Mos Def stands behind the Jena 6

· 6 Comments ·

Last night, I attended an organizing meeting at Friendship West Baptist Church in Dallas. Seventy people showed up. They were educated, intense, articulate and angry. This wasn’t a rally–every person in the room was an organizer. I wasn’t keeping count, but there will likely be a caravan of buses a mile long coming out of Dallas on September 20th. Originally, I was hoping this rally would attract 1,000 people. Now it appear we’ll a crowd twice that size from Dallas alone. Several speakers used the word “historic” in reference to the September 20th event; others compared it to the marches on Washington in the early 1960s.

My good friend, Catrina Wallace (step-sister to Jena 6 defendant, Robert Bailey) has been getting calls from rappers like Mos Def for the past two weeks. She is thrilled and overwhelmed–these guys are her heroes. Most of the names, I confess, were new to me–but my kids would know them all. The Hip Hop generation have their footprints all over this event–and that’s a good thing. The civil rights movement needs to be infused with fresh faces and fresh viewpoints. I encourage you to check out the link at the bottom of this article to Bill Maher’s recent interview with Mos Def and Cornel West.

Alan Bean
http://www.sohh.com/articles/article.php/12522
Mos Def Stands Behind The “Jena 6,” Asks Jay-Z & 50 Cent To Join “Fight
Against Racial Inequality”
Tuesday – September 11, 2007 by Anthony Roberts
Brooklyn rapper/actor Mos Def <> has recently wrote an open letter seeking
support for six black students <> facing lengthy jail time for an attack on
a white schoolmate in Louisiana.
(more…)

Jena 6 Prosecutor counting on white public to be complicit

· 2 Comments ·

Some of the best commentary on the Jena 6 situation can be found on the BlackAmericaWeb.  Tonyaa Weathersbee asks how District Attorney’s like Reed Walters have such an easy time painting young black males as dangerous thugs. Her answer may surprise you.

Alan Bean

http://www.blackamericaweb.com/site.aspx/sayitloud/weathersbee912

Commentary: Jena Six Prosecutor Counting on White Public to Be Complicit in the Racism at the Case’s Root

Date: Wednesday, September 12, 2007

By: Tonyaa Weathersbee, BlackAmericaWeb.com

The Jena Six outrage has been in the making for some time. Since the late 1980s, at least.  That was about the time when the crack cocaine trade and its accompanying violence consumed black neighborhoods, nightly news broadcasts and white people’s collective fears — fears in which all young black males were cast as super-predators in waiting. Give them a chance, the fear-driven reasoning goes, and they’ll kill someone.

This toxic atmosphere is what gives a prosecutor like LaSalle Parish District Attorney Reed Walters the nerve to believe that he can get away with doing the sort of thing that would make Atticus Finch shudder, that he can charge six black teenagers for attempted murder and possibly get them locked up for most of their lives for a schoolyard beatdown.

The brawl, of course, was the culmination of racial tensions that had been building at the teenagers’ high school in Jena, Louisiana for some time.

Basically, black students sat beneath a tree where whites congregated, only to be greeted by nooses.

Not surprisingly, a series of scuffles and confrontations followed. One white student was beaten up. He walked out of a hospital after a couple of hours of being treated for a black eye and a concussion.

But the six blacks who beat him up — apparently after he had been taunting them with racial slurs — won’t be walking out of jail as easily. They may, in fact, face decades in prison.

Even though the attempted murder charge against Mychal Bell, the first defendant to be tried, was reduced to aggravated second degree battery, he still could face 15 years in prison.

That’s because Walters managed to convince an all-white jury that the sneakers that Bell kicked the white teenager with was a deadly weapon.

What kind of racist reaching is that?

Now, I’m not surprised that backwoods Louisiana racism still lives on today, or that an all-white jury will convict black people on exaggerated, science-fiction charges.

What’s scary is how white prosecutors such as Walters have come to believe they can get away with that kind of crap; that people will be more inclined to acquiesce, rather than become outraged, at the obvious fact that the punishment being faced by the Jena Six obviously doesn’t fit the crime.

Or that people will be quicker to see six black youths — youths who had no criminal records — as troublemakers rather than as victims. They were, after all, black kids who were driven to react to the racial harassment that school officials believed they could fix with denial rather than action.

