convictions (calling for up to 15 years in prison) on Mychal Bell. The decision now must be made by Reed Walters on what he plans to do next with Bell and the other Jena Six juveniles.Drumbeats came to us from Too Sense about the selective amnesia shown by Reed Walters in his recent New York Times op-ed. dNa wrote,
After completely ignoring the incident for months, a few white progressive bloggers declared Walters "reasonable" in his op-ed for the Times. But of course, since they just learned about the case on CNN, they have no idea how many other incidents of violence on behalf of white students Walters refused to prosecute. I wrote a very thorough rebuttal which notes that while Walters apparently thought the Jena Six's sneakers were deadly weapons, a beer bottle and shotgun in the hands of white person were not deemed to be similarly dangerous.Click here to see the full rebuttal from dnA.
The momentum appears to be rolling in favor of the Jena Six. Hopefully this matter can be brought to a just conclusion in the near future. In the meantime, The AfroSpear will continue to monitor the situation.
Villagers, what is your take on the current Jena Six situation?
5 comments:
Instead of "beating the drum" for a boy (Bell)that has two other assault charges. One of which he beat his girlfriend so badly her eye was knocked out of its socket (What an angel). You should inform your readers of a real injustice in out judicial system. Jerry Wayne Love, a Huntsville,Alabama preacher, plead guilty to molesting his three adopted children(escaping ten other molestation charges) and was sentenced to 5 years probation and treatment? But this wont matter because it's a black on black crime.
Trivium - You miss the point. Nobody is calling Mychal Bell an angel. He cold-cocked a kid. He should be punished. You would agree that his punishment should not be 22 years in prison (original potential sentence)?
peace, Villager
No I don't agree. 22 years would be the maximum and that is a decision that is left to the judge. Rarely is the maximum penalty sentenced in assault charges on minors. Its one thing if he has no prior violent charges but he has two and the one I mentioned previously should be enough to tell that there is a problem in this boys' reasoning.
There is serious injustice happening everyday in US courts. Jena6 is minor compared to the most bigotry laden Judicial agenda, The Drug War. If only Rev. Sharpton and Jackson would bring to light the fact that 80% of the 800,000 jailed each year on minor drug charges are minority. Which is odd since studies done by the Gov. Drug Policy center show that more caucasions buy illicit drugs.
There is nothing good about the Jena situation. But until we stop thinking in group terms, black, white,gay ,straight,jewish,muslim; these situations will perpetually exist, beacause human nature will always make these groups believe the other groups are getting it better. We all are a species that spawned from one area on this earth. We all laugh, love, and cry.
Peace
I agree that noose-hanging is offensive and in bad taste.
For now, I will leave aside the fact that Mychal Bell is a thug who, before he joined in the 6-on-1 pack-beating that earned him his fame, had a prior assault conviction for BEATING UP A TEENAGE GIRL , stomping her face and BREAKING HER EYE-SOCKET.
I will leave that aside, except to say that it is not very intelligent to put a violent, girl-beating thug on a pedestal as being someone who "heroically stood up against racism" by engaging in pack-beating.
Much has been made about the percieved threat that blacks feel from whites regarding noose-hangings lately.
What do you make of these following facts? This comes from "The History of Lynching In The United States", a class at The University of Massachusetts.
http://www.umass.edu/complit/aclanet/ACLAText/USLynch.html
"There are "2805 [documented] victims of lynch mobs killed between 1882 and 1930 in ten southern states. Although mobs murdered almost 300 white men and women, the vast majority - almost 2,500 - of lynch victims were African-American."
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I certainly think that any kind of violence is evil and that racist lynchings are particularly awful.
I do find it intersting that according to the US Government, at
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/press/bvvcpr.htm
and
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/abstract/bvvc.htm
that at least 8,000 black people were murdered in 2005 alone, and that 93% of the murderers of these black people were black people themselves.
In light of the recent "Jena 6" situation, and the threat that black people have claimed to feel from whites because of it, what do you think about the fact that more black people were murdered by other black people (7,440 people, which is 93% of 8,000) in one year alone, 2005, than were murdered by all the white lynch mobs during the 48 years of 1882 through 1930 combined (about 2,500 people)?
This means that, in only one year, blacks killed almost 3 times the number of blacks than were killed by all the white lynch mobs during the 48 "peak-lynching years" combined!
Therefore, it stands to reason that the real, most dangerous threat to black people these days is not from racist white people or lynchings, but from black people themselves.
Anon - No question that the issue of crimes committed within the African American community by other African Americans is one that needs to be addressed. Of course, the statistics that you didn't show were those showing that over 85% of the murders of white folks in America are done by other white folks. I imagine that white-on-white crime is an issue as well.
Frankly, the fact that we have other issues doesn't mean that the issues of nooses or Jena 6 are less worthy of our attention.
Anyhow, thank you very much for sharing your village voice with us!
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