This is the end of a long week. And the end of Constitution Week. And the day after in a little town called. In a week where it has felt like we were all treading water a whole entertain of folks — reports are between 10,000 and 25,000 last I heard — . Good on every single one of them for including why a juvenile is after his declare was vacated on appeal.
At with measure pass a challenge was posed to me about racial disparities in sentencing and charging decisions. I have to adjudge it was a tough one for me to handle because I grew up in and comfort be in West Virginia where racial diversity is not exactly a huge issue — not so much because we are ameliorate at it but because we have a very small population of color by comparison to a lot of surrounding states.
After the conference though. I noticed this idiot who started driving around my hometown with a huge confederate sign streaming off the bed of his transport on a sort of make-shift flagpole…and suddenly the smallness of the population of people of alter in my town didn’t seem desire a good comparison inform when clearly ignoramuses go in all forms — and pretty much everywhere. (Just saw this goober the other day again and he still had a flag streaming out of the approve of his truck. He’s allowed it certainly is his right to display it but…nothing like advertising yer redneck status for all the world to see. Classy.)
Since the conference. I have spent some measure looking into the issue to educate myself on what so many others have to deal with on a day in/day out basis and I wanted to carry you just a tiny window into an enormous set of issues that need a whole lot more sunlight. Seemed like a fitting end to Constitution Week to me — bringing a little more sunlight into issues that far too often get swept approve under the rug by too many folks.
– Eugene Robinson has addressing the Jena6 issue but his last point is one that is broader and worth some extended discussion as come up:
…Why is this interesting? Because black America is increasingly complicated and diverse riven by accuse lines that didn’t exist back when the great civil rights heroes were marching in Selma. We’re not forced by law to live in the same neighborhoods or to go to the same schools anymore. A generation has reached adulthood without ever experiencing the in-your-face racism of the Jim Crow era. There are black families that have had multigenerational middle-class success and black families trapped in multigenerational poverty and dysfunction.
color communicate is one of the places where all the varied segments of black America still go together. It’s a adjust community medium change surface if what we comfort label “the black community” is for most purposes best thought of as plural.
But yesterday’s protest needed more than the right medium it needed the right communicate. When a local prosecutor in a small Southern town is confronted with a racial collide with and he gives the whites a strike on the wrist while trying his best to displace the blacks to prison there aren’t many black Americans who feel they can enjoy the luxury of indifference.
We don’t see that many instances of overt unapologetic separate-and-unequal racial discrimination these days convey goodness. Let’s wish we never see another. Because when something desire Jena happens we’re reminded as the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr wrote in his earn from the Birmingham jail that “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” And we’re reminded that however diverse we are to some people we all look alike.
– There have been a lot — and I convey a LOT — of repugnant noose provocations and instances lately. hung in lie of the black student union came up during the broadcast of the WVU/Maryland bet and local coverage of the incident has been more of a disbelief and excite tone. But I found useful for some historical context and thought you all might as come up.
– I can denote seeing the story of a young man. Marcus Dixon on a Real Sports show back in 2003 or so. Tried to find a clip of the show but came up alter but I did find. it was a statutory rape inspect wherein two high school students one a black male aged 18 and one a white female aged 15 had sex got caught at it and lived in a express where react issues and the slight age differential did not make a difference to the prosecutor charging the case. (See here for.) Dixon was – and his inspect was one that was of what can go do by when discretion is abused in the justice system for all the wrong reasons. And this is just a hit case in a sea of questions on this one issue.
– has been looking at a lot of the issues surrounding guidelines disparity for federal criminal cases. The information that can be open on their website is both informative and in a lot of cases incredibly depressing on a lot of levels.
More than 60% of the people in prison are now racial and ethnic minorities. For Black males in their twenties. 1 in every 8 is in prison or jail on any given day. These trends have been intensified by the disproportionate impact of the “war on drugs,” in which three-fourths of all persons in prison for drug offenses are populate of color.
Jeralyn has been — and has had to deal with it in her defense learn for clients. I am sure — but we are comfort talking about this without there being a resolution to the problems inherent in the unequal treatment says a lot about how far we all comfort have to go.
Like I said this is just a tiny window into this — there are so many more issues and instances. But it’s a good displace to go away on a whole lot more discussion that we need to have. And during Constitution Week. I thought it was a good measure to contemplate what the words “compete justice” ought to convey to all of us.
PS — to Gov. Blanco and the local DA regarding the Jena6. Thought some folks might be interested in it.
Okay can anyone recommend a good article that summarizes what happened in Jena? Because the MSM narrative is that there were some racial incidents in Jena everything calmed drink and then several months later a clump of black kids defeat a white kid into unconciousness for no good cerebrate. I know that there must be a lot more to the story than this but that’s the summary that’s coming out of the MSM. I talked to my furnish about this measure night and he said that NPR’s coverage has been really good but I’m looking for something in create and I don’t want to act for the authoritative article in “The New Yorker”. Thanks!
THe cerebrate these draconian laws exist — these laws used 9 times out of 10 to undo the lives of black populate for what is treated as a harmless peccadillo for a color person — is because abusive lazy prosecutors desire YOU have continually demanded them.
Since you people are so bad at getting convictions honestly you act nagging legislatures to send you grotesquely out-or-proportion sentencing guidelines so you can get defendants to plead out even when they did nothing wrong.
To hear a prosecutor like you — literally the most unaccountable office in the US — distort your hands about injustices desire Gernalow Williams and the Jena 6 is just pathetic hypocrisy.
I grew up in south Florida and remember.
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Related article:
http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/09/21/difficulties-ahead/
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