No thread for the *Jena Six* case? Well, not much media coverage either...

But good job me in coming up with an intriguing headline to draw people in - sigh.

"white tree?" wtf

Another piece here:

The following day, Bailey and two friends were walking to a grocery store and had a shotgun pulled on them. The man who drew the shotgun had no charges brought against him; however, Bailey was charged with theft for the shotgun that he wrestled away from the man.

Yeah, my brother, who pointed me to this case in the first place, mentioned that rather jaw-dropping detail

Just checking the calendar, hmmm... mine says 2007, not 1957. WTF indeed.

I'm so lucky that I've never really seen this kind of shit where I've grown up. This story really does make me want to cry.

I wonder what the conviction rates are, nationally, for assault or battery charges that are brought after school fights.

Some good info here:

http://friendsofjustice.wordpress.com/blog/

I simply can't believe we live in a world where this is... I'm shocked. :-(

"The nooses? I don't even know why they were there, what they were supposed to mean. There's pranks all the time, of one type or another, going on. And it just didn't seem to be racist to me."

Uh, what DID ya think?

I think what's especially striking is how so much of the community seems to be complicit in this - school officials, the DA, students (and probably their parents), etc.

My mind is boggling. How can people get away with this kind of shit?

I'm pretty sure there WAS a thread on this already, but fucked if I can find it by searching, regular or Google search.

Hard to believe this shit still goes on, regardless.

I lived in Louisiana from the time I was 10 until I was old enough to make my own decisions about where to live. Sadly, I find this story very easy to believe based on my personal experiences, although the town I lived in wasn't THIS bad. Until 1988 my high school didn't have a prom. The white kids had a private prom and the black kids had a separate private prom. During lunch we were only allowed to be in two small areas, one inside and one outside. The black kids would all stay on one side of the room or courtyard and the white kids would stay on the other side. Any white girl who went on a date with a black boy was called a slut. One of my sister's friends once said he had refused to eat a bowl of chili because it was prepared by a black person. We were in a suburb of Baton Rouge, and I know that my high school was actually pretty progressive compared to the schools in more rural areas. The whole culture in that area disguts me and I am still unhappy with my parents for choosing to stay there for so long and with a relative of mine for convincing them that that small town would be a great place to live.

wear black tomorrow in solidarity

yep, I will be doing so.

A white tree????????????? I mean, people make fun of my home state (New Jersey) incessantly-big hair, garbage,Bon Jovi etc.- but that would never happen here. A white tree???!!??

This case seems to be picking up publicity now - it was in the free paper this morning, although only because David Bowie donated 5k to their legal fund.

And you wonder why parts of the US have a bad reputation in the rest of the civilised world.

i thought harper lee kinda skewered this shit back in 1935 or whatever

i read about this in a double spread opinion in the irish times a couple of weeks ago, just couldn't believe it. what's the latest progress?

irony- i've just read 'to kill a mockingbird' for the first time.

Yeah, it is picking up:

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&q=jena+6&btnG=Search+News

David Bowie donated to the defense fund, apparently. (tries to think of inappropriate publicity/Arcade Fire joke)

"And you wonder why parts of the US have a bad reputation in the rest of the civilised world"

Go fuck yourself. Talk about tainting 300 million people with a broad brush you stupid fuck.

luckily the uncivilized world likes us just fine

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,,2170644,00.html

"Apart from the noose, this is an everyday story of modern America"

Yeah, that's a bit ridiculous

who is bill magill

"And you wonder why parts of the US have a bad reputation in the rest of the civilised world"

Go fuck yourself. Talk about tainting 300 million people with a broad brush you stupid fuck.

-- Bill Magill, Thursday, 20 September 2007 15:53 (Thursday, 20 September 2007 15:53) Bookmark Link

Actually "parts" would imply less than the whole wouldn't it? And you wonder why certain US citizens have a bad reputation in the rest of the world...

Actually, with the context he uses it's not so ridiculous

Go

oh hang on, I'm english!

Gary Younge's head is too large to fit through a noose.

The school system's the most guilty here, it could have all been dealt with that way if they'd known what they were doing.

I mean, the school should have immediately expelled the studends for the nooses to give the message that this sort of thing (intimidation) is not tolerated, and opened a very honest dialogue on the subject in the meantime. That would have sent the right message. If I were prinicpal of that school (ugh) I couldn't expel those students fast enough.

instead they just chopped down the tree

I only heard about this today.

Yeah me too.

xpost Did they?

yes they did, and way before the trials I believe.

no wait that's not right - it was just chopped down in August

they should have got the whole school involved in chopping down that tree, had a big ceremony

students could take turns swingin the axe

It would have been a nice gesture at the time but it's a bit late now

yeah about a year too late

"And you wonder why parts of the US have a bad reputation in the rest of the civilised world"

Go fuck yourself. Talk about tainting 300 million people with a broad brush you stupid fuck.

-- Bill Magill, Thursday, September 20, 2007 11:53 AM (23 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

Yeah, first of all as mentioned, parts.

Second of all, he's talking about PLACES, not PEOPLE. Yes, parts (geographically) of the US have a bad reputation in the civilised world as filthy racist shitholes. Does that mean every person there is a dickweed? No, but the people who aren't fuckers aren't stopping the people who are, so the fuckers make the PLACE bad. See?

I love how the Europeans, with their filthy, genocidal colonial legacy, acts the US corners the market on racism...where in the world ISN'T racist?

