A Louisiana state district judge has disqualified himself from deciding a request from the news media to open the new trial of Mychal Bell, of Jena Six infamy, to the public.
A new judge will decide whether or not to give the news media permission to “The news organizations are seeking permission to attend new hearings in Bell’s case, to review transcripts of previous hearings and other court records, and to lift a gag order against participants in the case.”
The non-journalist in me says the whole thing screams “terrible idea!” The cynical journalist side is morbidly curious. Still, considering the publicity nightmare this case has been, I strongly doubt any judge is going to be inclined to give journalists more access to the case.
[]
This video, a montage of photos supposedly snatched from the Myspace page of Robert Bailey, Jr. (of Jena Six infamy), is an example of why attention should be paid to the issues involved in the Jena Six case — hate crimes and racism in the criminal justice system — and not the actual boys, who indisputably beat up a classmate in a 6-on-1 brawl. We shouldn’t trot them out to a star-studded award show and let them schmooze on the red carpet, nor should we celebrate them as burgeoning civil rights icons or stars. They are kids, after all. Kids who, despite whatever provocation might have occurred, did a thing they weren’t supposed to. Kids whose heads have swelled as a result of all of the big-name attention they, in addition to their case, have been getting.
As this video circles the blogosphere, people are speculating that this money is from the Jena Six Defense Fund. I strongly doubt that’s true or even possible. Still, the whole thing is ignorant and highly offensive to the people who are donating their time, money, and/or energy into making sure he and his friends get fair charges and fair sentencing.
Admit it. You have just been dying to put an actual voice to these words you read everyday. Good news: I was a guest on NPR today. Bad news: it’s not such a great voice, and I’m going to need to retire “you know” from my repertoire.
I was joined on News & Notes‘ weekly blogger’s roundtable by Shay Riley of and Brandon Whitney of Homeland Colors. Today’s topics were the Jena Six’s BET Hip Hop Awards cameo, Bill Cosby’s Meet the Press appearance, and the acquittal of the defendants in the boot camp death case, all of which are things you pretty much know my opinions (which I’m much better at expressing in written form, unfortunately) on if you read the blog. Still, it’s fun to listen. Click here to check it out.
Perhaps because I have no interest in looking at pictures of Katt Williams and suspected the same about you guys, I missed these photos of the diminutive comedian wearing a noose around his neck on the red carpet at the BET Hip Hop Awards. Hilarious*, especially considering two of the Jena Six were also in attendance.
*But, of course, not really.
If you’re wondering who those two gentleman are on stage with Kanye West and Katt Williams at the BET Awards, they are Carwin Jones and Bryant Purvis. Still don’t know? They are a third of the infamous Jena Six. It appears they were flown to Atlanta and given some new clothes and the honor of presenting an award. I’m not sure how I feel about the move to make celebrities out of these kids, who should probably be somewhere doing school work or attending to their world-famous legal troubles. This all seems inappropriately celebratory. These kids don’t deserve “special” racist treatment from their local DA or their peers. But I’m not sure if they deserve this kind of special treatment either.
More pics from the show, which airs Wednesday at 8 p.m., after the jump.
CONTINUED »
If Mychal Bell’s going to be the poster child for racial equality in the criminal justice system, I’m gonna need him to get his shit together from here on out.
Racism and nothing but racism was responsible for the ridiculous charges initially slapped on him and his friends and him being subsequently tried as an adult, but that really has nothing to do with the fact that he was on probation and shouldn’t have been fighting to begin with, despite the racial tension that had been building at Jena High School.
Louisiana State District Judge J.P. Mauffrey Jr. sentenced Bell to 18 months in the juvenile facility for four previous offenses, including two counts of simple battery and two pertaining to criminal destruction of property that occurred before the beating of classmate Justin Barker, according to The Associated Press. The decision came at the end of a two-day juvenile court hearing that was closed to the media, CNN reports.
I hate to see this kid go back to jail, though. I hope, and actually believe, that the events of the past year have probably permanently steered him in the right direction. Thousands of people marched into his town to protest the way he was treated — it will definitely make him think twice the next time he’s tempted to break the law.
