Buy It Now

Just a reminder to buy whatever you need so you can participate in the economic boycott November 2.

Show up.

MAKE NO PURCHASES NOV. 1-3, 2007.
November 2, 2007 National Blackout Day

WARREN BALLENTINE, 'THE PEOPLE'S ATTORNEY,' IS CALLING FOR ALL AFRICAN AMERICANS TO PARTICIPATE IN A NATIONAL BLACKOUT'

WHO: Warren Ballentine 'The People's Attorney' and radio 'Truth Fighter' is calling for a National Blackout throughout America, on Friday, November 2, 2007.

WHAT: Attorney Ballentine is calling for a National Blackout that is necessary for African Americans, and is long over due. Especially with all the present injustices that are being allowed and accepted in America right now. From the situation with Mychal Bell and the Jena 6, Genarlow Wilson, Megan Williams, and all of the nooses being hung all over America lately. Until we have federal legislation in place regarding these hate crimes, as African Americans, we need to band together to show our 'Economic Power' by refusing to spend ANY money that day from fast food restaurants to gas. More on Jena 6 at http://www.JENA6TV . com.

WHY: As African Americans we spend an estimated 715 billion dollars a year, and if we were to stop spending for one day that is 2 billion dollars that will not in the system. However, we ask that you don't make a mad dash to the stores days prior or on the days following. If the stores have a major increase in sales right before or right after the Blackout than we will not create the impact we are striving for.

WHEN & Friday, November 2, 2007

WHERE: Nationwide Blackout for ALL African Americans

Blackout 2 November 2007

Don't Spend ANY money — Show a sign of solidarity

Many people marched in Jena, LA, last month in support of the 6 young men unjustly charged with attempted murder for a school yard fight. There are many situations all over the nation that scream of injustice and unfair treatment of people in this country.
. . .

On Friday, November 2, 2007, Warren Ballentine, Reverend Al Sharpton and other civil rights leaders are calling for a national boycott. Black people alone spend 2 billion dollars a day in the United States and we are only approximately 12% of the population—2 billion dollars a day, lining the pockets of companies that have shown no interest in our interests. We ARE living in the new civil rights movement.

We cannot allow the march in Jena to be only an event. It MUST be a movement. In the 1950s, the bus boycott was only supposed to be for a few days or weeks. It ended up being over a year.

The goal was for fair treatment and bus integration. Our parents and grandparents sacrificed and showed that with faith and strength, they could show corporate America the power of the community and demanded fair treatment. As we know, those buses were integrated. This is not about color. This is about class. The middle class and poor people in this country are not treated as the Declaration of Independence says we should be treated. It states that 'all men are created equal'. Clearly the governing class of the United States disagrees with their document.

Join us on Friday, November 2, 2007 and don't spend ANY money. If you have to shop, do it the day before or the day after. If you need gas, get it the day before or the day after. We have to join together as a community. You may be thinking, it's only one day, what difference will it make? I had the same thought at first, but just think about it. If we all save our money that day, it WILL make a difference. That day may become a weekend. That weekend may become a week and that week a month. As we showed in the 1950s, we can make a difference if we do this together.

Show a sign of solidarity.

Shame

Somebody got in trouble!

WASHINGTON October 16, 2007, 3:06 p.m. ET · Democratic lawmakers denounced federal authorities Tuesday for not intervening in the Jena Six case, citing racist noose-hanging incidents far beyond the small Louisiana town where a school attack garnered national attention.

. . . Democratic lawmakers, many of them black, blasted federal authorities for staying out of the local prosecutor's case against the six, particularly that of Mychal Bell, who is currently in jail after a judge decided he violated the terms of his probation for a previous conviction.

"Shame on you," Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, said to Justice Department officials, directing most of her fury at Donald Washington, the U.S. attorney for Louisiana's western district — and the first black person to hold that position.

"As a parent, I'm on the verge of tears," Jackson Lee said.

"Why didn't you intervene?" she asked repeatedly, raising her voice and jabbing her finger in the air as some in the audience began to applaud.

Committee chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., called for quiet before Washington spoke.

"I was also offended, I too am an African-American," Washington told the panel. "I did intervene, I did engage the district attorney. At the end of the day, there are only certain things that the United States attorney can do."

Following that exchange, Conyers pointed out he had invited the local district attorney, Reed Walters, to testify, but he declined. At that, some in the audience yelled out, "subpoena him!"

Better late than never. I'm looking forward to what happens next. Will Reed Walters be subpoenaed?

And you know there is always one:

The senior Republican on the panel, Lamar Smith of Texas, said, "more than anything what we need is an effort to reduce racial tension... What we do not need is stoking racial resentment."

There's no context here, so it's possible Lamar Smith's remark was not so awful as it appears at first listen. It does sound as if he is making an accusation, and as if he is trying to shame people into backing down, and even minimizing the seriousness of what is happening. "What we do not need is stoking racial resentment." This implies that the racial resentment ("Those angry Black people!") is an everboiling pot just looking for an excuse to blow.

Look Inward

Congress is looking at the Jena 6 matter:

The House Judiciary Committee has scheduled a hearing on the Jena Six case Tuesday morning, less than a week after a youth at the center of the controversy was locked up again.

Which is all to the good. Not only to prevent these young men from becoming just another set of stats, but--is this too much to hope--to keep the struggle for justice in the forefront of our minds.

Even as I write this, I feel a little disheartened, not the least because in my heart I do accuse the liberals (or progressives, if that is the term you prefer) of shying away from social justice issues having to do with race. Or not shying away, exactly, but refusing to buckle in for the long ride. Oh, they will hitchhike here and there on a cause, especially if it allows them to castigate the conservatives (not that there's anything wrong with that, and I like to have me my fun, too) or if it allows them to congratulate themselves for their open-mindedness, as if they are somehow virtuous for not being as racist as the conservatives are.

dnA at Too Sense puts it bluntly:

Most white people don't care about what they see as "black" problems. Not even liberal white people.

Which was followed up by commenter Francis L. Holland:

For some reason, white are willing to believe that they are partly at fault for the systematic war on Iraq, but they are not willing to believe that they are partly at fault for the systematic war on Black people here at home. We pose the triple threat threat that they, once having embraced fairness here in the United States - they may have to integrate with us; they may have to share power with us; and they may have to share economic resources with us.

All whites benefit from the systematically racist workings of the way we live in America. I just saw A Lesson Before Dying. A little boy is looking at a globe and asks his teacher if there are white people in Yugoslavia. The teacher says no. The boy asks, "Who does all the work?" Where does the wealth of this country come from? Who benefits. Race is all about economics.

When he was young, W.E.B. Du Bois (so generously and charitably) believed that racism came from ignorance, but later in life believed that "material relationships masked themselves to the guise of race relationships."

We are responsible for what we know. Good intentions are not enough. Refraining from behaving in an overtly racist and discriminatory manner does not absolve one from responsibility. Good God, there is a war on Black people in this country. But it is a home war, it's been going on for so long, it's soooooooooooooo boring. Can we talk about Iraq instead? But oh God, the Black people. . .why should I feel guilty?

