Alpha Kappa Alpha Demands Justice for the Jena 6
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Chicago, Illinois – September 17, 2007 - The decision by the Louisiana Court of Appeals to overturn the conviction of Mychal Bell, one of the "Jena 6," confirms the long-held belief by Alpha Kappa Alpha's international president, Barbara A. McKinzie, that the charges levied against the young man were motivated by "prosecutorial overzealousness." She said the dramatic turn of events should strengthen the resolve to demand "justice in Jena."
To that end, she urged Alpha Kappa Alpha's 200,000 members—and all fair-minded citizens—to fire off letters to Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco and Attorney General Charles Foti and demand that they wield their constitutional power to call for a new trial. McKinzie said that on behalf of the membership, she is sending a letter to the U.S. Department of Justice asking that federal officials intervene and investigate this issue to make sure the constitutional rights of these young men are protected.
She also asked all members to wear black on Thursday, September 20—the day of unity set aside to show support for the Jena 6.
McKinzie cautioned those hailing the decision to "stop celebrating" since the fates of the six young men still hang in the balance.
"Driven by a racist dynamic in the city of Jena, Louisiana, the district attorney who levied the charges is guilty of prosecutorial overreach," declared McKinzie. "Because lives are at stake, we demand that the governor, the attorney general and the U.S. Department of Justice launch an immediate investigation and right this judicial abuse of discretion. These boys are entitled to their constitutional right to fairness. Right now, the scales of justice are heavily tilted against the young men."
McKinzie said the meting out of punishment that is disproportionate to the "crime" has marked the entire Jena 6 saga.
She noted that the decision to lower the punishment against the white youth who hung nooses on a tree in an apparent protest of a black youth sitting under the "whites-only" tree set the tone of unfairness that has marked the entire series of events surrounding this case.
"Levying a light punishment against these whites and dismissing it as a 'prank' while imposing harsher charges against the black students illustrates an unfair mindset of which school authorities and prosecutors are guilty," McKinzie said. "An investigation will, hopefully, expose this imbalance and will result in a reexamination of this matter and a dismissal of all charges."
She also took the occasion to place culpability on school authorities, the district attorney and parents for relinquishing their responsibilities and allowing this matter to escalate to a "national disgrace."
"The Jena 6 case illustrates misplaced values, erosion of morals and relinquishment of parental responsibility. Because these principles lie at the core of Alpha Kappa Alpha's platform, we must address these issues if we are to engage in an honest dialogue and learn the lessons that this case presents."
McKinzie said that lost in the furor swirling around this case is the fact that the incident for which the students were eventually charged happened prior to the football championships.
"Some of the students charged were members of the winning team and were allowed to play so they could be used for their athletic prowess," she noted. "Once the championship was secured and the trophy hoisted, the boys were no longer of use to the school. That's when the prosecutors descended upon them and the charges were levied."
McKinzie said that the "glorification of athletics" outweighed the alleged crime and minimized the incident until the boys had been used for the school's athletic gain.
"If the charges had been that severe, the LaSalle Parish district attorney would have arrested the youth prior to the game rather than wait until afterward. This is symptomatic of a larger societal dynamic that glorifies athletes when it's convenient and then derides them when their purpose is met. It is a double standard that sends a mixed message about our priorities."
McKinzie also faulted the parents on both sides of the issue for not being vigilant and for not monitoring their sons' behavior.
"Parents are empowered with the task of raising their sons and teaching them character and infusing in them values that would help them avoid situations like these. If the parents had been doing their jobs, this would not have imploded to the level where the boys' lives and futures are at risk," she said.
McKinzie declared that "as a community, we must reclaim our value system."
These realities notwithstanding, McKinzie said Alpha Kappa Alpha is committed to uplifting youth through its Black Male Initiative. The Sorority is also devoted to strengthening the black family. Inspired by this, she said that the specter of these six boys spending years in jail is a dire outcome that is disproportionate to the alleged crime. She also noted that the young men have promising futures and their lives deserve to be spared.
McKinzie said, "The future of the black family hinges on the African American male being an integral part of the family unit. If the judicial system removes these young men from their families and sends them to prison on suspect charges, more than six families will be impacted.
An entire community will be affected and a nation that could benefit from their talents will also be victimized by these actions."
McKinzie added that New Orleans has been the beneficiary of the world's humanity. With chapters in Louisiana and driven by the Sorority's credo to "provide service to all mankind," members donated money to Katrina survivors. Responding to the call to address the need to rebuild homes in the region, Alpha Kappa Alpha members recently sponsored and built two homes for evacuees in partnership with Habitat for Humanity. She added that, in collaboration with the organization Feed the Children, members passed out food to 400 residents. Most significantly, she said Alpha Kappa Alpha decided to cancel a Hawaiian cruise and instead host its Leadership Conference in New Orleans. In making this change, the Sorority pumped $5 million into the economy.
"Louisiana has been the beneficiary of Alpha Kappa Alpha's treasure, time and talents and we have provided a boost to its economy," she said.
McKinzie said that the Jena 6 scenario threatens to cast a bad light on the state. "This can be reversed with a commitment to fairness and with a resolve by officials to see that justice prevails for the Jena 6."
Addresses for the principals:
Hon. Kathleen B. Blanco
Governor, State of Louisiana
P.O. Box 94004
Baton Rouge, LA 70804
Hon. Charles C. Foti, Jr.
Attorney General, Department of Justice
P.O. Box 94005
Baton Rouge, LA 70804
Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Website: http://aka1908.org/
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When in America being stupid is a crime. What the white kid did was stupid, racist and just plain dumb. But he didnt physically touch or harm anyone. So why are you, being black people, saying that these black kids should not face up to what they did. You are sending the wrong message to our black people. If you continue this, what will you do when the reverse happen, Black kid calls a white kid a "Cracker", and the white kids get together and kick the black kids face in? Still racism against the black kid, right? Btw, im a black male, and father. If it was my kid who did what the jena 6 did, I would tell you people to stay out of my business and I'll make may kid stand up like a man/woman and take the punishment for what they did. I teach my kids morals, values, and not to use his skin as an excuse to be ignorant. We cant be the slave to the white man, but we can be a slave to our own skin. Then we will always be slaves, and the so called, "Struggle", that parasites like Sharpton, Jackson and the useles NAACP, are always talking about, will continue.
Posted by: arthur brand jr | Thursday, September 20, 2007 at 08:47 AM
I WOULD JUST LIKE TO KNOW - WHY IS THE ONE YOUNG MAN STILL IN JAIL? WITH ALL THIS POLITICAL BACKING FROM EVERYBODY WHO WANTS TO PUT THEIR NAME OUT THERE - WHY IS HE STILL IN JAIL OVER A $90,000 BOND?I FELL THERE CHARGES WERE OUTRAGEOUS, THEY SHOULD BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE FOR WHAT THEY DID, BUT IT DEFINETLY DOES NOT TAKE A ATTEMPTED MURDER CHARGE. BUT AGAIN, WHY IS HE STILL IN JAIL?
Posted by: MICHELE | Thursday, September 20, 2007 at 09:35 AM
How can anyone seriously advocate dropping the charges for the Jena 6? Ms. McKinizie is outraged that the white student who got off with a lighter punishment. I am not a lawyer but perhaps someone can tell me what law he broke by hanging the nooses? Other than the laws of morality and decency. It's not right to hang a noose, but it's not illegal. Please understand, I am not condoning his actions. What he did outraged me (and I am white). But, that still does not give those men the right to assult him. They should all be punished and the punishment should fit the crime. And before you try to justify a position of acquiting the Jena 6, ask yourself how you would feel if a black youth called a white youth a name and then 6 whites assulted the black man. Would you still want the assailants to go free? Let's judgement fall on the facts....not on peoples emotions.
Posted by: Keith F. | Thursday, September 20, 2007 at 01:17 PM
For a brief timeline of events in the Jena 6 situations, check this excellent post: http://bookchinshop.wordpress.com/2007/07/18/jena-6-a-brief-timeline/. There are far too many significant incidents that some people are unaware of to not see the injustice in the treatment oof the Jena 6.
The Jena 6 residents who claim that they are not racist are such a throwback to the 1960s. It's really sad.
Justin Barker, the white student that was beaten, went to an activity only hours after he was released from the hospital. The whites who beat Robert Bailey, only days earlier, were not arrested and charged with attempted murder.
Reed Walters came to the school and threatened the black students. If that's not a terrorisitc environment, I don't know what is. Jena, Louisiana is a town that time forgot.
Anyone who thinks that the Jena 6 protest is about a fight, totally missed the point.
Posted by: Ashley | Friday, September 21, 2007 at 05:53 AM
As I've been watching and reading the coverage... the long-awaited coverage... of the Jena Six situation, I cannot help but feel angered at my former profession, the "media".
First, it's covered this travesty in Louisiana far too little, and covered Paris, Lindsey, Brittney, and OJ far too much... in my humble opinion.
Now, when the "media" does cover the marches and vigils... and NOT the story itself, it is leaving out some crucial facts to the story.
Please read the following Chicago Tribune story, dated May 20, 2007. And, note the facts about the white kid beating the black kid and the white man pulling a gun on three black students that the "media" is now evading, overlooking, and/or simply leaving out to, in my humble opinion, "craft" the essence of the story of the Jena Six:
Racial Demons Rear Heads
Howard Witt
[email protected]
Senior Tribune Correspondent
reposted from thechicagotribune.com
The trouble in Jena started with the nooses. Then it rumbled along the town's jagged racial fault lines. Finally, it exploded into months of violence between blacks and whites. Now the 3,000 residents of this small lumber and oil town deep in the heart of central Louisiana are confronting Old South racial demons many thought had long ago been put to rest.
One morning last September, students arrived at the local high school to find three hangman's nooses dangling from a tree in the courtyard.
The tree was on the side of the campus that, by long-standing tradition, had always been claimed by white students, who make up more than 80 percent of the 460 students. But a few of the school's 85 black students had decided to challenge the accepted state of things and asked school administrators if they, too, could sit beneath the tree's cooling shade.
"Sit wherever you want," school officials told them. The next day, the nooses were hanging from the branches.
African-American students and their parents were outraged and intimidated by the display, which instantly summoned memories of the mob lynchings that once terrorized blacks across the American South. Three white students were quickly identified as being responsible, and the high school principal recommended that they be expelled.
"Hanging those nooses was a hate crime, plain and simple," said Tracy Bowens, a black mother of two students at the high school who protested the incident at a school board meeting.
But Jena's white school superintendent, Roy Breithaupt, ruled that the nooses were just a youthful stunt and suspended the students for three days, angering blacks who felt harsher punishments were justified.
"Adolescents play pranks," said Breithaupt, the superintendent of the LaSalle Parish school system. "I don't think it was a threat against anybody."
Yet it was after the noose incident that the violent, racially charged events that are still convulsing Jena began.
First, a series of fights between black and white students erupted at the high school over the nooses. Then, in late November, unknown arsonists set fire to the central wing of the school, which still sits in ruins. Off campus, a white youth beat up a black student who showed up at an all-white party. A few days later, another young white man pulled a shotgun on three black students at a convenience store.
Finally, on Dec. 4, a group of black students at the high school allegedly jumped a white student on his way out of the gym, knocked him unconscious and kicked him after he hit the floor. The victim -- allegedly targeted because he was a friend of the students who hung the nooses and had been taunting blacks -- was not seriously injured and spent only a few hours in the hospital.
But the LaSalle Parish district attorney, Reed Walters, opted to charge six black students with attempted second-degree murder and other offenses, for which they could face a maximum of 100 years in prison if convicted. All six were expelled from school.
To the defendants, their families and civil rights groups that have examined the events, the attempted murder charges brought by a white prosecutor are excessive and part of a pattern of uneven justice in the town.
The critics note, for example, that the white youth who beat the black student at the party was charged only with simple battery, while the white man who pulled the shotgun at the convenience store wasn't charged with any crime at all. But the three black youths in that incident were arrested and accused of aggravated battery and theft after they wrestled the weapon from the man -- in self-defense, they said.
"There's been obvious racial discrimination in this case," said Joe Cook, executive director of the Louisiana chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, who described Jena as a "racial powder keg" primed to ignite. "It appears the black students were singled out and targeted in this case for some unusually harsh treatment."
That's how the mother of one of the defendants sees things as well.
"They are sending a message to the white kids, 'You have committed this hate crime, you were taunting these black children, and we are going to allow you to continue doing what you are doing,'" said Caseptla Bailey, mother of Robert Bailey Jr.
Bailey, 17, is caught up in several of the Jena incidents, as both a victim and alleged perpetrator. He was the black student who was beaten at the party, and he was among the students arrested for allegedly grabbing the shotgun from the man at the convenience store. And he's one of the six students charged with attempted murder for the Dec. 4 attack.
The district attorney declined repeated requests to be interviewed for this story. But other white leaders insist there are no racial tensions in the community, which is 85 percent white and 12 percent black.
"Jena is a place that's moving in the right direction," said Mayor Murphy McMillan. "Race is not a major local issue. It's not a factor in the local people's lives."
Still others, however, acknowledge troubling racial undercurrents in a town where only 16 years ago white voters cast most of their ballots for David Duke, the former Ku Klux Klan leader who ran unsuccessfully for Louisiana governor.
"I've lived here most of my life, and the one thing I can state with absolutely no fear of contradiction is that LaSalle Parish is awash in racism -- true racism," a white Pentecostal preacher, Eddie Thompson, wrote in an essay he posted on the Internet. "Here in the piney woods of central Louisiana ... racism and bigotry are such a part of life that most of the citizens do not even recognize it."
The lone black member of the school board agrees.
"There's no doubt about it -- whites and blacks are treated differently here," said Melvin Worthington, who was the only school board member to vote against expelling the six black students charged in the beating case. "The white kids should have gotten more punishment for hanging those nooses. If they had, all the stuff that followed could have been avoided."
And the troubles at the high school are not over yet.
On May 10, police arrested Justin Barker, 17, the white victim of the Dec. 4 beating. He was alleged to have a rifle loaded with 13 bullets stashed behind the seat of his pickup truck parked in the school lot. Barker told police he had forgotten it was there and had no intention of using it.
PLEASE, make sure that you get the word out... ALL OF THE WORD OUT... to people who need to know the TRUTH.
Posted by: Will Jones | Friday, September 21, 2007 at 05:41 PM
Thank you all for your comments. This case is far from over and we must remain vigilant about Jena as well as other incidents of civil rights violations.
Posted by: Vanessa | Sunday, September 23, 2007 at 08:58 PM