BlackPerspective.net

Afrosphere Jena 6 Coalition

First and foremost I want to thank everybody for participating and making the day a success. That goes for bloggers as well as readers who contacted somebody in the media to urge them to pick up this critical story.

Foremost I want to thank the Advisory Group that helped me put together the press release www.pr.com/press-release/50358, pick the day and publicize the event: Zoe @ purplezoe.blogspot.com/, Villager @ electronicvillage.blogspot.com, &
Francis Holland @ afrospear.jconserv.net/

We had over 25 blogs participate from around the country. There were some great post made, and all dissemination of information helps the Jena 6; but I think a lot of us lost focus in that we missed that this specific event was to enlist the media to pick up the story. Most did not mention this to their readers and did not post the media contact list so that readers could urge media outlets to do so.

Having more people sign the petition is great, having them contact various government officials is fine, but I came up with the media strategy because obviously the number of people contacting government wasn’t sufficient enough to get them to move. I thought we needed to get the story in to the media more so that a greater number of people would know about it, and hopefully create a critical mass of outcry that government would then have to respond to.

So the ideal was to have focused intensity on one goal, rather than have all our mailing and calling being spread out all over the place.

Nonetheless I think we pulled off something good, and generated more momentum.

But to contact the media: www.fair.org/index.php?page=111
Or you can try this new one I got from Eddie Griffin: www.congress.org/congressorg/dbq/media/

Some Early Results

I got a call first thing in the morning when I sat down in my chair at work. An on Air Radio reporter called me from Little Rock Arkansas. She hadn’t heard of the story until a caller mentioned it to her yesterday morning, and then she got a hold of our campaign. She interviewed me, and along with doing a story on it, she says she has a wire that it will go out on. I’ll be in touch with her Monday to see if I can get more specifics on where things are going with that story.

I’ve had some contact from Color of Change. If you’re going to the September 20 rally in Jena, go here and RSVP; they’re trying to coordinate the effort.

Zoe saw a 5 minute news report on MSNBC yesterday. I don’t know if our press release had anything to do with it; but I’m sure the sustained efforts of bloggers and other internet media outlets keeping this story alive did.

Edited to add, @ 2:38pm CST: Just got a call from a women who does a morning radio talk show in Youngstown Ohio. She found out about us yesterday through google alert. I was able to put her intouch with colorofchange.org who is organizing in Jena so she can have someone come on the air and organize in Youngstown.

Any Comments?

If you missed part 1

Continuing the list…

Guy - 1988: A long with the EMPD cassett I mentioned in the first post, these were the first tapes I’d ever gotten. This was an album fused with soul and energy - it was the start of the New Jack Swing era engineered by Teddy Riely.

I didn’t understand just quiet how good it was at the time. Then after I had put it a side for about four years, and pulled it to listen to it again, I realized it was some damn good music. I didn’t have anything to compare it to before, but after about 100 albums later, I realized that everyone doesn’t make good albums front to back. It’s still the benchmark for a good soul album for me. It’s always great to pull out to listen to, take you back and here that classic 80s sound.

KRS One - Boom Bap - 1994: This album articulated hip hop for me and why I loved it. It also laid out a great great black empowerment foundation that you can see reflected in this very blog.

It provided the lyricism I had been missing as Hip Hop had fallen into a commercial drudge, and just really spoke to me. Great concepts, great rhymes and great production provided by the like of Kid Capri and my now all time favorite produce Dj Premier.

I have to put this one as a package deal - Wu Tang’s 36 chambers in 1994 and the first group of solos right after it (particularly Meths, ODB, GZA & Raekwan): This wave changed the sound of music and brought back the bare knuckles, ruff rugged and raw Hip Hop.

It’s hard to quantify. They brought great energy and excitement to the game and just reflected my grim attitude at the time. Also their music had a depth of substance and ideology, that harkened back to Rakim, that was largely missing in the game at that time.

The Saga Continutes…

If you’re not familiar with the Jena Six issue you can read the Amy Goodman piece at Seattlepi

Since you may not read this whole post, I want to ask you up front to please call, email or postal mail the national media to urge them to cover this story. A list of media contacts can be found here.