Guilt serves a beautiful purpose, you know. It is an indication that all is not well in the soul. You should feel guilty because you benefit from the sufferings of others. You will stop feeling guilty when you take some kind of action--when you refuse to countenance racist jokes, when you educate yourself about what this country has done and is still doing to Black people, when you examine every corner of your soul and scrub it clean, when you stop saying--when you stop thinking--things like, "What do they want, anyway?" or "So I got on this bus, and it was full of Black guys" or "I just never know what to say to them."

What used to be called "the Negro problem" is never going to go away. Pick a side. (If you say nothing, if you do nothing, you have picked your side.) (Although the problem, as how I look at it, is a white problem. It is a white problem with looking inward, with having integrity, with facing the truth, with accepting guilt and responsibility and making reparation and changing how we live and think and behave in this country. What is happening is evil, and those who stand by and let it happen are as bad as the perpetrators.)

UPDATE: I keep thinking about this. I don't think I said what I really wanted to say, which is that American whites who do not wish to support the current oppressive racist structure of how we live must first figure out how to recognize that they are part of the oppression, then identify what their role is, and then somehow extricate themselves as much as possible, at least untangle their thoughts from the dominating racism, and only then is it possible to begin any kind of positive action. Applying rigorous honesty the whole time, and being willing to come face to face with some ugly and then keep going.

Business as Usual

Mychal Bell has been sentenced and returned to custody on charges stemming from offenses that occurred prior to the Justin Barker matter:

NEW ORLEANS -- A black teenager whose prosecution in the beating of a white classmate drew thousands to Louisiana for a civil rights demonstration is back in jail, but a prosecutor said Friday the sentence has nothing to do with the racially charged case.

Mychal Bell, 17, was unexpectedly sent back to prison on Thursday after going to juvenile court in central Louisiana's LaSalle Parish for what he expected to be a routine hearing, Carol Powell Lexing, one of his attorneys said.

Instead, state District Judge J.P. Mauffrey Jr. decided Bell had violated probation and sentenced him to 18 months in jail on two counts of simple battery and two counts of criminal destruction of property, Lexing said.

Some of you know that I used to be a probation officer. Long ago. It was a period of short duration, but I was there long enough to understand and become sickened by the racist workings of the criminal injustice system--and that is in California, where whites settle themselves comfortably into a wide-eyed "Who, us? We're not racists!" attitude and even get a little huffy when you try to explain that even if a white person intends no racism, there may be a little stain lurking, and that the white person certainly is privileged in this land of ours. I served in both the adult and juvenile courts.

With that background knowledge, I can tell you a couple of things about what is happening with Mychal Bell, even not knowing him or the particulars of his case:

1. "simple battery" could be as insignificant as a shoving match
2. apply the same reasoning to "criminal destruction of property"
3. 18 months seems an excessive sentence
4. what is absolutely criminal is that no one seems to have explained what is going on to his parents:

“He’s locked up again,” Marcus Jones said of his 17-year-old son. “No bail has been set or nothing. He’s a young man who’s been thrown in jail again and again, and he just has to take it.”

There's no bail once a defendant has been sentenced; bail is only an alternative to remaining in custody before the trial and final disposition of a criminal offense.

It's not clear from this whether Bell is in jail or whether he is housed at a juvenile detention center. For his sake, I hope the latter.

I don't know the nature of the original offense that resulted in Mychal Bell receiving probation. I don't know the nature of the probation violations. There are some people who are simply always in the wrong place at the wrong time, and he may be one of those. It's almost impossible to obtain the facts, as juvenile court records are not available to the public.

I do very much suspect that the D.A. and judge are highly motivated to place Mychal Bell in custody, and this may have been the perfect opportunity. The protesters have all gone home. Even bloggers who once called for justice for the Jena 6 are now re-thinking their earlier stance and repenting of their fervor. (Not me. I adhere to the "Enough is enough" doctrine. IT DOES NOT MATTER WHETHER THESE YOUNG MEN WERE ANGELS OR NOT. WHAT MATTERS IS THE DISPROPORTIONATE SENTENCING BETWEEN WHITE AND BLACK DEFENDANTS IN THIS COUNTRY.)

Some News, and Various Updates

Gallaudet Attack:

An investigation is continuing to determine whether a recent attack on a black student at the Model Secondary School for the Deaf at Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C., was a hate crime.

The Sept. 29 incident began in the dorms of the secondary school on the university’s campus. According to D.C. police, seven students -- six whites and one black -- held down a black student and wrote “KKK” and drew swastikas on his body with a marker.

Genarlow Wilson: I've been looking for news. I'll keep looking.
Jena 6: More here. And here.
Nooses: Nooses everywhere you look, apparently. There was a protest at Columbia about the noose on the Black professor's office door. Also, "a white Queens woman was arrested recently for throwing a noose around a tree and threatening to hang her black neighbor’s children from it."
Pleajhia Mervin: The security guard calls the victim a liar, then denies he is racist by saying, "I don't see color, I see people." [from Electronic Village] I have many thoughts, but will summarize: 1. Thank God for the witness who got the video. 2. Everyone sees color.

We Are All Accountable for Our Actions

Even Jena 6 Reed Walters.

From Colorofchang.org, one of the groups that helped people mobilize for the Jena 6 rally, a way we can protest Reed Walters' abuse of power:

In a clear case of prosecutorial misconduct, Reed Walters has refused to protect the rights of Jena's Black population and has turned the police and courts into instruments of intimidation and oppression. It's time for everyone outraged by his actions to demand that the Louisiana Attorney Disciplinary Board investigate him immediately.

Anyone can file a complaint against any attorney in Louisiana simply by sending a letter to the Disciplinary Board. It's easy as following the steps below:

1. Download the letter (you can preview it below), here.
2. Open it and replace text in red with your information (and change as you wish).
3. Print the letter, sign it, and place in a stamped envelope.
4. Mail it to the Office of Disciplinary Council at the address listed on the letter.
5. Email us at walterscomplaint@colorofchange.org so we can keep track of how many complaints have been sent.

Preview of Microsoft Word Document. You can download the actual document, here. Your name
Your address
City, State, Zip
Phone Number

Today's Date

Office of Disciplinary Counsel
4000 S. Sherwood Forest Blvd., Suite 607
Baton Rouge, LA, 70816
(225) 293-3900

To Whom It May Concern:

I am writing to request an investigation into the conduct of LaSalle Parish District Attorney Reed Walters over the last year with regards to several incidents, culminating with the prosecution of Mychal Bell, Robert Bailey, Bryant Purvis, Theo Shaw, Carwin Jones, and an unidentified minor. I am concerned that DA Walters has selectively and aggressively used his prosecutorial discretion in several cases over the last year and I believe he is unable to be an effective and impartial advocate for justice in LaSalle Parish.

