Racial Injustice Continues

Racial Injustice Continues updated

graphic via All About Race

Well today
is a national day of action for the Jena 6, including wearing black and
marching in protest of their treatment. You haven’t heard about this, right? David
Bowie has come to their defense as have other rockers, because to mount an effective defense
the Jena 6 will need a lot of help raising money to pay for it.

A Louisiana appeals court ruled it was too early to consider a motion to release an black teenager who allegedly took part in beating up a white classmate in Jena, Louisiana, last year. Civil rights groups and other organizations have marshaled thousands of people to march on Jena on Thursday, a day originally slated for 17-year-old Mychal Bell’s sentencing hearing on battery and conspiracy convictions. Court: It’s ‘premature’ to release Jena 6 defendant

Wade Goodwyn of NPR
has the story.

Trey
Ellis did a terrific post on it yesterday:

The Jena 6 case began last fall when a new black student to the mostly white, rural Louisiana town of Jena sat under the “white tree,” so called because it was the place where the white kids at school congregated. The next day three white boys on the rodeo team hung three nooses from the tree. The white boys were only given an in-school suspension, their act deemed no more than a “prank.” The day after that several of the school’s black high school football stars organized a peaceful silent protest under the tree. The school freaked, called in the police and the next day Reed Walters, the local D.A., addressed the school. There, he is reported to have looked at the black kids in the audience, waved his pen in the air and said, “With a stroke of this pen, I can make your life disappear.” … ..

More at All About Race.

Jesse Jackson slammed Obama yesterday, who he has endorsed, for “acting like he’s white.” Jackson thinks Obama is not leading on the Jena 6. Obama has a statement on his ’08 site, as do Chris Dodd, and John Edwards. Clinton does as well not. She did address it on Saturday at an NAACP dinner. Elizabeth Edwards will speak at a “send-off rally” where buses will take off to head for Jena, La. Being from the deep south and having a law degree, no doubt Mrs. Edwards understands the legal prejudices imbedded in this case all too well.

If Republican candidates for ’08 were asked about it I bet you’d get … **crickets**.

The leading contenders for the Republican nomination have indicated they will not attend the “All American Presidential Forum” organized by black talk show host Tavis Smiley, scheduled for Sept. 27 at Morgan State University in Baltimore and airing on PBS. Former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, former senator Fred D. Thompson (Tenn.) and Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) all cited scheduling conflicts in forgoing the debate. The top Democratic contenders attended a similar event in June at Howard University. … .. Debate No-Shows Worry GOP Leaders

Yes, this is all very shocking. What’s even worse is that while this is happening
the cable networks run non-stop coverage of O.J. The irony is not lost on many of us, Democrats that is.

Free the Jena 6
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petition