Jena 6 Demonstration a Hopeful Sign

If the huge demonstration in Jena, LA, has got you fired up--I am, it's wonderful to see so many young people engaged with this issue--why not send a couple of bucks to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund? They do good work all year round. And anybody who spends a year or two in the trenches knows that racism is still a big factor in the US legal culture, as in our culture as a whole. The NAACP calls it the school to prison pipeline.

September 20, 2007

Jena Six - Another Lesson in the Role of Race and the School to Prison Pipeline

By now, most people in this country have heard of the Jena Six - the black male high school students in the town of Jena, LA, who were charged as adults with crimes ranging from aggravated battery to attempted murder for their involvement in a schoolyard fight.

And most have probably heard horror stories about the events leading up to the fight: a racially hostile environment for black students at Jena High School, attacks by white students and adults upon black teenagers, and threats from the district attorney against black students who protested the hanging of nooses from the "white tree" at the school and other forms of racial harassment.

In this tense racial environment, Jena high school student Mychal Bell, who was initially charged with attempted murder, was convicted of aggravated second-degree battery and conspiracy by an all-white jury, and at one point faced a possible sentence of more than 22 years. Yet, the white students responsible for harassing and attacking black students escaped relatively unscathed. And, although a Louisiana appeals court reversed Mychal Bell's convictions, finding that the criminal court lacked jurisdiction to try him as an adult, he has been in jail since December of last year, unable to post a $90,000 bail.

The Jena Six situation has once again exposed the sinister, yet complicated phenomenon we have come to call the School to Prison Pipeline and highlights the role that race plays in denying educational opportunity.

See also: Protest in Louisiana Echoes the Civil Rights Era

And CNN: Thousands 'march for justice' in Jena, court orders hearing on teen