In a statement published in a New York Times op-ed on September 26, 2007 that now appears on the Louisiana District Attorney Association website, Walters describes his role as District Attorney as one where he has to "...match the facts [of a case] to any applicable laws and seek justice for those who have been harmed. " What Walters ignores in this definition is the tremendous latitude prosecutors have to raise, lower, or dismiss charges as they see fit, under the doctrine of prosecutorial discretion. It has become clear that when Reed Walters is making decisions, white perpetrators in Jena receive a completely different kind of discretion than black ones.

When it came to prosecuting three white students for hanging nooses in the so called "white tree" at Jena High School after black students sat under it, Walters said (in the same New York Times op-ed) this act "broke no law. I searched the Louisiana criminal code for a crime that I could prosecute. There is none." But Louisiana Revised Statute 14:107.2 creates a hate crime for any institutional vandalism or criminal trespass motivated by race. His discretion, not Louisiana law, is what led to a lack of charges in this case.

Similar discretion was applied after an incident on December 1, 2006. A black teenager, Robert Bailey, was attacked by a group of whites, beaten to the ground, and apparently hit with a beer bottle. Bailey suffered a gash to his head, and Walters could have prosecuted the group of whites with felony charges. Instead, Walters charged one man with a misdemeanor, but that person served no prison time. The others walked.

A very different and more dangerous form of discretion was applied three days later, when an assault on Justin Barker, a white student, occurred. Robert Bailey and five other black teens were arrested and charged by the police with aggravated second-degree battery, a very harsh charge under the circumstances. But Walters went even further and used his discretion on December 7th to increase the charges to attempted murder, later arguing that the students' tennis shoes were dangerous weapons.

A week later, Walters announced that he would try Mychal Bell for attempted murder as an adult, another example of his discretion being aggressively used to bring harsh punishments only to certain young people. When Walters reduced the charges against Bell, he should also have taken the case back to juvenile court. His failure to do so is another example of an inappropriate application of discretion. The result was a conviction that could have ended with a 22-year prison sentence. The 3rd Circuit Court has already ruled that Walters' decision was improper, and nullified the decision.

Walters' misconduct extends beyond these instances of uneven application of his discretion. After black students staged a sit-in under the contested tree to protest the light punishment for the noose hangers, Walters came to Jena High School and told the student body that if they did not settle down, "[he could] make [their] lives disappear with a stroke of [his] pen. " This statement was confirmed by Walters during Mychal Bell's court proceedings, and clearly connects to the actions he took after Justin Barker was assaulted.

Walters' threats against the Jena 6 defendants were not limited to the school assembly. In December 13, 2006, he published a statement in The Jena Times reading in part "I will not tolerate this type of behavior. To those who act in this manner, I tell you that you will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law and with the harshest crimes that the facts justify. When you are convicted, I will seek the maximum penalty allowed by law. I will see to it that you never again menace the students at any school in this parish." There are clear problems with his public characterization, prior to any trials, of the young men who had been arrested for the assault on Justin Barker as criminals who had been menacing the school. The wording of the statement and an introduction associating his tirade with the "recent two incidents at Jena High School" created the impression that those accused of involvement in the fight were also suspected of setting the November 30th, school fire. The Louisiana Rules of Professional Conduct 3.6(a) clearly state that: "A lawyer who is participating or has participated in the investigation or litigation of a matter shall not make an extrajudicial statement that the lawyer knows or reasonably should know will be disseminated by means of public communication and will have a substantial likelihood of materially prejudicing an adjudicative proceeding in the matter." His statements to The Jena Times clearly violate this code.

It seems clear from my knowledge of this case that there are ample grounds to conduct a timely and thorough investigation into Reed Walters' conduct as District Attorney of LaSalle Parish. If you choose not to investigate DA Walters, I expect to receive a written explanation of why you deem that an investigation is not warranted. Otherwise, I look forward to hearing the results.

Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter.

Sincerely,

Your signature

Let's clean up the courts. Then we can tackle the environment. (Apparently today is Blog Action Day, and the theme is the environment, which to me takes a far backseat to injustice.)

Nobody Here But Us Racists

The Jena backlash continues:

From the Kansas City Star via Negrophile:

All of this is to say that blaming “outsiders” for protests of local grievances is a well-established tradition in the history of American social protest. Thus, it is not surprising that officials in Jena, La., want to blame an outsider, Tom Bean[I think this is a mistake? I think the name is Alan Bean], founder of the Friends of Justice, for stirring up trouble regarding the six black youths charged in a schoolyard assault on a white student.

From the Independent Weekly in Lafayette, LA:

The article also introduces Jena residents who say the situation is being blown out of proportion by the “international and national media, national civil rights activists and Internet bloggers.” Most believe Jena’s “a safe, nice place to raise a family.”

(A nice, safe place to raise a white family, you mean.)

This isn't new. It had commenced a-brewin' in Jena before the big rally, because Jena was already getting a little too much attention for its segregating ways (article by Etan Thomas and Dave Zirin, posted by Davey D. at Davey D.'s Hip Hop Corner:

Outsiders are always what people in the South have called those who challenge racism. But the story of Jena is not an outsider/insider story. It's a story
about the worst tradition of what is known as Southern Justice.

At Democracy Now, there is an interview with Caseptla Bailey and Tina Jones, the mothers of Robert Bailey and Bryant Purvis. The interview took place the day after the rally. The question about the accusation that outsiders were causing all the commotion came up:

AMY GOODMAN: And, Caseptla, what do you say to those who say this is a bunch of outsiders coming in, everything was fine in Jena before they started marching on our town?

CASEPTLA BAILEY: Well, I’d like to say that everything wasn’t fine in Jena. That’s why the outsiders are here, and that’s why everything has gone so tremendously within the last few months. So I’d like to applaud those people that have come here from the outside, to come in and to support us and to help us and assist us in this matter. So I’d like to say hats off to those persons.

File Under: I Shake My Head

Those college kids today. Crazy. All them pranks they be pulling:

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A north Louisiana university is investigating two of its students after a video surfaced on a student's personal Web page depicting several white youths pretending to re-enact a racial beating.

The brief, grainy video, posted Tuesday on YouTube.com, was related to the racially charged atmosphere in Jena, a central Louisiana town where a group of black youths were initially charged with attempted murder in the beating of a white student.

On the video, one of the students can be heard shouting racial epithets.

(Courtesy of FOJ.)

You Got a Right to Say It

. . . and I got a right to be disgusted by it:

Let's get this out of the way: what happened to the Jena 6 was heinous, non-blacks should be reexamining their hearts, and heads should be rolling Nifong-style. I'm as happy as the next Negro to stick it to the man (I'm on record as saying I'd have thrown a rock, just one and into a bush—more of a tossing if you will—after the Rodney King verdict had I been an Angeleno), but this wasn't exactly Selma and these brothers weren't exactly the Scottsboro Boys. Folks should go to jail for stomping a random (and lone) person into the ER, white or not, nooses or not. Not for attempted murder, of course not, but aggravated battery sounds about right, especially when you factor in that the stompee was not, as far as we know, one of the noose hangers. And when we have it on good authority that Jena High also boasts "black bleachers" where honkies fear not tread. Racism, and its effects on the ground, is rarely simple.

