Gord's Notebook : JENA SIX & America: THE PRISON NATION

If George Bush was able to interfere in Scooter Libby's case then he has the power & authority to take some positive action to guarantee that Justice is done which should lead to acquittals with apologies & possibly a few of those authorities involved investigated at the least & possibly removed from their positions of authority or even charged with unlawful confinement or other such criminal charges -The chances of doing the right -thing though are rather slim since it would mean that the White Majority would have to shed themselves of their most cherished prejudices - ie that anyone arrested by the police must be guilty of something especially if they are Black or Hispanic , and that Judges & prosecutors are above reproach & always obey the law & never act on personal prejudices or biases or bigotry & that Blacks & Hispanics are far more violent than whites & further that teens especially have become more violent than they used to be even though the numbers show a decrease in violent crimes on a yearly basis since 1993-

Here's a couple of videos I grabbed off of YouTube about the Jena6

Jena Six-a photo story

The next video is the first part of a documentary from Democracy Now!
the rest of it is available on YouTube -

The Case of The Jena six- Racism in Louisiana
From Democracy Now part one

To put the story in context it should be noted that the United States has the highest incarceration rate compared to any other country & that there is a great disparity between the sentencing of blacks & Hispanics compare to white males - whites are more often as not given lesser sentences than blacks or hispanics -

THE SENTENCING PROJECT
Incarceration

The United States is the world's leader in incarceration with 2.1 million people currently in the nation's prisons or jails -- a 500% increase over the past thirty years. These trends have resulted in prison overcrowding and state governments being overwhelmed by the burden of funding a rapidly expanding penal system, despite increasing evidence that large-scale incarceration is not the most effective means of achieving public safety.

And:

July 18, 2007
The Sentencing Project: Examines Racial, Ethnic Prison Disparity in New Report

A new analysis by The Sentencing Project provides a regional examination of the racial and ethnic dynamics of incarceration in the U.S., and finds broad variations in racial disparity among the 50 states. The report, Uneven Justice: State Rates of Incarceration by Race and Ethnicity, finds that African Americans are incarcerated at nearly six (5.6) times the rate of whites and Hispanics nearly double (1.8) the rate.

A new analysis by The Sentencing Project provides a regional examination of the racial and ethnic dynamics of incarceration in the U.S., and finds broad variations in racial disparity among the 50 states. The report, Uneven Justice: State Rates of Incarceration by Race and Ethnicity, finds that African Americans are incarcerated at nearly six (5.6) times the rate of whites and Hispanics nearly double (1.8) the rate.

The report also reveals wide variation in incarceration by state, with states in the Northeast and Midwest exhibiting the greatest black-to-white disparity in incarceration. In five states - Iowa, Vermont, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Wisconsin - African Americans are incarcerated at more than ten times the rate of whites.

"Racial disparities in incarceration reflect a failure of social and economic interventions to address crime effectively and also indicate racial bias in the justice system," stated Marc Mauer, Executive Director of The Sentencing Project. "The broad variation in the use of incarceration nationally suggests that policy decisions can play a key role in determining the size and composition of the prison population."

The report extends the findings of previous analyses by incorporating jail populations in the overall incarceration rate and by assessing the impact of incarceration on the Hispanic community, representing an increasing share of the prison population. The state figures for Hispanic incarceration also reveal broad variation nationally. Three states - Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania - have a Hispanic-to-white ratio of incarceration more than three times the national average.

And from Alternet here is a pertinent article Jena Six Case Shows Black Teens Get Short End of Stick By Earl Ofari Hutchinson, New America Media. Posted September 18, 2007.It is time we examine why a black teen is six times more likely to be tried and sentenced to prison than a young white, even when the crimes are similar.

and see:
Jena Ignites a Movement
By Jordan Flaherty, Left Turn. Posted September 21, 2007.
On the ground at the Jena protest on Sept. 20, one got the sense that Jena could be the beginning of a larger movement for racial justice.

and on Alternet from Pam's HOUSE BLEND:
Neo-Nazi Group Publishes Addresses and Phone Numbers of Jena Six Families
Posted by Pam Spaulding at 9:20 AM on September 22, 2007. White supremacist William A. White is trying to stir up violence by posting lynching threats alongside their contact info.

...In what is not a surprising, but sad development, a white supremacist organization is being monitored by the FBI. William A. White is trying to stir up violence by posting addresses and phone numbers of the Jena 6 family on his web site, proclaiming: "Lynch the Jena 6." He operates out of Roanoke, Virginia:

William A. White also listed some of the defendants' telephone numbers, urging his readers to "Get in touch, and let them know justice is coming."

The review came as protesters gathered Thursday in Jena, the site of racial unrest since last summer. After a black student asked the school for permission to sit under a tree where white students traditionally gathered, three nooses were found hanging from the tree. Months later, the Jena Six were charged with beating a white student.

On his Web site, White complained of "agitators" who were demanding acquittals.

A posting Thursday afternoon that contained contact information for the six youths was headlined: "Addresses of Jena 6 N-----s; In case anyone wants to deliver justice."

In a second item, White was quoted as saying: "If these n------s are released or acquitted, we will find out where they live and make sure that white activists and white citizens in Louisiana know it ... in order to find someone willing to deliver justice."

The Southern Poverty Law Center has details on the other sites and groups fomenting violence in light of the march and search for justice in Jena. Take the bleatings at the neo-Nazi Vanguard News Network:

"I think a group of White men with AK rifles loaded with high capacity magazines should close in on the troop of howler monkeys from all sides and compress them into a tight group, and then White men in the buildings on both sides of the shitskinned hominids shall throw Molotov cocktails from above to cleanse the nigs by fire," wrote "NS Cat" on VNN. Another poster fantasized about a terrorist attack in Jena today: "Wouldn't that be sweet? Gosh darn, wouldn't that be sweet? Good LORD wouldn't THAT be SWeeeeEET? Boom, Boom, no more Coon! Well? A White man can dream can't he?"

As former White House press secretary Tony Snow said on an October 2003 edition of Fox News Sunday

"Here's the unmentionable secret: Racism isn't that big a deal any more. No sensible person supports it. Nobody of importance preaches it. It's rapidly becoming an ugly memory."

Southern Poverty Law Center -Jena Rally Sparks White Supremacist Rage - While thousands of peaceful marchers descended on Jena, La., white supremacists were issuing threats and calls for violence.