In the end, what was accomplished?  Most committee members aimed their questions at US Attorney Donald Washington, the man who has been consistently unplaying the seriousness of the noose incident since mid-June.  Washington initially felt pressured to side with Jena officials in this matter; now, with some pressure coming from opponents of the status quo, the political appointee has adapted his testimony . . . slightly.  It is no longer possible for noose apologists to site Mr. Washington as an ally.  So far, so good.

Tragically, most of the people interrogating Mr. Washington and his associate, Lisa Krigsten, seem to feel that the noose hangers should have been tried as adults under federal hate crimes law, even if this meant locking them up for ten years without parole (remember, parole has been eliminated from the federal judicial system).

There are two problems: (1) the limp response of Jena officials to the noose incident; and (2) an inept reaction on the part of the Department of Justice that, in the minds of most observers, appeared to validate the inaction of folks like Roy Breithaupt and Reed Walters. 

The hearings represent a giant step forward.  They would have been more effective, however, if more attention had been paid to the egregious behavior of Reed and Roy.  When Mr. Sharpton focuses on the noose boys he lets Jena officials slip into the shadows.

But this is just a matter of emphasis.  The significant fact is that hardly anyone, Democrat or Republican, made the slightest attempt to defend the indefensible.  The very fact that most Republicans chose to be elsewhere suggests they have no appetite for this fight. 

Unfortunately, proponents of a knee-jerk law-and-order, lock-em-up philosophy don’t have to fight–they currently control the public policy agenda.  Nonetheless, we congratulate Mr. Conyers for convening an illuminating hearing on a timely topic.

Howard Witt just filed this report on today’s House Judiciary Committee hearings into the Jena fiasco.  I didn’t catch the initial remarks by the half dozen witnesses, but the real drama didn’t unfold until the questions began to flow. 

As I hoped, US Attorney Donald Washington was deluged with tough questions from unless somebody does some serious prison timeenraged politicians like Sheila Jackson-Lee and Maxine Waters.  The heat generated by these blunt exchanges was not manufactured for the cameras; it was personal and it was emotional.  Mr. Washington has clearly shocked black politicians with his tacit endorsement of LaSalle Parish District Attorney, Reed Walters.

As Howard Witt’s report suggests, Washington did his best to restate his opinions without appearing to contradict himself.  The nooses hung at Jena High School in late August of 2006 constituted a hate crime, the US Attorney admitted; but the students responsible for the incident were too young to try under federal law.

This rhetoric is much stronger than anything we have heard from Mr. Washington up to this point.  Frankly, I agree with his assessment–so far as it goes.

The real issues didn’t emerge until late in the hearing.  Don Washington agreed that if Reed Walters had told protesting black students that he could make their lives disappear with a stroke of his pen he should be disciplined.  But, Washington argued, the DA had said nothing of the kind.

Asked to defend this surprising claim, Washington admitted that Walters had said “those words,” but that the prosecutor hadn’t meant by them what the congressman claimed he meant.  Since the wording of the allegations against Walters was taken straight out of my original Jena narrative, my ears perked up at that comment. 

The US Attorney hinted that Mr. Walters had not been “flanked by police officers” as I originally suggested.  In a literal sense, this may or may not be true.  But there can be no doubt that several officers, in full uniform, (probably the entire force) was present in the high school auditorium when Walters uttered his ominous threat.  As I have argued elsewhere, the “I can make your life disappear with a stroke of my pen” remark only makes sense when applied to the black students who, moments earlier, had created unrest on the campus by occupying the tree at the white end of the school yard.  White students may have been protesting the protesters–but then, so was Mr. Walters.

But I have worked that argument to death–the important point is that Mr. Washington is now on record as saying that, if Reed Walters meant what I say he meant, he should be disciplined.  That is a mighty step forward.

A second issue also passed unremarked by reporters: the sharp disagreement between Al Sharpton and Richard Cohen, CEO of the Southern Poverty Law Center, as to the source of the problem in Jena.  Sharpton thinks the noose hangers should have been tried in federal court as adults even if this carried the potential of ten years in prison without parole. 

Cohen disagrees.  He believes that all the tragic developments in Jena flowed from the tragic mishandling of the noose incident.

I am with Cohen on this one.  Rev. Sharpton, clearly angered by Cohen’s inconvenient perspective, proclaimed stridently that, unless somebody does some serious time behind bars, people will go around thinking that hate crimes are okay .  This is an extension of the flawed “lock-em-up; it’ll-teach-em-a-lesson” logic driving the current policy of mass incarceration.  

You can’t teach a kid to stop hating by sticking him in prison.  The child behind the hate crime must be taught why his behavior is hurtful and unacceptable.  Locking up the noose boys (even if such a thing were conceivable in a place like Jena) would simply have created martyrs for the South-gonna-rise-again cause.

A strong disciplinary response was clearly called for in September of 2006; but the criminal justice system provides remedies for very few problems–and this isn’t one of them.  Black parents weren’t angered because of the lax discipline; they were angered because school officials (and DA Walters) gave their tacit endorsement to the noose symbol by refusing to call hate by its proper name.  The lax disciplinary response was galling principally because it reinforced this message.

Republican lawmakers, for the most part, showed their support for Jena officials by boycotting the Jena hearings.  Reed Walters was asked to testify but politely declined the invitation.

Somewhere between Salim Muwakkil’s In These Times article, “Jena and the Post-Civil Rights Fallacy” and Bob Herbert’s positive review  (pasted below) of Bill Cosby and Dr. Alvin Poussaint’s new book, “Come on, People: On the Path From Victims to Victors,” lies the truth.  Cosby and Poussaint’s book was featured for a full hour on “Meet the Press” this past Sunday. 

Mr. Muwakkil suggests that America’s “school to prison pipeline” belies the argument that America has moved into a post-racial era in which black candidates can run for office without their race being a major factor.

Bill Cosby says black people need to stop blaming white people for their problems.