No one is saying it is simple. But people are saying, "Enough is enough." That, at least, is a simple message. And what this writer fails to address is the context.

The most objectionable portion of this piece, however, is the self-righteous sputtering:

I made no effort to get to Jena. Instead, I spent that time reading worthy analyses of the proveable, addressable, effects of racism in the criminal justice system. These bespectacled economists and sociologists are downright radical. They already knew that racism filled our prisons; now they're proving how it affects America at large. They're doing more good on Capitol Hill making these "tough on crime" politicians change gears than all the buses in Jena.

To each is given his calling. To each is given his gifts. Some are called to lift their voices in protest at injustice; others are called to research. Others are called simply to labor, or to do what is in front of them at any given time. We none of us got to pick, but when we hear the voice, we go and do its bidding, or we suffer the fate of Jonah.

Who among us has the wisdom to say which gift is most valuable? Not me, not you, and certainly not Debra Dickerson.

Sounds Like Blame

Here, from the NYT via Negrophile, is what seems to be an example of using a series of unrelated events to come to some kind of conclusion with lots of opinions thrown in:

In New York City, the tabloids published sensational details of the bias suit brought by a black former executive for the Knicks, Anucha Browne Sanders, who claims that she was frequently called a “bitch” and a “ho” by the Knicks coach and president, Isiah Thomas. In a video deposition, Thomas said that while it is always wrong for a white man to verbally abuse a black woman in such terms, it was “not as much ... I’m sorry to say” for a black man to do so.

•

Across the nation, religious African-Americans were shocked that the evangelical minister Juanita Bynum, an enormously popular source of inspiration for churchgoing black women, said she was brutally beaten in a parking lot by her estranged husband, Bishop Thomas Weeks.

•

O. J. Simpson, the malevolent central player in an iconic moment in the nation’s recent black-white (as well as male-female) relations, reappeared on the scene, charged with attempted burglary, kidnapping and felonious assault in Las Vegas, in what he claimed was merely an attempt to recover stolen memorabilia.

These events all point to something that has been swept under the rug for too long in black America: the crisis in relations between men and women of all classes and, as a result, the catastrophic state of black family life, especially among the poor.

Go looking for evidence of troubled relationships among whites, or Asians, or Latinos. You'll find them. (And by the way? O.J. and Isiah Thomas are anything but poor.) So the writer uses these big Easy Reader Series news stories as the foundation for conclusions that should require some very specific supporting data.

I doubt if many supporters of the Jena 6 "view events there, and the racial horror of our prisons, as solely the result of white racism." Nothing is ever one thing. But how can anyone deny the white racism is the framework underneath it all? It almost sounds as if the writer is saying that Black men and women are incapable of having sound relationships, and unwilling and unable to raise children with care and thoughtfulness--and I know that is not true. In fact, it almost sounds as if the writer has subscribed to the hoax of race, and saying that Black people are fundamentally different (not in a good way), and that cannot be true. (For most of all time, there was really no such thing as race, until it served people who wanted to take from others to name the others as being of a distinct and different race and therefore undeserving of being treated as human. But that is another, much bigger topic, and I do digress.)

He goes on to propose that "even after removing racial bias in our judicial and prison system — as we should and must do — disproportionate numbers of young black men will continue to be incarcerated." I wonder.

Because even though the writer complains that the Reverends Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton are taking a simple, one-dimensional view of the matter by protesting racism, it seems to me that most of the factors the writer blames for the mess are the results of systemic racism and if not racism, America's War on Poor People:

The circumstances that far too many African-Americans face — the lack of paternal support and discipline; the requirement that single mothers work regardless of the effect on their children’s care; the hypocritical refusal of conservative politicians to put their money where their mouths are on family values; the recourse by male youths to gangs as parental substitutes; the ghetto-fabulous culture of the streets; the lack of skills among black men for the jobs and pay they want; the hypersegregation of blacks into impoverished inner-city neighborhoods — all interact perversely with the prison system that simply makes hardened criminals of nonviolent drug offenders and spits out angry men who are unemployable, unreformable and unmarriageable, closing the vicious circle.

The problem with this article is that instead of offering the facts to support conclusions or a real analysis of any of the hot-button issues it brings up and then dismisses (Black on Black violence; domestic abuse; poverty among Blacks; gangs as a family substitution; school segregation; the failure of school to prepare Black students for the workplace, etc.), it lapses into offering these unfounded conclusions, conclusions that provide justification for a certain amount of self-righteous denial about what is really happening in our country. Always so much more comfortable to blame the people in trouble than it is to help.

Get Out the Pickaxes, We Got Work to Do

This article in Education Week spells out ways Jena High School administrators might have been able to stop the train that brought tens of thousands of protesters in:

On Aug. 31, 2006, school leaders in Jena, La., arrived to find two nooses hanging from an oak tree on the campus of Jena High School—and boarded a racially charged roller coaster that has yet to stop moving.

The events since that incident—including the beating of a white student and resulting criminal charges against six black schoolmates that have drawn international attention—offer tough lessons for principals and other administrators who must grapple with racial tensions in their schools.

For one, principals and teachers can head off such incidents by knowing the sources of conflict and acting to defuse them, experts on race relations say.

But when prevention fails, for whatever reason, school leaders should treat such matters seriously, condemn any offensive act, and mete out fair punishment. Communication with students, parents, and the community is crucial to keep the situation from worsening, and administrators may need to draw on outside mediators for help.

At A.'s and B.'s school, the administrators have signed on with this conflict resolution program. It involves "I statements" ("I feel sad when you act like such a freakin jerk") and apologies and is, as far as I am concerned, a buncha baloney, an opinion I frequently share with A. and B., along with my opinion that words mean nothing, and you can tell how people really feel from their actions. Someone can apologize sweetly a million times, but if he keeps tripping you/taking your lunch/failing to call when he says he's gonna (that last obviously belongs to me), you know how he really feels.

. . . Paul C. Gorski, an assistant professor of education at Hamline University in St. Paul, Minn., who has been a consultant for schools grappling with racial tensions, said he is wary of a conflict-resolution approach if it doesn’t enable people to talk about racism in “deep and complex ways.”

He said that getting to the root of racial friction means “bringing people together in a dialogue so that people’s experiences can be shared—so that people can develop a deeper understanding of how racism is systemic.”

I share Mr. Gorski's wariness. I am all for genuine resolution of conflict, and I am all for the genuine expression of regret (and even remorse) for the negative effects of one's actions and for feeling empathy and all that. But I have a violent objection to coercing empty apologies from unrepentant thuglets.

And I am even more violently opposed to the implicit concept (in the program at A.'s and B.'s school, anyway) that it always takes two to tango and that both sides must always apologize. Sometimes, there is a bully, and the bully needs to be taken in hand. Sometimes, as in the case of Jena, there are people making threats (i.e., the noose-hangers) against the innocent (all Black students at JHS), and that needs to be stopped immediately and definitely.

