FREE THE JENA 6!!!!

It's too important to keep silent on this one.

Jena, LA.

For those of you who have been out of the loop or choose to ignore modern day racism, let me give you the details.

This is a case purely revolving around race. I am not one to throw out the race card. I like to weigh the facts and try to eliminate race first. But after analyzing what went on, its black & white..literally.

Here's the scoop

Back at the beginning of the '06 school year, during a school assembly, a black freshman asked the principal for permission to sit under a tree, termed the "white tree", which previously only had white students to sit under it. The principal told this freshman that he could sit anywhere he wanted. The following morning 3 hangsmen nooses were found attached to the tree. Now this was obviously a message to those who attempted to challenge the color barrier so firmly put in place, "WHITES ONLY". Why else would a hangsmen's noose be used. That instrument was used to lynch, torture, kill, mame, whatever you want to call it, people of color. So the dye was cast. Only white students can peacefully sit under the 'white tree'.

The real problem followed afterwards. The students responsible for this immature prank were recommended to be expelled, but the board of education reduced the punishment to 3 days in-school suspension...a slap on the wrist. Those guys should have been charged with a hate crime. It certainly fit the definitions. But lets keep going...

The noose incident led to months of in-school fighting, a sit-in under the tree, and (possibly unrelated) the burning of the school. In December at a place called the 'Fair Barn', a few of the black students tried to go to a party attended by mostly whites. Now i must interject here. I am pretty confident how that went down. They heard about the party, and decided to crash it. Purely to continue the ongoing rise of hate that was brewing in the town. This is the part where an adult should have been around to calm them down. Now, I dont want you to think i am turning on my people, but really, they should have never went to that party. The were looking for trouble.

When they got there, they were, as you might have guessed, told that they were not invited and could not enter. One of the party goers even tried to play bouncer and got into a brawl with them. They were all asked to leave. The next day, at a local convenience store, Robert Bailey, one of the 'party crashers' got into with a student who was at the party and was known to be in support of the noose from the tree and those who did it.

The kids were arguing and, in what seemed to be an act of 'I'll show them', the white student goes to his truck and produces a shot gun!!!!

Now....here is where the lawyer in me comes out.

Arguing is fine. I come from a family of arguers. But the moment the white student goes for a deadly weapon, he no longer wants to argue. He either is trying to kill or frighten the others. Either way he should have been hauled off to jail and thats where this becomes a problem.

Bailey and his friends try, and succeed in taking the gun away from this fool, which in my book is called self-defense. It is also called being really brave..or really stupid. If someone pulls a gun on me, they have my undivided attention. I am not real sure if i would even think about trying to disarm them. But then again, there's strength in numbers

Based on "eye-witness" accounts, Bailey was charged with theft of a fire arm (?!?!?!), robbery (!?!?!?) and disturbing the peace. Does that mean the next time on Cops, if i see an officer take a gun from a suspects car, the cop can be charged with theft of a fire arm? what the hell?!?!

The following Monday Justin Barker, who couldnt keep his mouth shut and was known for dropping n-bombs, decides to give Bailey a hard time about the party incident and the altercation at the store, gets his ass whipped by, the now infamous, Jena 6, Bailey, Mychal Bell, Carwin Jones, Bryant Purvis, Theo Shaw and Jesse Ray Beard (charged as a juvenile), who , for teaching barker a lesson in "keeping your mouth shut", were charged with attempted second degree murder.....

Murder.

I will let that sit for a moment.
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Murder

Now the white student, who initially brandished the shot gun,was charged with......nothing. No concealed weapons charge, no assault charge, not even disturbing the peace. The students who put up the hangmen's noose...nothing.

Hence, we have public outcry. And rightfully so. Its like the ultimate in double standards.

Mychal Bell's was the first trial to take place. I guess in response to the uproar of the events, the DA decides to reduce the charges to aggravated second-degree battery.

Now hold on to seats...

In order to uphold that charge, a deadly weapon must be in use by the offender. The DA's response to that?? His f**king shoes!!!!

DA Reed Walters said that because Bell used his SHOES to kick poor defense-less Justin, they were considered deadly weapons. You mean my hush puppies, my stacy's...MY ADIDAS are deadly weapons if i use them to kick somebody??

I better switch to flip-flops

Bell, who was 16 at the time of the incident, was found guilty by a jury of his peers, one of his peers being a high school friend of Justin "My Head Still Hurts" Barker's father. I guess the public defender for Bell had better things to do than to check out his 'peers'. I mean, really, the trial was held in Jena. Only 350 blacks live there, compared to 3,000 whites. He was guilty before the trial began. And this public defender, who is black, never called one single witness to defend Mychal. He could have called me!!!

"Sir, what knowledge do you have about this case?"

" I know it's BS"

"Do you know the victim?"

"Personally? No...but that's my brother"

"The assailant?"

"Personally? No...but he needs a beat down"

"What relevance can you bring in this case"

"That is a young black man living in the south and sometimes you have to let the Duke Boys know that you aint no punk. I am here to let you know that Mychal aint no punk!! You cant keep pushing us around!!!"

Due to his age (i think it was due to the attention that hick town was getting from the rest of the civilized world), Bell's charges were overturned, even though DA Walker is still seeking to appeal that to the LA Supreme Court. This is the same guy who threatened to "end students lives with a stroke of pen"

That should bring you up to speed.

Now...

What has the world come to?

No one white was, has, or ever will be charged in anything relating to these events. As i have stated, i hate pulling the race card, but you cant help but feel like its 1960 again. Can you imagine what it must be like to live in Jena, LA or a town like it?

it just goes back to that old way of thinking and to borrow a line from my brother blogger
MLK is crying inside...

We live in a world where you can hang a noose from a tree and as a result, get in-school suspension. The same world where school administrators actually allow a part of nature to symbolize segregation (the tree has since been uprooted). The same world where you can pull a gun on someone and NOTHING ever happens to you. But the minute you slap Greg Brady in the mouth for sticking his nose in business that doesnt concern him, you get charged with murder.

I look at the facts of the case (as closely reproduced here as possible) and i dont see where, if i was one of the kids in Jena, i would have done anything different.

Growing up, i was 'angry' enough at the effects of slavery, Jim Crow laws and segregation had on my people. I too would have sat under the 'white tree'. I would have sat under it with a Malcolm X shirt on, reading 'The Final Call' and a 'Public Enemy' tape on my box. I was angry enough to, if i heard about a party where they were turning away black folks at the door, i would have tried to storm the gates. And i would have stepped to someone who thought hanging a noose from a tree was funny.

30+ years on this earth has taught me that those actions would not change people's thinking. It just cant be done. The only effective solution to this present problem is to rally around the Jena 6. Show those backwards hillbillies that when you wrong one of us, we all respond. It will work. And even though they may call us n**gas behind our backs, think about their reactions when they see us rally together.

I should be in Jena, but I will be there in spirit. I pray that one day, and it probably wont happen in my days, but maybe while my daughters are here, we can let all of this hate go.

Robert, Mychal, Carwin, Bryant, Theo, and Jesse Ray...you are not alone