Mr. Cosby is resented by many black intellectuals, but not because they necessarily disagree with his sentiments.  Critics say the comedian’s one-sided, no-nuance approach lends aid and comfort to folks like Jena’s Reed Walters and Roy Breithaupt who deny that racism has anything to do with anything.

At first glance, Bob Herbert appears to fill the middle ground between the “blaming white folks makes it worse” school and the “institutionalized white racism” camp.  The New York Times columnist wrote ten influential columns on the Tulia drug sting (the case that created Friends of Justice), and he is famous for his graphic depictions of white bigotry and eloquent diatribes against the mass incarceration of minority males.

But Herbert has also written a string of columns in recent years critical of Hip Hop Culture and the pathologies commonly associated with the black underclass. 

Unfortunately, Herbert rarely discusses both issues on the same day and under the same heading.

Mr. Muwakkil, orthodox leftist that he is, laments the persistant reality of entrenched white racism and “the school to prison pipeline”; but he has little to say about the alarming social disintegration within poor neighborhoods.

Here’s the problem: Mass incarceration multiplies the social chaos it is intended to address.  The theory behind America’s love affair with prisons and jails works like this: if we send offenders away for very, very long sentences, people will stop doing illegal things.  Because people act in their own best interest, the threat of incarceration encourages people to live within the law. 

Sadly, things haven’t worked according to plan.  Anyone who has worked with at-risk kids (as I have) knows they rarely do what is in their best interst.  In fact, they don’t know what their best interest looks like.  Under the best circumstances, adolescent males have an alarming tendency to act on impulse.  Under the worst circumstances, impulse is everything.

The Children’s Defense Fund invited personal responsibility gurus like Bill Cosby and Juan Williams to their recent conference on Dismantling the Cradle to Prison Pipeline.  As I mentioned at the time, the Howard University audience embraced their message with enthusiasm. 

The next night I was on the same stage with several Jena 6 family members.  Same rapturous response.

But you rarely find Bill Cosby on the same panel with Ted Shaw of the Legal Defense Fund, or Harvard law professor Charles Ogletree.  Placed on the same stage, these folks would have to address each other’s issues–something they are more than capable of doing.  But they never seem to get the chance.

In my experience, you can’t get anywhere with a mainstream black audience unless you address the personal responsibility issue and the debilitating impact of institutional racism.  The folks who streamed to Jena would generally agree with Cosby and Pouissaint.  Blaming whitey for your problems is a one-way ticket to personal oblivion; but that doesn’t mean whitey ain’t a big part of the problem–he is . . . I am.

When we admit that the prison problem begins with the cradle we understand that fatherless families place little boys and girls (especially boys) at enormous risk.  But we also acknowledge the debilitating impact of racially toxic, white-controlled, environments like Jena High School.  Inner city schools in high-poverty neighborhoods, even if they enjoy a high percentage of minority teachers and administrators, are generally overwhlemed by low teacher morale, substandard facilities, little parental support, and the myriad social problems kids drag to school behind them. 

On balance, American society has chosen to ignore poor families and dysfunctional schools.  We believe that if we lock up enough young males folks will straighten up sooner or later.  We keep waiting and nobody seems to be straightening up.

Against this depressing backdrop, Cosby’s rant against black poor people rings hollow.  He fails to address the full complexity of the problem out of fear that too much nuance will encourage a counterproductive “blame whitey” cult of victimization.

Most people, it is assumed, can only live with one big idea.

But this is not an either-or proposition.  It is not a zero-sum game in which paying attention to one side of the problem deflates the legitimacy of the other side. 

I retract the last paragraph.  In practice, it is as zero-sum game–but it shouldn’t be.

If we segregate the issues we cannot address the problem.  The cradle to prison pipeline must be considered in the context of personal and family responsibility–and vice versa.  Tackle just one aspect of the problem and we will fail, miserably, repeatedly, and utterly. 

October 16, 2007

Op-Ed Columnist

Tough, Sad and Smart

By BOB HERBERT

They are a longtime odd couple, Bill Cosby and Harvard’s Dr. Alvin Poussaint, and their latest campaign is nothing less than an effort to save the soul of black America.

Mr. Cosby, of course, is the boisterous veteran comedian who has spent the last few years hammering home some brutal truths about self-destructive behavior within the African-American community.

“A word to the wise ain’t necessary,” Mr. Cosby likes to say. “It’s the stupid ones who need the advice.”

Dr. Poussaint is a quiet, elegant professor of psychiatry who, in public at least, is in no way funny. He teaches at the Harvard Medical School and is a staff member at the Judge Baker Children’s Center in Boston, where he sees kids struggling in some of the toughest circumstances imaginable.

I always wonder, whenever I talk to Dr. Poussaint, why he isn’t better known. He’s one of the smartest individuals in the country on issues of race, class and justice.

For three years, Mr. Cosby and Dr. Poussaint have been traveling the country, meeting with as many people as possible to explore the problems facing the black community.

There is a sense of deep sadness and loss — grief — evident in both men over the tragedy that has befallen so many blacks in America. They were on “Meet the Press” for the entire hour Sunday, talking about their new book, a cri de coeur against the forces of self-sabotage titled, “Come On, People: On the Path From Victims to Victors.”

There weren’t many laughs over the course of the hour. Speaking about the epidemic of fatherlessness in black families, Mr. Cosby imagined a young fatherless child thinking: “Somewhere in my life a person called my father has not shown up, and I feel very sad about this because I don’t know if I’m ugly — I don’t know what the reason is.”

Dr. Poussaint, referring to boys who get into trouble, added: “I think a lot of these males kind of have a father hunger and actually grieve that they don’t have a father. And I think later a lot of that turns into anger. ‘Why aren’t you with me? Why don’t you care about me?’ ”

The absence of fathers, and the resultant feelings of abandonment felt by boys and girls, inevitably affect the children’s sense of self-worth, he said.