As Mr. Gorski said, everyone needs to get to this foundation of understanding that "racism is systemic."

Racism is real and not merely perceived and to call attention to it does not mean, as Clarence Thomas seems to be going about saying, a matter of Black people painting themselves as victims:

The vehemence of his contention that he was made the victim of false allegations to keep him from joining the court, and the clarity of his statements about the propensity for black Americans to paint themselves, and agree to be painted, as victims, is certain to raise the issue of race in a presidential election contest in which for the first time one of the front-runners, Senator Obama, is an African-American.

(Thanks to Negrophile.)

Ignorance? Hate? Copycats?

From the Chicago Trib:

A Warren Township High School student was charged with disorderly conduct for making "racially charged" statements to two female students, police said. The student drove into a campus parking lot with a noose hanging from his rearview mirror and a Confederate flag displayed in his vehicle, officials said.

In North Carolina last week, four nooses were found dangling from trees and a flagpole at a North Carolina high school, a local newspaper reported. A Louisiana man was charged with inciting a riot after two nooses were found hanging from the back of his pickup truck. Nooses were left this summer in the bag of a black U.S. Coast Guard Academy cadet and in the office of a white female officer conducting race-relations training.

On their own, the incidents might not have garnered much attention. But against the backdrop of the Jena 6 case in Louisiana, where nooses found hanging from a tree set off a chain of events that polarized the town, local officials and experts say similar occurrences -- even if they might be unrelated -- can be especially troubling.

"I think what all of these incidents reflect -- from Jena to the reaction to Jena -- is the worsening of race relations in America," said Mark Potok, a hate-group expert at the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Ala. "What one would hope is that an event like Jena starts a real dialogue that takes us forward and not backward."

Potok said in recent days the leader of one neo-Nazi group has been fanning the flames on his Web site, encouraging followers to hang nooses in their communities. The site even has a link to news reports of the Gurnee case.

A Reason to Love Ice Cube

Ice Cube not only appeared in Jena and at the post-protest event in Alexandria, and brought his children, but paid for buses and hotel rooms for marchers from Los Angeles.

Prosecutorial Indiscretion

Stopped by Friends of Justice today to see if there is any news, and there I find a response from the Southern Poverty Law Center to Reed Walters' NYT op-ed piece (which was mentioned here earlier):

Walters states that the United States attorney "found no federal law against what was done." In actuality, the federal prosecutor told CNN that "the FBI believed that [the case had] the elements of a hate crime." But because of the boys' ages and backgrounds, he declined to bring charges that could have put them away for 10 years. This is prosecutorial discretion in action.

Walters also had discretion to prosecute the noose-hangers in state court. He claims that the noose incident "broke no law. I searched the Louisiana criminal code for a crime that I could prosecute. There is none." But, it just ain't so.

Louisiana Revised Statute 14:107.2 creates a hate crime for any institutional vandalism or criminal trespass motivated by race. Walters was creative enough to turn a schoolyard assault into an attempted murder case; he surely could have figured out how to make nooses into hate crimes.

But — and this is a crucial point — Walters and the Justice Department were right not to prosecute the noose-hangers. Prison terms for them would not have served Jena as well as a thoughtful, measured response that addressed the deep community concerns triggered by the nooses.

Unfortunately, that never happened. Instead, Walters and the school system tried to stifle debate. Black parents were ignored at school board meetings. After black students staged a sit-in under the contested tree, Walters came to the school and, according to numerous witnesses, ominously told the student body that if they did not settle down, "I can end your life with the stroke of my pen."

Reed Walters knows prosecutorial discretion.

Things did settle down somewhat, until an arsonist burned down much of Jena High on November 30, 2006. What happened the next day perfectly illustrates the racial disparity in Walters' decision-making.

On December 1, a black student, Robert Bailey, was attacked by a group of whites, beaten to the ground, and apparently hit with a beer bottle. He suffered a gash to his head.

Walters could have prosecuted the group of whites with felony charges that might have put them away for years, just as he is now prosecuting the Jena Six. Instead, Walters charged one white with a misdemeanor; that person served no prison time. The others walked.

FOJ also discusses a column by journalist Ruben Navarette, in which Navarette calls the Reverends Sharpton and Jackson "perennial grievance merchants" (now, really, was that necessary? My response to that is well, perhaps if there were no grievances, they would occupy themselves with other diversions, maybe take up needlepoint or knitting or backgammon--not that I am the great defender of the Reverends, but who can say that their involvement has been an unmitigated evil) and echoes Reed Walters in claiming victim rights for Justin Barker while professing bewilderment that Mychal Bell could be considered a victim.

Hold up there. If Navarette can say that Mychal Bell has not been victimized in this matter, Navarette has never, to his great good fortune, been in jail. To be imprisoned at all is a terrible experience, more terrible really than you can imagine. There is no comfort. Everything that you hold onto for your identity (except what you carry in your mind) is taken away from you. Prisoners have no rights. None. They have no freedom and no privacy. If they are not actually under constant threat, they certainly feel as if they are. Mychal Bell is only 17, and yet was housed with adult offenders for 9 months. His attorneys worked for his release, and, failing that, for moving him to a juvenile facility, but neither happened. Juvenile facilities are no picnic, either, but at least he would have been with inmates his own age and would have continued attending school. Keeping Mychal Bell in jail with adult offenders was wrong--it was an injustice, and anyone who has ever been in jail (in whatever capacity--I used to spend a lot of time in jail as a part of my work) understands how Mychal Bell must have suffered from this experience.

P.S. Navarette also gets his pants all in a twist because he, like Richard Thompson Ford, is also handicapped with a literal mind and is therefore incapable of interpreting symbols (here, baby, have a metaphor):

Students at Morehouse and Spellman – traditionally black colleges in Atlanta – held a rally and declared an affinity with the defendants. Some held up signs saying: “I am the Jena 6.”

Well, not if you've never been part of a mob-style beating you're not. Those college students obviously made good decisions to get where they are. The Jena 6 made a bad decision, and that's why they are in trouble with the law.

His breathtaking capacity for misunderstanding the symbolic language of the protesters (maybe he would understand a literal sign that read "Black defendants are treating unjustly in the courts and because I am a young Black person, I, too, could be treated as unjustly as Mychal Bell and the others of the Jena 6 if I were arrested for a criminal offense, and certainly I would probably receive sentencing more harsh than would a young white person arrested for a similar offense" but come on, that's an awful lot to fit onto a poster board) notwithstanding, Navarette also fails to understand that context is crucial. Which is why the law provides for mitigating and aggravating circumstances.

But really, I'm making one of the same mistakes Navarette does, by sifting through this level of detail and by acceding to his assumption that the Jena 6 are all guilty, because this has not yet been proven in a court of law. (And also? Is everyone aware that Mychal Bell's court-appointed defense attorney, Blane Williams, did not call any witnesses nor present evidence to defend his client?) If it is, then the Jena 6 defendants should receive sentences proportionate to the crime of which they have been convicted, sentences that are the same as white defendants would receive in a similar case.

