Unsurprisingly, recent polling data of the opinions of whites and African-Americans regarding the Jena Six situation in Louisianna, and discrimination within the criminal justice system generally, reveal a huge gulf in their attitudes.
According to a CNN-Opinion Research Corp. poll released Tuesday, 79 percent of blacks said the black teenagers in Jena were treated unfairly. Whites were more evenly divided, with 33 percent saying they were treated unfairly, 29 percent fairly and 38 percent saying they were unsure.
In an Associated Press-Ipsos poll taken late last month, nearly nine in 10 blacks said that blacks and other minorities cannot receive equal justice to whites under the nation’s justice system. Whites agreed, but by a much narrower 50 percent to 44 percent.
Bell’s attorneys said they will appeal the decision.
A closer examination of Judge Mauffrey Jr.’s history makes this recent decision less surprising. Keep in mind, this is the same judge who did set Bell’s bail initially at an unreasonably high $90,000 before reducing it to $45,000 in a separate hearing before a different judge after Bell’s lawyers complaining about Judge Mauffrey. Plus, the ruling came down when most of the activist were out of town and the glare of the national spotlight died down.
So, while ostensibly, this ruling has little to do with Bell being accused of attacking Justin Barker, the white youth who was beaten unconscious, it does suggest something else is at work here than merely reexamining Bell’s record.
The Pew Research Center for the People in the Press recently surveyed blacks and whites about which stories they followed more closely in the press: the Jena Six case or O.J. Simpson’s recent arrest. Below is a graph of the percentage breakdown of survey’s results.
The Associated Press has reported Mychal Bell was released on $45,000 bail only a day after District Attorney Reed Walters relented in appealing the court’s decision to have Bell’s case tried in juvenile court instead of adult court. Interestingly enough, the bail was reduced from its initial from $90,000 to $45,000.
Only the intervention of an uninvolved student protected Mr. Barker from severe injury or death. There was serious bodily harm inflicted with a dangerous weapon — the definition of aggravated second-degree battery. Mr. Bell’s conviction on that charge as an adult has been overturned, but I considered adult status appropriate because of his role as the instigator of the attack, the seriousness of the charge and his prior criminal record.
But now he claims he “still believes there was legal merit to trying Bell as an adult but decided it was in the best interest of the victim, Justin Barker, and his family to let the juvenile court handle the case,” according the AP.
Walters also was quoted as saying:
”The only way — let me stress that — the only way that I believe that me or this community has been able to endure the trauma that has been thrust upon us is through the prayers of the Christian people who have sent them up in this community,” Walters said.
”I firmly believe and am confident of the fact that had it not been for the direct intervention of the Lord Jesus Christ last Thursday, a disaster would have happened. You can quote me on that.”
And we will.
At any rate, its also possible many of those very same Christians, including those in town of Jena and beyond, also prayed for the protesters and the accused teens. And maybe just maybe it was never the intent of the protesters to be violent at all.
It will be interesting to hear how the apologists out there will argue how while these comments were inappropriate they should not be construed as racist.
LaSalle Parish District Attorney Reed Walters has just dropped his appeal to an Louisianna State Appeals Court to have Mychal Bell tried in adult court, according to the Associated Press.
BATON ROUGE, La. — The prosecutor in the “Jena 6″ cases has decided not to challenge a ruling that sent 17-year-old Mychal Bell’s case to juvenile court.
LaSalle Parish District Attorney Reed Walters had earlier said he would appeal the state appeals court’s decision to set aside Bell’s second-degree battery conviction on the grounds that Bell should not have been tried as an adult.
Gov. Kathleen Blanco, with Martin Luther King III and the Rev. Al Sharpton at her side, announced Wednesday that she had spoken with Walters and asked him to reconsider pushing to keep the case in the adult system. She said Walters contacted her Wednesday to say he had decided not to appeal the ruling.
Since Monday, my blog has been slammed with visitors from all over the country, looking for information on yesterday’s Jena 6 rally. Many of those new people have left comments here, some of them thoughtful and insightful, and others of them a lot less so. I’ve had to edit – or sometimes delete – more comments in the past week than I have in the 18 months I’ve been blogging.
Some of the comments were personal attacks on me – for what, I wasn’t sure. I guess simply because they could see that I was black, some commenters assumed that I thought the boys in Jena were completely innocent, that I support Al Sharpton and his ilk, that I supported the woman in the Duke case – heck, that I thought OJ was innocent. I’ve been called the n-word and the b-word by people who have never visited my blog before.
All of that – simply because I happen to be black.
The Roanoke Times reported on Friday that the FBI is investigating a white supremacist website that posted the names and addresses of the Jena 6 families and urged its readership to “Get in touch, and let them know justice is coming,” and even to “Lynch the Jena 6.”
The website is run by William A. White, who the article describes as the commander of the American National Socialist Workers Party.
The two videos below provide an interesting glimpse into the news coverage on the Jena 6. The first one is an early September 2007 piece on CNN that begins with several white men attempting restrain Mychal Bell’s father, Marcus Jones, who is in an understandable fit of rage and sadness, after hearing his son was just convicted of aggravated battery and conspiracy to commit aggravated battery. The convictions could have sent Bell to jail for two decades. Of course, any parent would react in the same way.
But notice how the segment opens. It begins with an image of a seemingly unruly and perhaps one may say “threatening” black man before any real narrative explanation is done to account for his emotions. Then after a few pedestrian interviews are conducted the piece essentially ends with the white parents of Justin Baker, who was the white male beat unconscious allegedly by the Jena 6 teens, being referred to as the victim.