The book lays out the difficult route black people will have to take to free the many who are still trapped in prisons of extreme violence, poverty, degradation and depression.

It’s a work with a palpable undercurrent of love throughout. And yet it pulls no punches. In a chapter titled “What’s Going on With Black Men?,” the authors (in a voice that sounds remarkably like Mr. Cosby’s) note:

“You can’t land a plane in Rome saying, ‘Whassup?’ to the control tower. You can’t be a doctor telling your nurse, ‘Dat tumor be nasty.’ ”

Racism is still a plague and neither Mr. Cosby nor Dr. Poussaint give it short shrift. But they also note that in past years blacks were able to progress despite the most malignant forms of racism and that many are succeeding today.

“Blaming white people,” they write, “can be a way for some black people to feel better about themselves, but it doesn’t pay the electric bills. There are more doors of opportunity open for black people today than ever before in the history of America.”

I couldn’t agree more. Racism disgusts me, and I think it should be fought with much greater ferocity than we see today. But that’s no reason to drop out of school, or take drugs, or refuse to care for one’s children, or shoot somebody.

The most important step toward ending the tragic cycles of violence and poverty among African-Americans also happens to be the heaviest lift — reconnecting black fathers to their children.

In an interview yesterday, Dr. Poussaint said: “You go into whole neighborhoods and there are no fathers there. What you find is apathy in a lot of the males who don’t even know that they are supposed to be a father.”

The book covers a great deal that has been talked about incessantly — the importance of family and education and hard work and mentoring and civic participation. But hand in hand with its practical advice and the undercurrent of deep love for one’s community is a stress on the absolute importance of maintaining one’s personal dignity and self-respect.

It’s a tough book. Victimhood is cast as the enemy. Defeat, failure and hopelessness are not to be tolerated.

Hard times and rough circumstances are not excuses for degrading others or allowing oneself to be degraded. In fact, they’re not excuses for anything, except to try harder.

http://axcessnews.com/index.php/articles/show/id/12740

House committee to examine hate crimes, Jena Six incident

By Kris Turner

(AXcess News) Washington – The House Judiciary Committee will be schooled about the Jena Six incident and youth hate crimes Tuesday.

Legal and civil rights experts will testify about the types of youth hate crimes being committed throughout the country, using the Jena Six as an example.

“A very high percentage of hate crimes in our country are committed by youth,” said Richard Cohen, president of the Southern Poverty Law Center. “Schools are a common venue for hate crimes.”

In December, six black teenagers were charged with attempted murder after being arrested for beating a white classmate in Jena, La. The arrests followed a series of racial incidents at Jena High School that included the hanging of nooses from a tree.

Schools are the third most common place hate crimes are committed, the FBI reported in its 2005 Uniform Crime Report. From 2004 to 2005, hate crimes at schools and colleges increased by 8 percent, the report stated.

“There are a lot of hormones that are raging,” said Cohen, who will testify before the committee. “Our schools are flash points for this activity. People are stating their claim and marking their territory.”

School administrators can help eliminate hate crimes, but sometimes exacerbate situations by dolling out unequal punishments to students, Cohen said.

The Jena Six incident highlights the failure of public schools and the criminal justice system, said Charles Ogletree, director of the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice at Harvard Law School. Congress must examine whether Jena High School treated its black and white students the same when handing out punishments. Several white students were suspended for hanging the nooses.

“The Jena case is simply the reflection of a broader set of problems and racial hostility in the United States,” said Ogletree, who also will testify before the committee. “While we were shocked and dismayed to learn about nooses being hung on a tree that was usually reserved for white students to sit in the shade, we have seen repeated incidents at Columbia University and the University of Maryland. This sort of behavior is coming back in the 21st century.”

The commonplace nature of hate crimes in schools is disturbing, said Joselle Shea, manager of children and youth initiates for the National Crime Prevention Council. Schools are working to prevent hate crimes, and focusing on bullying is one way to stop the spread of hate, she added.

The council has visited more than 30 states and established programs that teach tolerance, Shea said. The programs consist of skits or demonstrations that illustrate the effects of harassment.

“The Jena Six incident is a call for all of us and our communities to take a good look and see how we are showing respect for all the people in our community,” she said.

Also scheduled to testify Tuesday are the Rev. Al Sharpton; Donald Washington, U.S. attorney for the Western District of Louisiana; Lisa Krigsten, of the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division; and the Rev. Brian Moran, pastor of the Jena Antioch Baptist Church and president of Jena’s National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

Source: Scripps Howard Foundation Wire

 This editorial from the Chicago Sun-Times shows that some folks are beginning to “get” Jena.  “If the Jena 6 case teaches us anything,” we read, “it’s the ability to question injustice served on people who aren’t altogether perfect.” 

I am not suggesting that all of the Jena 6 defendants are guilty as charged.  But somebody beat up Justin Barker, and those convicted of participation in the assault, in a fair trial (i.e. the kind no longer possible within the confines of LaSalle Parish) need to answer for their actions. 

But what sort of punishment is appropriate for these students, or for the adults responsible for creating a toxic social environment at Jena High School?  How do we go about fixing what is broken?  That’s the question.

Suspensions fail test of fairness

October 15, 2007

The Jena 6 case drew the nation’s attention to unequal justice at a small-town Louisiana school. Yet, discipline statistics from the Chicago Public Schools, analyzed by the Sun-Times’ editorial page, suggest we don’t have to look beyond our backyard to raise the same questions of inequality. Of the 500 students suspended every day in Chicago public schools, black students are three times more likely than whites or Hispanics to be suspended.

Black students make up 48 percent of the Chicago Public Schools population but account for 73 percent of suspensions. The suspension rate is about equal for Hispanic and white students: Hispanics total 38 percent of the student population and 20 percent of suspensions; white students make up 8 percent of the population but just 4 percent of suspensions.