P.P.S. I'm with the commenter at Too Sense, who fails to understand "the bug up everyone's ass over Jackson." It just seems like spin to me. One side can be as flamboyant and self-indulgent in their hyperbole and rhetoric as they wanna be, yet then accuse the other. Pot, kettle, pot, kettle, pot, kettle. And glass houses. Sure, it would probably be better if we all spoke reasonably in measured tones and used only the most objective, decorous, inoffensive language. But emotions have a way of heating up the words. So what. Maybe Jackson does run the risk of crying wolf too often? But that doesn't mean that there are no wolves.

O Brother Where Art Thou?

There is a Jena 6 backlash, and I'm not talking about the nooses nor the Confederate flag-waving nor the rabid yapping from the white supremacist minority (all dogs are big on a leash or from behind a fence-- the white supremacists sure did not show themselves in Jena on September 20, but once everybody went on home, they scrabbled viciously out of their kennels).

Now that we're all back home and thinking "What next?" and watching to see what happens for Mychal Bell and the others, there are, unfortunately, too many opportunities to look across the table and say, "Where were you?" Where were the white liberal bloggers, for example. (This question posed here and here and here and here and more places, I am sure.) Where was Clinton? Where was Obama?

I cannot help but note that Clinton brought it for a feel-good moment/camera op with the Little Rock 9, yet was--like Obama--conspicuously absent in re the Jena 6.

Injustice is not a racial issue. Racism is not a Black issue. Maybe we all need to do a little homework. Please take out your books and turn to page 179:

Just so does the white community, as a means of keeping itself white, elect, as they imagine, their political (!) representatives. No nation in the world, including England, is represented by so stunning a pantheon of the relentlessly mediocre. . . .

But this cowardice, this necessity of justifying a totally false identity and of justifying what may be called a genocidal history, has placed everyone now living into the hands of the most ignorant and powerful people the world has ever seen: And how did they get that way?

By deciding they were white. By opting for safety instead of life. By persuading themselves that a Black child's life meant nothing compared with a white child's life. By abandoning their children to the things white men could buy. By informing their children that Black women, Black men, and Black children had no human integrity that those who call themselves white were bound to respect. And in this debasement and definition of Black people, they debased and defamed themselves.

And have brought humanity to the edge of oblivion: because they think they are white. Because they think they are white, they do not dare confront the ravage and the lie of their history. Because they think they are white, they cannot allow themselves to be tormented by the suspicion that all men are brothers.

P.S. Since I am venting my spleen, may I just take a moment and state for the record that Michelle Malkin is a moron? And so, also for the record, is Heather MacDonald, upon whom Malkin lovingly slobbers.

Hog Heaven Deli: Get Your Baloney Here

Reed Walters, the prosecutor in the Jena 6 matter, will accept the ruling of the appeals court which overturned Mychal Bell's conviction as an adult. The appeals court appropriately returned Mychal Bell to the jurisdiction of juvenile court, as he was a juvenile at the time of the alleged offense.

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco said Wednesday that the prosecutor in one of the so-called "Jena 6" cases has decided not to challenge an appellate ruling that sends the case to juvenile court.

LaSalle Parish District Attorney Reed Walters had earlier said he would appeal the state appeals court's decision that 17-year-old Mychal Bell's second-degree battery conviction be set aside. The court ruled that Bell could not be tried as an adult.

Blanco said she had spoken with Walters and asked him to reconsider pushing to keep the case in the adult courts system. She said Walters contacted her Wednesday to say he had decided not to appeal the ruling.

"I want to thank him for this decision he has made," Blanco said.

Well, finally. Although this does not guarantee that Mychal Bell will get a fair trial as juvenile. It may not be possible for him to get a fair trial anywhere in Louisiana. Or maybe the whole of the South. Or maybe in the United States. More about that to follow.

It is interesting that Walters changed his mind, given his statement in the New York Times today:

The victim in this crime, who has been all but forgotten amid the focus on the defendants, was a young man named Justin Barker, who was not involved in the nooses incident three months earlier. . . .

. . . 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.

People can say anything. Here Walters gets to lay out his own platter of baloney, and it sounds almost reasonable (except for the obviously biased tone) until you remember that the "dangerous weapon" was a pair of tennis shoes; the victim was well enough to attend a social function at the school that evening; and if Walters is so concerned about enforcing the laws that exist, why wasn't the white student who used a weapon to threaten several black teen-agers prosecuted?

A white student brandished a shotgun in a confrontation with three black students. (He claims self-defense; they claim he was unprovoked.) The black students then wrestled the gun away from him and were later charged with theft, while the white student was not charged with a crime.

Richard Thompson Ford, who criticizes the protest and its purpose and focus in Slate, only lightly brushes past the real foundation of the protest on his way to make little digs at Reverend Sharpton:

So, the demonstrators have plenty to be upset about: racial segregation; racially disproportionate arrest, prosecution, and incarceration rates; and a pervasive societal racism that is passed from generation to generation. But because none of these sadly common racial injustices have a discrete cause, none are likely to respond to the type of quick and specific reform that a demonstration can demand. As a result, the march on Jena was a bit unfocused.

(By the way? What condescension: "plenty to be upset about." No one I spoke with or marched next to or rode with seemed "upset." They did, however, seem to believe strongly that what was happening in Jena was not justice.) From this description, I can only assume that Ford was not there. The protest at which I was present was calm and highly focused and purposeful. (The crowd was not, as reported by the Washington Post, "raucous." Jesus. How do reporters get away with it.)

Ford implies that the progression of the march from the courthouse to the high school proves that the crowd was milling about and didn't know what to do:

It's telling that the demonstrators moved between the courthouse where Bell was tried for an offense no one denies he committed and the site of the "white tree" that, with all-too-fitting symbolism, has since been cut down.

"Telling" how, exactly? What the progression actually tells is that people purposefully and with determination made a point of visiting the place where it all began, where the white tree had stood and had been mowed down because that place has symbolic value and meaning:

Oh, wait! The tree! It started with that tree on the school grounds whose shade zone was deemed a “Whites Only” area. Yeah! The tree! We nearly forgot about it.

Well...you can forget about it. Because rather than let the tree stand as an example of the potential flowering of race relations in the “New South”—America, really...

The school superintendent had the damn thing cut down.

And then of course, the speakers were in front of the courthouse, so we all had to gather there. There was no milling. No "telling" unfocused wandering.

Unlike Ford's thoughts in the article, which hop about in such a disconnected fashion that at first I accused myself of being too tired to read it; after a second read, I reminded myself that, you know, not to blow my own horn or anything, but I am sort of an expert on reading comprehension, I mean, studying it has been part of how I've earned my living for lo, this many years, and this gave me the confidence to say: O, my, what a bunch of baloney.