But nowadays, men like Walters count on the public to see Bell and his friends solely through the prism of criminality. And over the past two decades, he’s had a lot of help.

He’s had help from the War on Drugs, which has turned black communities into battlegrounds for police officers and drug dealers alike. The police officers often easily snag a few low-level dealers and users, who tend to be black, for the perp walk and for the cameras.

No matter that if the cops conducted drug stings say, in Lindsay Lohan’s neighborhood, the face of drugs and crime would lighten considerably.

Walters has also had help from the media, which for years has stoked viewers’ and readers’ fears with shallow, non-contextualized coverage of crime in mostly-black neighborhoods; places where crime has moved in because jobs have moved out. Places where black males get caught up in a drug trade in which violence tends to be the cost of doing business.

No matter that whites use the majority of drugs in this country. No matter that when it comes to crime, whites make up more than two-thirds of those arrested, but just a third of those who go to jail or prison.

Walters has also had help from conservative pundits like Bill Bennett, who two years ago suggested on his radio show that the United States could bring down its crime rate by aborting black babies.

Seeing that it’s too late to abort the Jena Six, Walters is going for the next best thing. He wants to put them away for virtually all of their lives.

Hopefully, national outrage will continue to build so that he doesn’t get away with that. But our outrage shouldn’t just stop there.

We should also be outraged at those circumstances that have brushed all black males with the criminality brush. We should be outraged that some prosecutors now count on a white public, whose fears of young blacks have been stoked by the drug war and other kinds of distortions, to be complicit with them in the kind of racism that is at the root of the ordeal of the Jena Six.

And do our best to root it out wherever it exists.

The Tree of Wrath

· 9 Comments ·

Le Monde wrote a story on Jena, and Carol Garagan translated it for us from French–thanks Carol! This is a very in-depth treatment, which does a good job showing the subtlety of race and class. They also resisted the temptation to make cheap shots at the American South. That’s good, because every country wrestles with its own problems of racial or ethnic exclusion and class inequality. The Jena story can teach us some lessons about how to make things right, not just how “Americans” or “the South” get things wrong. Thanks, Le Monde! Note: all quotations have been translated from English to French, back to English, so sometimes the wording is a little amusing.

******

The Tree of Wrath

Le Monde, July 17, 2007

It’s a story of the old South. A tragic story, haunted by the demons which rise up from another time. A story in black and white.

In the shadow of an old tree, magnificent and harmonious, generously spreading out its branches, have lunched for decades the white students of the high school of Jena, a small city of 3,000 inhabitants tucked away in the depths of Louisiana with a population that is 85% white. This ancestral organization of the school yard which relegates the black students to the periphery might have continued if a young black man, at the beginning of the 2006 school year, hadn’t audaciously and publicly posed the heretical question: “Can we sit under the tree too?” The reply from the school principal was very clear: “Sit where you want.” And, under the outraged gaze of the white students, a handful of young Blacks slipped into the shade of the old tree.

The next morning, September 1st, 2006, three ropes tied into nooses hung from a branch of the tree. Two black ropes on either side of a rope painted gold: the school colours. The black students were horrified, their parents humiliated. “It’s not necessary to be a historian to understand this message!” said Caseptla Bailey, the mother of one student. “The rope, around here, symbolizes slavery, lynchings and the Ku Klux Klan. The past isn’t that distant. This gesture says to our children: ‘Dirty niggers, we’re gonna get you!’” (more…)

Hold a Vigil in your Community!

· 1 Comment ·

Many people are holding vigils this Sept. 20th, to show solidarity with the Jena 6 and demand a criminal justice system that truly serves all our children.

If you want to organize a vigil in YOUR community, feel free to adapt this flier that we designed for a rally in Cambridge, MA:

Sample flier for Jena 6 Vigil

Just download this Word document, fill in your location and your contact info, and get the word out!  (Make sure you apply for any permits that the law requires.)  Feel free to change the text–this is just an example.  Many thanks to Gretchen Segars, who designed this flier with Lydia Bean.