Back to the story of the Jena 6 - Essentially at the high school there was a whites only tree that the white kids hung out under. Black students asked the school administration if they could go under the tree. The administration said anyone could, and the Black students did. The next day, 3 nooses where hung in the tree.

The uproar somehow brought the district attorney out to the school for an assembly where he threatened the Black students that he could “end [their] lives with a stroke of a pen”. After a Black student was jumped and another threatened with a shot gun off campus; there ended up being a school fight where a white student ended up in the hospital for a few hours. When the dust settled from all these events 3 white students had been suspended for 3 days and 6 Black students had been charged with attempted murder and conspiracy.

Mychael Bell has now been convicted and is looking at 22 years, with sentencing on September 20.

Mostly due to blog and other net activities, a campaign has been pushed to get Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco and the U.S. Justice Department to step in and confront these civil rights abuses by Jena government officials.

For Governor Blanco’s part, she has brushed off all accountability and concern with a ridiculous form letter response to those who contact her office, essentially saying that she can’t do anything because the executive branch is separate from the judicial branch, and this is purely a judicial matter. That form letter response can be seen in italics in the middle of this post.

I responded to this balderdash in a letter I sent to Blanco’s office, as seen here, noting that 1) She has every ability to raise her voice for justice and two her administration has every ability and duty to confront civil rights abuses by local governments in her state; stating:

I implore you to have the state Attorney General’s Office to act on these civil rights abuses and abuses of power by the local police and prosecutor’s in Jena Louisiana. Sitting by idle, watching these racial abuses transpire; declaring this to be a local issue will only put you in company with many southern governors of times gone by.

As for the U.S. Justice Department, all they did was hold a community forum to pacify people. It’s not the Justice Departments job to hold fluffy, feel good, unity sessions, it’s the Justice’s Departments job to investigate and prosecute civil and constitutional rights transgressions.

Seeing that these appeals to government both nationally and in the state were not engendering a real response, I realize that that we need a critical mass of public outcry to get these people to discharge their duties; as politicians don’t much care about doing the right thing, but they do care about public pressure from their constituents.

Noticing that the national and mainstream media have largely ignored this story, I put forth the ideal of a campaign to recruit the media to do it’s job, so the nation in mass will know what’s going on in order to build and outcry of critical mass that the politicians will have to respond to; and the bloggosphere has stepped up.

The Afrosphere Jena 6 Coalition’s press release in part reads:

The Jena 6 issue, like Katrina, highlights how some people receive deference in treatment over others. “The Jim Crow style racism and government negligence, reflected in the Jena 6 case, are both quite worrisome. Unfortunately, the case is another incident that points to the entrenched racial and socio-economic disparities in the South, which this country has yet to fully confront,” says political scientist Dr. Sekou Franklin of Middle Tennessee State University. As the Congressional Black Caucus has noted “we must speak out against injustice and inequality. This tale of two standards depicts a pattern of gross violations”.

The The Afrosphere Jena 6 Coalition “ask that the mainstream traditional media step forward and discharge their duty to provide coverage of this vitally important event to their viewers and readers and act as “the fourth institution” of governmental “checks and balance” that constitutional framers intended the press to be.”

Read the full release at www.pr.com/press-release/50358

Again, with this in mind, I hope YOU will step up to the challenge of contacting at least just five national media outlets. What is it for you to put some email addresses in a send box, type up or copy a few words, and hit send? Better yet though, if you have a printer it would be great to print those same letters off, sign your name, and drop them in the mail. I think it’s easier for a large news company to ignore an in box full of emails, but not to ignore mail bends full of letters staring them in the face in their office. A flood of calls would be great too. Maybe you could do this every week until they get the message. Just take whatever little time you have to do your part. If we all just do a little, a whole lot will get accomplished.

The Median Contact List Is Here!

Watch this Democracy Now youtube video on the Jena 6 issue.

The Jena 6 Defense Fund mention in the piece is an NAACP Fund. The address for you to donate is
PO Box 2798
Jena, LA 71342

There will be a mass rally in Jena on September 20th, the day Mychael Bell is to be sentenced, with people coming from all around the country. This is it people - this is the moment that this generation will take a stand. We will not let racist attacks on us quietly continue. We will not let Jim Crow come back! If you have the means to make it, you need to be there.