Antarctica

South Pole?

all white

ooh let's all be proud of how different we are from those other people

Tom otm. I think the "It's still about race in Jena, La." line is kind of ridiculous, too.

i've recently considered that it may be utterly impossible to ever get people to quit being racist in the sense of eradicating fear and superstition and knee-jerk putdowns. no matter where you go or who you are it's natural for people to form tribes, and how people look will go into how those tribes get formed. my hope is that some day we may reach a place where the putdowns still exist but are friendly, in the kind of way that guys at work will tease each other about their weight, or the fact that they went to college, or that their hair's falling out

this sounds bad but i think the goal is moving towards a world where shit like that is more about changeable differences, like a decision to be a goth or a rap dude or whatever, than it is immutable shit like sex or race or whatever, and i think even then itll still be almost entirely class shit

Should the kids who hung the nooses been arrested? Reprehensible as their act was, what law could they be prosecuted under, given the 1st amendment and all?

I think the school would be liable under the public accomodations part of the Civil Rights Act, right?

ethan the only way that works is in a habermasian public sphere, i.e. a world without bodies

than it is immutable shit like sex or race or whatever

sex and race are becoming totally mutable tho - within maybe a handful of generations (the rate miscegenation being what it is), nearly every personal physical characteristic or ethnic identifier is likely to be a conscious "choice" of one kind or another.

also the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment, though its applicability has been eroded something awful in recent years.

Should the kids who hung the nooses been arrested? Reprehensible as their act was, what law could they be prosecuted under, given the 1st amendment and all?

definite legal argument to be made that that's hate speech - with an implicit threat - and ergo a kind of assault.

Yeah, death threats =/= first amendment-protected speech.

Here's a pic of the kid that was beaten:

http://news.yahoo.com/photo/070919/480/7b4a6f668d1d457bb9a96cc57fc23abd

Pfft, barely beaten up...attempted murder is insane.

well apparently he was unconcsious (which is pretty bad) but yeah the pics don't look like he was ABOUT TO BE DEAD or anything

Yeah, death threats =/= first amendment-protected speech.

yeah its a crime the same way waving a gun at someone is a crime

knocked unconscious is absolutely very bad and very dangerous.

Sometimes in situations such as this, it's best to do some role reversal. Like, if a bunch of crackers knocked a black kid unconscious (and yeah, it's not a perfect comparison but still.)

don't get me wrong its totally bad and the kid should definitely be charged with SOMETHING - but attempted murder? come on.

the best way to deal with this woulda been for the school to get proactive when the nooses appeared and make it clear that segregation and threats were not gonna be tolerated, etc. Too late for that now.

not really the point, though. there had been a series of incidents where black students were threatened/beat up (for sitting under a tree!) and nothing was done.

or if a bunch of crackers pulled a shotgun on a black kid

xxpost

if a bunch of crackers beat the living shit out of a black person and dragged them behind a truck on a highway for several miles

I have to wonder what kind of thinking propelled you to come here and tell folks that some "role reversal" was necessary

when you do role reversal you get to point out the HYPOCRISY involved in some things being different from other things

more proper role reversal = a bunch of jews beat up a cracker who burned a cross on their lawn

eat me Tombot. why do you bother conflating the argument?

I have no idea what the statutes are like in that state w/r to charging attempted murder (or whatever degree of homicide or whatever the charges actually are) but I'd like to think that the D.A. is pushing charges that can be proven.

That said, if this kind of shit ever happened to my kid, I'd probably want the perp charged with attempted murder. I mean, if you are trying to beat someone unconscious, what the fuck exactly are you trying to do?

what if a bunch of gay dudes knocked out a black kid who called them fags. then what.

not really the point, though. there had been a series of incidents where black students were threatened/beat up (for sitting under a tree!) and nothing was done.

right right - I'm just saying that's the point where the school shoulda stepped in and said "wtf is this "white only" tree bullshit, this cannot continue and anyone threatening anyone else with violence gets expelled"

x-post

That said, if this kind of shit ever happened to my kid

i wouldn't be surprised if your kid got caught putting up nooses don

I'd like to think that the D.A. is pushing charges that can be proven.

what? where is there any information that supports this assumption.

"Here in LaSalle Parish, whenever a black man is offered a plea bargain, he is innocent. That's a dead giveaway here in the South."

I'd like to think that the D.A. is pushing charges that can be proven.

considering the charges/sentence were thrown out its pretty clear that's not what happened.

I mean what? saying, "I'd like to assume the DA is acting justly" given the facts of this case is equivalent to sticking your head in the sand.

i wouldn't be surprised if your kid got caught putting up nooses don

YA BURNT

what if i drove this car as fast as i could over that ramp over there why because it's intresting.

For the rec I'm not a Britishes, I am from Canada, okay? And yeah racism exists here but it's definitely not as violent and its' deifnitely not as represented in our judicial system and it's definitely in tinier pockets. I mean, as a white kid I ride the Greyhound all of the time. Whereas if I did that in many sun belt states I'd get some pretty dirty looks from what my Canajun travelling friends have told me.

well don I guess we can just go by the community standards of louisiana and let them do as they please. I'm sure the DA is doing exactly as you describe.

the community standards of the rest of the country and the civilized world can just go shove it, unless they're willing to do some "role reversal"

and yes of course if I or anybody I care about were the victim of any kind of violent crime I would obviously like to see the perp(s) blown to shreds with a .50 caliber minigun and then gassed and set on fire, that's how justice gets done, right?

