More about Disproportionate Sentencing

From ColorofChange.org, a message to the Senate Judiciary Committee to support S.1711:

Misguided politicians and their "war on drugs" have created a national disaster: 1 in 9 Black men between the ages of 20 and 34 are now behind bars. It's a man-made disaster - fueled by unfair sentencing rules.

These rules treat 5 grams of crack cocaine—the kind common in poor Black communities—the same as 500 grams of powder cocaine, the kind prevalent in White and wealthier communities.

Tell the Senate Judiciary Committee to challenge unequal justice by ending unfair sentencing laws.

Go here to sign the online petition, and, if you like, you can copy and paste the below to an email message to the likeminded:

Dear Friend,

The so-called "war on drugs" has created a national disaster: 1 in 15 Black adults in America are now behind bars. It's not because they commit more crime but because of unfair sentencing rules that treat 5 grams of crack cocaine, the kind found in poor Black communities, the same as 500 grams of powder cocaine the kind found in White and wealthier communities.

These sentencing laws are destroying communities across the country and have done almost nothing to reduce the level of drug use and crime.

Senator Joe Biden is one of the original creators of these laws and is now trying to fix the problem. But some of his colleagues on the Senate Judiciary Committee are standing in the way. I've signed on with ColorOfChange.org to tell them to stand with Joe Biden and undo this disaster once and for all. Will you join me? It just takes a moment and you can start by clicking on the link below:

http://www.colorofchange.org/crackpowder/?id=2357-346645

Thanks.

Work to Do

. . . in the immortal words of the Isley Brothers.

I could have left this Achievement Gap Summit after the first session I attended, by three brothers, three warriors on the front line, about what these brothers have done at their school to raise up the children.

One of the co-founders, Fluke Fluker, described a trip he made to Africa, and in so doing, told us that Masai warriors greet one another by asking, "How are the children?"

So here we are, well-meaning folk all I am sure, talking and listening about the achievement gap. Black students and Latino students are attending college at half the rates of white and Asian students. Three times as many Black men are going to prison than are attending college. (Obviously, the problem here is also the criminal injustice system, not just the lack of equity in education.) Tavis Smiley said this morning that education is the civil rights issue of this decade.

But, people, let us stop laying all the responsibility at the teachers' door. We are our brother's keeper. We all have a responsibility. We are all accountable for the education of our children, which means we are all accountable for their welfare.

Do they have food? A hungry child can't learn.
Are they receiving dental care? A child sitting in class with a toothache can't learn.
Do they receive preventive health care? A child who is ill at home is not learning.
Are their homes and neighborhoods safe? A child who is afraid will not learn.

Talk. Listen. Read. Learn. Teach. Vote. Do something.

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.

Put Away Your Wallet

Stock up. There's an economic boycott coming:

ATLANTA -- Civil rights leaders called Tuesday for a march on the Justice Department and an economic boycott next month because they believe the federal government has been sluggish in dealing with hate crimes.

They called for Americans not to spend any money Nov. 2 as an economic boycott of the federal government's handling of hate crimes. And they announced initial plans for a Nov. 16 march on Justice Department headquarters in Washington.

The Rev. Al Sharpton, Martin Luther King III and other activists at a news conference outside the federal courthouse in Atlanta cited the uproar in Jena, La., surrounding three white teens accused of hanging nooses outside a school and the six black teens charged in the beating of a white student. Five were initially charged with attempted murder, but that charge was reduced.

The civil rights leaders believe the federal government should prosecute the noose hanging as a hate crime. Louisiana authorities have said there is no state law under which they could prosecute the students suspected of hanging the nooses.

"The Justice Department is missing in action," King said.

A spokesman for the Justice Department, Erik Ablin, said in an e-mail message that federal, state and local officials are aggressively investigating numerous noose hanging reports around the country, as well as other incidents involving racial or religious threats.

I'm all for it. Show the power. If nothing else, it will be good for legislators and companies to see how many people really are paying attention. November 2. Mark it on the calendar.

Florida on the March for Marvin Lee Anderson

Remember Martin Lee Anderson, the young man who died at the hands of the guards (who were later acquitted)?

