Guest Post — The Blogger Formerly Known As Sylvia on the Jena Six

[ Note from Kai: I'm thrilled to bring you this guest-post from The Blogger Formerly Known As Sylvia, who now operates under the handle "M", in response to the recent blow-up of the Jena Six story. Many of you will remember that M played a key role in promoting the story in May, and in conceiving and guiding the formulation of the DOJ petition. Unfortunately her now-legendary site The Anti-Essentialist Conundrum is gone, but M is still around and offers this powerful reflection on anti-racist legal activism.]

Have a Glimmer of Understanding, Or Go Home — About the Jena Six
by M (formerly known as Sylvia)

When I stopped blogging not too long ago, the Jena Six case was one reason among many that I decided to quit. I was disheartened a little, even as the petition kept growing and the images were spreading. I was worried that the case wasn't sexy enough, and I was afraid to do more work because it seemed like my work among those I considered my peers wasn't honored. If I casually did something reckless or made myself scarce from a project, it eventually got done. I felt like one of those armchair revolutionaries, obsolete, and I wanted to celebrate finishing my first year of law school, but I couldn't. I wanted to run down to Jena and play Perry Mason after a tan and a sex change, but I couldn't. At the same time, I felt knots in my stomach because of how late the U.S. seemed to pick up the case in its own backyard. I first got a Chicago Tribune article from Shawn Williams sometime in May, and I posted something a few days later. But when I looked for coverage, I found more information abroad from BBC, the New Zealand Herald, and eventually Le Monde in France (a link that appeared on my blog that I cannot retrieve now) than I found in America where the case was taking place. (Though my hometown paper, The Baltimore Sun, did surprise me by picking it up on its wire early — likely because we've had our own racial unrest issues in our amorphous Mason-Dixon state.) I worried heavily that people wouldn't care because our media didn't care; people wouldn't care because they'd think they're criminals and criminals are thrown to the wolves; people wouldn't care because it's merely a pet issue that race conscious people indulge in so they can cock their berets to the side later and say, "Yeah, I tapped that."

My issues with the Jena Six are similar to the issues I had with the Shaquanda Cotton case. Both cases involved young black Americans who reacted to an institution's indifference with physical retaliation. (If you believe the "noose incident" build-up idea, as I do, you understand this sentence.) Both cases resulted in long and amorphous punishments that placed ridiculous standards of criminality and punishment on young men and women. (For example, in the Shaquanda Cotton case, her stay at the youth correction facility after one year was prolonged because "contraband" was found in her quarters — more than required pairs of socks and a styrofoam cup. In the Jena Six, the charge of "battery" was amplified to "assault with a deadly weapon" or "aggravated battery" — depending on your jurisdiction — because the fighters were wearing shoes.) Both cases left little to the imagination about the purposes of these sentences — they wanted to teach a lesson. Not to the students, but to the students' local communities as well — any step out of line will be your last step. In both cases, the internet galvanized (and still galvanizes) a larger community — the largest jury, perhaps, since the ones formed in Ancient Athens — and it established a different standard of review to which the criminal justice system reluctantly yields: the verdicts handed down by public opinion and outrage.

However, the public's interest in this case should be manifold. Kai (bless him!) has given a foundation for dialogue about where to go from here:

The good news is that we — meaning, our little corner of blogland — are presently sitting on a piece of heavy political artillery: our petition addressed to the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice, which has now gathered almost 400,000 signatures and is still going strong as ever. I've been corresponding closely with Tom (who posted and is maintaining the petition in the face of near-constant racist spam attacks) about what to do with this hefty list of names. We're planning on launching a simple website dedicated to the petition and Jena 6 activism, a place which activists and journalists can google to find out what's going on. We're planning on putting together a press release about the petition (in response to interest from the media) and a coalition-building memo seeking collaboration and participation from all interested parties. We're looking for help, both in terms of ideas and execution.

On the heels of Shaquanda Cotton being "freed" from the confines of the Texas Youth Commission, steps towards reform of the entire system (reported by Eddie Griffin here) were in the works. Cases like those of Cotton, the Jena Six, and similar cases stand to benefit greatly from state-based and federal-based legal activism and lobbying for fair sentencing. A presumption of innocence in the court of public opinion is rare, and the same presumptions trailing into the courtroom are legal fictions. We all need to play our part in eradicating these legal and political specters because our examples and exceptions have become bureaucratically generated rules for inadequately processing and grossly over-incarcerating deviant behaviors by young and old people of color, from the minuscule to the severe. (For example, mandatory minimum sentencing, anyone?) And to narrow the focus of our fight, Mychal Bell is still in jail. Out of true legal process? Out of absolute stubbornness that outsiders see fit to control a racially tainted and unjust legal proceeding? Out of fear? We have yet to see where this move will lead, but we can't slack up in our energy to follow through and to fight.