Tom otm again; justice system does not exist to address victims' families desire for revenge.

or it shouldn't. :(

you guys are just proving that you CAN'T look beyond the color of people's skin like don can, having ascended into the rationality of the public sphere as he has

I like asking for a role reversal and then using the word "crackers." Hypocrisy at its most blatant.

if you are trying to beat someone unconscious,

wtf have you ever been in a fight? how do you know that's what he was "trying" to do? Projecting/drawing conclusions about intent is very dangerous here, and is obviously a key component of why a charge like ATTEMPTED MURDER (which specifically requires the evidence of an explicit intent to kill) is being so hotly contested.

Tom otm again; justice system does not exist to address victims' families desire for revenge.

^^^^^YES

Justice /= violent revenge.

hey moonship, go fuck yourself. Twice.

Tombot: I'm not arguing for the community standards of LA, but if there are valid statutes to draw charges then should they be ignored? And it's nice to see you've conflated my argument (again) but I'm not advocating vengeance or revenge.

Tracer: whatever.

Shakey: if you're stating LA statutes, then I stand corrected. And yes, I've been in a fight.

xpost: obviously I didn't know the charges were dropped or I wouldn't have made that statement.

or revenge period, really

And actually it's pretty easy to be knocked out.

The nooses wouldn't be protected under the First Amendment (which wouldn't even exist without the egregious civil rights abuses of the British) because it probably would be considered an incitement to violence under Brandenburg v. Ohio.

multiple xposts

well then Don I think you should probably just RTFA again and not come in here being mr. contrarian voice of reason man giving us all an excuse to dogpile you with really easy contentions.

let's be cool, just a bit of friendly role reversal

Shakey: if you're stating LA statutes, then I stand corrected. And yes, I've been in a fight.

I'm pretty sure that the legal definition of attempted murder is the same in every state ie: "In the criminal law, attempted murder is committed when the defendant does an act that is more than merely preparatory to the commission of the crime of murder and, at the time of these acts, the person has a specific intention to kill"

to be clear the charges weren't dropped - the conviction was thrown out and the court ordered he be tried as a minor. On what charges he will be tried is currently at the center of the debate.

okay, I am just going to assume you're here to piss people off, Dandy Don Weiner, and try not to rise to the bait.

On what charges he will be tried is currently at the center of the debate.

-- Shakey Mo Collier

"fighting while black" amirite

ah wait no Bell's charge WAS reduced to aggravated battery just before he was convicted - but the conviction's been thrown out due to his juvenile status (he was tried as an adult, for some reason - most likely cuz racist DA and community want to see a black kid killed/in prison for life no matter what the law actually sez?)

x-post

second-degree martyr xp

the other four are being tried on aggravated battery and conspiracy, which seems a bit more reasonable than attempted murder. US attorney takes an interesting tack tho, trying to separate the attack from the issue of the nooses (for which no charges were brought and no serious disciplinary measures were taken gee what a surprise)

"Meanwhile, the U.S. attorney who reviewed investigations into the nooses and the beating said he believes the incidents -- though likely symptoms of racial tension -- were not related.

"A lot of things happened between the noose hanging and the fight occurring, and we have arrived at the conclusion that the fight itself had no connection," said Donald Washington, U.S. attorney for the Western District of Louisiana.

"There were three months of high school football in which they all played football together and got along fine, in which there was a homecoming court, in which there was the drill team, in which there were parades," Washington added."

Tombot, any shit you give me is probably justly deserved but you don't need to conflate my arguments to do so.

horseshoe: I'm not here to piss people off, and I'm certainly going chase the bait when someone intimates that I'm a racist or bigoted. Which reminds me: Fuck you again moonship. Leave my kids out of this.

let's be cool, just a bit of friendly role reversal

-- moonship journey to baja, Thursday, September 20, 2007 12:32 PM (13 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

lols

Fuck this, if only there were some system made to just put these kids into different schools...

District Attorney Reed Walters stressed on Wednesday that race had nothing to do with the charges in Jena.

Walters said he didn't charge the white students accused of hanging the nooses because he could find no Louisiana law under which they could be charged. In the beating case, he said, four of the defendants were of adult age under Louisiana law and the only juvenile charged as an adult, Mychal Bell, had a prior criminal record.

this guy sounds like an amazingly incomptent lawyer

incompetent also

The problem with this "role reversal" concept is that it implies that people are opposites of each other.

seriously.

my seriously was an xp, oops.

i disagree w/ sexyd. you can reverse roles and not be opposites.

http://www.amoktime.com/images/artasylum/aa85880b.jpg

STILL A DICK

maybe not, but the use of "reversal" strengthens the concept that people are opposites.

I'm assuming this role reversal involves a mostly black US that imported European slaves to work the land in Wisconsin and Minnesota, and eventually freed them, only to institute a cagy system of "Tom Dove" laws to maintain their economic and social oppression, etc.?

(The problem with role-reversal is that I'm not sure why we'd feel any different in the opposite case: show me a majority black school where white kids get lynching threats for sitting under certain trees, and I'll get back to you.)

(And then show me a mostly black legal system trying to railroad those white kids after a fight, and see if I think that's somehow better.)

Tom Dove lolz

Joe Pigeon

Johnny Shitbird

that's exactly why I said it wasn't a perfect comparison Nabisco.

http://blogs.zdnet.com/open-source/images/strawman.jpg

I think the opposite in question is "yours" and "mine" in any of these cases and the actual proximity of two standpoints is entirely irrelevant and not calcified by the use of the word reversal, but i am a pretty naive person. "Mile in someone else's shoes" is a bit after-school special for me...