Let me count the cold cuts:
1. "The Wrong Poster Children: Why the Jena 6 Protests Have Gone Awry": Um. Have they really? It does seem that the protests have gotten significant results, including but not limited to forcing state and federal legislators to wake up and smell the racism. Kind of lazy writing, too, in that I think Ford should describe how he thinks the protests have gone awry, instead of just assuming everyone will take his word for it. And to take the long view, at the very least, the protests show that people will show up in great numbers to protest what they perceive as injustice. That is a great thing, particularly as we near elections.
2. "When more than 10,000 people converged on the small town of Jena, La. . . .": I am heartily sick unto death of the underreporting of the numbers because it seems to be an attempt to erode the credibility and the show of strength of the demonstrators. Most of the sources I have seen report there were at least 20,000 people:
USA Today: "tens of thousands"
L.A. Times: "Organizers said the crowd swelled to 50,000; state police said it was too spread out to count. "
Washington Post: "Police declined to estimate the size of the throng at the rally, other than to say it numbered in the "tens of thousands."
2theAdvocate: "By the State Police’s estimate, 15,000-20,000 demonstrators poured into this town"

As I said before, the organizers estimated 50-60,000. Even if you control for optimism and enthusiasm, certainly 30,000 would be a conservative estimate. Brother, please. You could check your facts. (Unless the "more than 10,000" was a sneaky way to be letter-of-the-law truthful and cut the legs off the protest at the same time?)

3. "Rev. Al Sharpton called their march the beginning of the 21^st-century civil rights movement. He may be right. And that's just what's worrisome.": Worrisome? Worrisome? I'll give you worrisome. Worrisome is that Black defendants are more likely to receive the death penalty, and even more if the victim was white than if the defendant was not Black. Worrisome is that "the rate of increase in black offenders imprisoned for drug offenses was more than four times greater than the rate of increase for white offenders." Worrisome is that Black defendants are locked up 7.66 times more than whites. And that's just the overstuffed backpack of criminal injustice worries. In the education disparity backpack, we find that Black students are suspended far more frequently than white students ("No other ethnic group is disciplined at such a high rate, the federal data show. . . Yet black students are no more likely to misbehave than other students from the same social and economic environments, research studies have found") even though they do not misbehave more frequently. No wonder the drop out rate is almost twice as high for Black students as it is for white students. Or we could take on healthcare, as Blacks receive lower quality care and are more likely to die from heart disease and strokes.

4. "The marchers gathered to protest criminal charges brought against six African-American high-school students, the "Jena 6." But the racial problems facing this town—and many others—are more complex than simple prejudice, and finding solutions will necessarily require more nuance than a mass protest can offer. The mismatch between the complex and layered racial tensions in Jena and the one-issue rallying cry of "Free the Jena 6" suggest that the tactics of last century's civil rights movement may be an anachronism for today's racial conflicts." Here, you see, Ford thinks he is the only person in the world to understand the complexities of racism in America today. Huh. The other rallying cry, the one that Ford didn't notice, was just as common as "Free Mychal Bell", and that cry was "Enough is enough." It was on T shirts and posters, and was the real underlying motivation for the rally.

5. Ford says, "The injustice here is not that they are being prosecuted for their crime. . . " That's a given. And everyone I spoke with at Jena would agree. The injustice is the disparity between whether and how Black and white defendants are prosecuted.

6. "When you think about it, the logic that underlies the demand to free the Jena 6 comes down to this: These six young men were justified in kicking their lone victim senseless because other people who shared his race committed offenses against other black students." He accuses the demonstrators of launching a "racial vendetta." Not once did I hear such a thing from anyone. No one! Again, every single person I talked with believed that the young men should receive punishment if convicted (in a fair trial). (And that the charge should accurately reflect the actual offense, not no trumped-up tennis shoe murder weapon crap charge.)

(There's more baloney, but counting the cold slimy slices is a task that quickly loses its charm.)

Can it be that Ford is so simple-minded (or that his mind is of such a literal turn, is perhaps a more charitable way to frame it) that he does not see that, in the immortal but out of context words of the Spinners, sparks turn into flames? The fire has got to start somewhere, and any kind of change always, always, always starts with a symbol.

There was injustice in the Jena 6 cases, particularly in the case of Mychal Bell, injustice that continues, as he remains in jail even though his conviction has been overturned. But the chain of events that led up to Mychal Bell's prosecution gave this particular instance of injustice even more meaning. What happened in Jena is symbolic of the injustice endured by Black defendants, by Black students, by Black job applicants or hospital patients or apartment-hunters, and the thing to do is to lift that symbol, write about it, talk about it, analyze it, figure it out, press all of the meaning out of it so we understand what is happening so we can use the symbols to light our way to the truth, and the truth will set us free.

"This is much bigger than Jena," said M.K. Asante Jr., an English professor at Morgan State University. . . .

That the young men may not have been pillars of the community doesn't matter. That they may not be perfect poster children for civil rights doesn't matter. What matters is that it appears that their civil rights may have been violated. What matters is that there was injustice, and, in the immortal words of Dr. King, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."

More Jena Pictures

R. from Tennessee sent me some pictures. Here is the march to and from the high school.


See all those people? And that was not the only street that was filled; all the streets were that crowded, and so was the park in the center of town.

On the way to the high school, we saw the mounted police behind a building.

Everyone wanted to see the place where the tree used to be.

This morning K. the Brilliant sent me this story from the Chicago Trib, which is also posted at Friends of Justice. I'm worried about the Jena 6 and their families.

UPDATE 9/26/07: Governor Kathleen Blanco "ordered state police to investigate and protect the families of the Jena Six after a neo-Nazi website posted their names, addresses and phone numbers . . . . The FBI is investigating the posting."

The One to Watch

This is a video of the march I found on YouTube, posted by TDOGGINYA. Watch it! This is the closest you can get to having been there.

Spread the word, everyone. America needs to talk about what's happening. On the way to Jena and on the way home, I told everyone I met what I was doing. You wouldn't believe how many people--black and white (the security screener at the Jackson airport, my seatmates on the various planes, the cashier at Starbucks, and more)-- did not know about the Jena 6 or the rally.

Less than Half of One Percent, Or Jena: Part 2

We got off the bus and started walking. Even though no one knew exactly where to go, we all went in the same direction. People were moving from the side streets and the highway outside of Jena into the center of town.
Even though we passed many empty parking lots, we could not park there. Brand-new no parking signs were posted everywhere (some misspelled, heh), and lots were protected by makeshift fences of orange construction netting. Yards were festooned with yellow and black police tape. The fear of the white residents was palpable.

The highmindedness of the crowd overwhelmed that ugliness, though. The sheer determination and sense of purpose and justice--oh! I wish you could feel it.

These young men were selling T shirts:

There were stations set up here and there along the route, with people speaking into microphones ("Atlanta in the house! Detroit, Michigan represents!" "Stand up for Jena!" "No justice, no peace!"), and some played music. Almost everyone wore black; the ones who did not were wearing T shirts of their own design that showed support for the Jena 6.

