[StBernard] Lessons from Jena, La.

[Westley Annis]

	A black man finally writes about the truth in Jena.  I guess he will
be labeled an "Uncle Tom" for his views. 
	 
	 

	By JASON WHITLOCK

	Now we love Mychal Bell, the star of the 2006 Jena (La.) High School
football team, the teenage boy who has sat in jail since December for his
role in a six-on-one beatdown of a fellow student. 

	Thursday, thousands of us, proud African-Americans, expressed our
devotion to and desire to see justice for the "Jena Six," the half-dozen
black students who knocked unconscious, kicked and stomped a white
classmate. 

	Jesse Jackson compared Thursday's rallies in Jena to the protests
and marches that used to take place in cities like Selma, Ala., in the
1960s. Al Sharpton claimed Thursday's peaceful demonstrations were to
highlight racial inequities in the criminal justice system. 

	Jesse and Al, as they're prone to do, served a kernel of truth
stacked on a mountain of lies. 

	There are undeniable racial and economic inequities in our criminal
justice system, and from afar the "Jena Six" rallies certainly looked and
felt like the righteous protests of the 1960s. 

	But the reality is Thursday's protests are just another sign that we
remain deeply locked in denial about the path we need to travel today for
true American liberation, equality and power in the new millennium. 

	The fact that we waited to love Mychal Bell until after he'd thrown
away a Division I football scholarship and nine months of his life is just
as heinous as the grossly excessive attempted-murder charges that originally
landed him in jail. 

	Reed Walters, the Jena district attorney, is being accused of racism
because he didn't show Bell compassion when the teenager was brought before
the court for the third time on assault charges in a two-year span. 

	Where was our compassion long before Bell got into this kind of
trouble?

	That's the question that needed to be asked in Jena and across the
country on Thursday. But it wasn't asked because everyone has been lied to
about what really transpired in the small southern town. 

	There was no "schoolyard fight" as a result of nooses being hung on
a whites-only tree. 

	Justin Barker, the white victim, was cold-cocked from behind,
knocked unconscious and stomped by six black athletes. Barker, luckily,
sustained no life-threatening injuries and was released from the hospital
three hours after the attack. 

	A black U.S. attorney, Don Washington, investigated the "Jena Six"
case and concluded that the attack on Barker had absolutely nothing to do
with the noose-hanging incident three months before. The nooses and two
off-campus incidents were tied to Barker's assault by people wanting to gain
sympathy for the "Jena Six" in reaction to Walters' extreme charges of
attempted murder. 

	Much has been written about Bell's trial, the six-person all-white
jury that convicted him of aggravated battery and conspiracy to commit
aggravated battery and the clueless public defender who called no witnesses
and offered no defense. It is rarely mentioned that no black people
responded to the jury summonses and that Bell's public defender was black. 

	It's almost never mentioned that Bell's absentee father returned
from Dallas and re-entered his son's life only after Bell faced
attempted-murder charges. At a bond hearing in August, Bell's father and a
parade of local ministers promised a judge that they would supervise Bell if
he was released from prison. 

	Where were the promises and supervision before any of this?

	It's rarely mentioned that Bell was already on probation for assault
when he was accused of participating in Barker's attack. And it's never
mentioned that white people in the "racist" town of Jena provided Bell
support and protected his football career long before Jesse, Al, Bell's
father and all the others took a sincere interest in Mychal Bell. 

	You won't hear about any of that because it doesn't fit the picture
we want to paint of Jena, this case, America and ourselves.We don't practice
preventive medicine. Mychal Bell needed us long before he was cuffed and
jailed. Here is another undeniable, statistical fact: The best way for a
black (or white) father to ensure that his son doesn't fall victim to a
racist prosecutor is by participating in his son's life on a daily basis.  

	That fact needed to be shared Thursday in Jena. The constant
preaching of that message would short-circuit more potential "Jena Six"
cases than attributing random acts of six-on-one violence to three-month-old
nooses. 

	And I am in no way excusing the nooses. The responsible kids
should've been expelled. A few years after I'd graduated, a similar incident
happened at my high school involving our best football player, a future NFL
tight end. He was expelled. 

	The Jena school board foolishly overruled its principal and
suspended the kids for three days.

	But the kids responsible for Barker's beating deserve to be
punished. The prosecutor needed to be challenged on his excessive charges.
And we as black folks need to question ourselves about why too many of us
can only get energized to help our young people once they're in harm's way. 

	I've been the spokesman for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Greater
Kansas City for six years. Getting black men to volunteer to mentor for just
two hours a week to the more than 100 black boys on a waiting list is a
yearly crisis. It's a nationwide crisis for the organization. In Kansas
City, we're lucky if we get 20 black Big Brothers a year. 

	You don't want to see any more "Jena Six" cases? Love Mychal Bell
before he violently breaks the law.