Other InJustices To Keep In Mind

Kenneth Foster
Darfur
Genarlow Wilson
Dunbar Village - Watch Video

First, If anyone is looking the Blogging for Justice, Jena 6 post - that was initially going to be today, but it’s tomorrow.

I thought I’d give you guys some sites from my trip down to the Gulf Coast last month. The story on my observations can be seen at Katrina: Nearly Two Years Later.

I have a lot more pics from New Orleans, but they’re not on CD yet. Maybe, though I doubt it; I can have them for you Friday afternoon.

Hard Rock Cafe and Casion in Boloxi MS

This is our Family House in Ocean Springs Mississippi that my great-grandad built about 65 years ago. It weathered a bit of Katrina damage, but is still standing strong after all these decades. I slept there for a couple of nights while on this trip after all. Thanks Sharita(sp)!

This is a home with the rescue worker markings still on it two years later; marking how many people were found dead in the home. There were many houses still with these markings in New Orleans, especially out East.

Speaks for itself - New Orleans

This was a pretty typical scene.

You can see the pile of debri on the street. According to my cousin this was very wide spread back in Nov of ‘06 when he had last been there before this, but we didn’t see much of it last month.

Sorry this one is so big, but when I made it smaller you couldn’t see the full impact.

This is a combo of two screen shots of reporting during the week of the rescue that you might remember. It shows another of the disparities and deferences in treatmeant I talked about in todays earlier article. Here it is the disparities in media reporting - clearly racist reporting. Black people are looters and white people “find” stuff that doesn’t belong to them.

This one you also would not have been albe to read the text in the smaller version.

…A Study In Disparities and Deferential Treatment

Even though tomorrow is the official Day of Bogging for Justice it really starts today.

I’ve already recently given you my perspective on the current condition after taking my first trip back to Biloxi and New Orleans since Katrina, earlier this summer: Katrina Nearly Two Years Later. So you can check that out for the layout of the situation, and I can get straight to other issues here.

Katrina has highlighted many disparities, both micro and macro; which are racial, social and economic.

On the micro level, prisoners where left to wallow in flood waters in prisons; even minors. Elderly in nursing homes, who were of no particular means, were left to drown. And those who couldn’t afford transportation and or lodging if they were to leave; were left to fend for themselves - and for the most part those same type of people still are. My personal visit to the Lower 9th Ward, as documented in Katrina Nearly Two Years Later makes me certain of that. Not to mention that renters are getting almost no help, with rental units being 3 times what they cost before the storm.

On a micro level, politics is being played with this recovery effort. Mississippians lost much as well as New Orleans and St. Bernard Parish in Louisiana; and certainly needed grave financial assistance form the federal recovery legislation. But shouldn’t the amounts distributed be relative to the damage received, or something there about?

Mississippians often complain about New Orleans receiving an unfair amount of the Katrina and post-Katrina coverage. But it only counts were it counts and Mississippi has received, under legislation passed by the republican congress in charge for the first year and a half after Katrina; a disproportionate amount of the relief funding from congress over Louisiana. This Times Picayune article highlights the accusations by former FEMA Director Michael Brown that the response to Katrina was late partially because the White House wanted to upstage Democratic Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco, but did not take the same approach towards Mississippi because it’s Governor Haley Barber is a Republican.

The power position of Haley Barber and the Mississippi Congressional Delegation that contains some powerful Republican legislators; including former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott who loss property during Katrina; has long been scene as causing the federal government to have lent Mississippi a more friendly and generous hand in funding and rebuilding.

But this article by Salon.com suggest that even within Mississippi, the deeper your pockets are the more money you get, as it claims that Haley Barber has focused much more of the recovery money on Casino Counties while allowing other counties to financially go under.

There are many of us around who are commenting on Katrina today and the effects on the survivors. But on a new website just launched last week, Voices From The Gulf, you can hear from those people themselves.

Also if you want to keep up with the recovery try Yahoo’s Katrina page. I used to read there every day, well at least every week day when I was at work, for most of the first year after the storm.

The media’s performance has been abysmal in recent years. From refusing to challenge Bush on his obviously false claims in the run up to the Iraq war, and basically acting as the White House Press office; to CBS “tarting up” the news as Dan Rather described the decision to bring on Katie Couric; to Rather himself destroying what I believe to be a truthful argument, that G.W. Bush largely skipped out on his national guard service during Vietnam, by knowingly using fabricated evidence to produce an “I got’ya” moment; to the obsessive Hollywood Blond Bimbo coverage and general celebrity pabulum that passes for so-called news.

One of the most disconcerting areas of media monkey business is its manner of selectiveness in determining which missing persons to cover; that selectiveness being based on prettiness and race.

It is undeniable that nearly every missing person story that becomes a national craze are (mostly blond) attractive white women or adorable white girls.

A blogger named Deidra is letting us know that there are also black women and girls who are Missing But Not Forgotten.

We know there’s only so much time for so many missing persons stories to be covered in the national news, though there’d be more time if so much air wasn’t devoted to repeating the same celebrity tripe throughout the day; but why are only white women important? It’s apparent by the fact that even blond “attractive” white women going to court are way more important than black women who are missing and feared dead, as seen by how MSNBC bumped an interview with police about the disappearance of Stepha Henry because they had to do play-by-play coverage of the important story that was Parish Hilton arriving at a court house.

Watch the clip below for The Original Stepha Henry Store for the 5 minutes Fox did cover it - I had problems with this video constantly pausing. Don’t know if it was the video or my computer. But I got through the main part of the story okay.

Petition for media to cover missing black women like they do missing white women

Listen to this Commentary - I don’t agree with some of his statements at the end; but the media analysis was good.

In line with my philosophy of giving credited where credit is due: Though I despise the loud mouth, obnoxious, hen pecking, undignified antics of Nancy Grace, and would gladly stomp on her larynx in a way that would make Albert Haynesworth proud in order to quiet her cackling; it has to be noted that she routinely covers black missing women and children; and does so far and away above any other national media program that I know of.

This article from Allafrica.com suggest that there is; at least there is according to Eritrean officials who “scorn” the U.S. for wanting to add Eritrea to the list of states that sponsor terrorism.

I’ve thought the Ethiopian presence in Somalia to be a good thing, as Somalia hasn’t had a stable government for a decade and a half; and Ethiopia was establishing some order and providing some security. Further, I liked that it was an African nations as opposed to Western nation - Africa handling the problems of Africa.

Also if Ahmed’s assessments are correct then the United States, via Ethiopia, in overthrowing the Islamic Courts Union, which had established a government; the US overthrew the will of the Somalian people. If so this would be another in a long line of America overthrowing foreign governments and installing puppets for it’s own benefit; which has led to much of the despising feelings towards the U.S. around the world, especially in Islamic countries.

I’m not saying I cared for the Islamic Courts Union; but self-determination is the natural right of any people.

And What the Hell - Going To Sudan for Refuge???
allafrica.com/stories/200708221002.html

Apparently so. While Sudan has spent the last decade first slaughtering its citizens in the South and now in the Eastern Province of Darfur; causing millions of Sudanese refugees to flee into neighboring countries; Eritreans have been seeking refuge in Sudan.

Talk about irony.

Speaking of Darfur, Last week I put up the letter I wrote to HBO urging them to air Sands and Sorrow now!

For more Africa news, check the news headlines on my left side-bar.

“Day of Blogging for Justice” is going forward on August 30th.

If you’re not familiar with the campaign, read about it here.

The press release is going out tomorrow morning.

Meet Our Bloggers For Justice

If you would like to be added to the page, which will be linked to in the media press release, comment with your name (either real or net handle, but real is preferable) full url so clicking on it will go to your site, and location so that the media can see that the outcry is coming from all over.

If you’re already on the list and want your location added, or info changed, also comment to let me know.

It’s hard to say that an album changed my life. Musical movements yeah, such as: the emergence of hip hop in it’s golden age, the new jack swing aesthetic, the conscious/pro-black era of hip hop, etc.; but an individual album changing my life is not usually the way it works for me; but as I got to writing out the descriptions below I realized that a few have –most particularly in relation to me being a kid and the world being new to me. There are some albums that helped shape the direction of my life.

Anyway, some of the ones I’ll list will come more under the title of influential or impact-ful, more so than life changing.

I’m not going to number them because there are always 2 or 3 clustered together at ever level. I’mma do more than 5 because I can’t narrow it down to just…Y’all will probably not feel a couple of my choices in the least bit, but that’s probably why I’m so different.

• EPMD – Unfinished Business 1988: Christmas, I’m 10 years old. I’ve been listening to Hip Hop for 2 or 3 years at that point, dubbing songs off the radio, and this is the first rap album I get. I’d never heard of them, some how my non-hip hop sister picks this tape for me.

I listen to it and I’m memorized. EPMD is the ultimate “two turn tables and a mic””/beats rhymes and life” type of crew. Unlike KRS-One, they didn’t preach Hip Hop philosophy, they just demonstrated it for 60 minutes, and I’ve been a Head ever since.

• Public Enemy – It Takes A Nation of Millions To Hold Us Back - 1988: Yeah, the longest album title ever. The funny thing is I didn’t even like this album the first time I listened to it. I considered myself a PE fan just off the strength of about 3 singles including 911 from the previous album. I loved what they represented because my consciousness had been previously awakened, plus the way they carried themselves, so I was excited to finally hear the album.

I put it in and hear all these crashing obnoxious noises and guitar riffs, and I’m like what the fuck! But I was so down with the lyrics, that I listened to it a couple more times, I got acclimated to the sound (that I’ve still never heard anything like before or since) and ended up absolutely loving it. This album is responsible for a large part of my socio-political philosophy to this day.

I went back and listen to it years later, when in my mid-teens, and realized there were a whole bunch of references about things I didn’t know about at the time I initially heard it, but had learned about in the interim years and realized the album was even deeper than I knew. It was considered in many sectors the greatest rap album of all time at least until the mid 90s. It still stands alone for me.

• NWA – Straight Outta Compton – 1988: The Watershed moment started with Ice-T’s single Colors, and continued with this album. They were kind of like Public Enemy, just with less historical knowledge and a reckless, don’t give a fuck, gangsta sensationalism to go with it.

That’s what separates this album from all the “gangsta rap” of today, though. It was authentic and came from a point of real rage and had socio-political message underlying it. Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t romanticize away that NWA and this album were largely about money, hoes, and male bravado. But there was still an underling point of view that came from an authentic place that gives it Soul. Something that this other trash that imitates it doesn’t have. That’s all 90% of rap music has been for most of the last 20 years, an imitation of knuckle heads trying to recreate this album, and this moment in time.

Anyway, this album, which was basically the first to use any type of language and verbal depictions of whatever; not only changed the world of rap music but changed the world of music and expression forever. You couldn’t make a list of most impact-ful albums ever without this one being near the top of the list.

You know, I just realized this is going to be really long, so I’m going to cut this section off here, and make this a series.

Sorry about the wordiness, but I could write an essay on each one of these, breaking them down by the song, damn near breaking them down to each bar; so I couldn’t do them justice without at least 2 or 3 paragraphs per.

Edited To Add: Hold off on publizing the date for the Day of Blogging for Justice, it will likely be changing to Thursday the 30th. Check back between now an Monday the 27th.

First, most of you who roam the bloggosphere regularly, especially the Afrosphere are fimilar with the Jena 6 story; but in case you are not, you can read about it here.

For me and a number of others, were not about just blogging about the Jena 6 and having you read and just saying, “aww, what a shame”. We’re about action.

If you’ve been following this blog you know about the Media Strategy that has been initiated to raise the national consciousness about this event that bares such social, political and legal relevance.

In furtherence of that effort, the Afrosphere Jena 6 coalition is sponsoring a “Day Of Blogging For Justice”. As it stands right now, next Wednesday August the 29th, the coalition members (and all else who are willing) will blog about the Jena 6 on the same day. A head of this effort a press release is going out to the national media to make them aware of the effort and the call for them to pick up the story. We’re hoping the “Day Of Blogging For Justice” can serve as a united front and a catalysis for garnishing more attention for the six civil rights abuse victims in Jena.

The press release will contain a link to a page that will list all the bloggers who have agreed to participate. If you want to be listed as part of this effort, comment here with the address of the blog that you will post from.

A couple of other notes

Villager has listed contact info if you’d like to write convicted Jena 6er Mychael Bell to encourage his spirits and show support.

Checkout Freethejena6.org for other news, information and resources.