is this such a bad thing? Anita Allen thinks it’s a bad thing; and I agree.  The response to Jena (people like Alan Bean and Mychal Massie notwithstanding) breaks down along racial lines.  White people often have a hard time seeing a noose hanging from a tree as a big deal.  Many African Americans refuse to see Justin Barker as a victim.  White people tend to identify with Jena’s white residents; black people commonly demonize them. Few observers on either side of the racial divide understand how bizarre missteps by a handfull of public officials created a toxic environment for all students, black and white. Black and white Americans need to talk a lot more than they do.  In particular, we need to talk about race.  We need to talk about Jena.  Segregated worlds have created segregated experience which produce segregated perceptions.  On the whole, as I have often suggested, African Americans have a more nuanced and informed grasp of racial issues than white Americans–but that doesn’t mean that learning can’t flow in both directions.  Unravelling race relations in the US

By Stephanie Holmes BBC News When three hangman’s nooses were suspended from a tree in a school playground in a small Louisiana town, it sparked a chain of events which has fuelled a furious debate over race, justice and symbolism in the US. The Jena noose incident spawned a series of copycat acts The coils of knotted rope which swung in the shade of the tree recalled the nooses used to hang black men in collective lynchings carried out by white mobs in the southern states as recently as the 1940s. The incident in the small town of Jena, which culminated in a group of black youths being charged with attempted second-degree murder for allegedly beating a white boy, has spawned a series of copycat acts. Nooses have been hung on doors, pinned up in workplaces and slipped into letters. New York’s government is now considering criminalising any representation of the noose as a hate crime. Some African-American analysts argue that the recurring use of the noose as an instrument of intimidation reveals deep and unresolved racial tensions in US society. Symbol “The noose, in the context of Louisiana, is a symbol of a technique of racial intimidation,” explains Professor Anita L Allen, of the University of Pennsylvania’s law school. Columbia University students denounced this noose on a teacher’s door “Up until the 1940s, African-Americans were ritualistically hung from nooses in trees, killed and tortured – and this memory persists.” Mark Potok, director of the Southern Poverty Law Centre’s Intelligence Project, which monitors hate groups operating across the US, agrees. “The noose in US history is intimately associated with the Ku Klux Klan. It became the symbol of the worst the southern white supremacists could do,” he told the BBC News website from Alabama. At Columbia University, in New York, a black professor arrived at work earlier this month to find a noose hung from the door of her office. Nooses have also recently been reported to have been found in a coast guard cadet’s bag and outside a Manhattan post office. American society is much too full of what are metaphorically ‘white-only shade trees’ and ‘black-only shade trees’ Professor Anita L Allen, Pennsylvania University Mr Potok argues that the rise in the number of incidents involving nooses echoes an increase in the number of hate groups across the US, which has grown by 40% over the past six years. “There really has been an outbreak of incidents,” he says. “They reflect a much wider white backlash. This is not a handful of Klansmen and neo-Nazis but widespread anger.” Divided spaces In Jena, the nooses – reportedly in the three school colours – were hung from a tree where whites used to congregate, a day after a black pupil asked the headmaster if he could sit in its shade. Some public zones remain divided along race lines Months later, a white teenager was violently attacked and kicked at the school, allegedly by six of his black schoolmates. The response of the local justice department, which initially charged five of the six with attempted second degree murder and set prohibitively high bail costs for them, provoked anger. Some of charges were subsequently downgraded. According to Anita L Allen, although the history of lynching is widely known, it is not on the school curriculum and the “full horror and terror” of the noose’s significance may remain unclear to a 16-year-old who would see it as merely an “intimidating or cheeky” act. The underlying problem, she insists, is the fact that the use of public spaces – such as the tree for shade – continues to be defined by skin colour. “American society is much too full of what are metaphorically ‘white-only shade trees’ and ‘black-only shade trees’,” Ms Allen says. “We are much too content to let these pockets of segregation persist.” She sees the schoolyard as the place where broader race struggles are played out and erupt into conflict. “If you have playgrounds that are single-race or school proms – as often happens in the US south – that are for one race or the other, or students who dine separately from one another… then I think we are asking for trouble.” ‘Bifurcated world’ She points to a recent Supreme Court ruling which threw out voluntary affirmative action programmes operating in schools in Seattle and Louisville, Kentucky to encourage mixed-race schools. “Now we are back-pedalling on that approach and the legal context for desegregation is being destroyed and the social and political will to desegregate the society is disappearing with the result that we live in this bifurcated black/white world,” she says. But Mr Potok reckons that the US needs to look beyond its borders, rather than to its backyards, for the source of race tensions. “You can see it from the comments in reaction to this case on the internet. I would argue that racial nationalism is going up. It is a function of globalisation, of the weakening nation-state.” ‘Riot and mayhem’ For Mychal Massie, the head of Project 21, a group of conservative African-Americans linked to a Washington-based think-tank, the whole case has been blown out of proportion by the US media because of what he believes is an intrinsically liberal bias. “They made it an issue of race when it should not be about race. You had seven thugs, who were black, who beat a white young man, beat him unconscious,” he told the BBC News website. “That’s not race, that’s riot and mayhem! They should be held accountable for their actions.” He insists the noose cases are random, isolated incidents linked up by the media, and that Jena’s violent school brawl is not connected to the “teenage prank” of months earlier. “We cannot take these incidents and say that they are indicative of a pandemic of racism that is spreading across America, it is just not the case,” he said. In Jena, the shade tree – which had itself become a symbol of conflict in its own right – has been cut down, but the issues it exposed remain deeply rooted.

Andrew Stephen , US Editor for the British New Statesman, came away from Jena, Louisiana with Tom Wolfe’s question ringing in his ears, “Why is there such a hunger in America to be lied to about race?”

Everyone associated with the Jena story is talking about liars and their damned lies.  Craig Franklin, co-editor of the Jena Times, thinks the liberal media is lying about the facts in Jena.  Reed Walters, pontificating from the lofty perch of the New York Times op-ed page, has leveled similar charges.  Black conservatives are scoring points with their white constituents by debunking the idea that Southern racism plays the slightest role in the criminal justice system.  It’s all lies . . . damned lies.

My critics assure me that the truth is sweeping the nation, and soon all men shall know that the Jena story I cooked up back in January is nothing but a bleeding heart, n-loving fantasy. 

