COSELLOUT

Disclaimer: I just came back from Jena and can’t seem to process sports media stories yet. Can’t write about Ankiel, Belicheck, or football. Not about ESPN, Sports Illustrated, or Mike Lupica either. Can’t write about a god-awful article I read this week on Charlie Weis, Barry Bonds ending his Giants reign, or those ridiculous Yankee games of late. Maybe in a couple of days, maybe in a week. But not now. Please forgive me but I’ve got Jena 6 running through my mind 24/7. What it means now, what it could mean, what it should mean, what it means in a historical context, and of course, how it is portrayed in mainstream media. Expect more Jena and less sports media in the coming articles and I’ll return to balls, strikes, and pigskins when my brain allows me. I know that you understand. 

Okay, now that I’ve got some much-needed sleep yesterday, here are some observations about Thursday’s Jena Protest. I haven’t seen too much media coverage over the last few days, but this is one man’s up-close personal take:

1) The Bus: Flight? Carpool? Bus? The latter was chosen with the whole communal experience in mind. A 24 hour trip EACH WAY from DC to Jena and back would knock off all of Wednesday and all of Friday. While it was physically exhaustive, the decision was well worth it. I met many positive and committed people as we all had one thing in mind: justice and social change. While there was a wide range of professions that made up all the bus participants, in particular there was a large share of  youth educators that included a high school principal, a couple of youth workers, a couple of teachers, and a couple of  preachers. There was some healthy dialogue that started with all aspects of the Jena case and soon evolved into many areas such as similarities and differences in various religious backgrounds; bridging the gaps between adults and youth; better reaching our youth; good-book recommendations; and organizing for effective and lasting institutional change in our justice system that extends far beyond the specifics of the Jena case. I’m better off for the experience even if my still-stiff neck and still-cramped legs aren’t. A special thanks goes out to Raynell and Reshell who did an outstanding job in organizing the event and all the young people who attended as well.

2) The Arrival: We arrive on Thursday morning at hotel in Alexandria at 4:20 am. Reverend Jesse Jackson is an early riser and is exiting the hotel at the exact same time. Since we came off of the bus with a bunch of young people, the youth asked the Reverend for a group picture and Jesse kindly obliges. We only have enough time to take a shower at the hotel before leaving for the bus at 5:20 am… Cars and busses move towards Jena in full force causing traffic at 6 in the morning. Jena is straight country and the roads aren’t built for mass transit. The police certainly didn’t help the situation either as most  vehicles are coming from only one lane while the second lane seems to be for more VIP folks tailed by security. It is about 9am by the time we arrive. There are so many people there that the busses are forced to neatly park one after another on the grass to the side of the road. There are more busses than I could count.

3) The Protest: We get out of the busses and none of us seem to care about the longer walk. The roads fill up with various chants demanding justice. The sheer quantity of demonstrators from all over the map from 7 to 70 was uplifting. Everyone was supportive, we marched in the heat without complaint, and displayed unity around a clear and common cause. Bail money was also able to be raised for Mychal Bell (bail has since been denied). First stop is the courthouse. Even though our bus was one of the first ones there, it is still hard to get a good view of the rally’s assortment of speakers. Next move, on to the school for more rallying. The march comes in about four waves. While I first arrived as part of "wave one", "wave two" was the largest as Reverend Jackson lead what seems like a never-ending group down the street. I never did actually hear the Reverend’s or most of the speeches. Part of this was due to many side rallies by individuals with bull-horns that promised better viewing opportunities and partly was because of the…

4) The Logistical Difficulties: While all of us were instructed to meet back at the bus by 11am to travel back to Alexandria for another rally, this plan was foiled with great help from the Jena police who ordered that every bus be moved from its original location to a new one. This seemed completely unnecessary and seemed like the Jena police really wanted to make matters difficult for everybody. What made the situation 100 times worse is that all cell phone use was shut down perhaps due to the area being flooded with too many people.  However, for some reason T-Mobile phones still worked, but only if you called other T-mobile phones. The odds of both happening were too slim. For most people hours were spent in the afternoon just locating each other. Our particular bus could not be located although more than a couple of miles of town were searched. This overall dynamic could have been easily avoided with the least amount of flexibility from the local police. Finally, it was terribly annoying that there was absolutely no trash cans ANYWHERE. I have never seen this before, even in rural areas. No storefront had a trash can outside. No public trash cans either. You were forced to carry around plastic water bottles or place them down somewhere. It was obvious that Jena was not used to big crowds, nor would too willing to plan for them.