Get your calendars out. March on Tuesday in Tallahassee. If there were any way I could go!

The Florida State Conference NAACP is mobilizing thousands of people from across the state and nation to support the "Justice for Martin Lee Anderson" march and rally Tuesday to demand justice in the death of Anderson, a black 14-year-old, who was killed while in the custody of the Bay County Sheriff’s Department Boot Camp in January 2006.

The march begins at 11:00 am Tuesday at the Tallahassee Civic Center and will proceed to the Federal Courthouse.

Suppressing the Black Vote

Here is an appeal from ColorofChange.org:

NO on Hans von Spakovsky

Demand the Senate take a stand against voter suppression

Hans von Spakovsky has made a career out of suppressing the vote of minorities.

Now Bush wants von Spakovsky to be confirmed for a seat on the Federal Election Commission (FEC), the agency in charge of enforcing election finance laws. It's not a surprise that most Republicans support his nomination. But while Democrats talk about supporting voting rights, most of them are ready to let him through without a fight.

Please join us below in calling on your senators to oppose von Spakovsky's confirmation and to send a strong statement that voter suppression will not be tolerated and that those who engage in voter suppression have no place in the electoral system.

http://www.colorofchange.org/vonspak/?id=2357-346645

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.)

The Jena Countdown

4 more days until I leave for Jena. This is all I can think about.

What happened in Jena, as big as it is, is even bigger than what it is. What happened represents all that must change in this country, what we none of us can get away from, what forms our lives and our thoughts and our ways of being, whether we are Black or white or Latino or Hispanic or Asian, this founding concept of justice for all against a reality of white status and privilege so deeply embedded that most white people will not, cannot afford to admit that it is there and that the accident of birth confers freedom from having to ever deal with the complexities of interactions tainted by perceptions of race.

Recently I read "The White Anti-Racist Is an Oxymoron: An Open Letter to White Anti-Racists" by Kil Ja Kim. She makes points that need to be heard, in particular that whites who wish to engage in the struggle cannot expect--although it seems they do--to lead the charge, but

. . . must be committed to either picking up arms for other people (and only firing when the people tell them so), dying for other people, or just getting out of the way. In short, they must be willing to do what the people most affected and marginalized by a situation tell them to do.

All of us are so very self-centered. It is the human condition. But salvation is not to be found in looking at ourselves, and especially not in looking at other people look at us, which is probably even more tempting.

Without constant vigilance to keep our monstrous egos in check, we are always demanding center stage and demanding to be heard. Without close supervision, of course the thoughts come running back to Me and All of Me and the Greatness of Me and How I Am Affected and How Good I Am and Look at Me, I Am a Good Person Doing a Good Thing. In this place, how can those who truly are affected not feel rage when faced with the effrontery of a white person even daring to say that he or she has been affected in any way by the plague of racism? Even worse, white people want to go to the Black people around whom they feel safe, and complain. Or confess. When you are heavily burdened and another complains of carrying a feather, you are justified in having some feelings about it.

I can imagine the questions:
Have you ever seen someone's face close up when you spoke because of your race?
Have you ever been denied a job, a home, hell, even a ride because of your race?
Have you ever been followed in a store because the color of your skin makes the employees assume you are a thief?
Has anyone ever made assumptions about you and your manner of living and your education level and your family because of your race?

The only proper thing to do, in the immortal words of my friend K., is shut up and listen. Shut up and listen. Shut up and listen.

Then, when it seems right, the only proper thing to say is, "How can I help?"

What to Do on Thursday, September 20

. . . if you can't make it to Jena.

Wear *black.
Join the virtual march.
Check to see if there is a local march in support of the Jena 6.
Tell everyone what is going on. There are still people who don't know.

"The battle didn't start with the Jena 6, it won't end with the Jena 6."


*Just a little anecdote in re my own laminosity (lameness). I bought a Jena 6 T shirt on ebay. First of all, it was white with black print. All right, I thought, I'll just wear it on the plane. But it had a really high crew neck that was uncomfortable and also? Not flattering. So I got out the scissors to do a little trimming on the neckline but one slip of the blade rent the garment nearly in two, and now I have a big white rag emblazoned with "Free the Jena 6."