So what glimmer of understanding do I wish to impart? Very simply, the Jena Six is not a matter of guilt or innocence. If you think this case is about dancing and singing with Al Sharpton in Jena while wearing black, go home or bury some soap or something. If you view this case as a stepping stone for your own self-aggrandizement here there and everywhere, sit at home and think a few seconds before stepping back out again. If you think this case is only about freeing these young men, you're half-steppin'. If you view the Jena Six incident as uppity newcomer Negroes wanting to start some ruckus, then please go back to your guard post under your bridge. Denial about a person's criminal actions in a case is unwanted. This fight is not about what we can do to stop people from being criminals (though there's no denying that goal is important); it is about what happens when those people are already within the criminal justice system and cannot afford an OJ-style legal Dream Team. (Unlike the amorphous debates over God and hip-hop, Johnnie Cochran is dead — bless his soul.) Even if those six teenagers are guilty of participating in a school fight, the penalty of decades in prison does not fit the crime. If our mainstream media watchdogs are sleeping on the job or are too busy staring up Britney's skirt, we will lose people to our system routinely burying them under the jail in a matter of days because of insufficient representation, reckless convictions on circumstantial evidence, inadequate investigations, the wonders of a legal device known as a peremptory strike, and many other devices and systemic indifferences that ensure any perception of a person's equal justice under the law is gone. The Jena Six punishment scheme is steeped in racial animus, even if the average Jena citizen's colorblindness is kicking into stratospheric oblivion (wait for the Jena librarian's explanation). Even as the citizen of a neighboring Louisiana town shows his biases and hostility proudly. If an overall goal must be set that encompasses the legal concessions of the past few months, that goal is fair sentencing and legal processing for people of color. If a specific goal must be set that is targeted towards Robert Bailey, Jesse Baird, Mychal Bell, Carwin Jones, Bryant Purvis, and Theodore Shaw, it is a fair trial with adequate legal representation and sentencing proportionate to their offenses if it is determined that they are guilty.

Whatever direction you choose, remember to speak out about it before there's no one left to speak for you.

~ ~ ~

Much love to my lovelies Vox, BFP, Black Amazon, Dr. Elle, and Donna Darko. You are all women the world requires. Also, Tom, the AfroSpear think tank and the Afrosphere Bloggers Association — keep moving mountains.

Comments

[Nightprowlkitty]

Oh this is such a tough challenge. I have been following the stories about the Jena 6, the stories about folks who lived in public housing in NOLA and who have been refused return, about the larger communities in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast who have been screwed around by so many who have power, I have read so many stories of injustice that my head is spinning.

I think kai makes an important point in her previous post that encompasses everything here, imo. Equal protection under the law. If the laws only protect some and not others, then the law has failed. It is in the enforcement of these laws that the problem lies -- and if it is more than that, more than just a problem of enforcement, then there are problems in the laws themselves that need to be dealt with.

In the case of the Jena 6 the enforcement of law was unequal -- in such a blatant fashion as to boggle the mind.

To me, the problem is trying to track each individual story of social injustice -- there are so many that I find my mind reaching to see some overarching mneumonic(sp?) so that I can remember them all and somehow see how they fit in a larger picture.

Thus far that larger picture has become Equal Protection Under the Law. As a starting point. I know there is much more to learn, but for now that will be the basis of how I view these injustices.

Thank you for posting this great essay.

[Nezua Limón Xolagrafik-Jonez]

kick ass, M. you said it very well. this is a fantastic post.

and you've helped, that's what matters. even if nobody else does or knows. you acted on your conscience, and you made a difference. bottom line.

i know its hard for deep-feeling people out here. we can only do what we feel is our part and try not to let everything tear our hearts up. actually, i think you've said as much! of course...i dont follow that advice, either. i am right there with you on that. you tore up your blog...something i dream of doing very often. but hey, i'm a dreamer.

hilarious take on Prince's nombre. and damn its good to see you up in this place, this intranix. hope to see more....soon. :)

[elle]

M, loving you right back.

And, as to why Mychal Bell is still in jail?

Out of absolute stubbornness that outsiders see fit to control a racially tainted and unjust legal proceeding?

I'm going with that one.