Baker’s parents depicted in this “Justice or Racism” piece as calm and sober thinking southern whites dealing with exorbitant medical bills. Their position of wanting Mychal Bell charged, if not convicted, of second degree murder isn’t sufficiently probed.
Nor is there any mention of the December 2006 fight where Robert Bailey, another one of the Jena 6 teens, was assaulted by a group of white males with beer bottles at a party. Nor is there any mention of how a white Jena graduate allegedly pulled a shotgun on three black high school students when they left a local convenience store.
That is not to excuse Justin Baker’s attackers whoever they were. But critical information about the climate of racial intimation needs to be highlighted rather than suppressed to provide much needed context.
Otherwise, it just seems as if some quick to anger and aggressive black men are somehow responsible rather than reacting to mounting racial tension in Jena, LA. As a result, whether deliberately or not, the viewer is encouraged to sympathize with Baker’s more than the Jena 6 teens. Keep in mind none of the Jena 6 teens pleaded guilty of the charges.
Perhaps I am wrong, or failing to take into account all the demands of telling a story on a cable news in short segments. But the CNN piece struck me as poor reporting. Judge for yourself.
And now check out the second video. If for nothing else, for another perspective on the story. Its a Democracy Now interview with the mothers of Robert Bailey and Robert Purvis, two of the accused Jena 6 teens.
Judge J.P. Mauffray Jr. denied Mychal Bell’s request to be freed while his appeal is being reviewed, according to the Associated Press. Local prosecutors are appealing the Louisiana Circuit Court decision to have Bell tried in juvenile court instead of adult court.
Judge Mauffray Jr. is also the same judge who set Bell’s bail at $90,000.
Bell’s attorney’s request to have Judge Mauffray Jr. removed from the case for setting bail so high was also denied.
Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, says he plans to hold hearings on the prosecution of the Jena Six. No date has been set yet.
(Washington, DC)- Today, House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI) told a crowd gathered on the Capitol grounds that he is holding a forum next week and plans to hold hearings to address the case of six teenagers in Jena, Louisiana who were charged with attempted murder for a schoolyard fight. Conyers spoke during a rally of support for the students, now being called the “Jena Six,” in Washington, in coordination with rallies in Jena and other U.S. cities.
“I want to hold a forum next week and hearings at some point in the Judiciary Committee on this issue because in 2007, there should not even be allegations of unequal justice based on race or any other factors,” Conyers said. “This case brings to light what could be a national trend and the Judiciary Committee should explore that.”
Conyers will hold a forum next week during the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s Annual Legislative Conference on Friday, September 28 at 3 p.m. in room 209C of the Washington Convention Center. It will feature Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD), Harvard professor Dr. Charles Ogletree, a family member of one of the Jena Six students, Louisiana ACLU representatives and others. The Judiciary Committee hearing has not yet been set.
“We’ve reached a point in history where this kind of situation is no longer tolerable,” Conyers added. “I commend everyone across the country for participating in rallies, sending your support and letting these students and the rest of the country know that we will not stand for this type of injustice.”
The Jena six case is the tragic result of a series of racial incidents that divided the small community of Jena, Louisiana. The controversy dates back to August 2006 when Black students at Jena High School attempted to sit under a tree where white students socialized exclusively and the following day, three white students hung nooses from the tree. A series of racially charged episodes involving off-campus violence followed the noose incident including a fight in which a white student would be injured and sent to the hospital. Five of the Black teens involved in the fight – Mychal Bell, Robert Bailey, Jr., Carwin Jones, Bryant Purvis, and Theo Shaw were originally charged as adults with attempted second-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder. The sixth teen will be tried as a juvenile and faces undisclosed charges.
Despite a narrowing of the racial gap in the past decade, the average black juvenile remains far more likely to be arrested and convicted than a white counterpart. But researchers are divided on whether race or other factors, such as poverty, are the driving factor.
Nationally, black youths are significantly more likely to be tried as adults than are whites, according to a January report from the National Council on Crime and Delinquency. The same report states that while black youths make up 16 percent of the general adolescent population, they make up 38 percent of the approximately 100,000 being held in local and state detention facilities.
Since Sen. Obama decided to run for President, he has had to face criticism for his presumed lack of support among African-Americans. And now even after endorsements from Oprah Winfrey to Talib Kweli to Dr. Cornell West, and many more, but the mainstream media still wants to revive this narrative of Obama not being black enough. Case in point, media reports about Rev. Jackson saying Obama is “acting white” about not speaking out enough about the Jena 6 injustice. This is utterly ridiculous.
First of all, its a diversion from the real issue, which is the obvious case of a miscarriage of justice in the criminal justice system, particularly the massive protests in Jena, LA. Secondly, it assumes that if African-American leaders or black folk generally criticize each there must be some unbridgeable division among them. And thirdly, Jesse Jackson has repeatedly emphasized his support for Obama and called such reports of him questioning the Senator’s blackness outright false.
“I don’t associate myself with that statement, that’s not my position,” Jackson said. “… I’m dumbfounded by this story. … Black enough, white enough, this argument is an absurd one.” Obama, he said, “does not have to jump through hoops to prove his ethnicity.”
As the campaign season intensifies the mainstream media will look for other ways to revive this narrative of Obama struggling to garner black support, particularly if he loses or narrowly wins in primary states with sizable black voters.
Louisiana state police estimated that the crowd numbered between 15,000 and 20,000 people, but organizers said they believed there were at least twice that many demonstrators filling this two-stoplight town of 3,000.
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