Which brings us back to Mr. Wolfe’s question: Why is there such a hunger in America to be lied to about race?”  Why do we see the New York Times and the Christian Science Monitoropening their hallowed pages to the thin gruel Craig Franklin and DA Walters have been serving up?  Why is Middle America (including, I fear, a good percentage of white progressives) so willing to gulp down the convenient untruths perpetuated by desperate hacks like Jason Whitlock?

In part, I suspect, it’s an aesthetic recoil from sloganeering civil rights leaders more interested in jailing dim-witted high school students than in winning a modicum of justice for the Jena 6 defendants. 

But even here, Wolfe’s question reasserts itself.  America is brimming with huxters selling their wares in the open marketplace (it’s how we do business here).  So why are the Revs. Sharpton and Jackson met with such shrill denunciation each time they open their mouths? 

It should be remembered that Dr. King was routinely slandered in much the same way.  Could it be that Sharpton and Jackson are villified because, in the midst of all the opportunistic bombast, they speak uncomfortable truths about America?

The Jena story was playing in Britain, China and South Africa before it made much of a dent in the American consciousness.  America is widely regarded as the quintessential racist nation.  Much of the criticism is hypocrtical–the powerless always enjoy thumbing their noses at the powerful, and they usually aren’t too creful with the facts.  But, again, in the midst of all the self-serving condescension we find a disturbing kernel of truth: America is still living with the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow, whether or not we like to admit it.

 And we don’t like to admit it, do we?  We would rather crawl through broken glass than face the hard questions.  Brits, on the other hand, are perfectly willing to face our hard questions for us.  So, tell us, Mr. Stephen, why is there such a hunger in America to be lied to about race?

The Deep South, the white tree, the noose

Andrew Stephen

Published 25 October 2007

Shocking events in small-town Louisiana are confronting white Americans with a poisonous racism they usually ignore.

You have to drive 223 miles north-west of New Orleans and deep into the heart of Louisiana before you finally reach the town, which has a population of just 3,000. “Welcome to Jena,” says the signpost. “A Nice Place To Call Home.” True, it has a McDonald’s and a Wal-Mart if you like that sort of thing; but it is also poor and determinedly white, with an annual per-capita income of less than $14,000, and just 12 per cent of its popu lation is black. That means white people still rule Jena: civil rights reforms have passed it by, and housing, churches and even the cemetery are rigidly segregated. It is part of LaSalle Parish, which back in 1991 cast 4,910 votes for David Duke – a former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard and admirer of Hitler – and only 2,432 for the previous and future Democratic governor of Louisiana.

Thanks to word of mouth, the unstinting attention of black radio stations and (at last) muted coverage from the mainstream media, however, Jena is fast becoming as disconcertingly symbolic of 21st-century racial turmoil as places like Little Rock, Selma and Montgomery were in the 20th century. On a slow-moving march last month that stretched for miles beyond Jena itself, leaders such as the Reverends Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and Martin Luther King III linked arms with countless thousands of demonstrators to protest against what they see as the racism, hatred and injustice evoked by Jena. The likes of the rappers Mos Def, Salt’n’Pepa and Ice Cube joined them; and the rock singer John Cougar Mellencamp has already become the Joan Baez of this new era, singing his protest song “Jena” when he performed at the opening game in the NFL season on 6 September.

I will come to the reasons why Jena symbolises what Jackson calls “a defining moment” in the 21st-century civil rights movement shortly. First, however, a brief personal experience. Last year I wrote a long article for the Washington Post about slavery and its legacy of present-day racism, and found myself overwhelmed with emails from readers; two more, in fact, arrived just last week. Besides those from the usual crackpots and from middle-class white folk expressing polite scepticism, the overwhelming majority were from black people, repeating over and over again the same message, something like: “We already knew all about this, but thanks for bringing it to a wider audience.”

A foreigner, it seemed, had exposed an issue rarely faced here, in the newspaper of the nation’s capital or elsewhere in the white media. I found myself appearing on coast-to-coast black radio shows I didn’t even know existed – hosted by black broadcasters such as Michael Baisden and Tom Joyner, whom I later discovered were prominent early voices exposing the Jena scandals – and I realised, after almost two decades of living in the United States and complacently assuming that race relations were steadily improving, that so much of the 13 per cent of America that is black still considers itself ignored, forgotten and unheard in the white world that surrounds it.

“The real question here is why is there such a hunger in America to be lied to about race?” is how Tom Wolfe posed the conundrum two decades ago. Like anti-Semitism, racism in America today is rife but has been driven un derground since the 1964-65 legal reforms that followed the cataclysms of Birmingham, Selma and Montgomery. The statistics speak for themselves: black people are still perceived today as threats, human dangers that have to be kept down and contained, as they were from the earliest days of slavery.

No less an authority than the US justice department tells us that a black man in 2007 is three times more likely to be sent to prison than a white man; half the country’s prison population is black, and one in three black men in their thirties has a prison record. A black person is three times more likely to have his or her car searched than a white one, and black people are meted out prison sentences 20 per cent longer on average than those their white peers receive for identical crimes. Whites use illegal drugs more than blacks, but blacks are still 2.5 times more likely to be arrested for drugs offences.

I can already hear the sublimated voices of the James Watsons of this world, whispering that this is all because black people have genetically lower IQs and are more disposed to crime. I invite Professor Watson to leave his Long Island lab and come down to Jena to investigate racial realities for himself – reading, for example, the handwritten witness statements of both black and white teenagers concerned in the so-called “Jena Six” tragedy. Having done so myself, I can say that those of the white youths involved are noticeably even more illiterate.

The saga began on 31 August last year, when a new black teenage pupil at Jena High School named Kenneth Purvis asked an assistant prin cipal if he was allowed to sit under a large oak in the school grounds known as “the white tree” – where only white kids, usually, shaded themselves from the searing hot sun of the Deep South. He was told he could, and duly did so. Next morning two (possibly three) nooses were found hanging from the tree’s branches, draped in school colours. The noose is symbol of 4,743 documented lynchings between 1882 and 1968 – hundreds of them, at the very least, in Louisiana.

Three white boys were soon identified as the culprits and the principal tried to expel them, but his decision was overturned by the school’s “expulsion committee”. Black students staged an impromptu protest under the tree and when police moved in with LaSalle’s district attorney, one Reed Waters, a school assembly was called. “See this pen?” Waters asked the kids rhetorically. “I can end your lives with a pen.” Waters later denied that he was specifically addressing the black youngsters, but white and black students alike – their outlooks conditioned by generations of racist hatred and violence – had few doubts about whom he was addressing.