Wasn't that phrase popularized in "To Kill A Mockingbird" Will?

Was it? That's funny.

that's exactly why I said it wasn't a perfect comparison Nabisco.

-- Dandy Don Weiner, Thursday, September 20, 2007 1:07 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

you mean thats why its a useless comparison? stfu

But guys there were parades.

i mean what if it was BLACK kids who put those nooses on the tree? as a warning to WHITE kids?? i bet you'd be defending them!!

oh, great, really helpful guys

altho OMG a sailor named Casanova Love!!! awesome

alert rolling gay thread

One involved the hanging of nooses from a tree a day after black students sat under what had been an informal gathering place for white students. *The students involved were suspended from school for a brief time.*

I hadn't heard that last bit before.

well gosh you know its not like they broke any laws or anything amirite

Gary Younge's head is too large to fit through a noose.

-- Dom Passantino, Thursday, September 20, 2007 3:59 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Link

wft?

haha "wtf?"

but seriously

breaking:

NBC News: Bail denied for 'Jena Six' defendant Mychal Bell

Judge denies request to free Jena teen(AP)

A judge on Friday denied a request to release a teenager whose arrest in the beating of a white classmate sparked this week's civil rights protest in Louisiana. Mychal Bell's request to be freed while an appeal is being reviewed was rejected at a juvenile court hearing, effectively denying him any chance at immediate bail, a person familiar with the case told The Associated Press. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because juvenile court proceedings are closed.

Earlier, Bell's mother emerged from the hearing in tears, refusing to comment.

Bell, 17, was convicted of aggravated second-degree battery, which could have led to 15 years in prison. But his conviction was thrown out by a state appeals court that said he could not be tried on the charge as an adult because he was 16 at the time of the beating.

On Thursday, the case drew thousands of protesters to this tiny central Louisiana town to rally against what they see as a double standard of justice for blacks and whites. The march was one of the biggest civil rights demonstrations in years.

The case dates to August 2006, when a black Jena High School student asked the principal whether blacks could sit under a shade tree that was a frequent gathering place for whites. He was told yes. But nooses appeared in the tree the next day.

Three white students were suspended but not criminally prosecuted. LaSalle Parish District Attorney Reed Walters has said he could find no state law covering the act.

The incident was followed by fights between blacks and whites that culminated in the attack on Justin Barker, who was knocked unconscious on school grounds. According to court testimony, his face was swollen and bloodied, but he was able to attend a school function that night.

Five of the teens were originally charged with attempted second-degree murder — charges that have since been reduced for four of them. The sixth was booked as a juvenile on sealed charges.

don why do you keep saying "conflate"

Yeah, that really conflates my cornflakes too.

NBC News: Bail denied for 'Jena Six' defendant Mychal Bell

fuck this shit

I saw a small crowd of white people protesting this in San Francisco yesterday.

god forbid white people take an interest in the racial equity of our justice system

White supremacist backlash builds over Jena case
By Howard Witt | Tribune senior correspondent

HOUSTON - No sooner did tens of thousands of African-American demonstrators depart the racially tense town of Jena, La., last week after protesting perceived injustices than white supremacists flooded in behind them.

First a neo-Nazi Web site posted the names, addresses and phone numbers of some of the six black teenagers and their families at the center of the Jena 6 case and urged followers to find them and "drag them out of the house," prompting an investigation by the FBI.

Then the leader of a white supremacist group in Mississippi published interviews that he conducted with the mayor of Jena and the white teenager who was attacked and beaten, allegedly by the six black youths. In those interviews, the mayor, Murphy McMillin, praised efforts by pro-white groups to organize counterdemonstrations; the teenager, Justin Barker, urged white readers to "realize what is going on, speak up and speak their mind."

Over the weekend, white extremist Web sites and blogs across the Internet filled with invective about the Jena 6 case, which has drawn scrutiny from civil rights leaders, three leading Democratic presidential candidates and hundreds of African-American Internet bloggers. They are concerned about allegations that blacks have been treated more harshly than whites in the criminal justice system of the town of 3,000, which is 85 percent white.

David Duke, the former Ku Klux Klan leader, last week announced his support for Jena's white residents, who voted overwhelmingly for him when he ran unsuccessfully for Louisiana governor in 1991.

"There is a major white supremacist backlash building," said Mark Potok, a hate-group expert at the Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil rights group in Montgomery, Ala. "I also think it's more widespread than may be obvious to most people. It's not only neo-nazis and Klansmen—you expect this kind of reaction from them."

Controversy over the Jena 6 case has been percolating for months but it exploded into national view last Thursday when a crowd of at least 20,000 peaceful demonstrators from around the country marched through the central Louisiana town.

They came to support the six black high school students who were initially charged by the local prosecutor with attempted murder for attacking Barker, a white classmate who was beaten and knocked briefly unconscious last December. The charges were later reduced to aggravated second-degree battery.

The incident capped months of racial unrest after three white students hung nooses from a shade tree at the high school after black students asked permission to sit under it. School officials dismissed the noose incident as a prank, angering black students and their parents and triggering a series of fights between whites and blacks. The whites involved were charged with misdemeanors or not at all while the blacks drew various felony charges.

McMillin has insisted that his town is being unfairly portrayed as racist—an assertion the mayor repeated in an interview with Richard Barrett, the leader of the Nationalist Movement, a white supremacist group based in Learned, Miss., who asked McMillin to "set aside some place for those opposing the colored folks."

"I am not endorsing any demonstrations, but I do appreciate what you are trying to do," Barrett quoted McMillin as saying. "Your moral support means a lot."

