Jim Crow alive and well in Louisiana! Please read, something needs to be done.

[Tim4319]

This is how it all started:
<<snip>>
It began in Jena's high school last August when Kenneth Purvis asked the headteacher if black students could break with a long-held tradition and join the whites who sit under the tree in the school courtyard during breaks. The boy was told that he and his friends could sit where they liked.

The following morning white students had hung three nooses there. 'Bad taste, silly, but just a prank,' was the response of most of Jena's whites.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,2083762,00.html

To make a long story short, a fight broke out a few months later, and six black youths were charged and are facing charges that will send them to jail for 22 years. Nothing happened to the students that hung the nooses. But, these young men are potentially facing time that will remove them from society during the prime of their lives.

[silverlib]

1. K&R

This is horrifying - has it received any American press?

Added to note that it's a couple of months back. Any updates?

[Tim4319]

2. None!

I am a huge football fan, I live in Atlanta, and all I hear is Vick, Vick, Vick. But, this has received no national coverage what so ever.

[NOLALady]

6. National Coverage?

Hah! Limited local coverage.
I live in Louisiana and learned about it a month ago. Only one other person I talked to knew anything about it. It's getting little to know coverage here.

[Tim4319]

14. It seems people care more about animals that humans.

Don't get me wrong, if Vick did what he did, he should be punished to the fullest extent of the law. However, this needs to get just as much, if not more coverage then the Michael Vick case. The Duke rape case, got huge exposure! How come this can't?

[Tim4319]

3. I do know that a trial is coming up soon.

I am not sure if it is a bond hearing or not.

[Anita Garcia]

23. Hearing information

The six charged were: Robert Bailey Jr., 17, whose bail was set at $138,000; Theo Shaw, 17, whose bail totaled $130,000; Carwin Jones, 18, whose bail was $100,000; Bryant Purvis, 17, whose bail was $70,000; Mychal Bell, a 16 year-old high school sophomore was charged as an adult whose bail was set at $90,000; and a still unidentified minor.

Sentencing for Bell will occur July 31 where he faces the possibility of up to 22 years in prison. In his trial that lasted less than two days late last month, an all white jury found Bell guilty of aggravated second- degree battery and conspiracy to commit aggravated second-degree battery for his role in the beating of a white male who participated in a racial incident at the local high school last December. Bell's public defender called no witnesses and did not question the makeup of the jury pool.

[TheBaldyMan]

4. Jena 6 defence committee address

Jena 6 Defense Committee
PO BOX 2798
Jena, LA 71342

sry no contact tel. no.

[Tim4319]

5. Thank you so much for that information.

[TheBaldyMan]

11. my pleasure n/t

[Thirtieschild]

7. My two strongest memories of Jim Crow (and I'm white)

1. 1960. New Orleans. Registering to vote, an elderly black man standing beside me trying to register. They asked me my mother's maiden name. They asked him to explain something in the constitution - don't remember what but know I couldn't have answered it. I was registered, he wasn't.

2. 1968. Atlanta. Working with American Friends Service Committee (Quaker group trying to promote fair housing) I was helping a young black man sent down from Philadelphia. Philadelphia accent, called about an apartment, was told it was available and to come right over. White neighborhood, now affluent, then on a downward spiral. I drove him, my 18-month-old baby in tow. We got out of the car, black man, white woman carrying baby, they woudn't open the door. I was far more upset about it than he was. He'd experienced it before, maybe even expected it, after all that is what he was in Atlanta to work with. It was my first - and only - taste of discrimination. It's still with me, the hair on my head crawls when I think about it.

[Tim4319]

10. As a 35 year old black man,

I can't imagine what it was like to live through that. My heart truly goes out, no matter what color you were/are, to have go through all of that hatred.

[EFerrari]

8. It's actually all over, not only in LA. But yes, this is a terrible case.

[Bluerthanblue]

9. this is outrageous- all the shit about

Paris and Lindsey- the "cheese" bombs, and garbage news stories repeated over and over- and not one peep about this???


Where is Al Sharpton and Jessie Jackson?- they have to know about this?- pretty sad that the British cover our news better than we do.

Thanks for posting-

I'm going to pass this around.

peace,
blu

[Tim4319]

12. Blu, I'm listening to Warren Ballentine, a radio host

He works closely with Al Sharpton, and "The National Action Network, an organization Al Sharpton organizes, and they know about this case. I believe they are scheduling a time to setup protests.

[Bluerthanblue]

17. thanks

Tim, i'm writing him to express my concern. I'm glad to know he's on this. I hope this whole incident gets picked up- and publicized. The only way to confront our problems is to face them, and we can't do that if we don't know about them-

The Imus thing sure got a lot of press, this is truly important, and needs to be known.

Ignorance isn't bliss :shrug:


peace,
blu

:hi:

[flyingfysh]

13. this was covered on Democracy New a few days ago

There may be an online archive of the show somewhere, I don't know if there is or not.