[M]

Thank you, Nightprowlkitty; Kai does raise a good point about equal protection. His thinking is on the right track in that the injustices do violate fundamental rights, but the scope of legal reform for these issues is very broad. And you're also right about how difficult it would be for citizens to attempt to track all of these cases. Maybe there's a way to follow the example of Deidra of Black and Missing and track things along those lines. But we can't lighten up the fight, you know?

Hee, thank you Nez. And all I can really say in response is I know, I'm trying, it hurts, you are, and ain't it great? :) I'm anxious to start blogging again soon, after my class schedule calms down a little. I'm still going to chime in when and where I can, but I'm getting weak in the knuckles thinking about it. I miss it. I miss everybody. (And I'm lucky to have teamed up with one of the most chill and trill Asian male bloggers on the 'sphere for this one, no?)

[M]

Dr. Elle, I think that's it too, and there's also an element of fear that "their" blacks won't be so safe anymore to manipulate. I mean, come on. Leaving the town? Refusing to show up to a court proceeding? Talk about a bunch of people afraid to do their dirt in full light's view.

[Carmen D.]

So good to 'see' you M. I learned about the Jena 6 from you. And it's true, this is so hard I find myself catching my breath at times. The latest salvo is an AP story that is so factually wrong (kids playing on two nooses) and wrong in tone that I feel almost defeated. It has caught fire in the chat rooms. And by the time a retraction/correction is printed, the damage will surely have been done.

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20070922/D8RQQDF80.html

[b. medusa]

this post brought tears to my eyes, for so many different reasons. i am so, so glad to read your words again (& what great words they are). i'm not good @ expressing myself, so this prolly sounds lame. but when you went away it felt like there was an irreparable hole in the blogosphere.

[M]

Good seeing you too, Carmen, and I saw that disgusting article. Talk about missing the point entirely. That's what happens when ignorance gets confused with journalism.

Thank you, b. medusa; I really appreciate it. I feel a sting in my heart whenever I look at what I did, but...I don't know. I'm not sure what to say about why I did it. All I can say is I want to return, and so I'm doing what I can. And I'm grateful for you and others who care so much. You have no idea how much, but I am. :) So thank you.

[brownfemipower]

If our mainstream media watchdogs are sleeping on the job or are too busy staring up Britney's skirt, we will lose people to our system routinely burying them under the jail in a matter of days because of insufficient representation, reckless convictions on circumstantial evidence, inadequate investigations, the wonders of a legal device known as a peremptory strike, and many other devices and systemic indifferences that ensure any perception of a person's equal justice under the law is gone.

right on. this is why it's so fucking essential that we incorporate media justice into our movement making. and I personally don't think we should say "if"--I think we should say "because", you know? They *are* sleeping on the job--they *are* more concerned about big fat shaved alcoholic brittany than they are human beings being regularly and systematically destroyed.

and much love back to you, xo

[Vox]

BfP's right. I still can't get over how that crime reporter from Miami had an MSNBC interview about Stepha Henry (a missing black woman) cancelled because Paris Hilton was going to jail. Hours and hours of television coverage and wire story after wire story about some rich girl who drove drunk, and not a word outside of the local area about a woman being kidnapped.

Whatever direction you choose, remember to speak out about it before there's no one left to speak for you.

That should be quoted everywhere.

Good to see you blogging again, M. :-)

[brownfemipower]

btw, just in case it wasn't clear, me calling brittany 'big fat'etc was being totally sarcastic. just thought i should say. :-)

[M]

Naw, BFP, you're just relaying "accurate truth seekin' journalism" from what I can see. ;) And you're absolutely right about this case being media justice in action.

Vox, that whole situation was deplorable, and your recent entry taking the media to task for its casual minimization of sex crimes was fucking on point. It's worrisome to be afraid of how much we don't know as a nation because of our mainstream media outlets.

[Yolanda Carrington]

Thank you for this amazing critique, M. I'm so happy to hear your voice again.

Oh lord---so many injustices, so little humanpower and time. Sometimes it's too easy to just say what the hell and give up. For me, mental health strategies are the key to fighters' success. That's a lesson I had to learn this year.

[Shawn Williams]

Sylvia I have really missed you. Take care of yourself.

[belledame222]

I'd be thrilled if/when you start blogging again, by any other name; and thank you for this post.