McMillin declined to return calls seeking comment Monday.

Barker's father, David, said his family did not know the nature of Barrett's group when they agreed to be interviewed, adding, "I am not a white supremacist, and neither is my son."

But Barrett said he explained his group and its beliefs to the Barker family, who then invited him to stay overnight at their home on the eve of last week's protest march.

Rev. Jesse Jackson told the Tribune that he had grown so concerned about white extremists' threats against the Jena 6 families and perceived injustices in the town that he called the White House over the weekend to ask for immediate federal intervention.

Jackson said the acting head of the U.S. Justice Department's civil right division phoned him Monday to say that the agency had begun investigating the Jena situation.

fucking cunts

^^^

BAN MAYOR MCMILLAN

"This is some real coverage of the Jena protests that you will never hear on CNN. Brought to you by Davey D.
(thats me holding the National HipHop Political Convention sign of the right by the way:))
peace,
KC"

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: [Hip Hop Political Community Cipher] please spread this around folks

http://www.switchpod.com/users/mrdaveyd/JenasoundsfromJena.mp3

Click HERE to Listen to Jena 6 Rally Interviews and Speeches

..

There's so much to say about the historic Jena 6 Rally. It was a beautiful and inspiring thing. It was overwhelming to see so many people come out, especially young people from the so called Hip Hop Generation. Folks came from all over, many of them driving thousands of miles. My good brother DJ Paradise of the legendary group X-Clan captures a lot of what went down in his blog entry below.

It was good to see Hip Hop in the building. No 50 and Kanye didn't show, but Mos Def was there. Bun B from UGK was there, Ice Cube was there, Salt-n-Pepa was there, Sway from MTV was there, The Hip Hop Political Convention was there and scores of local artists independent artists from all over the country. Of course there was Jasiri X out of Pittsburgh's One Hood who put together the song 'Free the Jena 6'. Right now he is back in the studio with Wise Intelligent of Poor Righteous Teachers and NY Oil doing a remix.

However, Mos Def in our interview with DJ Chela expressed disappointment, because he expected to see and hear more from his more visible collegues. He explained that he's in the middle of shooting a movie and recording an album, but saw the Jena 6 issue to be too important to miss. He had to be there on hand especially since there were so many poor and working class people who showed up.

With so many poor and working class Blacks who have little means showing up in Jena the Diddys and Jay-Zs should've ideally been on hand or at the very least using their platforms to speak about this issue. But the success of Jena does not rest and should not rest on the presence of corporate backed artists. The people came in large numbers and took a strong stand on a hot day in the south in September. As you read the rest of this and listen to the audio, I want people to keep a few things in mind.

First, cell phone service in Jena was cut off the day of the rally. The excuse given was the cell towers were 'overloaded'. We think not. It seemed quite deliberate and served the purpose of preventing folks from communicating with one another. It showed me just how dependent we are on modern technological tools like the Internet and cell phones and how we can quickly be crippled should someone in a position of power decide to flip the switch.

People like myself and other journalists were not able call in our news reports to radio stations and other media outlets. Organizers were not able to text one another to co-ordinate during the rally. We should be aware that jamming cell phones and shutting off other modes of communication like the Internet will be a way to stifle our movement.
Another thing to note is that residents in Jena suddenly had their cable disrupted. Hence they weren't able to see the coverage from CNN and other media outlets that had descended on Jena. This needs to be investigated.

The other thing that was not reported was the number of buses and other vehicles prevented from coming into the city. More than 120 buses along with other vehicles were pulled over and kept at the side of the road about 20 miles outside of Jena for more than 2 hours. Cars with out of state plates were pulled over by Louisiana State Troopers that were posted on every exit and entrance between Jena and Alexandria which is an hour away. The police definitely were going after folks when they could get away with it...One beautiful moment was seeing when the New Black Panther Party went to speak in front of the courthouse and how the state troopers tried to surround them as if to make them stop. The brothers turned around faced the cops and held their ground while they went ahead and did an impromptu rally that lasted for a good 40 minutes.

Lastly a question that got raised was where were the white progressives who show up in mass at Anti-War Rallies and other causes? The large numbers of Black folks that showed up to Jena was due in part to people like Michael Baisden wisely using his syndicated radio show to talk about key issues and not nonsense like Kanye vs 50 or OJ. This in turn led to other Black talk shows to follow suit. Heck even Hot 97 in NY got on board and had on air discussions. We should be giving praise and asking for more of this type of on air activism. Again props to Michael Baisden and others who decided to use those airwaves in a good way.

One glaring omission at Jena was the Progressive white community. With so many Black people coming to Jena, think of how powerful it would've been had those white progressive that routinely listen to shows like Democracy Now , NPR and other alternative outlets where the Jena issue and the upcoming rally was discussed daily had also saw fit to show and take a strong stand against racism. It was a missed opportunity to see people from all races come together and take strong stance against the insidious racism in Jena. People need to keep in mind even though we came down in large numbers you still had white boys driving around with confederate flags and nooses in the back of their trucks.

Prior to the march you had rumors of the Klan showing up. A group of brothers from St. Louis showed up calling themselves the KKK Killers. They got wind of the Klan stories and were ready to go at it with them had they shown. They raised the issue as well about the progressive left being absent from this event. They held a noose around a Black man to show what historically went on in the south and still goes on. They also held a noose around some stuffed dogs and noted that there are many in this country who care more about the mis- treatment of dogs versus the mis-treatment of people. As one young brother rhetorically put it as he raised this issue 'I want answers from A.N.S.W.E.R. why weren't you here today in Jena?'.