We Need to Talk

· 6 Comments ·

Friends of Justice
3415 Ainsworth Court, Arlington, TX 76016 817.457.0025
https://friendsofjustice.wordpress.com

This well-written article brings the Jena story to millions of new readers. Like many reporters, Scott Michels has left out several salient items: Mr. Walters and his “with a stroke of my pen” remark; the fire at the Jena High that stoked tensions in the community at the end of November, 2006; the assault on Jena 6 defendant Robert Bailey at the Fair Barn the day after the fire; and the young white man pulling a shotgun on Robert and his friends at the Gotta Go convenience store the morning after Robert was attacked. Leave all of that out and (a) you don’t understand why these kids can’t get justice in LaSalle Parish, and (b) you don’t understand the fury at the high school on December 4th.

When important details are eliminated from this story you are left with a dumb-ass argument about which is worse: nooses in a tree, or a six-on-one attack on a defenseless student. For an excellent illustration of the problem click the link below and check out the comments at the end of Mr. Michels’ piece. You can see a huge black-white perception gap in how Americans perceive the criminal justice system.

I have no beef with Scott Michels or any other mainstream journalist. These men and women work within very narrow constraints: “We’re giving you two minutes”, or “we’ve got room for 500 words, do the best you can.” You can’t do justice to the injustice in two minutes or 500 words.

Still, the responses at the end of Mr. Michels article are all the more revealing because the details in the article are so spare. All respondents were exposed to exactly the same article, and that’s all most of these people know about this story. Yet some readers call what happened in Jena an atrocity while others are asking what the big deal is about. One reader suggested that blacks don’t get justice in America because they always push too hard.

What? (more…)

What’s the Message? America hates Jena? Or Jena is America?

· 8 Comments ·

Rev. Jesse Jackson was in Jena yesterday, preaching a message of reconciliation. In a four-minute clip provided by the CBS affiliate in
Alexandria, La., (http://www.kalb.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=KALB/MGArticle/ALB_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1173352689717&path=!frontpage) Jackson remarked that a fight between children has escalated into a fight between parents.

Jackson isn’t saying that Jena 6 supporters have skewed the issues or overstated their claims; he’s just reframing the issue. (more…)

Ambassadors for Common Peace

· 1 Comment ·

Here’s a great movement to bring the Hip Hop generation into the fight for civil rights.  Fathers for the Future is launching an initiative called “Ambassadors for Common Peace”, described at  http://www.thuglifearmy.com/news/?id=3914

 

A delegation from the Hip Hop activist community will serve as Ambassadors for Common Peace at the September 20th, 2007 protest rally of the Jena 6 trial in Jena, Louisiana. Mr. J. Michael Carr Jr. of the Fathers for the Future Foundation (FFF) and Troy Nkrumah of the National Hip Hop Political Convention (NHHPC) will lead a delegation of young people to Jena to monitor, mediate, and demonstrate for the justice of the six young youth who are on trial and unless justice is served could spend the decades in prison. This delegation will also include over 10 young lawyers from around the country who will work as legal observers to ensure that the constitutional rights of the demonstrators are not violated by law enforcement.

 

Invited by the “Friends of Justice”, the actual organization to first break the Jena 6 story to the Chicago Tribune and BBC in December 2006, the Ambassadors For Common Peace will work to promote civility and goodwill at the mobilization in Jena, LA. It is the belief of the Hip Hop community that this is one of the most salient racial trials since the Rodney King verdict in 1992 and has the potential to repeat the disastrous outcome if justice is not met for the defendants. This one trail has the potential to set back race relations and delegitimize the current strides made in the fight for racial justice, thus furthering the heightened racial tensions.  (more…)

The Wall of Shame

· 5 Comments ·

Friends of Justice
3415 Ainsworth Court, Arlington, TX 76016 817.457.0025
https://friendsofjustice.wordpress.com

Thankfully, we’re getting past the, “Is Jena the most racist town in America?” question. Jena is America. No one would be talking about the Jena 6 were it not for the bizarre behavior of District Attorney (and lay preacher) Reed Walters, the prosecutor who told students at the Jena High School that he could make their lives disappear with a stroke of his pen. Moments earlier, black students had occupied the “white tree” at Jena High School. White students and white police officers had surrounded the protestors. Push was coming to shove. Tension was high. Mr. Walters aimed his grotesque threat at the black students responsible for organizing the impromptu protest under the now-famous tree.

At a mid-June hearing, Reed Walters explained that he was highly frustrated when he made the remark. In his opinion, the black students were making a mountain out of a molehill. Superintendent Roy Breithaupt was asserting that the white boys who hung nooses from the tree in the school courtyard were guilty of nothing more serious than a childish prank. Mr. Walters agreed. Black students, and the black parents who had gathered at a black Baptist church the previous evening to voice their outrage and consider their options, were equally out of line. Walters explained that he wanted to put a stop to the madness–hence the “stroke of my pen” comment.