Those numbers are from 2006, but the disparity has lingered for many years. Foundations and think tanks have studied it and written about it. A 2005 report, “The Schoolhouse to Jailhouse Track,” said, “Chicago’s zero tolerance policies and practices fall more harshly on black students.” An internal study by CPS in 2004 showed that black students were more likely to be suspended — and serve longer suspensions — in schools where they are in the minority.

The Board of Education cracked down on the sheer number of suspensions in recent years. Still, last school year, 45,288 students were suspended, some of them more than once. In August, during mandatory sessions on the Student Code of Discipline, administrators were briefed on options to suspension.

Still overdue, however, are answers for the reasons behind the divide. Because even when the number of suspensions declined, the rates remained the same: African-American students were still suspended 3-1 over whites and Hispanics.

“There is something out there that we’re missing,” admits James Bebley, first deputy general counsel for the Board of Education.

Barbara Radner of DePaul’s Center for Urban Education said teacher preparation could be at the core. With inexperienced teachers typically assigned to tough schools, “maybe they are not prepared to manage classes effectively.”

A cultural divide is often at the heart of such disparity. Yet while the majority of CPS teachers are white (47 percent), the majority of principals are African-American (54 percent.)

“I think the ‘why’ that affects race and culture and how people act — this is a conversation of the United States of America of every level,” said Cook County Judge Sophia Hall, a juvenile justice expert who advocates “a menu of options” for kids who do wrong.

Suspensions are a short-term fix to a long-term problem. They leave struggling kids disengaged and further behind. And they reward kids who hardly need a disincentive to skip school. Teachers need alternatives — in-school suspensions and detentions, peer mediation and conflict resolution, for example.

If the Jena 6 case teaches us anything, it’s the ability to question injustice served on people who aren’t altogether perfect.

The best commentary on Jena rarely appears in the mainstream media.  This essay in The Black Chronicle gets a few minor facts wrong, but the analysis is spot on: Jena is about public officials sowing the wind and reaping the whirlwind.  If you are inclined to believe that the Jena 6 case is being “blown out of proportion,” please read on.

A Missed Opportunity

Jena 6 Racial Uproar Preventable Five decades ago, civil rights struggles could be seen in stark, good versus evil terms. Virtuous pioneers such as the Little Rock Nine, James Meredith and Rosa Parks confronted raw racism and triumphed over it. Today, racial injustice persists, still corrosive, but less overt, and so it is in tiny Jena, La, where dangling nooses, an overzealous prosecutor and an insensitive establishment have drawn international attention and generated talk of a new civil rights movement. Some of the evidence in Jena is murky or in dispute, and the “Jena Six” — the Black teens at the heart of the story — don’t quite conjure images of civil rights heroes of the past. While the Little Rock Nine heroically challenged a bigoted governor who attempted to keep them out of a segregated high school by armed force, the Jena Six are accused of beating a white classmate in front of dozens of witnesses. The question is whether they, like so many other Blacks, were wronged because of their race. They were charged with attempted murder even though the beating victim was well enough to go to a school function that night. The cases are still being adjudicated. However, a careful review of the known events that led up to the beating suggests that the way white authorities handled racial tensions in their overwhelmingly white town may well have turned a manageable, teachable situation into a racial maelstrom. School officials appear to have minimized or patronized Black concerns, while the district attorney filed inappropriately severe charges against the Black teens — a double standard that rightly resonated with Blacks across the nation. The story revolves around two primary, but not directly related, episodes: The Nooses. Thirteen months ago, when a Black student asked at a Jena High School assembly whether he could sit under a tree known as a gathering place for white students, an assistant principal told him he could sit anywhere he wanted. The next day, though, two nooses were found dangling from the tree. Hanging nooses is not a crime under Louisiana law, but, in a state where 335 Blacks were lynched from 1882 to 1968 (a total exceeded only in Mississippi, Georgia and Texas), it is a repugnant, overtly racist act. Three white students were quickly identified as the perpetrators. The principal recommended their expulsion. But a school board committee overruled him. The students were suspended — but the length and terms were not disclosed. “Some alternative suspension, along with other criteria,” LaSalle Parish School Supt. Roy Breithaupt told the Town Talk in nearby Alexandria, La., shortly afterward. The vague language proved maddening. Stories circulated that the suspension was for three days; this echoed in multiple media reports and became an article of faith. Just in the past few days, Supt. Breithaupt has begun saying that the students were suspended at an alternative school for nine days, served “in-school” suspension for two weeks and faced detentions and other penalties — a far more fitting response. In the absence of any clarity, though, Black parents and other Blacks in the community, incensed over the nooses, grew more angry at this perceived leniency. Some tried to talk to the school board and were turned away, according to the Alexandria newspaper. At the next meeting, one parent got five minutes to speak. When she was done, only the lone Black on the 10-member board thanked her. The meeting went right on. “They act like she didn’t even come,” one parent told a reporter. The school’s response to the nooses was almost as clumsy. Officials called an assembly to calm students and invited District Attorney Reed Walters. “I can be your best friend or your worst enemy. With the stroke of a pen I can make your life miserable,” District Attorney Walters recalled warning the students. That blunt statement ignited deeper resentment. Three months after the nooses appeared, in early December, two scuffles over a single weekend revived racial tensions. When school opened on Monday, Dec. 4, they exploded. A Black student — identified by some witnesses as 16-year-old Mychal Bell — hit Justin Barker, a white student, as he walked into the schoolyard after lunch. As Justin Barker lay motionless on the ground, Black students allegedly kicked him in the head. He was treated for cuts, bruises and a swollen eye and released from the hospital later that day. He attended a school ceremony that night. J ustin Barker was not involved in the noose incident, authorities said, and they found no hard evidence to connect that incident to the assault. Six students, ages 14 to 18, were arrested. Mr. Walters, the district attorney, charged five with attempted second degree murder and conspiracy, driving home his point that he could make lives miserable. Together, the two charges carry prison sentences of up to 75 years. All six students, including one charged as a juvenile, were expelled. A judge set high bonds — $70,000 to $138,000. Mychal Bell spent nearly 10 months in jail. Another teen spent more than six. As the case started drawing national attention, District Attorney Walters began reducing the charges. Mychal Bell was tried first. He was convicted of aggravated battery and conspiracy by an all-white jury in June. (Only whites showed up for jury duty that day, according to the Alexandria paper, not necessarily surprising in a parish that is 86 percent white and 12 percent Black.) Since then, an appeals court has overturned Mychal Bell’s conviction, ruling he should not have been tried as an adult on those particular charges. District Attorney Walters said he will prosecute Mychal Bell again, this time as a juvenile. Four others, ages 17 and 18 when the fight occurred, still face charges as adults. By this summer, the perceived under-reaction to the nooses, contrasted with the harsh treatment of the six teens, had caught fire on Black radio and reverberated across the Internet. The national media descended on Jena, and on Sept. 20, civil rights activists, including Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, led a rally that drew thousands to the town, many waving signs proclaiming, “Free the Jena 6.” What works on a placard, however, will not resolve a criminal case. If the six Jena teens were involved in beating Justin Barker, they are no choir boys. Mychal Bell, for example, has been found responsible for several juvenile crimes, including two batteries and was on probation at the time of the beating, according to the Town Talk. (For that matter, the victim, Justin Barker, was arrested last May at Jena High after a gun was found in his truck.) The six accused teens deserve to be dealt with by the criminal justice system — but fairly and judiciously. Instead, District Attorney Walters brought the most severe charge imaginable. He cited the sneakers the teens wore as lethal weapons. He failed to take into account their youth. The community was left to wonder: Would District Attorney Walters have done the same if the “Jena Six” were white teens and their alleged victim were Black? That point resonates with Black Americans, not because this case is an aberration in 2007, but because it seems so commonplace. Just ask any Black man who has been stopped for “driving while Black” — and most will tell you they have, or look at the findings of a 1999 study of the city of New York’s “stop and frisk“ program, which concluded that Blacks were detained at higher rates than whites. While Blacks made up about a quarter of the city’s population, about 51 percent of all persons stopped were Black, the New York attorney general found. Other research, published by Stanford University, suggests prosecutors consider white victims, especially of non-white offenders, to be more credible than non-white victims. Is it any wonder so many Blacks are distrustful of the criminal justice system? Throughout the episodes in Jena, authorities seem to have lost sight of the obvious goal when a teenager goes off track. It is to salvage his life — usually by some mix of punishment and instruction — not to destroy it. That applies to noose hangers and muggers, though perhaps not in equal proportions. More broadly, authorities in Jena appear to have had ample opportunities to use those hateful nooses to open talks about race relations with students and parents, Black and white — the most productive outlet for racial tensions. District Attorney Walters had a chance to use his discretion more wisely. If there is a lesson here for the rest of the nation, it is to recognize that color-blind justice is far too rare and that, when racial tensions simmer, they need a peaceful outlet, not hot flames that will bring them to a boil.