[MTV]
While the starry-eyed media likens the recent Louisiana protest to Selma, and bloggers pat themselves on the back for a job well done, and over-excited liberal commentators say we are heralding in a “new civil rights movement,” a trend has developed out of America’s newfound obsession with the Jena Six. And it ain’t about peace and love and equal rights under the law.
Hello, old, familiar noose. Welcome to 2007!
First, there was the original noose, in Jena. Well, I obviously don’t mean that the Jena noose was the first noose. People have died with nooses around their necks for centuries and centuries — long before the lynching of blacks, symbolized, with a particular weightiness, by a noose swinging from a tree — became a dark, dark chapter in American history. Since that time, nooses have continuously been a uniquely American way to intimidate and terrorize blacks.
CONTINUED »
It was only a matter of time before amateur Jena Six parodies (complete with the ubiquitous college blackface shots) started appearing on Facebook. Or Blackfacebook, as the Smoking Gun has ingeniously renamed it. A freshman at the University of Louisiana at Monroe posted a video and an album showing her friends re-enacting the Jena Six assault on her Facebook page. It was a move she surely regrets now.
In the video, three students with mud smeared across their bodies stomp on a fourth student, while two of the participants are heard to say, “Jena 6.” One man can also be heard saying, “Niggers put the noose on.” After the video and photos on Smith’s page were discovered by fellow students, she removed the material and made her Facebook page private.
Smith, who did not respond to a TSG e-mail sent to her school address, apologized for the images in several recent Facebook postings. “We were just playin n the mud and it got out of hand. I promise i’m not racist. i have just as many black friends as i do white. And i love them to death,” she wrote. She added in a later message that her friends “were drinking” and things “got a lil out of hand.”
Oh, the black friend defense! If every racist has so many black friends, I might trust whites who don’t know a single black person more.
[TSG]
**Thanks for the tip, BMD!
Mychal Bell, the only member of the Jena Six to be convicted of any crimes (although the conviction was thrown out for him to be tried again in juvenile court) was released on $45,000 bail yesterday. And who was out in front of the courthouse steps ready to make a statement? Why, Al Sharpton, of course.
“Tonight, Mychal can go home, but Mychal is not out of the juvenile process. He goes home because a lot of people left their home and stood up for him,” he said.
“Let America know — we are not fighting for the right to fight in school. We’re not fighting for the right for kids to beat each other. We’re fighting to say that there must be one level of justice for everybody. And you cannot have adult attempted murder for some, and a fine for others, and call that equal protection under the law. Two wrongs don’t make one civil right.”
So what if I grudgingly agree? He’s still annoying. Meanwhile, the genius DA Reed Walters is going even more off the deep end than he was before, crediting God for keeping the (white) citizens of Jena safe from the thousands of (black) protesters who descended upon the town last week.
CONTINUED »
Learning, albeit very slowly, to recognize a shitstorm when he sees one, LaSalle Parish DA Reed Walters won’t appeal a court decision to throw out Jena Sixer Mychal Bell’s conviction and have his case retried in juvenile court, much to the relief of Lousiana Governor Kathleen Blanco.
Blanco made her announcement at a news conference with activists Martin Luther King III and the Rev. Al Sharpton. Sharpton said he hopes a bond will be set low enough to allow for Bell’s release, and he thanked Blanco for getting involved in the matter.
“I want to congratulate her for showing leadership,” Sharpton said. “And I want to congratulate the district attorney for good judgment.”
Blanco said Walters gave her permission to announce his decision, and that he planned to discuss his decision publicly on Thursday. A phone call placed at Walters’ home went unanswered Wednesday.
Good news for Mychal Bell, who will hopefully get a fair and reasonable trial/sentence in juvenile court. But what the hell is Al Sharpton doing standing next to the governor during her speech? I would hope he is not trying to take a little bit of credit for this, considering he only decided to jump on the Jena Six bandwagon very, very recently.
M-Fer, go back to Harlem and drink some iced tea or something.
[]