On a related note, where the hell was Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and Barack Obama Apparently none of those cowardly presidential candidates saw fit to come to Jena? Perhaps they find some gumption and use their Senatorial powers to call for an investigation and bring about some Justice.

In conclusion the key to Jena will be the follow up. It will be up to us to write letters we write and make phone calls to Congress demanding an investigation. It will mean us sending money to the families. It will mean us making phone calls to 'Democratic' Governor Blanco demanding Mychael Bell be set free and charges dropped against the Jena 6.

Davey D

Observations About Jena
by DJ Paradise of X-Clan

On the night of September 18th, 2007, a mini-van carrying 6 diverse people left Pittsburgh, PA. Forgetting about their own individual struggles, banding together to travel to Jena, Louisiana to fight a common fight against oppression for The Jena 6 and for the freedom of 17 year old Mychal Bell.

Traveling 1,100 miles across many places with the same names as the one's traveled by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the "Freedom Riders". Without the fear of being stopped by racist sheriffs accompanied by KKK members in pickup trucks brandishing shot-guns, there was still an uneasy feeling and keen awareness of what was faced by many brave souls who traveled these dark unlit roads in search of "Freedom, Justice and Equality" decades before us as we passed through Alabama, Tennessee and Mississippi.

Listening the the radio and reading every newspaper from Pittsburgh to Jena. It seems to us that the masses of white people across America are in denial. They seem to believe that America is over racism, it just flat out does not exist according to many of them. In spite of the statistics for incarceration, housing, economics, education and unemployment. The excuses that many white people believe are responsible for so called African-Americans not doing well are lame
and racist in themselves. The sad truth is that there are hundreds, maybe even thousands of towns like Jena, Louisiana out there, in denial, bubbling, waiting to blow!

We arrived in Jena on the night of September 19th to check out the area so that we would have a feel of what we were riding into the next day. Things were very quite except for a few driveways full of pickup trucks at the homes of some white residents who I imagine had gathered to discuss the next days events.

Jena, Louisianan is a isolated community between 127 (West) and 8 (East), either way it's a long lonely ride into Jena from the highway, except of course on September 20th when over 60,000 people converged on the town with a total population of 3,000. Thousands of cars and hundreds of buses from all over America jammed the roads to a stand still. We stopped at the "GOTTA GO" convenience store, the spot that a white teen pulled a shot-gun on Brian Bailey (who grabbed the weapon and ran home with it). The police charged Brian and his friends with stealing a firearm, but did not charge the teen who had pulled it
out of his pickup truck with anything.

The Nooses have been cut down, the oak tree AKA "white tree" has been cut down, (Royal Shariyf's email reminded me that: "They cut it down, but the tree didn't do anything. The tree was innocent!"), The School has been half burned down, the one thing that has been left standing tall and deeply rooted is the white supremacy that many of the black children of Jena refuse to be dominated by any more. That is the point that is being lost in all of this. I would love to have had more time to listen to the young black residents of Jena, Louisiana. I did not go to Jena to lead them, they are the leaders that I went to Jena to follow, the one's who have had enough! The one's who have heard enough talk and pretty speeches.
The one's who exhibited the strength and courage of the ancestors, when they stood up in the face of incredible odds and said "NO MORE"!

They were brave in spite of the fact that they were greatly outnumbered and threatened by LaSalle Parish District Attorney Reed Walter who said in a special assembly at Jena High School with white students at one side of the room and black students seated at the other. "I can end your lives with the stroke of a pen". (A threat that he surely
aims to enforce on Mychal Bell in spite of marches, court rulings and the law).

The black children of Jena, Louisiana were threatened with nooses, a shot gun, hit with bottles and the threat of the rifle and ammo found in Justin Barker's truck on school grounds must constantly be on their minds. Somehow the only person in Jena in trouble for a weapon is Mychal Bell, his tennis shoe! Still, somehow they remained brave, and somehow DA Reed Walter and too many white residents of Jena, Louisiana continue to act as though Justin Barker is the only victim in this case.

If this is not an obvious case of systematic racism, I don't know what is, consider this:

In Jena, Louisiana: hanging nooses from trees is not a hate crime "it is a prank".

In Jena, Louisiana: pulling a shot-gun on black teenagers is not a crime, "disarming the person who pulls it on you is".

In Jena, Louisiana: a group of 6 or 7 white youths jumping a black youth is "simple battery", 6 black youths jump a white youth it is "attempted murder".

In Jena, Louisiana: a shot-gun, a rifle, a bottle, brass knuckles are not dangerous weapons, "a gym shoe is".

In Jena, Louisiana: Confederate flags are not symbols of hate or racism, "it is free speech".

In Jena, Louisiana: racism and white supremacy is not considered a crime, "fighting back is".

Overall the March in Jena was a success depending on who you ask. Personally I'm disappointed by the results. I thought that the point of the march was to "Free The Jena 6" which is more than a hot t-shirt slogan. I know that I can speak for brother Jasiri X when I say: more than "the hook to a song". 7 Organizations had separate events and no one had itinerary's or schedules. Security was unorganized which was scary as hell considering that Jena has only 2 roads in and out. And the town had cut off all cell phone communications during the march.

My Elder Sonny Carson told me long ago "Never ask for anything that you cannot take!" I can't help feeling like, "Why did we travel so far to leave Mychal Bell's mother in tears"?

Right after the march on Jena I heard from people in the crowd that Al Sharpton and Michael Baisdon were having a "Rally" in the neighboring town of Alexandria.

