{"id":3496,"date":"2007-07-09T00:42:46","date_gmt":"2007-07-09T08:02:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/archives\/2007\/07\/09\/links-about-the-jena-six\/"},"modified":"2007-07-09T00:42:46","modified_gmt":"2007-07-09T08:02:34","slug":"links-about-the-jena-six","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=3496","title":{"rendered":"Links About The Jena Six"},"content":{"rendered":"

From a Countercurrents<\/a> article written by a civil rights attorney:<\/p>\n

On Friday night, December 1, a black student who showed up at a white party was beaten by whites. On Saturday, December 2, a young white man pulled out a shotgun in a confrontation with young black men at the Gotta Go convenience store outside Jena before the men wrestled it away from him. The black men who took the shotgun away were later arrested, no charges were filed against the white man.<\/p>\n

On Monday, December 4, at Jena High, a white student \u2013 who allegedly had been making racial taunts, including calling African American students \u201cniggers\u201d while supporting the students who hung the nooses and who beat up the black student at the off-campus party \u2013 was knocked down, punched and kicked by black students. The white victim was taken to the hospital treated and released. He attended a social function that evening.<\/p>\n

Six black Jena students were arrested and charged with attempted second degree murder.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Were the arrested students — including Mychal Bell, who was found “guilty” last week but has not yet been sentenced — actually the ones who assaulted Justin Barker? Maybe (although even if so, this is an appalling overreaction to a school fight) — but we can’t really know, because Mychal Bell wasn’t given a fair trial.<\/p>\n

Bell’s court-appointed attorney didn’t call any witnesses, object to the all-white jury, bring up inconsistancies in the testimony of prosecution witnesses, or bring up evidence in Bell’s favor. Nor, as far as I can tell, did he object to the prosecution bumping up the charges by arguing that wearing sneakers<\/em> qualified the incident as “assault with a deadly weapon.”<\/p>\n

From BlackAmericaWeb’s story<\/a>:<\/p>\n

“His court-appointed defense lawyer didn\u2019t present a defense. He rested the case without challenging the prosecution\u2019s story,” Alan Bean of the Texas-based Friends of Justice told BlackAmericaWeb.com. “He never said the young man was innocent. He only told the jury, ‘You should find him not guilty.'”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Bell, who is 16, could potentially be in prison until he turns 40.<\/p>\n

This post at The Friends of Justice blog <\/a>has the most detailed account of the case, and of Bell’s trial, I’ve yet read.<\/p>\n

Here’s a petition you can sign<\/a>, requesting that the Department of Justice begin a civil rights investigation of events in Jena, Alabama<\/strike> Louisiana.<\/p>\n

Elle, Phd has a list of suggested actions you can take<\/strong><\/a>, plus links to a couple of videos.<\/p>\n

While Seated has original reporting from Mychal Bell’s trial in Jena<\/a>, including photographs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From a Countercurrents article written by a civil rights attorney: On Friday night, December 1, a black student who showed up at a white party was beaten by whites. On Saturday, December 2, a young white man pulled out a … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[93],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-race-racism-and-related-issues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3496"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3496\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}