Certainly by now you have at least heard about the “Jena 6,” unless you’ve lived on a deserted island isolated from any contact with the outside world. So just in case you have recently been rescued, let me give you a brief synopsis of what’s happened:
On December 4, 2006, six black teenagers were charged with the beating of Justin Barker, a white teenager at Jena High School in Jena, Louisiana. The beating followed a number of racially-charged incidents in the town, notably when three white teens were accused of hanging nooses in a tree on their high school grounds. They were suspended from school, but they were not criminally prosecuted. Barker was not involved in the noose-hanging incident, which occurred 3 months before he was beaten.
Five of the six black teenagers were charged as adults with attempted second-degree murder including Mychal Bell who was then 16 years old. (The sixth teenager was 14 at the time and was charged as a juvenile.) The charged for Mychal Bell was reduced to aggravated second-degree battery and conspiracy to commit aggravated second-degree battery alleging that tennis shoes Bell was wearing were a deadly weapon, an argument that the “all white jury ultimately agreed.” The judge found Bell guilty and he faced the possibility of up to 22 years in prison.
Without going into great detail for this blog, this is what sparked protests in Jena and from around the world. Many, (me included) believed that the arrests and subsequent charges were excessive and racially discriminatory against the six black teenagers, alleging a lack of appropriate disciplinary actions or arrests against the white youths in Jena from the earlier incident.
Supporters of the Jena Six circulated petitions online and now there our websites, www.freethejena6.org and www.colorofchange.org, to raise funds and assist with the legal process. African-Americans cried “foul,” and rallied from around the country for the support of the Jena Six (and very well should have). On September 20, 2007 there was a massive rally held in Jena, LA in which an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 demonstrators from all over the country participated. College students and concern individuals rode buses from as far away as California to protest this injustice. Many noted activists and entertainers were included in the protest, who called for an end to unfair treatment of blacks by the justice system.
I certainly agree that an injustice took place in Jena, and the actions were justified by those to rally and raise funds for the legal defense should have taken place. But, going “Beyond The Jena 6,” my concern and frustration is why the same alarm and national rally from many black leaders have not occurred from something more diabolical than the injustice to the six black teenagers.!
I refer back to my blog dated June 6, 2006 entitled, “What Should Be Done? Doesn’t Anyone Care?” that talked about black on black crime! I pointed out that one of the most shocking and unbelievable statistic that I discovered -- according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. Dept. of Justice, from 1976 to 2004 -- 94% of black victims were killed by blacks! Think about it... out of 100 blacks murdered, 94 were murdered by another black! Where is the outcry from the African-American community or has it become the norm.
But with every black murdered, it's a double whammy because the perpetrator of the crime, who is eventually caught and convicted, is locked up. Consider this statistic from the Bureau of Justice Statistics, at year end of 2005 -- 3,145 black male sentenced prison inmates per 100,000 blacks, compared to only 471 white male prison inmates per 100,000 blacks.
This is what I quoted from that blog dated June 6th, “WHAT SHOULD BE DONE? DOESN'T ANYONE CARE? How do we move from an apathetic or indifferent position, to action? If a white person lynched a black man today, the country would be up in arms. We would march and protest, crying for justice…”
Where is the same concern with the black youth that was murdered by another black youth in our home town ---- or have we become so insensitive, that it doesn’t matter? I want to highlight the activity of Elder Carlton Francis¸ one of the ministers under Bishop James A. Johnson at Bethesda Temple in the St. Louis, MO area. He, along with two other colleagues --- Elder Byron Thompson and Elder Eric Jefferson, established a “Role Models” program in which they meet twice monthly on Tuesday evenings at St. Louis' Juvenile Detention Center with a goal of convincing young offenders that they must drop negative relationships, change deadly habits and, mostly, get an education. Their ministry received attention from Sylvester Brown, a writer with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Please take the time and read his article at the following link:
These are the kind of activities we must be doing. Yes, the Jena 6 case is definitely important and needs are attention, but what about our black brothers killing black brothers. I must have missed the announcement about that rally. Hope to hear from you!