We had heard rumors on the way there that there was to be a town hall meeting organized by them in collaboration with th NAACP. Whatever happened, it wound up being 2 separate events and we had no idea as to where the NAACP meeting was. The decision was made easy for me as my friend Jasiri X was a guest of Michael Baisdon who had been "Banging" his song "Free The Jena 6" on his nationally syndicated show all month, plus I wanted to speak to my good Brother Al Sharpton about ways to build better bridges across the the Hip-hop generation and our Elders in the civil rights generation . I think that there was a little too much celebrating and not enough done to empower new young leadership. Leadership that sets goals, organizes, communicates and implements strategic plans nationally.

No one is above criticism, (especially myself) but to allow this energy of young black people "taking personal responsibility" in a way that I have only seen at the Million Man March (once In my life) to dissipate would truly be "Jena-cide". No one can be blamed for feeling so good about our youth after watching so many of them come out
to see that their brothers get justice. And for that I thank the racists who just so happen to live amongst some fine people in Jena, Louisiana, who are so arrogant, so sure of themselves and so supreme, that they may well have just messed around and awakened a sleeping giant! And I am not even talking about the small group that went to
Jena! It has been so hard for us to convince the average person on the street in America that this country is as racist as ever! Now thanks to you, everyone in the world saw those nooses (after the rally), and we heard about the ones that were hanging in the "white tree", we saw all the confederate flags too (we know exactly what all that means),
y'all might have just make my job easier.

Media Literacy 101:

White residents, politicians and the media continue to paint a picture of Justin Barker as the victim in this case. However Justin Barker was not randomly picked out of a crowd and attacked for being white. He is close friends with the 3 white youths who hung the nooses in the "white tree", and he was involved in the process of continuing the oppression and intimidation of Brian Bailey who had already been jumped and hit with bottles by a gang of 6 or 7 white youths one of them a 21 year old
white male and had a shot-gun pulled on him at the convenience store.

While much is being made of Mychal Bells "prior criminal history", 2 incidents of Battery and 2 charges of criminal damage to property, nothing is being said in the press about the fact that Justin Barker was arrested for possession of a firearm in a firearm-free zone after a .22 caliber rifle and bullets were found in his truck at
Jena High School on May 10, 2007 after his friend

It is not surprising to see that Mychal Bell had a prior criminal record, his friend Brian Bailey was charged with "aggravated battery, 2nd degree robbery and disturbing the peace" after wrestling a shotgun from the hands of one of 6 or seven attackers who jumped him and beat him with bottles (2 days earlier at the Fair Grounds. Only 1 person was charged with simple assault and given probation).

Contrary to reports in the press, Justin Barker was not "Brutally" beaten, his injuries are consistent with a one on one fight rather than being jumped and stomped by 6 members of a football team. In fact he was treated and released from the hospital in 2 1/2 hours and attended a social function that same night. The use of the words "Brutally beaten" is media propaganda, a mind trick that subliminally plants the image in peoples heads that the Jena 6 are "Brutes". A concept at the very foundation of White Supremacy. Dehumanization. " The Brute Caricature " http://www.ferris.edu/jimcrow/brute/

Brian Bailey, Mychal Bell, Carwin Jones, Bryant Purvis, Theo Shaw and Jessie Ray Beard are the Jena 6.

It was good to see Hip Hop in the building. No 50 and Kanye didn't show, but Mos Def was there. Bun B from UGK was there, Ice Cube was there, Salt-n-Pepa was there,

I had not heard this!!! very cool

http://www.democracynow.org/print.pl?sid=07/07/10/1413228

"Relatives of some of the jurors was some of the witnesses, too. One of the boys that testified for Barker was one of the boys that hung up the nooses at the high school."

"my understanding of how the fight took place is Barker was telling some of the boys earlier that morning, calling them nigger and telling them about the fight that happened the previous weekend now. So the majority of the creation of the fight was due to Justin Barker's racial remarks. But, see, we’ve got to go back now to understand, see, the DA created this whole racial atmosphere, where he didn't do nothing to the boys that hung up the nooses, so that gave the message to all the black kids, well, the white kids will do what they want to do and get away with it."

AMY GOODMAN: Did your son's court-appointed attorney call up any witnesses?

MARCUS JONES: No. He did not put up no kind of defense at all. He did not call one witness.

AMY GOODMAN: And can you talk about the fight before the final fight, the fight where a young black man was beaten at a party?

CASEPTLA BAILEY: That young black man was my son Robert Bailey. Him and some friends had gone to a party at the Jena Fair Barn. And to my understanding, it wasn’t an all-white party there. It was a few blacks that was already there in the party, and he asked to enter the party, if would it be OK for them to come in. And he said the lady responded as, “Sure, you know, as long as there be no fighting.”

So once he did enter the building, a gentleman asked him what was his name. He told him, “Robert Bailey” -- no, asked him, “Is your name Robert Bailey?” And my son said yes, and Justin Sloan hit him, as well as his sister Jessie Sloan. And from there, he was attacked by several white men in the Fair Barn.

AMY GOODMAN: And the incident where your son tried to get a gun from a man at a convenience store?

CASEPTLA BAILEY: Well, that incident happened on Saturday, December 2nd, the following day, where Robert and two of his friends, Theo Shaw and Ryan Simmons, were going to Gotta-Go Grocery. And once they got there, they say Matt Windham, who is a man, not a student at Jena High School, and Matt Windham -- I guess they had come upon each other, because Matt Windham was involved the previous night with the white gentlemen that beat my son the previous night at the Fair Barn, where -- rather attacked my son at the Fair Barn. So once they came upon each other, I guess it was on.

