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Some issues are complicated. Some issues are crystal
clear. For Socialist Action, what's going on in Jena is very simple and very
clear. The worst traditions of the racist "Old South" have
raised their sheeted heads. They must be stopped and stopped now.
We
know what we're against:
-African American teenagers being threatened with
the hated "hanging noose" for the crime of sitting under a
shade tree under the hot Louisiana sun.
-School officials saying that hanging a lynch rope is a
"prank" punishable by a slap on the wrist
-A white youth threatens three black students with a shot gun. The
young men wrestle the shotgun away. They are charged with second degree
robbery and theft of a fire arm for taking this racist's weapon away
from him!
-Justin Barker, fresh from taunting students with the "N
word" gets into a fight with other students. Barker was briefly
hospitalized after that scuffle. He was back at a school function that
very same day. For this six young men; Robert Bailey, Theo Shaw, Carwin
Jones, Bryant Purvis, Mychal Bell and a minor, were originally charged
with second degree murder by La Salle Parish District Attorney Reed
Walters
-Mychal Bell, the first of the Jena 6 to go to trial, was found guilty
of aggravated battery and conspiracy.
-Now, this racist nightmare is beginning to unravel. Mychal's
conspiracy charge has been thrown out; the battery conviction has been
overturned and the Appeals Court has decided that Mychal should have
been tried as a juvenile. However, he has been denied bail while the
District Attorney appeals.
-The authorities in Jena
have tried to disrupt the rapidly growing protest movement. Jena
officials set up road blocks to check the buses going to the
magnificent demonstration of tens of thousands on September 20.
We
know what we're for:
- Free Mychal Bell! Drop the charges against the
rest of the Jena 6!
-The September 20 demonstration in Jena was exactly the right response. This
well-organized and peaceful march, which brought tens of thousands of
anti-racists through the streets of Jena, has been called the beginning
of a new civil rights movement. Demonstrations of this type let
defenders of African American rights feel their collective power. They
provide an excellent means to involve the large numbers of Americans
who have been outraged at the racist miscarriage of justice in Louisiana.
Marches of this type harken back to the great traditions of the last
civil rights movement and provide a glimpse of how the power of mass
social struggle can change society.
-Many college campuses are organizing demonstrations in solidarity with
the Jena 6. This promising youth movement needs to be built on,
encouraged and broadened to include the entire country.
-Jena shows us who our friends are and who our enemies are. In building
a movement to defend the Jena 6, we should make a special effort to
reach out to the Arab American and Muslim communities. Since 9/11, they
have been on the receiving end of a brutal racist barrage. They are the
natural allies of an anti-racist movement and by defending them we
defend ourselves. The same is the case for the immigrant victims of the
racist ICE raids, designed to instill terror in working people in the
interests of corporate exploiters. Labor too must champion the cause of
the Jena 6. "An injury to one is an injury to all!"
-Despicable Jena, hateful Jena, the Jena where KKK leader David Duke received a
huge vote, is sadly only one part of a much larger story. From gross
inequalities in school funding to widening Black/white wage differentials,
from daily indignities such as being stopped for "Driving While
Black" to systematic lack of economic opportunity, racism is a
fundamental building block of American capitalism Our rulers use skin
color to turn us against one another and to try to stop us from
building a united workers movement against them. Each and every form of
racism needs to be fought, from Jena to the ICE raids against
immigrants, to the attacks on the Arab and Muslim communities.
For more information on how to get involved: http://www.freethejena6.org
Socialist Action, a multi-racial revolutionary socialist party
with branches in 25 U.S. cities, is part of the developing national
movement to defend and free the Jena 6. A united struggle can win their
freedom now. Join us! Socialist Action www.socialistaction.org
P.O. Box 10328, Oakland,
CA 94610 Call: 510-268-9429
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