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"Jena Six" Picking Up Student Support

By Vanessa Rozier
Black College Wire

A year ago, Mychal Bell was known in Jena, La., simply as a 16-year-old sophomore at Jena High School and a winning starter on its football team. Today he stands convicted of aggravated second-degree battery and faces up to 22 years in prison.

Michael David Murphy / www.whileseated.org T-shirt sported by LaTara Hart, cousin of Carwin Jones and Robert Bailey, two of the Jena Six.

He is nationally known as one of the young men called the Jena Six.

A rally is scheduled in Jena on Sept. 20 in conjunction with universities and individuals who wish to support the six.

According to accounts of the developments, their case began on Aug. 31, 2006, when a black student in Jena asked permission to sit underneath what was understood to be the "white" tree at school — and he did. The next day, three nooses were found hanging from the tree. Three white students were held responsible and the principal recommended that they be expelled. The school board and superintendent, however, decided that an in-school suspension would suffice.

Outraged, black students organized a protest and, again, sat underneath the "white" tree. Two incidents took place the next November weekend.

On the Friday night, Robert Bailey, one of the six, was punched and kicked at a party attended by mostly white students. Then, Saturday, a confrontation took place between a group of black students and one of the white students involved in Friday's fight.

Once back at school, Justin Barker, a white student, teased Bailey about getting beaten Friday night and used racial slurs to do so. One student punched Barker in the back of the head and others kicked him while he was down, leaving him unconscious. An ambulance arrived to pick Barker up, but he was never officially hospitalized and, later that night, went to a school function.

Six black students were arrested over the Dec. 4 school fight and their bonds were set. The highest reached $138,000.

Bell and the other five were charged with attempted second-degree murder and conspiracy in the fight with Justin Barker. On Sept. 4, charges for Carwin Jones and Theo Shaw were reduced to aggravated-second degree battery, the Associated Press reported, citing a media report.

In July, Bell became the first to stand trial. After being represented by a public defender who did not call witnesses in Bell's defense, an all-white jury convicted him of aggravated battery and conspiracy charges after two days of deliberation. On Aug. 24, Bell was denied a reduction in the $90,000 bail after prosecutors disclosed four previous brushes with the law.

On July 31, as many as 300 supporters rallied in Jena in support of Bell and all of the defendants.

Victoria Kirby, a junior speech communication major at Howard and a member of the Save the Jena Six Planning Committee, said the Jena Six issue cannot be ignored. The group was planning a Sept. 5 rally in support of the accused at Howard's Rankin Memorial Chapel.

"It's crucial for us to be involved," Kirby said of the Howard community. "What we do affects what happens in the black community."

Chigozie Onyema is a part of the planning team as well. The group is working to raise money for and awareness of the case. "It would behoove students at a historically black university to show solidarity with any case that calls into question the blindfold that the court is supposed to wear," he said. Onyema is a senior African American studies major and the president of the Howard chapter of Amnesty International.

"Historically, there has been a separate criminal justice system for black and white citizens," he said. He then referred to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s Letter from a Birmingham Jail, saying that it taught us that "an injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."

Vanessa Rozier, a student at Howard University, writes for the Hilltop. To comment, e-mail .

Posted Sept. 4, 2007

Article Framed From Racist Perspective

I read with interest your article about the Jena Six. I used to teach high school.

There was a hall in the school that the black students had designated as "the black hall." They occupied this hall during lunch hours, and if any white student was foolish enough to walk down this hall during that time of day, he or she would at the very minimum be verbally harassed, and most probably physically assaulted.

At that time, many black students wore shirts bearing "It's a black thing, you wouldn't understand." I ask you to consider if this was not racist. I know, I know, there have been those in the black community who have decided that racism can't really apply to blacks in this country, framing the definition in a power structure, sociological context that somehow can't apply to an individual's attitudes.

Even I, as a white teacher, was subjected to murmurs and glares and mutterings if I walked down this hall during my lunch hour. I therefore made a point to do so every day. Because I am racist? No. I would have done the same if it was a "skinhead hall." I was a teacher. No student had a right to say anything about which hall I or anybody else decided to walk down.