Theft of a firearm

Tensions simmered until the end of the football season – one of the few diversions available for Jena teenagers – but on 1 December, five black schoolboys tried to join a Friday-night party in the town attended by both whites and blacks. Seventeen-year-old Robert Bailey, one of the black youths, was immediately attacked outside (with a beer bottle, he said later) by a 22-year-old white man, who was subsequently put on probation for assault.

The next day Bailey and two other black kids from Jena High were in the Gotta-Go Grocery store when a white schoolmate who had been at the party the previous night approached them; the white boy, Matt Windham, says he was threatened by the three others, but acknowledges that he then went outside to his truck to fetch a 12-gauge riot shotgun that had been specially equipped with a black laser sight. Bailey and his two friends wrestled the gun away from Windham but were subsequently charged with theft of a firearm, second-degree robbery and disturbing the peace. Windham was never arrested or charged with anything whatsoever.

Back at Jena High the following Monday lunchtime, a 17-year-old white boy called Justin Barker started taunting Bailey in the school gym for having had his “ass whipped” by a white man the previous Friday night. Moments later, says Barker in his handwritten police statement (and you think I’m exaggerating when I write about the declining standards of US education?), “Me and my girl frend was walking out of the gym and a group of blacks was standing out side the door and when we got out of the door i told my girl frend to tern left to go up the side walk and when I ternt my back to the one of them sad this will teech you to run your Fucken mouth and that was it.”

It was certainly a vicious attack: Robert Bailey, his two friends who had been with him at the Gotta-Go Grocery and three or four other black teenage boys now stand accused of ambushing Barker outside the gym and of punching and kicking him unconscious. Barker’s girlfriend, in her own handwriting, takes up the story: “When he got nnocked out they still kicked him just as heard! When I saw what was goen on I started yelling . . . I grabed on of there arms and pulled him away! Well, I tryed!” Barker was treated at the local hospital for three hours for concussion, an eye that had swollen shut, and cuts and bruises to his face, ears and hand; but what is indisputable is that he felt well enough to attend Jena High’s ring ceremony for departing seniors that evening.

Deadly tennis shoes

Enter, at this point, the sternly unyielding white-authority figure of DA Reed Waters. He promptly charged Bailey and five others with attempted murder as well as conspiracy to commit murder, charges that carry mandatory sentences of ten to 50 years’ hard labour with no chance of probation or parole. The black men, ranging in this case from 14 to 18 years of age, represented those ever-present threats that had to be kept down and contained, you see. Waters insisted on charging Mychal Bell, 16, as an adult because he had a police record and had initiated the attack, Waters claimed.

The charges were subsequently reduced to aggravated battery and conspiracy. But Bell’s trial last June, the first of the six that was presided over by an all-white jury (none of the potential black jurors turned up, according to the autho rities), still presented Waters with a problem. Legally, a “deadly weapon” had to be used in aggravated battery. Waters therefore argued that the humdrum tennis shoes Bell was wearing at the time of the assault on Barker constituted deadly weapons, an argument the jury found persuasive. Bell was duly pronounced guilty, but appeal courts subsequently ruled that he should never have been tried as an adult in the first place. His retrial is set for 6 December, and trials for the remaining five have yet to be scheduled.

Nooses, those most terrifying symbols of white American aggression during the Jim Crow century that was supposed to have ended in the aftermath of the Birmingham and Selma mutinies, are now proliferating at the homes and workplaces of black people here, there and everywhere. The FBI has set up a special task force to try to stamp down on what is fast threatening to become the 21st-century version of burning crosses or Nazi swastikas. Now that the mainstream media are belatedly paying attention to what has been happening in Jena, so politicians, too, are sitting up. The federal House judiciary committee held its first hearing on the events a fortnight ago. Waters and most Republicans declined to attend.

Bell is still only 17 but has no hope of pursuing the career as a professional footballer that was a very real possibility not so long ago. He was released from prison on 27 September on $45,000 bail after being held for ten months on the Barker charges. Within a fortnight, however, he was back in a cell after yet another Louisiana judge ruled that he had violated his probation on un related charges. Meanwhile, two of the other defendants were greeted with a standing ovation when they appeared on stage at the Black Entertainment Television (BET) Hip-Hop Awards in Atlanta on 13 October: a potent visual symbol of America’s racial divisions that would have horrified most white Americans, had they been watching BET.

The outcome of America’s civil war (1861-65) was the passage of the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments between 1865 and 1870, outlawing slavery, granting full citizenship to everybody born in the US and giving the vote to all (men). The revolts of Birmingham in 1963 and Selma in 1965 led to the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act, respectively. None of these amendments or acts worked as well as they should have done in ridding America of the poisonous racism that still runs through its bloodstream. But might the 21st-century uprisings in Jena, I wonder, at last lead to truly significant progress?

Craig Franklin never dreamed he’d be writing a feature story for the Christian Science Monitor, just as Reed Walters never expected to see his name gracing the pages of the New York Times Op-Ed page.  

There is an old rule in journalism; when you can’t wring another drop of juice out of a story, flip the script–tell the world the press has been getting it wrong.  Telling the “real story” about Jena has become a cottage industry.

“Jena” has always been a disagreement between Alan Bean and Craig Franklin, co-editor of the Jena Times.  Craig and his father, Sammy Franklin devoted several gallons of ink to the noose incident and the arrest and prosecution of the Jena 6.  My “Responding to the Crisis in Jena, Louisiana” narrative owed much to the copious detail of their reporting.  The Franklins publish a first class small-town newspaper.

Those of you who have been reading my posts won’t need to read Franklin’s deathless prose (you’ve heard it all before) or my responses (I will touch on a few new issues, but not many).  But if you are new to this debate, this back-and-forth discussion should proove instructive.  My comments appear in italics.

Media myths about the Jena 6

A local journalist tells the story you haven’t heard.

By Craig Franklin

Jena, La.

By now, almost everyone in America has heard of Jena, La., because they’ve all heard the story of the “Jena 6.” White students hanging nooses barely punished, a schoolyard fight, excessive punishment for the six black attackers, racist local officials, public outrage and protests – the outside media made sure everyone knew the basics.

There’s just one problem: The media got most of the basics wrong. In fact, I have never before witnessed such a disgrace in professional journalism. Myths replaced facts, and journalists abdicated their solemn duty to investigate every claim because they were seduced by a powerfully appealing but false narrative of racial injustice.