Of the thousands and thousands of people, my estimate is that less than half of one percent were white. Most of the white folk there were journalists, or part of the Red Cross team that was distributing water (it was very, very hot, and there was very little shade).


Here is a picture of my new friend R. from Tennessee and me:That is R.'s sign, but I carried it part of the way--she was toting a hefty backpack.

We flowed with the crowd through the town, chanting occasionally ("Free Mychal Bell!" "No justice, no peace!"), past the courthouse, to the high school, and back around to the courthouse to hear the speakers. We were there for hours and hours, and yet time slowed or sped up, or just seemed nonexistent, as if there were no such thing as time, there was just all the excitement and the fervor and the goodness and what was happening at that time.

The Black Panthers had a strong presence. Mothers brought up their sons for pictures. I saw a Black Panther stoop for a picture with a boy who looked to be about 4. He patted the boy and said, "Go out, young warrior." Beautiful.

There were families and groups of students and elderly people and revolutionaries and very formally dressed, very dignified solid citizens, and dreadlocked rastas. I did not see any extreme saggy pants. Everyone, even the revolutionaries, had a respectable appearance. Every time we stopped, we got into a conversation with people about where they were from and how they'd gotten there and with whom they'd come. There was this sense of unity, of everyone holding hands for the cause.

At the closing ceremony at the convention center, we did all hold hands while Reverend Al Sharpton gave a benediction.

There is so much more to say, but it's almost as if I don't know what to write any more. If you have any questions, feel free to comment or send an email. Next to the day my daughters were born, this was the most spiritual, most beautiful day of my life. I feel like my heart is so full that everything inessential has been moved out to make room for this. This is truly what really matters.

More to see:
pre-protest pictures from NPR
slideshow of the rally from msnbc
Chicago Trib video
Jesse Jackson speaking
Al Sharpton speaking
slideshow of photos from 9/20/07 in Jena
photo essay and story from Michael David Murphy

Jena: Part 1

I arrived at Jackson about 10:30 p.m. Wednesday night, got my car, and found the hotel with no trouble (thank you, GPS). After showering and calling The Favorite Child, I reviewed all my little papers I printed out from various websites and realized that I needed to be in Alexandria at 5 a.m., 2 hours earlier than I had thought. This meant no sleep. I lay in the bed for an hour, then got up, got dressed, and got on the road at 1 a.m.

I was scared. I can't remember if I've told you this before, but I am greatly handicapped in terms of finding my way about in the world (only geographically speaking). I can't find my way out of a freaking paper bag. If you give me perfect directions, I will follow them and arrive on time. If the directions are not perfect, woe betide.

Here I was, in a foreign country (Mississippi is a foreign country if you are, as I am, a native Californian), driving in the dark to a location I knew not of. Good God. In fear I programmed the GPS and with trepidation I followed its guidance, but God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb, and two hours in, I happened upon a rest stop and thought I would rest. Four buses were parked out front. The bathroom was full of beautiful sisters, all wearing black. I asked if they were going to Jena. They were. I said I was, too, and one woman asked why. "You've got to stand up for what's right," I said. "You know that's right," said one woman, and I believe an "Amen" followed.

Seeing those buses and encountering all those women in the bathroom gave me this sense of anticipation and happiness, which got me to the Coliseum in Alexandria, where the troops were gathering.

I met so many people. Everyone was so friendly. They asked where I came from. Ali, a muscular young man from Miami, said, "You from California? You came all that way? That's deep." He promised that if I couldn't get a ride to Jena, they would make room on the Miami bus.

When the bikers rolled in, it was so exciting.
And then Al Sharpton arrived. I got a picture of the madness.
The people flowed to the Reverend as if they were the tide. They showed their love, and the Reverend was so gracious. Everyone wanted to touch him, to shake his hand, or give him a hug, or have a picture taken with him. I heard later that his limo went empty to Jena, and the Reverend rode on one of the buses. God bless him, I say. He is a man of the people.

Right around that time, I met R. from Tennessee. R. is super glamorous and very animated, and you can tell she is very comfortable being in charge. To my good fortune, she asked with whom I'd come to Louisiana. When I told her I was by myself, she said she would stick with me. Tell me, who has better luck than I do? For R. got us a ride on a bus while many others waited in the dirt parking lot, walking here and there, not sure what to do. It was chaotic. The atmosphere was peaceful and happy and purposeful, but the logistics were kind of crazy. When you think of all those people coming together and how everything just worked out, you do believe in miracles.

Most of the buses were big charter buses. The bus we got on was a little battered. Tasseled fringe was strung across the windshield. The driver's name was Red, which everyone pronounced as if it had two syllables ("Rai-ed"). Inside, there were couches instead of bus seats, and upon the couches were sprawled many bodies. The woman across from me was wearing shorts and her scarred, thin, muscular legs made me think of a race horse that had seen better days. The large woman next to me, in a turquoise outfit that stood out against all the black T shirts, had sleep apnea. I spoke to her, and she didn't respond, and I thought, "Dang, she is all bent out of shape we on this bus." Later I realized she was just asleep. Every once in a while she'd wake up and say something like, "Duchess, give me a banana," or "What about the blood song?" and they would all sing a song about the blood of Jesus. For we had gotten on the Bus of the Saved Souls from New Orleans. They had driven through the night to get to Alexandria, and were apparently the sinners Jesus loved so much. They loved Him right back. We heard a song I had not heard since my Southern Baptist days, "I've Been Redeemed" (which K. the Brilliant observed is kind of like the gospel version of "99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall"). One woman sang a version of "Amazing Grace" with so much vibrato my ears were ringing and the whole bus shook. The Lost Souls were so generous, offering us food from their stash of bananas, cold cereal, candy bars, and sandwiches. So kind.

It took a long time to get to Jena. There were all the buses, and we kept stopping. Red the Driver let everyone off the bus ("I know y'all need to smoke your cigarettes"), and the recovering addicts trooped off the bus, all the ones I'd seen, with names like Lil Bit and the aforementioned Duchess, and all the ones I hadn't, who had been tucked way back in the dark recesses. The demographics on this bus were unusual, as there were a third as many white people as black people. However, they were all very thin, in baggy clothes, and in desperate need of nicotine.

I took pictures. It was about 5:30 by this time.
To see the buses stretched out as far as you could see brought tears to the eyes, a sentiment shared by all of us who were outside. I met the president of the New Orleans chapter of the NAACP and I met some gentlemen from Los Angeles, and we all marveled at the buses.

Traffic was stopped for a long time. When cars could proceed (very slowly and much hampered by the crowds from the buses milling in the road), you could see all the black people in cars taking pictures and videotaping the buses and the crowds, throwing signs and smiling. The white people mostly looked straight ahead, gripping the steering wheel as if it were a life preserver. On the side of the road, a group of young white people cheered and held up a sign: "Not All White People Are Crazy."

UPDATE: Go to Che Sing the Cool for more pictures. There is a great one that gives you an idea of what it was like to be in the crowd.