Here’s the Republican talking point in the Jena 6 hearings today:  Read more 

“The present racial crisis in this country carries within it powerful destructive ingredients that may soon erupt into an uncontrollable explosion. The seriousness of this situation demands that immediate steps must be taken to solve this crucial problem, by those who have genuine concern before the racial powder keg explodes.” Malcolm X 1963

Malcolm said it in 1963, King said it in 1967, America we have a problem; separate and unequal. When the powder Keg explodes, if you read this blog, you’ll know why. If you don’t change this, you’ll know why. This is what America does to Black Children:  Read more 

Jack and Jill politics:

In his attempt to garner national sympathy, Walters omitted several important details even among the incidents he decided to include, most notably this one:

Only the intervention of an uninvolved student protected Mr. Barker from severe injury or death. There was serious bodily harm inflicted with a dangerous weapon — the definition of aggravated second-degree battery. Mr. Bell’s conviction on that charge as an adult has been overturned, but I considered adult status appropriate because of his role as the instigator of the attack, the seriousness of the charge and his prior criminal record.

Well, aside from the details of how one Godlike student managed to deter the fiery wrath of six “attempted murderers,” (attempted murder was the crime Walters originally charged five of the six with, not “aggravated battery,” either way, the question remains) what is the distinction here between “severe injury” and “serious bodily harm?” and how exactly, did Justin Barker suffer one, and not the other? Walters clumsiness here hides the simple fact that Justin Barker walked out of the hospital two hours later and attended a social event, not something that people do after being the victim of a life threatening beating. Just ask John Lewis.

But perhaps most telling is that Reed Walters conveniently omits from his Op-Ed a description of the “dangerous weapon” used in the attack:  Read more 

Bob Herbert, and no pay wall:

The Ugly Side of the G.O.P.

Just too, too easy:  Read more 

Well, yes, I can see that it would. Chicago Tribune:

[T]he leader of a white supremacist group in Mississippi published interviews that he conducted with the mayor of Jena and the white teenager who was attacked and beaten, allegedly by the six black youths. In those interviews, the mayor, Murphy McMillin, praised efforts by pro-white groups to organize counterdemonstrations; the teenager, Justin Barker, urged white readers to “realize what is going on, speak up and speak their mind.”

McMillin has insisted that his town is being unfairly portrayed as racist—an assertion the mayor repeated in an interview with Richard Barrett, the leader of the Nationalist Movement, a white supremacist group based in Learned, Miss., who asked McMillin to “set aside some place for those opposing the colored folks.”

“I am not endorsing any demonstrations, but I do appreciate what you are trying to do,” Barrett quoted McMillin as saying. “Your moral support means a lot.”

McMillin declined to return calls seeking comment Monday.

Barker’s father, David, said his family did not know the nature of Barrett’s group when they agreed to be interviewed, adding, “I am not a white supremacist, and neither is my son.”

But Barrett said he explained his group and its beliefs to the Barker family, who then invited him to stay overnight at their home on the eve of last week’s protest march.

David Duke, the former Ku Klux Klan leader, last week announced his support for Jena’s white residents, who voted overwhelmingly for him when he ran unsuccessfully for Louisiana governor in 1991.

Well, that’s sorted. Not racist. Check.  Read more 

From: AMY GOODMAN Last September, a black high school student requested the school’s permission to sit beneath a broad, leafy tree in the hot schoolyard. The next morning, three nooses were hanging from the tree. The black students responded en masse. Justin Purvis, the kid who first sat under the tree, told filmmaker Jacquie Soohen: “They [other black students] said, ‘Y’all want to go stand under the tree?’ We said, ‘Yeah.’ They said, ‘If you go, I’ll go. If you go, I’ll go.’ One person went, the next person went, everybody else just went.” Then the police and the district attorney showed up. Substitute teacher Michelle Rogers recounts: “District Attorney Reed Walters proceeded to tell those kids that ‘I could end your lives with the stroke of a pen.’ “  Read more 

[Jeebus. Local reports: 60,000, via the local Lafayette Advertiser. Times: 10,000. AP: “buses lined up for miles on Highway 49 into Jena.”]

OK, OK, not the “back of beyond.” But next door to the back of beyond.

I mean, 10,000 marchers to a small Southern town not on the Interstate, not on Amtrak, with no airport? That’s fucking impressive. Far more so than the recent events in DC (not that any tactical adjustments would have led to a different outcome, there).

So, herewith a roundup of Jena coverage; I started out in comments, and then got so many links I thought I’d turn it into a post.

Prometheus 6 summarizes the long train of abuses that led to the march. Jack and Jill gives the perspective from Oak Bluffs. Afrobella gives a roundup of media coverage. Afronetizen: J’accuse! Field Negro points out that it wasn’t really necessary for Steve Gilliard to be alive for the Jena story to be covered.

“You are fucking kidding me right? You were preoccupied because the “Senate condemned Moveon.”*

Pam’s House Blend demolishes the excuses for lack of coverage in the “mainstream” blogs (ouch!). Thin Black Duke agrees, commenting that the media black out continues:

I’ve been watching the news all day, and I’ve yet to see a single mention of incidents like the white dude that pulled a shotgun on a bunch of black people in Jena, LA, resulting in the black folks getting charged with theft for wrestling the gun away, while the gun-holder got off scott free.

(I just love the suckitude that they were charged for theft. It’s kinda like the Chinese, back when they were Red, billing the families for the bullets used to shoot political prisoners. And now, from Too Sense, the local MBFs are after them. Naturally. ) Angry Black Bitch deconstructs the accountability dodge put forth by the prosecutors:

Nooses are a terroristic threat.

(Will George Allen please pick up the white courtesy phone?) And Oliver Willis cuts to the bottom line:

The thousands of people in Jena today show to me that the anti-war movement has lots to learn and that nobody is as organized on the left as civil rights organizations. Period.

(Be sure to read the numerous comments.) Bingo!  Read more 

Of course, they’re just Black People so it’s not really that important. But I though you’d like to know, and Steven is wondering about a Second Civil Rights Movement.

Thousands of chanting demonstrators filled the streets of this little Louisiana town Thursday in support of six black teenagers initially charged with attempted murder in the beating of a white classmate.  Read more 

If you see them at work or on the street wearing Black know that it’s in support of the rally at Jena. Lambert suggested I post more on the situation but, with the start of the new term I haven’t had time to really sit down and write. I will. The other reason I haven’t posted is the rage.  Read more 

What nightmares do Black parents tell their Children?  Read more 

I’ve been a poor blogger so I haven’t been part of this swarm. But I’m going to change that today. Please- whatever time you were going to devote to reading about Vick’s poor dogs, please instead go to Jill’s place and DNA’s place for details. Lynching is alive and well in this country, and that should matter at least as much as the inhumane treatment of some dogs. There are 43,000 sigs on the petition and the Feds are finally getting involved, but of course we can’t trust them to do the right thing.

The boys who hung the nooses were suspended from school for a few days. The school administration chalked it up as a harmless prank, The boys who hung the nooses but Jena’s black population didn’t take it so lightly. Fights and unrest started breaking out at school. The District Attorney, Reed Walters, was called in to directly address ,black students at the school and told them all he could “end their life with a stroke of the pen.”  Read more 

Wow. Go read this if you want to learn just how Rove wants to use the legal system to settle political scores. Of course, I’ve always felt that Alabama was really a third world banana republic run by the sort of folks who belong in John Grisham novels — but I digress.

And, apparently, it all would’ve worked perfectly but Dana Simpson, a Republican, had to open her mouth and blow the whistle. So now the Rovian mafioso-like intimidation begins:

The response to Simpson’s affidavit has been a series of brusque dismissive statements – all of them unsworn – from others who figured in the discussion and the federal prosecutor in the Siegelman case, who has now made a series of demonstrably false statements concerning the matter. She’s been smeared as “crazy” and as a “disgruntled contract bidder.” And something nastier: after her intention to speak became known, Simpson’s house was burned to the ground, and her car was driven off the road and totaled. Clearly, there are some very powerful people in Alabama who feel threatened.  Read more