It’s a stone cold Mess!
I don’t want to talk about Kim Porter leaving pity Diddy, behind the fact that, he fathered yet another child with “a friend” or the fact that; Prophetess Juanita Bynum and her husband Bishop Thomas Weeks had an altercation in the parking lot of an Atlanta hotel and now she’s seeking divorce. I don’t want to talk about how another televangelist, Paula White and her husband Randy White are getting a divorce or how these televangelist put their names on their ministries instead of God’s. I also don’t want to address, how Bobby Brown and Whitney Houston are in a child custody battle over their daughter “Bobbi Kristina”, while battling a serious drug addiction at the same time. I don’t want to talk about the $10 million dollar sexual harassment lawsuit filed by Anucha Browne Sanders against New York Knicks coach Isaiah Thomas. I really don’t want to talk about Melanie Brown’s (spice girls) paternity suit against Eddie Murphy or how he (Eddie Murphy) paid Mel B to have his baby to fan the flames of him being gay. And I definitely don’t want to talk about the recent arrest and setup of OJ Simpson for recovering his memorabilia out of a Las Vegas hotel. There are so many other blogs out here doing a fantastic job with elaborating on all of the above subjects.
I do however want to talk about the Jena 6. You know the story about a group of African American high school students in Jena, Louisiana, who asked the school for permission to sit beneath a "whites only" shade tree. There was an unwritten rule that blacks couldn't sit beneath the tree. The school said they didn't care where students sat. The next day, students arrived at school to see three nooses (in school colors) hanging from the tree. The boys who hung the nooses were suspended from school for a few days. The school administration chalked it up as a harmless prank, but Jena's black population didn't take it so lightly. Fights and unrest started breaking out at school. The District Attorney, Reed Walters, was called in to directly address black students at the school and told them all he could "end their life with a stroke of the pen". Black students were assaulted at white parties. A white man drew a loaded rifle on three black teens at a local convenience store. (They wrestled it from him and ran away.) Someone tried to burn down the school, and on December 4th, a fight broke out that led to six black students being charged with attempted murder. To his word, the D.A. pushed for maximum charges, which carry sentences of eighty years. Four of the six are being tried as adults (ages 17 & 18) and two are juveniles.
So now, world renown activist, the Rev. Al Sharpton, along with his cohorts; Jesse Jackson, rapper Mos Def, students from historically Black colleges, the ACLU, NAAP and Tens of thousands of protestors from all over the nation are expected to light on the little town of Jena, La., this Thursday (September 20, 2007) to stand against a legal system they say is racist. In all but one case, the charges have since been reduced. This situation is not only an injustice but the legal system has it out for young black men in America. And without Justice, there can surely be no peace. So while some of us are focusing on the garbage and the gossip; the enemy’s aim is to take us back, back to segregation, back to the hatred, the bigotry and prejudice. My question is this, have we really overcome? It’s a stone cold mess!
You can sign the Jena 6 petition here