A healthy dose of introspection might help you to understand that you have framed this article from a racist perspective, and that you perpetuate hatred and division among different groups of people in this country. I doubt that this will happen. You have been thoroughly inoculated and indoctrinated with your own sense of victimization. As you embrace your ethnocentric "pride", please consider the Balkans —the ethnic "pride," the hatred. This is the condition that, if you have your way, the United States will ultimately fall into.

We should all be color blind. Shame on you for your racism.

Alan Ford
Hickory, N.C.
Sept. 6, 2007

If Race Is Not the Issue, Then What Is It?

I read Alan Ford's response. I would have to agree that reverse racism is equally ignorant and should not be tolerated at all.

I would wish not to have to use color or race as a basis for my argument, but the reality remains that it is, even when we don't want it to be. In the case of Mr. Ford, I ask you, did you and other people continue to walk down this hallway being verbally or physically abused? What was done to rectify the situation? If people did not fight to have something done, then it was partially their fault. If I don't like something, I don't just complain or take the abuse, I do something about it. Don't get me wrong, I'm not in any way excusing these young men for their behavior, but my God, if we allow something to be done to us, why expect someone else to come and defend us?

Now as for my point, let me just say this. I could agree that the actions of these young men might have been motivated by racism, but are you saying that this circumstance measures up to what's happened in Jena?

Nooses were hung on a tree after black students sat there; it was deemed a prank. Could it have been a prank (longstanding or not) that the black people of this school claimed this hallway? [Robert] Bailey was beaten up at a party, no one went to jail until the black kids retaliated, and they all went to jail, the highest bond being set at $138,000. What kind of atrocity is this?

If I'm not making my point clear, let me try this example. Let's look at the Vick dog fighting case for just a moment. This man I totally agree should be punished for breaking a law, but what is the severity? Three years, five, 22? What happens when my white counterparts break the law? Let's look at that for a second. Where is Paris Hilton? How many times was she reprimanded for driving while intoxicated, impaired or under the influence, where she could possibly kill someone or herself? What was her sentence, maybe a week in jail, then sentenced to house arrest? How about Martha Stewart? She's living her normal life after a five-month sentence. If race is not the issue, then what is it? Economics? It certainly wouldn't be in Vick's case.

It would both disappoint and insult me if even you as a white man could tell me that the Jena Six case is just. It's not. The school administrators know it, and so do the police department, fellow students and anyone else following this case. This entire thing should have been handled differently on both sides, but it ultimately frightens me that in 2007 noose-hanging is back. What's next, crosses being burned outside of my house?

I too wish that we should be color-blind and handle situations for what they are, but when something like this happens, which is often, it only makes me believe that race is still an issue, though it may not be the only one. History is repeating itself; it's coming full circle. At one point, racism was hidden under sophisticated radar; it's in the forefront again. I'm not just an unhappy young, black woman, I'm an angry citizen, a human being.

Let's not make these experiences a Cold War, but instead a meeting of the minds that we may brainstorm to eradicate racism and/or discrimination of any kind, or at least make it less prevalent among us. Besides, "United We Stand" includes Black, White, Hispanic, our immigrants, purple and green if such people existed. Let's not just make arguments in favor of our own people or race, but let's truly be just and united so we can all live in true freedom.

Lakora Salih
Bronx, N.Y.
Sept. 7, 2007

Treat All the Same Way

I heard this story for the first time tonight on the Bill Maher show. I am sickened by this, I am white, sort of. I have Indian, German, Irish, so really, what am I?

I see no color. I think everyone in the U.S. should be treated the same regardless of race, religion, whatever. Haven't we been color-blinded by the Constitution? Aren't we all the same? Peel off that outer skin. Do we not all bleed red? Do we not have the same inner workings? A heart? Do we not all feel pain, suffering and heartache in the same way?

What is happening here in our country? I don't understand how the black kids are being treated like they murdered someone and the "white" children let off with a slap on the hand. This is not justice, this is a travesty.

This county or city should be admonished and everyone involved made to do community service.

We need to have just as many outraged whites as blacks at these hearings to protest all of this. These trials are not justice. This was a mutual fight and all involved should be treated the same way.

Lois Redford
Langley, Wash.
Sept. 7, 2007