[M]

Thanks, Yolanda, and I agree about the mental health strategies. A while back, Fire Fly at She Who Stumbles wrote about an activist she knew who emphasized the importance of mental health when engaging in this kind of work. (The same activist unfortunately committed suicide; may she rest in peace.) But the emotional and mental toll of reading and absorbing stories and information like this in all parts of the world...it's grueling. You want to say, "fuck this; I'm going home." But you can't because this is home. And you've gotta deal with it somehow.

Shawn, congratulations on all the opportunities coming your way; every time I get news about your exposure I have a mini-celebration. It's so awesome. :) And I'm trying to do just that.

Thank you, belle. :)

[Blackamazon]

I heart you all days everyday

[D1Invador]

This is a great post! I would add that it is important that we contextualize the issue of unequal justice for and to those in the media who are unable or unwilling to do so. One way approach this is for our eloquent sisters and brothers who blog or write to editors to concentrate our efforts and target one or two main outlets, say CNN and Fox, and help them be accountable. I think if we pushed hard to have the full story be told by one then the rest will follow like the sheep they all are. It's also important that we begin to put forward the younger leaders because, right or wrong, Sharpton and Jackson have particular associations in America's psyche and their names can be conjured up on cue to create all sorts of angst like a cruel joke. Don't get me wrong I live in NY and if something goes down I'd probably call Sharpton but I think the Jena 6 issues opens up the space for our younger leaders to ascent. Lastly, in general we need to have speakers that are much more discipline in their understanding and delivery of the facts, and particularly in this case. If we learn one thing for the Republicans it is their ability to stay on message and if our messengers are unable to deliver a consistent message then there is no way we can move the debate.

[Joan Kelly]

I love this post, I love you Sylvia, and I love you always again Kai for having guest bloggers who amaze and uplift no matter where they pop up.

And Elle - I can't leave a comment at your blog until I stop forgetting and actually get either a Google or Blogger account, but in the mean time just want to tell you in case you come back to this thread that I love your blog, and especially the recent post "To the Progressive White Blogosphere."

Thanks, all of you in this thread and movement.

[Ledelle Muhammad]

I'd like to thank you all for your diligent work in bringing this matter to light. I am a native resident of the state of Louisiana currently living in Chicago. For many years these types of injustices have been commonplay. They are the result of many things, but none as scarring as the inadequate educational system that is rampant throughout the state. Black men have no choice but to become willing participants in the newest phase of "the plantation." they'd rather be institutionalized in prisons than going home to entire neighborhoods which are poverty-stricken and riddled with despair. Until hurricane Katrina many of the residents of the city of New Orleans never left the state, and still many of them are now finding it impossible to live in the places where they are currently. I was fortunate enough to had been given a scholarship to a university that took me away some years ago. If there is a better education given to us as Black men and women along with a true knowledge of self, I believe that these incidents would subside because a wise man once said "the end of all education is to know God and to know the laws which govern his universe ... " I pray that all of you continue in the spirit of healing and repairing the moral and legal decay that places us all in danger and that you continue the fight

[Kai]

Thanks for all the wonderful, heartfelt, insightful comments! It's a great discussion. And of course thanks most of all to M for visiting her magic upon this humble blog! I invited M to guest post here because I know that she's an inspiration to many, and I know that it takes inspiration to sustain oneself in a long uphill endeavor, inspiration fueled not just by fear or vanity or greed but by our higher natures. Inspiration, perspiration, determination, patience, urgency, heartbreak, humor, timing, some luck. It's been a hell of a week for movement-building. There's still lots of momentum to ride; so let's keep on building.

Peace.

[Kevin]

God Sylvia, I miss you! This is great and right on the money. And yeah, Kai. Thanks for all that you do too.

[M]

D1Invador:

I would add that it is important that we contextualize the issue of unequal justice for and to those in the media who are unable or unwilling to do so. One way approach this is for our eloquent sisters and brothers who blog or write to editors to concentrate our efforts and target one or two main outlets, say CNN and Fox, and help them be accountable.

I believe there are some folks in AfroSpear who are trying this route in press releases. The heat needs to stay on the media outlets; I agree. And while I agree we should shape a message and stay on it, we'll have a one-up on the Rethuglicans with the same tactic -- we'll be telling the truth. ;) Thank you for your comment.

I love you too, Joan. You need a blog, woman! I mean, I've heard that's the easiest way to get a Blogger account...just sayin'... ;)

Ledelle, thank you for your comment and your prayers. I generally agree with the idea of black people and people of color as a whole developing healthy individual and collective senses of self, but the readiness and getting there is all.

Kevin! Thank you, and I miss y'all.

And thank you, Kai, for all that you do and that you've done. :)