I would suggest that coverage of the march to Iraq would constitute a much more serious media meltdown.  As you will see from later comments, most of the “myths” Franklin addresses rarely appear in mainstream reporting.  Howard Witt of the Chicago Tribune, the first mainstream journalist to cover the story on the national level, spent a week in Jena before writing a word.  Dozens of reporters have followed in his footsteps (to the point where overwhelmed Jena residents refuse to comment) and most of them have been equally careful. 

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.

Actually, Abbey Brown of the Alexandria TownTalk and Tony Brown, an Alexandria journalist and talk show host, have given careful attention to this story from the day nooses appeared on a tree at the high school.

The reason the Jena cases have been propelled into the world spotlight is two-fold: First, because local officials did not speak publicly early on about the true events of the past year, the media simply formed their stories based on one-side’s statements – the Jena 6. Second, the media were downright lazy in their efforts to find the truth. Often, they simply reported what they’d read on blogs, which expressed only one side of the issue.

Few mainstream reporters have repeated blog gossip–they prefer to copy one another.

The real story of Jena and the Jena 6 is quite different from what the national media presented. It’s time to set the record straight.

Myth 1: The Whites-Only Tree. There has never been a “whites-only” tree at Jena High School. Students of all races sat underneath this 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. As reported by students in the assembly, the question was asked to make a joke and to drag out the assembly and avoid class.

The “lazy Negro theory” was invented to address an obvious question: “If the Jena high school courtyard is as integrated as Mr. Franklin claims, why did Kenneth Purvis ask if he could sit under the tree?  I do not know if Mr. Purvis was laughing nervously as he asked the question, and I don’t see that it matters.  Initially, Jena High students, black and white, freely admitted that the courtyard has always been segregated–the sidewalk serving as the line of demarcation.  While it is true that black students occasionally wandered to the white side of the courtyard, this was not typical behavior. 

Hence the question.  It should also be noted that Kenneth and a few friends tested out their new freedom by sitting under the tree after school.

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. (The students apparently got the idea from watching episodes of “Lonesome Dove.”) The committee further concluded that the three young teens had no knowledge that nooses symbolize the terrible legacy of the lynchings of countless blacks in American history. When informed of this history by school officials, they became visibly remorseful because they had many black friends. 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. The students who hung the nooses have not publicly come forward to give their version of events.

There are actually three competing noose theories.  The default position is well known: the nooses were hung in response to Kenneth Purvis’s question and the bold action of actually sitting under the tree. 

Recently, Jena residents have suggested the nooses were aimed at supporters of Jena’s next football opponent–the Mustangs.

The Lonesome Dove theory was initially freestanding: the kids watched the Western on television and were so impressed with the hanging scene, they decided to hang a few nooses of their own.  But no one could explain why they chose this particular tree, or why the nooses appeared the day after Kenneth’s question and the Principal’s answer. 

Now we learn that the nooses were a poke at white members of the rodeo team.  We are to believe that some white kids on the rodeo team were playfully suggesting that they were going to string up other white members of the team because . . .

You see the problem.  What could possibly follow the “because”?  Mr. Franklins’ desperation is painfully evident at this point.  He’s doing the best with what he’s got–but he ain’t got much.  You can hardly blame the mainstream media (or any sensible person) for preferring the original explanation.  It has the advantage of making sense.

Finally, Franklin’s theory can’t explain why then-principal Scott Windham was so horrified by the noose incident that he recommended expulsion for the school year.  If this was simply a white-on-white practical joke, Windham’s response can only be seen as a bizarre over-reaction. 

The logical conclusion is that Windham was never exposed to the theory Mr. Franklin is selling.  Is it just a coincidence that Mr. Windham was quickly shuffled to a less controversial position within the school administration.  Perhaps, but the timing raises questions.  The mainstream media, for better or worse, has given very little attention to this issue.

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. It also did not meet the standard for Louisiana’s hate-crime statute, and though widely condemned by all officials, there was no crime to charge the youths with.

Last week, US Attorney Don Washington, finally admitted that the noose hanging in Jena constituted a hate crime under federal law.  Richard Cohen of the Southern Poverty Law Center has argued persuasively that the act also satisfies the Louisiana definition of a hate crime.

But, like Mr. Cohen, I agree with the basic thrust of Franklin’s argument here–the noose hangers should not have been charged with committing a hate crime because they are juveniles who didn’t understand the full import of their actions.  I have no doubt that the noose hangers would have felt remorse if the horror of the noose symbol had been adequately explained to them; but I remain skeptical.  Now that the “remorseful noose boys” theory is on the table, I’m sure the media will report it; but this new wrinkle only surfaced last week.

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.” Instead, according to Walters, “two or three girls, white girls, were chit-chatting on their cellphones or playing with their cellphones right in the middle of my dissertation. I got a little irritated at them and said, ‘Pay attention to me. I am right now having to deal with an aggravated rape case where I’ve got to decide whether the death penalty applies or not.’ 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 so I want you to call me before you do something stupid.'”

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. Teachers and students have confirmed Walters’s version of events.

 No one has ever suggested that Reed Walters threatened to make the lives of students “miserable”–he said he could make their lives disappear (a slight difference in tone, you’ll agree).  Also, we must remember that school assemblies in Jena have traditionally been segregated.  That’s the way it was when the high school integrated in 1970; and that’s the way it has remained.  Black students insist he was looking at the black side of the auditorium when he issued his threat; but I don’t think it matters where he was looking.

We are being asked to believe that an irate Reed Walters told chatty white girls that he would use the power of his office to destroy their lives if they didn’t shut up.  This is nonsense; but even if it’s true, is that the kind of prosecutor you want in the LaSalle Parish courthouse?

The mainstream media has never done much with this episode–even though Reed Walters has admitted under oath that he uttered these threats four months after I attributed the words to him back in February.  Walters even explained the context of his remarks (and it had nothing to do with talkative white girls).  At a June 12th hearing, Mr. Walters explained that he didn’t see why he needed to take time away from his important work simply because high school students had blown the noose incident out of proportion.  The black and white students, he testified, should have been able to “work things out on their own”. 

Reed Walters understood why he was standing in the school auditorium.  Black students and their parents were outraged by the decision to treat the noose incident as a childish prank.  Earlier that day, virtually the entire black student body, led by the boys we now know as the Jena 6, had taken a defiant stand under the now-famous tree.  Most white kids had no problem with this gesture–but some took offense.  Push was coming to shove.  Racially charged shoving matches had been reported.  Tensions ran high.