A few weeks ago, Scott Henson and his excellent Gritsforbreakfast blog featured an article naming the ten worst prosecutors in America. Topping the list was Alberto Gonzales, the late Attorney General of these United States. Running a close second was Terry McEachern, the architect of the debacle in Tulia, Texas. (I devoted four long years of my life to a running critique of McEachern before he was finally disciplined by the Texas Bar Association). The third worst prosecutor in America, according to the article, was Mike Nifong–currently doing a 24-hour stretch for contempt–who was disbarred for his disgraceful conduct in the Duke Lacrosse imbroglio. Number four, was Charles Foti, the Louisiana Attorney General.

If the list of America’s worst prosecutors comes out again next year, I except Reed Walters will make the top three. Walters is not incompetent (his prosecuting skills are probably a touch above average); but his world view renders him incapable of discharging his legal obligation: seeing that justice is done. As this column from the traditionally conservative Washington Times suggests, pundits across the nation are asking pointed questions about Mr. Walters’ fitness for service.

Is Jena America’s most racist community? I seriously doubt it. Does Jena need a new prosecutor and a new school superintendent? Unquestionably!

Alan Bean
Friends of Justice
____

http://video1.washingtontimes.com/debose/2007/09/another_prosecutor_out_on_a_li.html

Another prosecutor out on a limb?
In Durham, N.C., today, disgraced former District Attorney Mike Nifong
reported
<http://www.newsobserver.com/news/crime_safety/duke_lacrosse/nifong/story/695424.html> for a brief (but symbolically important, we’re told) 24-hour
term behind bars.

In the Duke rape case, Nifong showed how a rogue prosecutor can ruin lives.
Now some folks say something similar is unfolding in Jena, La. <http://> , a
small town of about 3,000 in the northeast section of the state.

The case centers around Jena High School and a shade tree in the center of
the courtyard.

For years, only white students sat under the tree at lunch. Then, about this
time last year, Sept. 1, a black student asked the assistant principal and
other faculty members during an assembly if he could sit under the tree and
was promptly told to “sit where ever he liked.”

The next day the student did, and the day after three hangman’s nooses
appeared on the tree.

That lit the fuse.

Outraged black students tried to stage peaceful protests, but fights broke
out on and off the school grounds.

LaSalle Parish District Attorney Reed Walters, asked to speak to a school
assembly as part of the effort to defuse the situation, “told students
<http://pursuingholiness.com/2007/07/31/jena-6-jena-high-white-tree-cut-down
/<br /> to stop making trouble as he could end their lives “with the stroke
of a pen.”

But tensions boiled over in December, when six black students beat Justin
Barker, a white student, who fell during the attack, hit his head and
suffered a concussion. Barker was treated and released that day, but the
prosecutor in Jena decided to charge the boys who would become known as the
“Jena Six” with attempted murder.

So far, only one of the “Jena Six,” Mycheal Bell, has been convicted (by an
all-white jury, on charges of battery and conspiracy to commit battery). He
is to be sentenced on Sept. 20, when he could face a maximum sentence of
almost 23 years.

After what happened at Duke, people in Jena and people around the country
following the case are asking
<http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/324177_amygoodman19.html> why would
a prosecutor issue a threat like Walters did? Was his comment aimed at black
students specifically?

Yes, fights at school are reprehensible, but what purpose could possibly be
served by charging these teen-agers with attempted murder?

And if Mike Nifong’s questionable and inflammatory statements against the
innocent white Duke lacrosse players led to his disbarment, shouldn’t Mr.
Walters — who has refused to talk to reporters about his comments to the
assembly — have to explain his actions?

— Brian DeBose, national political reporter, The Washington Times
Posted on September 7, 2007 12:22 PM

Howard University rallies over 2,000 students

·

This week, over 2,000 students gathered at Howard University at a rally in support of the Jena 6.  Check out the video coverage on the NBC website below!  Well done, Howard University!  It encourages us at Friends of Justice to see these young people coming together with such strength and authority, to rally their university for a criminal justice system that truly serves all Americans.

http://video.nbc4.com/player/?id=153013