[roody]

30. www.democracynow.org

www.democracynow.org

[Devlzown]

15. Looks like something is being done.

The ACLU, among others, is involved in the case and I'm sure the kids will get excellent lawyers. I'm sorry that the kids are in jail until this shit is sorted out, but they just might be safer there than on the outside. As far as changing things in that little town -- good luck there. That town sounds like one of those little shitholes that people do their best to flee as soon as they get the chance.

[The Doctor.]

16. 22 years? Who did they kill?

[TheBaldyMan]

28. no one, they beat up a white kid and are on aggrevated battery charges.

Read the story at the link, it's the school where the white kids hung nooses from a tree to scare off the black kids. A really ugly story.

[Catherine Vincent]

18. I realize that the young boy was beat up pretty bad.

And the boys that did this should be punished but I don't think sending them to prison all those years is justice. I am sure if it was the other way around, the perps would get a slap on the wrist. I saw an interview of the parents of the boy that was beat up and they were horrified what happened to their son, he almost died. (I would be too). But he's better now and if I were them, I wouldn't feel comfortable knowing that all those kids are getting 20+ years in prison for fighting their kid knowing damn well that he and others more than likely instigated with racial slurs.

[Tim4319]

19. Also,

I just heard on an interview with the parents of one of the accused black kids, that the kids who originally hung the nooses were caught and spent 3 days in a detention camp, and were went back to school shortly afterwards.

[ceile]

20. I rec'd an email about it last week.

Otherwise I wouldn't have known anything about it.

http://www.colorofchange.org/

[Bluerthanblue]

21. 2 links to more

information.




http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20070717_two_races_two_systems_of_justice_in_louisiana/

http://news.ncmonline.com/news/view_article.html?article_id=4f318afd651e56ebb4cc2eb26a91d7b7

[Anita Garcia]

22. NAACP Petition to La. Gov. Blanco - please consider

<http://www.naacp.org/get-involved/activism/petitions/jena-6/index.php>
Thank you!

[Bluerthanblue]

24. thanks,! signed on-

:hi:

[silverlib]

25. Signed - n/t

[lies and propaganda]

26. You should post a new thread with this link...

its a good one and its going to get buried! More people need to know about this disgusting outrage!

[Tim4319]

32. Thanks for the link

I just signed it!

[Ferretherder]

37. Thanks!

Louisiana native signin' on!

[Anita Garcia]

38. Hi there

me too!
You doin' okay post-Katrina/Rita?

[proud patriot]

27. k & r

[silverlib]

29. self delete - wrong place

[donkeyotay]

31. If this was on teevee, I missed it.

Seems they're just doing fake terra alerts full time now.

What a travesty of justice. The Observer link reports someone as saying the kid they beat up was in church that evening? Someone else said they almost killed him, ie., he was hospitalized? But those sentences...maybe someone in the WH press corpse can ask bush if he'll commute them for being excessive.

[MagickMuffin]

33. I started a thread on July 19th, that got NO responses

NOT A ONE:shrug:

[Anita Garcia]

34. Yep

The most coverage of the Jena 6 is on BBC.
Go figure!
Nothing about it in the Times Picayune or the Advocate.
National NAACP Conference did pass Resolution, hopefully that will get us more attention.

[MagickMuffin]

36. Oops I forgot to include the link to my original post.....

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=1378754

Last week in Detroit, the NAACP held a mock funeral for the N-word. But a chilling case in Louisiana shows us how far we have to go to bury racism. This story begins in the small central Louisiana town of Jena. Last September, a black high school student requested the school’s permission to sit beneath a broad, leafy tree in the hot schoolyard. Until then, only white students sat there.

The next morning, three nooses were hanging from the tree. The black students responded en masse. Justin Purvis, the kid who first sat under the tree, told filmmaker Jacquie Soohen: “They said, ‘Y’all want to go stand under the tree?’ We said, ‘Yeah.’ They said, ‘If you go, I’ll go. If you go, I’ll go.’ One person went, the next person went, everybody else just went.”

Then the police and the district attorney showed up. Substitute teacher Michelle Rogers recounts: “District Attorney Reed Walters proceeded to tell those kids that ‘I could end your lives with the stroke of a pen.’ ”

It didn’t happen for a few more months, but that is exactly what the district attorney is trying to do.

MORE @ link:
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/07/18/2606 /

[BlooInBloo]

35. I mentioned it a month or two ago - diddy-squat. DU doesn't care much about racism...

... unless someone says "nigger", pretty much.

[MagickMuffin]

39. Well that was probably when I was deep into working on my video

When I get to involved in my art I tend to not come around here much. So, a lot of times I miss important threads.

Sometimes I feel like I have B.O. and people stay away from my threads.

I care about racism, I don't know what can be done about it. Especially since the Bush Regime/Cartel/Cabal....