Reed Walters came to Jena High School to calm things down.  Like Superintendent Breithaupt, Reed Walters believed the students and their parents were making a mountain out of a molehill.  His message was simple: drop the protest or I will use my prosecutorial authority to make you wish you had.  Settle down and I’ll be your best friend; keep fussing and I’ll be your worst enemy.

Given the context, that is the only message that makes sense.  What else could Walters have been driving at.  His words were addressed to the kids causing the fuss–and those kids were all black.  True, a vocal minority within the white student body took violent exception to the protest under the tree–but then, so did Mr. Walters. 

Mr. Franklin neglects to mention that black parents attended a school board meeting in the wake of the disciplinary committees’ decision to over-rule the recommendation of the principal.  The parents were refused a hearing because they weren’t on the agenda.  Shortly thereafter, the same parents made a brief presentation to the school board (a meeting covered in detail by the Jena Times) and were greeted with silence. 

Why, if the school board had been swayed by the white-on-white hate crime theory did they not explain themselves to these parents?  The two groups had a simple difference of opinion and eight of the nine board members were white.  They could do whatever they wanted to do, so they sat in stony silence.

Reed Walters was right about one thing–in “Lord of the Flies” fashion, the white and black students were left to “work things out for themselves”.  And sure enough, the prosecutor was waiting at the end of the trail, pen in hand.

The mainstream media, I must stress again, has never understood how damning all of this is for the DA.  Even bloggers tend to pass over the pen incident. 

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.

When they were denied entrance by the renter of the facility, 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. This is reported in witness statements to police, including the victim, Robert Bailey, Jr.

Months later, Bailey contended he was hit in the head with a beer bottle and required stitches. No medical records show this ever occurred. Mr. Sloan was prosecuted for simple battery, which according to Louisiana law, is the proper charge for hitting someone with a fist.

Robert Bailey Jr. didn’t wait several months to come up with the “bottle” theory; that was his story when I interviewed him for two hours in the LaSalle Parish jail back in January of 2007 and he has never deviated from it.  The fact that he didn’t mention every detail of the assault in his report to the police doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.  But the bottle rarely appears in mainstream reporting because the Fair Barn incident is rarely discussed.

The 22 year-0ld white male who assaulted Robert Bailey as he entered the Fair Barn continued his aggressively violent behavior even after adult chaperons had restrained him.  Hostilities continued in the parking lot.  The “lone assailant” theory runs contrary to everything we know about adolescent fights.  When your buddy throws a punch, you jump in to show you’ve got his back.  The same social dynamic was on display, with tragic consequences, at the high school a few days later.

There are several alternative explanations for the assault on Robert Bailey.  Some Jena residents have suggested that Robert was attacked because he was leaving the dance with a white girl.  Eye witness testimony lends no support to this version of events; I mention it only to indicate the power of rumor.  The story was told, and a lot of people believed it.

The common explanation, repeated here by Editor Franklin, is that Robert Bailey was trespassing and his assailant found this offensive.  Robert claims he was allowed to enter the dance with the proviso that he not cause trouble.  That last bit adds credence to the story–it’s not the sort of thing Robert would have invented. 

Several eye witnesses back up Robert’s account.  Let’s leave it to the lawyers to sort this one out, but it would be surprising for the police to limit the filing of charges to Robert’s attacker if they believed Robert had openly defied the party gatekeeper.  If that had been true, a charge of disturbing the peace or disorderly conduct would have been virtually inevitable.

The important question is never addressed: Why was Robert’s attacker so angry?  There is a backstory here that has never been told.  This wasn’t the first encounter between the two young men.  They, and their friends, had been feuding ever since the noose incident.

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.

I congratulate Mr. Franklin for his frank admission that the Gotta Go incident was related to the fight at the Fair Barn.  But how are the two events related?  Robert claims that Matt Wyndham, the boy with the shotgun, was one of the people who jumped him at the dance.  The Gotta Go incident cannot be understood unless this connection is recognized.

Again, the mainstream media generally skips over the convenience store incident; bloggers are much more likely to give the altercation the attention it deserves.

Everyone agrees that Robert Bailey and two friends, Theo Shaw and Ryan Simmons, were exiting the Gotta Go just as Matt Wyndham was approaching the store, that a fight ensued, and that a shotgun was involved in some way.  Two explanations have been put forward.

Mr. Wyndam seems to suggest that Robert and his friends stole his gun and then beat him up.  This is why the three boys stand accused of theft and assault. 

One thing is clear: Robert was confronting a kid who had jumped him the night before.  Robert had a score to settle. 

Fearing the worst, Matt Windham ran back to his vehicle to get his pistol-grip, pump-action shotgun.  It is not unusual for young men who live in the country around Jena to ride with this sort of weapon.  It is also clear that Windham had time to remove the shotgun from behind the seat of his truck before Robert arrived on the scene.

Now, imagine that you are Robert Bailey.  Maybe you just wanted to have a few words with your assailant; maybe you wanted a taste of revenge.  Who knows?  What we do know is that Robert followed Wyndham to his truck and saw him pull out a shotgun.  Theo and Ryan dived behind parked vehicles.  Robert would have done the same, but he was too close to the man with the gun; so he grabbed Wyndham’s arm and they wrestled for control of the weapon.

Now, imagine you are Theo Shaw and Ryan Simmons.  You see your buddy wrestling for control of a dangerous weapon with the kid who helped beat him up the night before.  What do you do?  You help your friend.  In the circumstances, no other course of action is even thinkable.

Nor is it surprising that, collectively, Robert and his friends were able to get the gun away from their would-be assassin.  But now they’ve got another problem; what do they do with the gun?  Hand it back?

Of course they should have called the police.  But you’ve got the gun now, and you just got physical with the gun owner.  How is a white officer going to interpret the scene?  You don’t know, but you can guess.  So you run off with the gun and stash it in the old red truck behind Robert’s trailer.

This entire scenario is unthinkable if you take the assault at the Fair Barn out of the equation.  Robert had met white boys coming out of the Gotta Go a thousand times; Matt Wyndham had met black boys under similar circumstances just as often.  So why do we have a violent interlude on this particular morning?  Because there had been a fight the night before.  And why had there been a fight the night before?  Because two groups of boys (white friends of the noose hangers, and black football players) had maintained a running feud ever since Reed Walters and Roy Breithaupt made their rulings and issued their threats.

