New Strategy on The Jena Six
posted in Action Alert, Racial Injustice | | | View blog reactions | Print This PostI made mention last week of what I thought should be the new strategy for trying to bring about pressure in order to get justice for the The Jena Six. I’d like to elaborate on that now.
We’ve attempted to put pressure on congress to move the Department of Justice to intervene based on Jim Crow-esq civil rights violations, and to get the Governor of Louisiana, Kathleen Blanko to act. In the couple of months that this has been tried by bloggers and others, the needle doesn’t seem to have moved at all. I think the problem is we have not achieved a critical mass of pressure on any individual or groups of politicians that would force them to act. I think the way to achieve that critical mass is to get the word out to the public in mass.
Hence, I propose we pursue a campaign to pressure the national media to start covering the story. If that happens The Jena Six could become a household name, which would provided for exponentially more people to put pressure upon the politicians in Louisiana and in Washington D.C. to do something about this travesty.
I faxed in my letters to both the Governor and State Attorney General’s office, and to date have received no response. But several others who have emailed letters have shown me that they received this exact same response below:
Dear: [no, they didn’t even use my name!]
Your email to Governor Kathleen Blanco regarding the Jena Six case has been forwarded to me for a response.
Your input and concerns are vital as we make critical decisions to move this state forward. The Jena 6 case is a matter in the Judicial System and any defects must be addressed in that system with the appeals court. The State Constitution provides for three branches of state government - Legislative, Executive, and Judicial - and the Constitution prohibits anyone in one branch from exercising the powers of anyone in another branch. Certainly, the Governor hopes for and expects fairness.
Thank you for emailing and if this office can be of further assistance, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Sincerely,
Sheryl Shuffield , Director
Constituent Services
This proves that the governor of Louisiana has no inclination to act, as both pardoning and civil rights investigations by her Department of Justice are without a doubt in the executive branch’s power; and it shows that we need much more pressure to make anything happen.
When I was posting about Jena Six on another site supremelurker showed me this site with all the major media outlets contact info. We need to flood these outlets with emails, phone calls and postal letters until they pick up this story. What say you about this strategy?
Further, CNN has been recently covering a somewhat similar story, primarily on Anderson Cooper 360, about jail abuse and murder in a county jail in Mississippi. Maybe they’ll be more inclined to put on the The Jena Six story as a continuation of the general theme. It should be taken advantage of though, while the Mississippi story is fresh.
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