Thus far, the Black America Web is the only media outlet to run this story.  While that reflects well on the hardworking Sherrel Wheeler Stewart, it doesn’t suggest a high degree of interest in these hearings within the mainstream media. 

I note that US Attorney Don Washington’s will be testifying.  Washington says the assault on Justin Barker has no pre-history or context–it just came out of the blue; some black thugs looking for a white victim–any white victim. 

This is the theory that reigned unchallenged before I began my research in January of this year.  Asked to explain his statement, Washington noted that none of the witnesses who testified at trial mentioned the nooses.  He failed to point out that Judge JP Mauffray had ruled the subject out of bounds. 

In addition, the egregious Blaine Williams (who ought to be disciplined for his inept handling of Mychal Bell’s trial in adult court) made no attempt to tie the assault on Barker to the nooses, or to any other event.  Like Mr. Washington, Williams was serving as a shill for the status quo. 

Don Washington was appointed as a US Attorney by George W. Bush because he is (a) black and (b) conservative.  Blaine Williams was appointed to serve as Mychal Bell’s court appointed attorney because (a) he is black and, (b) he could be counted on to take a fall.

That’s where the comparison ends.  Washington is suave, sane and strategic; Williams is bizarre, bungling, and befuddled (that is, the perfect man for the job he was given).  I have always had the impression that Washington, for all his conservatism, knows far more than he is willing to say. 

I can’t think of Don Washington without remembering a federal trial in Lafayette in 2006 in which a Church Point housewife and three of her sons were charged with running a crack ring out of their home.  The judge was white.  The four attorneys were white.  All the court officials were white.  The jury was white.  Only the defendants and several dozen federal inmates paid to perjure themselves with promises of time cuts, were black. 

Don Washington attended the trial with his pre-adolescent son.  I kept wondering what was going on in the young boy’s head as he watched black drug dealers testifying against a black family with all these white people looking on.  The young man had no way of knowing that the charges against Ann Colomb and her sons were ridiculous; but the racial composition of the courtroom (though par for the course in America) must have left the child with an uneasy feeling.

When a growing stream of evidence suggested that the convicted drug dealers in this case were participants in an elaborate creative writing assignment, federal judge Tucker Melancon vacated the conviction and freed the defendants.  At the conclusion of an FBI investigation, Don Washington was forced to announce that the Department of Justice was dropping all charges against Ann Colomb, Danny Davis, Sammy Davis and Edward Colomb. 

Mr. Washington assured reporters that the family was guilty nonetheless.

If, like me, Mr. Washington had interviewed every member of the Colomb’s extended family, their neighbors, their pastors and priests, and had conducted extensive research into the racial history of Church Point, La., he would have realized that his case against the Colomb family was ludicrous.  With his inmate snitches discredited, there was insufficient evidence to continue with the prosecution; but that didn’t stop the US Attorney from passing down his own guilty verdict.

You now understand why I wasn’t encouraged by the news that a black US Attorney would be “investigating” the Jena situation.  The investigation, from the evidence at hand, appears to have consisted of a brief chat with the school superintendent, the DA, and a cursory examination of an FBI report from September into the noose incident.  I assume that Washington also glanced through the eye witness statements in Mychal Bell’s file at the courthouse and a few other court documents. 

But the US Attorney didn’t talk to the black community.  He never asked them any questions.  Instead, he attended a townhall meeting in which he assured everyone that the Jena 6 prosecution passed the smell test.  The noose incident could have been handled better, he admitted, and he wasn’t impressed with the Lonesome Dove noose theory; but no hate crime had been committed.  Then he severed the events of December 4th from their natural context. 

I hope some members of the House Judiciary Committee have a few good questions for Mr. Washington.  I certainly do.

Jena Six Case to Be Subject of Hearing Before House Judiciary Committee Tuesday Morning

Date: Monday, October 15, 2007
By: Sherrel Wheeler Stewart, BlackAmericaWeb.com

The House Judiciary Committee has scheduled a hearing on the Jena Six case Tuesday morning, less than a week after a youth at the center of the controversy was locked up again.

Mychal Bell, the only one of the six youths who had been convicted in connection with a Dec. 4 fight with a white classmate, was ordered to a juvenile facility on Thursday. The most recent sentence, handed down by LaSalle Parish Judge J.P. Mauffrey Jr., was not directly related to the December 2006 incident. The judge said Bell had violated terms of his probation from earlier convictions on juvenile charges of simple battery and criminal destruction. He must now spend 18 months in a juvenile detention facility.

An appeals court ruled in September that the lower court erred by handling Bell’s charges for the 2006 incident in adult court and his conviction was overturned. He still is awaiting trial on juvenile charges related to the fight with Justin Barker at Jena High School.

Bell’s parents and civil rights leaders were outraged by the latest sentence. Attempts by Bell’s family and civil rights leaders so far to get another judge on the case have been unsuccessful. The same judge who handled the adult case is also handling the juvenile case in the small town.

“The judge did this out of madness,” Marcus Jones, Bell’s father said in an interview Friday with Jacque Reid on the “Tom Joyner Morning Show.” “It’s like he was saying, ‘I’m going to show him something.’”

Attempts by BlackAmericaWeb.com to interview the judge on Friday were unsuccessful. A secretary answering the phone in his office said the judge could not comment on the case because it is a juvenile matter.

Jones said he and Bell’s mother, Melissa Bell, have been told they will have to pay court costs, as well as $600 a month for the period their son is incarcerated.

The Rev. Al Sharpton has said he will assist in raising funds to help. “We’ll come up with the money,” Sharpton said in an interview on the “Tom Joyner Morning Show.”

“This is the most outrageous thing I’ve ever heard of,” Sharpton said. “What about the 10 months he has already served?”

Bell was locked up December 2006 and remained in jail until late September. He was out only a couple of weeks before being taken away last Thursday following what he and his family believed would be a routine hearing.

“Right now, what we’ve got to do is be strong enough to say we’re not going to stand for it,” Sharpton said.

The New York-based activist is among the six witnesses scheduled to testify Tuesday before the Judiciary Committee, chaired by Rep. John Conyers (D-Michigan), said Jonathon Godfrey, a spokesman for the committee.

Other witnesses will include U.S. Attorney Donald Washington from the Western District of Louisiana; Lisa Krigsten, counsel to the Assistant Attorney General, Civil Rights Division; Richard Cohen, president and CEO of the Southern Poverty Law Center; Rev. Brian Moran, pastor of the Jena Antioch Baptist Church and president of the NAACP Jena chapter, and Harvard Law Professor Charles Ogletree.

Additional witnesses may join the list before the hearing begins at 9:30 a.m. in the Rayburn House Office Building, and currently there are no representatives of the Louisiana judicial system scheduled to appear, Godfrey told BlackAmericaWeb.com.

Conyers announced in September that he would convene a hearing looking into justice in Jena. In that small town, six high school youths faced charges of attempted murder and bonds of up to $130,000 for a school fight.

Months before that fight, white youths hung nooses in a tree at Jena High School. Those youths were suspended from school for several days.

On Sept. 21, over 50,000 people from across the country descended on the town of 3,000, calling for justice for the Jena Six. In addition to Bell, Carwin Jones, Robert Bailey Jr., Theo Shaw, Bryant Purvis and an unnamed juvenile await trials on charges in connection with the fight.

Ogletree said the congressional hearing is an important step.

“What the Congressional committee probably will do is something that will look forward. They can look at what can be done to prevent this from happening to other youths,” Ogletree told BlackAmericaWeb.com. “I don’t know what they can do to intervene in Mychal Bell’s case.”

Daryl Washington, who represents the National Bar Association members in the region that includes Jena, said it’s time to start striking back.

“Because this is now a juvenile matter, there is basically a gag on what the lawyers in the case can say,” Washington told BlackAmericaWeb.com. “It’s time to say this is vindictive prosecution.”

The same judge who originally convicted Bell on adult charges is the same judge who has sentenced him to 18 months in a juvenile facility on unrelated charges, Ogletree said.

“A judge should always consider to what extent an individual already has been punished,” he said. “And in juvenile sentencing, there is usually balance where a judge also considers what is in the best interest of the child.”

Across the nation, young activists who organized bus trips to Jena on September 20th are finding creative ways to keep the momentum alive.  In the Dallas Fort Worth area, a group called Equal Justice has emerged under the leadership of a gifted young woman named Ki-Afi Moyo.  Friends of Justice is cooperating with this coalition of concerned organizations.  Alan Bean was one of a dozen local leaders to address the meeting described in this Fort Worth Star-Telegram article.

Posted on Sun, Oct. 14, 2007

Activists aim to harness Jena’s momentum

By ANNA M. TINSLEY

Star-Telegram staff writer

 We’re not done yet.