You know, Matt ran to his truck, from my understanding, pulled a shotgun, a sawed-off shotgun with a pistol grip, and my son wrestled with him to get the gun from him. And the other two gentlemen proceeded then to fight, and they took the gun from him and left the scene running. You know, I’m sure they were -- I know they were in fear of their lives. They were afraid that this man was going to shoot them, you know, especially in the back, running away from the scene. So they were scared. I’m sure Matt Windham was scared. You know, but he chose to run to the truck and pull the shotgun, not our children.

Students In Blackface Jena 6 Reenactment

NEW YORK (CNN) -- A rally Wednesday afternoon at Columbia University was held to protest the discovery of a noose on the office door of an African-American professor.

The noose was found Tuesday at Columbia's Teachers College, said Joe Levine, executive director for external affairs at Teachers College.

The New York Police Department is investigating the matter as a hate crime.

The apparent target, Madonna Constantine, 44, is a professor of psychology and education at Teachers College. She co-wrote the book "Addressing Racism: Facilitating Cultural Competence in Mental Health and Educational Settings."

:O

actually fuck it, emoticons don't really do that justice

wow

Fukn Disgusting.

Between this and the recent Long Island incident we're going to need a Rolling Noose Atrocity Thread 2007.

when I worked with employment discrimination lawyers, I was made aware of a terrifying amount of race discrimination cases in which nooses were left in black employees' lockers, etc. that was 2001-2003.

the one they let go is back in jail O_o

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-6990532,00.html

:(

http://bgdboom.blogspot.com/2007/10/jena-6-update-ballin.html

goddamnit

A reporter talks.

makes you wonder why "the real story" hasn't been heard

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.

glad to have that cleared up

hard hitting evidence

also those weren't nooses, they were LASSOS

That reporter is clearly a liar.

eagle-eyed

it was nice of him to reveal that the entire story has been fabricated so promptly

i look forward to his upcoming 'hey guys wait i just remembered i was hanging out with oj simpson the night his wife got killed... would that be interesting to anybody?' revelation in 2009

That "reporter" has every reason to lie, fabricate and mislead. After all, his wife is a teacher at that high school.

Once Al Sharpton releases his report, then we can all decide what REALLY happened in Jena.

ahh the old lonesome dove prank!

keep fighting that vicious pro-black media dandy don weiner

i have incontrovertible evidence the media is controlled by a pro-black cartel

Why does he consistently accept that another person's testimony is proof of lies in another testimony (without facts, it just calls both into question, and debunks shit e.g. he thinks that stating that the nooses were meant as a joke to white students debunks the general view - why believe them and not the 'jena 6'?). He proposes that there is no 'white's only tree, and presents exact zero evidence for this - "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." could be used in either circumstances. Isn't this a pretty strange question anyway?)

But most of all, why am I not surprised that Don has swooped into a thread to show that the white kids are innocent and the black kids are liars.

yes! exactly!

dandy

And it's the Christian Science Monitor...

christian science monitor is a good paper, which makes me surprised they'd run some baseless shit like this

Desperate times call for desperate measures I guess.

CSM often runs stories on little to no evidence - George Galloway's employment by Hussain, for example.

guys, youve never played pranks on your schools RODEO TEAM before???

I once played a prank on my school tightrope walking team by leaving a burning cross on the school lawn, but I had no knowledge that burning crosses symbolize the terrible legacy of racism in American history, so no harm, no foul. (Plus, when they told me about racism I became visibly remorseful.)

hahaha if there's one thing that today's teens can't get enough of, it's lonesome dove...

the so-called incident in jasper texas where they dragged that guy behind the truck was actually just a joke inspired by father dowling mysteries

If it was good enough for Sister Stevie...

Those myth dissections would be a lot more believable if they were decently written and not full of total WTF moments:

The three were accused by police of jumping a white man as he entered the store and stealing a shotgun from him.

I mean, yeah! Dude was just walking into a store, minding his own business, holding a shotgun, and these three jump him! That sounds way more believable than the original story!

the lasso one is so WTF it makes me wonder if this dude is straight-up lying or actually crazy enough to believe that it was a rodeo team prank

i regret not withholding judgement on the csm piece to wait for louis jagger to post his complete agreement with it and then spend the next 100 posts furiously backpedaling

there was one of those 'fight the power!' pro-oink pieces that idolator linked to where the dudes also made some post about how this piece was making them rethink the whole ordeal

a real perceptive bunch on the whole

"wait--no one told me that jena was a good place to live for both blacks and whites!!!"

New Fear song ahoy: "Jena's All Right if You Like Simmering Racial Tension and Constant Altercations, Some Involving Shotguns"

The three were accused by police of jumping a white man as he entered the store and stealing a shotgun from him

only in jena, la can the heroic disarmament of a white armed robber by three black teens be spun into an assault by the latter

i dont know why whites and blacks alike wouldn't want to live in a town with constant interracial firearm struggles & ass-whoopings

The Duke Lacrosse reference at the end tells you exactly where he's coming from - white persecution complex.

Surely especially inflamed cause he's had a buncha noisy nonwhites raisin hell in his town for the last month or so.

sm-fuckin-h

http://news8austin.com/content/top_stories/default.asp?ArID=199810

as much at the inevitable sensationalization this is gonna get as anything else. not hard to figure out how this happens, but goddamn.