Lessons From the Jena Six
The House Judiciary Committee held a hearing this week to discuss the controversial case of the Jena Six, in which trumped up charges were brought against six black teens following a series of racially charged incidents in a small Louisiana town sparked by the hanging of nooses at a public high school.
Among those who testified was Richard Cohen, president of the Southern Poverty Law Center. His testimony challenged the notion promoted by some that the way toward justice in Jena would be for hate crime charges to be brought against the white students behind the noose incident:
Cohen also called on Congress to hold hearings about the collection of hate crime data, and he urged lawmakers to support the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crime Prevention Act of 2007, which would require the collection of data about hate crimes committed by and against juveniles.
The Center's Tolerance.org program has produced a guide for educators called "Six Lessons from Jena" that aims to prevent such incidents from happening again. The guide is available online here.
Among those who testified was Richard Cohen, president of the Southern Poverty Law Center. His testimony challenged the notion promoted by some that the way toward justice in Jena would be for hate crime charges to be brought against the white students behind the noose incident:
"The criminal law is a blunt instrument, and too many of our young people are already being pushed out of our schools and into our prisons. A far wiser course than increasing federal prosecutions would be increasing federal investment in services designed to soothe the racial and ethnic tensions simmering in our nation's schools and to respond promptly when hate crimes occur."Instead, Cohen said, Congress should consider increasing the size of the Justice Department's Community Relations Service, a program that was created by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to ease conflicts arising from differences in race and national origin but that has shrunk even while the nation has grown more diverse.
Cohen also called on Congress to hold hearings about the collection of hate crime data, and he urged lawmakers to support the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crime Prevention Act of 2007, which would require the collection of data about hate crimes committed by and against juveniles.
The Center's Tolerance.org program has produced a guide for educators called "Six Lessons from Jena" that aims to prevent such incidents from happening again. The guide is available online here.
Labels: jena six
1 Comments:
A criminal is a criminal regardless of skin color. A violent crime upon the body of another is a more serious crime than an implied threat or taunting speech.
If it is now OK to do a 6 on 1 beatdown of someone who verbally abused or threatened one's livelihood, then by all means let me gather my friends and go beat the hell out of my former corporate sociopath boss.
Mychal Bell was given chance after chance after chance (probably because he is such a talented athlete) to get his behavior straight by the same white juvenile judge who is now being excoriated as a racist for sentencing him to 18 months in a juvenile facility for violating his probation.
You can believe that if Mr. had been some disabled black special education kid with no athletic talent, he would have been in juvenile hall long before he had the opportunity to have 4 prior juvenile adjudications for assault and battery and criminal damage to property. And there would not have been the first peep out of Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson.
Supposedly important black leaders give lip service to improving educational opportunities for black Americans but they never are willing to do the proper research and back breaking work to insure that it happens. Photo ops in potentially flamboyant cases are much more to the liking of these has-beens.
Approx. 60% of children in Spcecial Education in the USA are boys, of those boys approx. 60% are black. Special education has become the new segregation; and many black parents have been willing to literally sell their children into it.
Go research who takes the most Ritalin & similar mind altering drugs in this country. Read the book The War on Children of Color (waged in the name of providing mental health services) and become appalled.
It is not bigoted Southern whites who are keeping black people down; it is our own deluded so-called leaders who, caught in a 1960's time warp, have no fix on who the real enemy is or how to go about eliminating it.
It is so easy to hold up the "white bogey strawman" and divert attention to him and away from the real and pressing issues that are eating black society from the inside out like a sneaky, insidious cancer. Angy young black men from single parent families who idolize the gangsta culture and who scorn education and civilized norms and values as too white.
Wake up black American and get with the 21st century. "We have met the enemy and it is us!"
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