Myth 7: The Schoolyard Fight. The event on Dec. 4, 2006 was consistently labeled a “schoolyard fight.” But witnesses described something much more horrific. 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. (It remains unclear why Mr. Barker was specifically targeted.)

When Barker tried to leave through another exit, court testimony indicates, 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.

First, Mr. Franklin suggests that the assault on Justin Barker was an isolated incident; then he says it may have been a carryover from the white-initiated violence of the weekend.  Which explanation makes sense?

Franklin is certainly right that the assault on Barker should not be characterized as a “fight” in the usual sense; neither should the assault on Robert Bailey at the Fair Barn.  Both boys were cold cocked–the primary difference being that Justin Barker was knocked unconscious by the initial blow while Robert Bailey was not.

The details of the assault are difficult to establish on the basis of eyewitness testimony.  (I obtained copies of the eyewitness statements before a single defense attorney had seen them.)  Only one witness, Christy Martin, a teacher, advances the barricade theory suggested above.  The same teacher is the only witness able to provide a detailed list of who attacked Justin Barker (although she admits she did not witness the attack because of the alleged barricade). 

A statement from yet another teacher says that he gave Ms. Martin a list of black students who had been acting up during the lunch hour.  I will leave it to defense counsel to piece all of this together, but if you see a pattern developing, your eyes do not deceive you.

The mainstream media has never minimized the extent of Justin Barker’s injuries.  Bloggers, on both sides of this issue, have been guilty of distorting the facts to their own advantage.  Supporters of the Jena 6 frequently dismiss the incident as a schoolyard dust-up.  No one who has seen the pictures of Mr. Barker’s bruised face would make that claim–the kid absorbed a genuine thumping. 

We must remember that Mr. Barker was unconscious, and therefore defenseless, when he hit the ground.  There can be no question that he was kicked by black students (although the identity of the kickers is difficult to establish).  It is also likely that anyone rushing to the scene or away from the scene (and eyewitness accounts suggest a wild scramble in both directions) could have added to the damage, and it is difficult to know with any certainty how the damage was done.  But just look at the pictures and you can only sympathize with Justin Barker and his family.  If my kid was beaten that badly I would be devastated, so I have never had any trouble understanding how the Barker family feels about all of this.

But the extent of Justin’s injuries can be exaggerated.  No bones were broken (a surprising fact considering the alleged murderous intent of the alleged assailants); no organs were damaged, and although there was a great deal of bruising and swelling, few serious cuts have been reported.  My respect for the Barker family makes me reluctant to relate these facts, but at the end of the day, Justin was up and walking.  There was no spring in his step, to be sure, and his face looked almost as bad as it had looked when pictures were taken at the hospital.  His injuries, in short, were both serious and superficial; small wonder, then, that pundits on both sides of the divide would spin things to their advantage. 

The mainstream media, however, has generally exercised great caution in this regard.

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. This was confirmed by the United States attorney for the Western District of Louisiana, Donald Washington, on numerous occasions.

Eyewitnesses didn’t mention the noose incident because they weren’t asked about it.  The primary difference between my account of the facts and Mr. Franklin’s is that he has always presented the assault on Mr. Barker as an isolated incident while I see it as the final act in a tragic string of intimately related events beginning with Kenneth Purvis’s question. 

The mainstream media falls somewhere between my version of the truth and Mr. Franklin’s.  No one should be surprised that public officials in Jena are threatened by my narrative–they should be.  If any of these cases come to trial (and Mr. Franklin should be praying that they don’t) far more connective tissue will come to public attention.

Myth 9: Mychal Bell’s All-White Jury. While it is true that Mychal Bell was convicted as an adult by an all-white jury in June (a conviction that was later overturned with his case sent to juvenile court), the jury selection process was completely legal and withstood an investigation by the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. Court officials insist that several black residents were summoned for jury duty, but did not appear.

Craig Franklin is absolutely right about this.  Few black residents qualified for jury duty and most of the handful of people who did qualify didn’t show up for health reasons, because they were acquainted with the defendant, or because they knew the prosecutor would strike them.  Minority jurors are always the first strikes when, as is usually the case, the defendant is a minority.  This is all standard procedure, however, and says nothing about LaSalle Parish per se.

Myth 10: Jena 6 as Model Youth. While some members were simply caught up in the moment, others had criminal records. Bell had at least four prior violent-crime arrests before the December attack, and was on probation during most of this year.

Notice that Mr. Franklin stops with Mychal Bell’s well-publicized juvenile record.  No one in the mainstream media has suggested that the defendants were “Model Youth”.  In fact, the disturbing nature of the allegations would have killed this story if the strange behavior of public officials didn’t raise questions about the quality of justice the Jena 6 could expect in LaSalle Parish. 

These are normal, small-town kids.  African Americans tend to identify with the Jena 6 because their story is so familiar, not because they see these kids as latter day incarnations of sister Rosa.  Black Americans know that ordinary kids can get swept up in a pathological social dynamic not of their own making.

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.

In general, I am in agreement with Mr. Franklin here.  Bloggers and radio personalities have frequently exaggerated the extent and the nature of the racism on display in Jena.  Civil rights leaders, for the most part, have been more cautious on this score.  I have always argued that Jena is a mirror for America, and I stand by that assessment.  

It must be said, however, that LaSalle Parish has retained some disturbing vestiges of the old Jim Crow South that need to be faced honestly and openly (although, I admit that the current environment is hardly conducive to serious self-examination).  Kenneth Purvis asked a question that Jena officials couldn’t answer–the issue wasn’t considered a proper subject for public conversation.  Did an informal, but influential, color line exist on the high school campus?  If so, should Jena renounce that line and turn over a new leaf?  The adults of Jena weren’t ready for these questions and now the kids, black and white, are paying the price.

Myth 12: Two Levels of Justice. Outside protesters were convinced that the prosecution of the Jena 6 was proof of a racially biased system of justice. But the US Justice Department’s investigation found no evidence to support such a claim. In fact, the percentage of blacks and whites prosecuted matches the parish’s population statistics.

It must be remembered that the US Justice Department is part of the American criminal justice system.  Donald Washington was right: most of what happened in Jena was legal.  That is because we have decided to gift prosecutors and judges with great discretion.  Mr. Walters’ threat to black students, the prejudicial announcement he published in the Jena Times in mid-December, 2006, and a number of his recent comments are clearly grounds for recusal.  Ethical standards have been violated.  But were these acts illegal?  We’ll see–the ethical bar for prosecutors is set very low.

Friends of Justice decided to bring this case to the attention of the nation because it illustrates what is happening, albeit in less spectacular fashion, across the nation.  We aren’t trying to get the Jena 6 off; we’ve been trying to get them some justice.  The next few stages in the legal process will demonstrate whether we have succeeded.  I suspect we have.  There will be no repeat of the fiasco that was the Mychal Bell trial.

Regrettably, however, the mainstream media has rarely asked what the Jena story says about the fairness of the American criminal justice system.  “Objective” journalists aren’t supposed to even address that question–they can only repeat the critique advanced by their sources.  And thus far, sources like Al Sharpton haven’t settled on a consistent message.  One moment, Jena is a throwback to Jim Crow justice; the next moment, Jena is about contemporary America.  Al Sharpton et al, need to clarify their message.

The media has created the illusion that Jena is a uniquely racist community by asking Jena residents the wrong question: “Do you think this is a racist town?”

Black residents, with few exceptions, do see Jena as a racist community; white folks disagree.  Conflicting quotations give the appearance of a town divided along racial lines.  Tulia, Texas received the same treatment, with similar results.

Journalists should be asking if the Jena 6 can get a semblance of Justice in LaSalle Parish.  They should be asking if the plight of the Jena 6 suggests unresolved issues within the American criminal justice system. Unfortunately, the mainstream media doesn’t like that question because they fear that Middle America doesn’t like it. 

These are just 12 of many myths that are portrayed as fact in the media concerning the Jena cases. (A more thorough review of all events can be found at www.thejenatimes.net – click on Chronological Order of Events.)

Click on this link and you will get an expanded version of the official-friendly history the Jena Times has been sponsoring from the beginning.

As with the Duke Lacrosse case, the truth about Jena will eventually be known. But the town of Jena isn’t expecting any apologies from the media. They will probably never admit their error and have already moved on to the next “big” story. Meanwhile in Jena, residents are getting back to their regular routines, where friends are friends regardless of race. Just as it has been all along.

Craig Franklin is right to compare Jena with the Duke Lacrosse imbroglio.  Mike Nifong and Reed Walters presented the public with a version of history unsupported by the facts and simple common sense.  If Mr. Nifong’s victims had been represented by the lamentable Blaine Williams they would have been convicted at the end of a brief and unheralded trial.  Had Mr. NJifong focused on an anonymous college with low-status students, the media wouldn’t have paid much attention.  Thanks to highly paid, motivated defense counsel, the Duke defendants were able to clear their names.  Now that the Jena 6 enjoy the same advantage, the scales in the hands of the blind lady are beginning to tilt in the direction of justice.

• Craig Franklin is assistant editor of The Jena Times.

Alan Bean is executive director of Friends of Justice.

Funds Raised for Jena Six Defense Covering Legal Fees, but Monies Drying Up, Activists Say

 http://www.blackamericaweb.com/site.aspx/bawnews/jenasixmoney1023

Date: Tuesday, October 23, 2007
By: Sherrel Wheeler Stewart, BlackAmericaweb.com

As thousands rallied in a Jena, Louisiana ballpark on Sept. 20 to support six black youths facing stiff charges for fighting a white school mate, realtor Robert Clark climbed atop his recreational vehicle with a public address system and went to work raising money.

“I was looking at all the slogans — ‘Free Mychal Bell’ and ‘Free the Jena Six,’” Clark told BlackAmericaWeb.com. “I said we can raise enough to free Mychal Bell right now if everyone puts in $2.”

His goal was to raise about $10,000 to bail Bell out of jail. He ended up raising about $27,000, with the first contribution of 500 $1 bills coming from a Monroe, Louisiana motorcycle rider. A Louisiana doctor paid Bell’s bail. The money raised by Clark was handed over to Louis Scott, the lead attorney for Bell.

In the weeks since thousands flooded the tiny Louisiana town calling for equal justice, groups raising funds for the defense say the inward flow of money has tapered off.

The Color of Change, a California-based group that began accepting contributions for the Jena Six’s defense early in the case, reported raising about $230,000 to help pay lawyers and court expenses. To date, $170,000 has been paid, said James Rucker, executive director of Color of Change. Lawyers representing five of the six youths have received money. The organization is awaiting invoices from a sixth attorney, Rucker said.

“The fund was building and building, then it peaked just after Sept. 20,” Rucker told BlackAmericaWeb.com. “After a week or so, it slowed down.”

The organization is planning later to restart its aggressive fundraising because the families face additional legal expenses that have not been met, he said.

The NAACP has been accepting contributions on behalf of the Jena Six for several weeks through its website and regular mail, said Richard McIntire, spokesman for the national organization.

“We’ve received hundreds of contributions. The average contribution has been $42. The largest contribution has been the $10,000 from David Bowie,” McIntire told BlackAmericaWeb.com. “We were asked by the Louisiana state NAACP chapter to assist in fundraising because it was believed that some supporters would feel more comfortable contributing to a national organization they were more familiar with.”

The monies collected by NAACP will be distributed equitably among the families of the six youths to be used for expenses, McIntire said. He could not release the total amount collected by NAACP for Jena youths to date.

Another Jena Six defense fund is being handled by the families of the youths. Efforts by BlackAmericaWeb.com to reach the families to discuss fundraising were unsuccessful.

Across the country people, launched efforts large and small to raise monies for defense once word of the students’ plight began spreading.

In Tampa, Fla., a group of poets and spoken word artists organized an event on Sept. 20 and raised more than $2,000, said Lizz Straight, a Tampa-based spoken word artist.

“I got a money order and sent it all to the post office box in Jena designated for the Jena Defense Fund,” Straight told BlackAmericaWeb.com. “We just wanted to do something.”

Some fundraising efforts have also been subjected to suspicion.

“Just as I was standing on my RV raising money, there was another guy on the back of a pick-up truck who said he was raising money for Jena Six,” said Clark. “No one knows what happened to that money.”

Also, some conservative Web sites have charged that some of the money raised on behalf of the Jena Six has been used for cars and jewelry for family members.

Alan Bean of the Texas-based Friends of Justice said he believes money being raised for the Jena Six is being spent properly.

“Any time you have a situation where informal accounting is used, it is possible that there will be the perception that funds are being mishandled,” Bean told BlackAmericaWeb.com.

“Robert Clark’s passing of the hat on Sept. 20 has been our biggest single fundraiser to date,” Bell’s attorney Louis Scott told BlackAmericaWeb.com. “Though some folks may think everything is over, there is still more to come,” he said.

Mychal Bell, Bryant Purvis, Theo Shaw, Carwin Jones, Robert Bailey Jr., and a juvenile were arrested after a Dec. 4 fight with Justin Barker at Jena High school. The fight followed weeks of tension in the school touched off just as school started in August when whites hung nooses in a tree. Blacks had sat under that tree that was a traditional gathering post for whites.

The students who hung the nooses were suspended from school for several days and given in-school suspension, though their action was later called a hate crime by federal officials.

The black youths were jailed and faced bonds of up to $138,000.

Bell was convicted this summer in the case, but it was overturned. He was released on bail, and his bond was reduced a week after the Sept. 20 rally. Then about two weeks ago, State District Judge J.P. Mauffray Jr. — the same judge who had him locked up in an adult jail — ordered him placed into custody, saying that he violated terms of parole from an earlier juvenile incident and sentencing him to 18 months.

Bell’s case is now being handled in juvenile court since an appeals court in September overturned his conviction in adult court. Several of the six have court motions pending in early November, lawyers said.

Because Bell’s case is now in juvenile court, the record of proceedings is sealed.

The Associated Press on Monday joined more than two dozen other organizations, including newspapers, television networks and network affiliates, in filing a court petition that challenges a judge’s decision to seal Bell’s case and close court proceedings to the news media and public.

The group seeks permission to attend upcoming hearings in the case, to review transcripts of previous hearings and other court records and to lift a gag order against participants in the case.

Judge Mauffray’s restrictions “substantially limit the (media’s) ability to report to the public the facts about this significant case and unconstitutionally stifle the flow of information to the public,” the petition claims.

Lawyers for the news organizations filed the petition in the 28th Judicial District Court in LaSalle Parish, the court where Bell’s case is being heard. Mauffray is expected to hear the petition, according to Mary Ellen Roy, a lawyer for the news organizations.

Mauffray’s secretary, Bobbie Smith, said Monday afternoon that the judge hadn’t received the petition.

Carol Powell Lexing, one of Bell’s lawyers, said the case should be open to the public. District Attorney Reed Walters, she added, “opened the door” for that when he publicly discussed Bell’s prior criminal history.

“This is a highly publicized case,” she said. “The nation has a right to know what’s going on with it.”

—

Associated Press contributed to this report.

The Color Spectrum Teaches Us About Justice
Izetta Mobley

On September 20^th, I wore black. I wore black, as many Black people did, in solidarity with the Jena 6, who are quickly becoming the 21^st century’s Scottsboro Boys. I am wearing black, even though I have the profound urge and desire to wear red, a Maoist, seductive, bold red – on this, the possible new dawn, of what Al Sharpton has begun calling the “Civil Rights Movement of the 21^st Century.” I am wearing black, even as I have conflicting thoughts and emotions. I am eager for this moment of solidarity – a chance to acknowledge the injustice of inequitable sentencing. So, for today, it is my lipstick that is crimson.  

But on Wednesday October 31, 2007 I will be wearing red; that uncomfortably womanish shade of scarlet that suggests a certain looseness, appreciation of blues, likelihood to walk the streets at night, willingness to be loud, dedication to self, and a deep refusal to be rendered invisible. Red, the color so many of us are told to avoid, because of its Western association, with the marked, fallen woman; red, that rich, rapturous, full, so-bright-it-looks-as-if-it’s-had-a-good-meal ruby color, red so intense, it’s nearly purple. Yes, that color – that’s the one I want to mark my outrage at the rape and torture of Megan Williams, a 20-year old woman in West Virginia; the sexual assault of a Haitian woman and her son in West Palm Beach, Florida; and the continued violence visited upon women of color.

 Red is the color I choose, because I am not interested in being invisible. I am not interested in being forgotten. I am not interested in being a sidebar conversation. I am not interested, because I will be the womyn who walks into the room wearing the color red, who makes the conversation stop, and gently suggests another topic – the role of violence and abuse in women’s lives perhaps? I am interested in being seen. I am interested in hearing what communities of color, so recently outfitted in black to mark the injustice done to the Jena 6, will do to mark the violence and injustice done to Megan Williams.

 For me, the color red is about boldness. It is a vibrant color that cannot be ignored. Beyond the pink of feminism, and even the purple of womanism, red is a color that says, “stop and see.” On October 31^st, we ask women of color and their allies, to break the silence and invisibility surrounding violence against women of color, by choosing to be seen. By choosing to be vocal, to be brave, to be bold and work to stop violence against women.

Press Release

Well, on October 31^st, Women of color from around the country will be gathering in spaces where acts of violence against women of color occurred to reclaim that space and take a stand against continued gender and or racially motivated violence. Stop the Violence, End the Silence

participants will wear red and transform the space with red objects as a sign of reclamation.  Events will commence at 9 pm EST all across the country. Participants are encouraged to read a solidarity litany at the close of their self designed program.

This call to action was sparked by University of Chicago Political Science graduate student Fallon Wilson and activist Izetta Mobley. After seeing very little media attention given to the plight of Megan Williams, a black woman brutally raped and tortured by 6 people for a week, and that of a Haitian woman in Dunbar Village, Florida who was also raped and forced to perform oral sex on her son, they created a short film How Do We Keep a Social Movement Alive?, asking those who mobilized on behalf of the Jena 6 to not neglect these instances of violence against women of color. As more and more web viewers saw the short film, they learned of other stories two of which are now in the documentary and countless others that have made their way onto the website http://www.documentthesilence.wordpress.com . So far over 28,000 people have seen the short movie clip. The movie clip can be found here, http://www.jumpcut.com/view?id=E44BFBCE67BF11DC9030000423CF037A
Women of color from across the country will also be organizing Town Hall meetings in their homes, places of worship, and work places in the weeks leading up to the 31^st . These meetings are designed to document the silences surrounding women of color stories of violence by creating a “safe space” for both women and men to share their stories. Participants are encouraged to outline ways that people can stay engaged and make a difference within their own communities. Wilson’s and Mobley’s short documentary, How Do We Keep a Social Movement Alive?, will be the starting point for these discussions. Confirmed sites of participation include Atlanta , Chicago , and New York .