OpEdNews - Page 3 of Article: A White Person's Meditation on the Jena 6 Students

Sticking to our progressive principles

I have heard some white progressives claim that in order to respect “non-violence”, a person must not ask that all the charges be dropped against the Jena 6 Students. It is argued that since the 6 students hurt someone, we must join the government in demanding that they be given some criminal sentence.

As stated above, that skips the whole piece of logic, that adults could demand a consequence for the young people's behavior, but, have that consequence be school-based rather than criminal justice based.

In addition, I would say that as progressives, we usually ask that the response to crime and violence be rehabilitation and restorative justice, rather than punishment. How could we forget that when speaking of 6 young men involved in a schoolyard skirmish?

In addition, should progressives ever really want children under 18 tried as adults?

Being tried as an adult means:

You can't vote and participate in government. But, the government can put you in jail.

You can't un-elect or affect the prosecutors and other politicians that can put you in jail.

So, even if this child, Mychal Bell, should ever have gotten any criminal-system consequence, it should not have been an adult-system consequence. And, since it was--and the appeals court says that was wrong--why shouldn't Mychal Bell now be released and charges dropped to make up for the fact that he already served time in adult prison? How can society ever make it up to a child that the school, the prosecutor, and the community made a mistake, as recognized by an appeals court, and that mistake put a 16-year-old into an adult prison?

Also, as a member of the progressive community for many years, I think we all understand that when there is a call to support someone accused of a wrong, you should either help or get out of the way. None of us will ever be privy to all of the information. No one knows what really happened, or what the 6 young men were really thinking and feeling when the beating occurred. None of us knows what pieces of information might be being withheld by the prosecutor or the families or the school based on privacy rules or strategy.

Though, when someone sets up a call to “Free thus and such” or “Come to court support for so-and-so” we are not supposed to use the fact that attention was drawn to a defendant to take pot shots at the defendant. We can trust that if the criminal justice system wants to find this child guilty and punish him, they will do so without our help. Our job is not to decide if we think that he needs a certain level of punishment. Our job is to study the situation, see where we can help and do so, or just be quiet and stay out of the way, as another poor soul (innocent or not) struggles through our patriarchal, racist, unfair criminal justice system.

Why the heck would any progressive take the time to publicly state a position in line with the prosecutor? The prosecutor already has enough power, enough of a platform, and enough of a chance to win.

I was falsely arrested once, at a ritual for a tree. I would have been very surprised if anyone but the police and the District Attorney’s office had taken the time to publicly state why they thought I was partially wrong and deserved some kind of punishment.

In recalling what it was like to be arrested, I also come across another hypocrisy in saying that if we truly believed in non-violence, we would not want all the charges dropped. If Mychal Bell remains in prison, his hands will be cuffed, he will be detained in a small room, he will be physically poked and prodded by prison guards. Isn’t that violence? And, why would we want that for anyone, if we truly believe in non-violence at all costs? How could we, as progressives and proponents of non-violence, justify applying more restraint than necessary on a child whose crime is a school yard skirmish?

Who should decide what it is right to ask for?

To be free from racism, we must acknowledge that it is wrong for white people to pass judgement on black people.

Mychal Bell deserved a jury of his peers, a jury of black people, to determine his fate. But, it was a white jury that convicted Mychal Bell. (Which verdict has been overturned.) I just saw a media justification saying that it was an all white jury, because there are not a lot of black people in Jena, and the black people who were called as jurors did not show up. That is a ludicrous argument. Could it be there are so few black people in Jena, because the nooses and the attitude that produced them makes black people feel a little unwelcome? Could it be that potential black jurors are too economically oppressed to take time off for jury duty? Or, that potential black jurors are afraid of what happens to them if they vote against white people on a jury? Any understanding of diversity and lack of diversity would say that you recruit, seek out, and encourage until you find black people for the jury box in such a situation.

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