5) The Jena Residents: I was hoping to get my own personal feel by dialoging with locals in town. Unfortunately, JENA CLOSED DOWN. I mean, the entire town for blocks and blocks! Holiday Jena I guess. I thought that it would have been an unprecedented opportunity for local businesses to thrive, but perhaps not. It didn’t take long to figure out why. One sign in a window said "closed due to possible rioting". After speaking with a few locals after the rally, that reason was confirmed as the general rule.  Apparently, the whole town got the very same memo about all of the very scary black folk! Of course the protest was quite a peaceful one. While speaking with a few Alexandria locals afterwards, I did not get a sense that there was a strong Klan presence, despite universally agreed upon racial prejudice. Because it turned into a ghost town, I was unable to personally see any evidence that Jena residents wanted to progress from this. However, besides the town’s absence I did see some examples of resistance that included two pick-up trucks with confederate flags and a couple with "Justice for Justin’ signs. I learned of a couple of much uglier examples on Saturday that involved a pick-up truck with a noose hanging out of it… (note: found in Alexandria, not Jena).

6) What will the Protest Accomplish?: This was the question debated, discussed, and dissected by demonstrators everywhere. Of course, discussions transcended the specific case of Mychal Bell and the Jena Six. Some thought that Jena had potential to be the spark for a much needed social movement against unequal justice similar to how some of the landmark tragic events in the 60′s (Medgar Evers, "4 little girls", "Mississippi Burning", etc.) woke up many Americans on the Jim Crow South. As I discuss in "Jim Crow’s Children", the unequal injustice embedded in the current prison-industry are Jim Crow’s direct legacies. Many demonstrators expressed that Jena is only the beginning of a longer process on prison (and education) reform. However, here is why I am very skeptical about the Jena protest IN ITS ISOLATION: The diversity in racial make-up in Jena will not be confused with the 1963 March on Washington any time soon. I found it particularly and personally disheartening that only a few vanilla sprinkles existed in a black sea. I was naively expecting to see more people who looked like me. Amongst tens of thousands you would be hard-pressed to find more than 100 white faces (note: I did not get a great view of the afternoon waves of demonstrators while trying to find my bus!) 

There are thousands of cases in life that can have two sides — even hot-button issues like abortion and the death-penalty. The Jena 6 is not one of them — certainly not when the entire series of events is considered. Understood correctly, it was a protest about an entire community’s way of life, not just a specific case. The collective unwillingness of whites to protest this event in numbers sends powerful messages that "white trees", hanging nooses, school board wrist slaps, DA threats, 22 year sentences, and de facto Jim Crow in 2007 are really nothing to get all that worked up about. But collective white absence is bigger than the fates of the six Jena boys. The real tragedy is that an opportunity for REAL community change in Jena, many other similar communities may have been lost — at least temporarily. Without visible and unequivocal condemnation from other whites, a far more powerful message to Jena residents and our nation would have been sent. However, I believe that many Jena residents and many other communities will continue to see this simply as an "us vs. them" racial black-white issue instead of a moral right-wrong issue against an elaborate system unacceptable institutional racism. My worst fears seemed confirmed as television interviews of Jena residents unfathomably portrayed themselves as victims (Hat Tip to Racialicious) who kept denying their community’s racism instead of saying they wanted to confront it, grapple it, end it, and move forward with it. It was an eerie reminder of all those videos of 1960s residents about the "peaceful" Jim Crow communities that "outside agitators" just didn’t understand. But how can you cure a disease without admitting you are sick? And why would we expect many in the Jena community to even recognize their own sickness if so few people who look like them are willing to tell them directly? And while it is reckless and wrong to suggest that all Jena residents "are racist", it may be very accurate to state that very few want to FIGHT against the community’s racial biases where it clearly exists. Now that the protest is over will residents fight to fix the school board that didn’t expel the youth or denand a new District Attorney to Reed Walters?

Historically, social change has had two common ingredients 1) those movements were fiercely led by the minority group in question (whether it be slavery; woman’s suffrage; Civil Rights Movement, etc.); and 2) the fight garnered just enough outraged individuals and collaborative allies from the majority group to wield their power to effect that change. If history is any guide, until more white folks wake up, then not much will change: not Jena, not other towns all over America like Jena, not our profit-making prison system, and not our public educational system.  The optimist or fool in me could only hope that the lack of diversity seen in the Jena protest will change as greater awareness is raised and greater (responsible) media attention it is given (unlike Tim Russert this morning who completely ignored the issue). I could only hope that more whites sign petitions on Jena, call their congressman about prison reform, or show up to a follow-up March on Washington that is tentatively planned for November. So, in summary, the protest was hesitantly hopeful;  inspiring yet discouraging; but, most of all, understood as just one small part of a much longer process… see you at the Washington Mall in November…

OTHER JENA 6 COVERAGE: