The Case of the Jena 6
Last fall, when two Black high school students sat under the "white" tree on their campus, white students responded by hanging nooses from the tree. When Black students protested the light punishment for the students who hung the nooses, District Attorney Reed Walters came to the school and told the students he could "take [their] lives away with a stroke of [his] pen." Racial tension continued to mount in Jena, and the District Attorney did nothing in response to several egregious cases of violence and threats against black students. But when a white student--who had been a vocal supporter of the students who hung the nooses--taunted a black student, allegedly called several black students "nigger", and was beaten up by black students, six black students were charged with second-degree attempted murder. Last month, the first young man to be tried, Mychal Bell, was convicted. He faces up to 22 years in prison for a school fight. (from the slightly biased http://www.freethejena6.org/)
Honestly this whole thing disturbs us... is it 2007 or 1957? Amazingly upsetting... We could give you commentary but this is a situation that has been talked to death. Still we feel this issue needs our attention. So this is our attempt to keep the common conciseness focused on this case.
Here is the statement of facts from a slightly less bias source CNN.
The latest on the case from the AP.
Here is an interesting take on the issue from Mos Def in relation to the Hip Hop industry.
It is interesting how several issues of culture have collided in the last few months between Mike Vick or West v. Islam but this is not just a case of cultural misunderstanding... it is out right racism and something seriously needs to be done... we don't know how to fix it, but hopefully we can keep it top of mind until some one comes along who can.
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Not only is there almost no coverage in the corporate media of black violent crimes against white people, but in high profile cases, the White victims are ignored and the Black criminals are turned into “real victims”.
ReplyDeleteTo illustrate the bias in the corporate media, imagine if the facts were reversed - if a gang of six white kids led by someone with four previous convictions for violent-crime had attacked a lone black student, kicking and stomping him into unconsciousness. As far as the corporate media are concerned, they would be interviewing the black victim on every TV talk show across the land, discussing his fear, his pain, his suffering. They would be interviewing his crying relatives and friends. They would not be voicing any fear that the white attackers would be treated too harshly, or that they would be treated at all. The attackers would not be celebrated in the dailies and across the TV networks.