That’s the motto of some North Texans who vow to build on the momentum they gained when joining thousands of Americans in swarming to Jena, La., last month to show support for a half-dozen African-American youths embroiled in a civil rights controversy.

They’ve been meeting, planning and strategizing on how to continue — and advance — what some say may be a long-awaited revitalization of the civil rights movement.

“We’re concerned about the future of America — just the hope and promise that America puts out there,” said Ki-Afi Moyo, an organizer with the North Texas-based Equal Justice group. “This is a free country where people are supposed to have equal civil rights. That’s what we all want to believe in.

“But it’s not equal; it’s not all fair,” said Moyo, of Dallas. “We want to continue to have hope, but America is not delivering on the promise.”

Some say recent outrage over the Jena Six, the Louisiana youths charged as adults in an assault last year on a white student, touched a nerve across the nation. It sparked rallies, marches and protests — a level of activism seldom seen since the 1950s and 1960s.

Locally, Equal Justice is working to get North Texans involved in the movement through letter-writing campaigns, a court-watching program and registering people to vote.

“This is about injustice, period,” said Latrice Fowler of Little Elm, also a member of the North Texas group. “The events that happened in Jena woke a lot of people up, people who were trying to let things get better on its own.

“But enough is enough,” she said. “We have to stand up for our rights and what is fair.”

A new movement?

Thousands of people jammed into the Jena, a town of 3,000, last month to show support for Mychal Bell, one of the teens at the heart of the controversy.

Racial tensions began last year after a black student sat under a tree that was a traditional gathering spot for white students. After nooses were hung from the tree, three white students were suspended but weren’t criminally prosecuted.

After several racially motivated fights, Bell and five other black teens were accused of beating a white classmate, leaving him unconscious and bleeding.

Bell, so far the only one to be prosecuted, was initially charged with attempted murder but was ultimately convicted of battery. An appeals court recently threw out the conviction, saying he should have been tried as a juvenile, and he was released on bail last month after 10 months in jail. A judge put him back in jail last week for violating probation for a previous offense.

Many of the protesters in Jena last month spoke about the differences in how some black and white people are treated.

“It’s really good the Jena Six got this attention,” said Myrtle Bell, an associate professor at the University of Texas at Arlington who focuses on diversity issues. “Hopefully it will accomplish some changes in what happens.

“There are so many similar atrocities across the U.S. that are receiving little or no attention. The criminal justice system unfairly targets and imprisons young men of color.”

And if it is sparking renewed activism — or “the beginning of the 21st-century civil rights movement,” as the Rev. Al Sharpton called it — then Bell and others are encouraged.

Some fear that today’s activists may face an uphill battle, with the absence of strong leader figures in the mold of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X.

Fowler said they will find their way.

“It’s still fresh, and none of us knows exactly what we’re doing,” she said. “But we heard Dr. King started in his 20s, and others started when they were young.

“We’re doing this for the generation that’s coming behind us. Just as I know our ancestors walked and sweated and bled for our rights, I want them to know we will do it too.”

Equal Justice

Equal Justice is the North Texas group formerly known as Texas Supports Jena Six. Organizers said they changed the name to reflect an expanded focus on all cases of injustice, not just the Louisiana case.

They held a town hall meeting in Dallas recently, drawing dozens to brainstorm how to move forward and keep their voices heard.

“We’re just going to continue to see what happens,” Moyo said. “At this point, Jena Six has been the greatest inspiration for new activism in the 21st century. It has inspired people to stand up and take action. It’s about time.”

Among the group’s plans:

Creating Project Shadow, in which volunteers will monitor courts and trials to call attention to any cases — like the Jena Six — that they believe are a matter of injustice.

Developing a system to mobilize protesters for rallies or marches.

Registering people to vote and making sure they get to the polls.

Starting a letter-writing campaign, not only in support of Bell but also for any issue they believe needs officials’ attention.

“We’ve got to continue creating awareness of what’s going on at home,” said Kandice Ezell of Carrollton. “This is about showing our children true role models and how we continue to create a pathway.”

Ezell said Equal Justice wants to help other groups work with them and together, in addition to preparing its own members on how to make their voices heard.

“This is only the beginning,” she said. “There’s still work to be done.”

Continuing developments

Since the Sept. 20 rally in Jena, La., developments include:

Copycat noose threats have been reported, including one last week on the office door of a black professor at Columbia University.

A student in Nashville is suing her school district to be able to wear a “Free the Jena Six” T-shirt, which she was not allowed to wear to school last month.

John Mellencamp wrote a song named Jena, which includes the lyrics “Jena … take your nooses down,” and filmed a video that the Jena mayor called inflammatory and defamatory.

Mychal Bell, the one member of the Jena Six who was in jail at the time of the march, was ultimately released on bail. Last week he was sentenced to 18 months in jail for violating his probation for previous convictions of battery and criminal destruction of property.

Some students participated in the National Student Walk Out for Jena Six on Oct. 1.

Source: Star-Telegram research

atinsley@star-telegram.com
Anna M. Tinsley, 817-390-7610

Schools across the nation are re-evaluating their response to hate crimes on the basis of the tragic events in Jena. Louisiana.  This guide published by the Southern Poverty Law Center, provides practical guidance for educators eager to avoid the mistakes made by Jena officials.

Six Lessons from Jena            September 27, 2007 — What every school and educator can learn from the events in Jena   By Jennifer Holladay    The prosecutions of six black teenagers in Jena, La., have captured the nation’s attention, with thousands of protestors (and nearly as many reporters) descending on the small town last week. As school professionals, we must never lose sight of the fact that it all started with nooses hanging from a schoolyard tree. Six lessons we must take to heart: 

1. Don’t ignore obvious signs of trouble.In Jena, a black student approached the high school principal and asked, “Can we sit under that tree?'” On campus, it was known as the “White Tree” — a place where white students historically gathered. The principal said they could sit wherever they liked. It was an appropriate response, yet one that overlooked the core issue: Why did students feel like they needed to ask for permission? What did the very question reveal about the school’s racial climate? 

2. Examine your school’s climate.You may think your school is “no Jena High” — but do you know for sure? Are there divisions about which you’re unaware? In a survey conducted last year by Teaching Tolerance, the National Education Association and the Civil Rights Project, the vast majority of teachers nationally said their schools were largely free of racial or ethnic tensions. Students, however, paint a very different picture. They describe their schools as “quick to put people into categories,” and one in four report being victimized in racial or ethnic incidents in a typical school year. Race and ethnicity aren’t the only lines of division, either: 70 percent of female students say they’ve been sexually harassed at school; 75 percent of gay students report hearing anti-gay slurs frequently or often at school, and more than a third say they’ve been physically harassed. 

3. Take bias incidents seriously.After a few black students sat under the “White Tree,” three white students hung nooses from it. Jena’s white school superintendent, Roy Breithaupt, later told the Chicago Tribune, “Adolescents play pranks. I don’t think it was a threat against anybody.” In truth, the hanging of nooses was no youthful prank; it was a bias incident connoting racial lynchings. As Caseplia Bailey, whose son Robert is among the Jena Six, told Britain’s Observer, the act “meant the KKK, it meant … ‘We’re going to kill you, we’re gonna’ hang you ’til you die.'” By their very nature, bias incidents intend to demean or instill fear in those targeted, and schools must address them quickly, consistently and effectively. 

4. Provide forums for meaningful discussion.When bias incidents occur, schools must open lines of communication, not shut down debate. In Jena:  After black students gathered around the “White Tree” as political protest, the principal called a school assembly during which he said it was time to put the noose incident behind them for the sake of the school. The district attorney spoke next, flanked by police officers, warning students: “I can end your life with one stroke of my pen” — the equivalent of throwing gasoline on a fire. When black parents showed up at a school board meeting, they were not allowed to speak. When they showed up again, board members allowed a spokesperson to address them, but then quickly moved on to other business without addressing the parents’ concerns. In highly charged bias incidents, schools should hold forums for educators, students, parents and community members and issue regular updates about the incident, describing what happened, why the incident was unacceptable and how the school has responded thus far. Schools should invite comments from attendees — and seek their input about ways the school, students, parents and community can work together to resolve the underlying problems.  

5. Use bias incidents as teachable moments.Ask teachers to set aside class time to allow students to reflect on what has happened. Because students can influence peer behavior, ask them to write down suggestions for preventing further incidents and promoting respect and to discuss their suggestions in small groups. Because bias incidents often involve the use of bigoted speech (slurs or epithets), conduct lessons to empower students to make respectful language choices. 

6. Bridge divisions in the school — and the community. Organize school-wide events to help students get to know one another and learn about respectful behavior. Mix It Up at Lunch Day (Nov. 13, 2007) and No Name-Calling Week (Jan. 21-25, 2008) are excellent events with which to start.  Schools don’t exist in isolation, however. If tensions exist in a school, they exist in the larger community, too. Whether through dialogue or other social justice programs, like those sponsored by the National League of Cities, the events in Jena serve as a call to each of us to explore what divides us — and what can unite us. Contact us for permission to reprint these materials. Please reference the title and the name and location of your school/organization in your request. Special thanks to Teaching Tolerance team members Samantha Elliott Briggs, Rod Davis, Tafeni English, Michelle Garcia and Rhonda Thomason, as well as Lecia Brooks, director of the Civil Rights Memorial Center, and Jeff Sapp, professor of education at California State University at Dominguez Hills, for their guidance and constructive criticism on earlier drafts.     

http://www.blackamericaweb.com/site.aspx/bawnews/jenasneakers109

Young NAACPers Collecting ‘Dangerous Weapons’ – Sneakers – to Send to Jena Six D.A.

Date: Monday, October 08, 2007
By: Sherrel Wheeler Stewart, BlackAmericaWeb.com

Tennis shoes were used as dangerous weapons on Dec. 4, 2006 when six black students at Louisiana’s Jena High School fought white schoolmate Justin Barker, LaSalle Parish District Attorney J. Reed Walters told a courtroom this summer.

So hundreds of miles away in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, youth members of the NAACP have launched a drive to encourage people to turn in their dangerous weapons — sneakers, or tennis shoes as they are called in the South.

“We want used sneakers. We want the rank, stank, dirty sneakers. We want to send a message,” said the Rev. Elisha B. Morris, youth advisor for the Philadelphia Youth Council NAACP. “We’re going to box the sneakers up and ship them to the district attorney in Jena, Louisiana.” The group also wants each person who donates sneakers to contribute $2 for the Jena Defense Fund.

The effort is in response to charges brought against six black youths following the 2006 fight. Initially, Mychal Bell, Robert Bailey Jr., Carwin Jones, Bryant Purvis and Theo Shaw faced charges attempted murder and conspiracy in connection with the fight. A juvenile was also charged.

Bell was tried as an adult and convicted before an appeals court overturned that action and said Bell’s case should be handled in juvenile court. He is now going through proceedings in juvenile court, which are not public.

The fight followed weeks of racial tension in the town of 3,000 touched off in August 2006, after white students hung nooses from a tree. The white students were suspended from school several days, school officials have said.

The call for equal justice for the Jena Six picked up volume throughout the summer, and on Sept. 20, more than 25,000 people from across the country converged on Jena to show support.

The “Dangerous Weapons Drive” was launched on that day during a rally at Temple University in Philadelphia. Morris said a photographer at the event took his sneakers off and turned them in on the spot along with $2.

“No student, regardless of race, should have to tolerate what the Jena Six has faced,” said Darius Alexander, president of the Temple University Progressive NAACP Chapter.

“The charges were absurd. We want to send a message that this will not be tolerated,” Alexander told BlackAmericaWeb.com.