ColorOfChange.org Applauds Plea Deal in Jena 6 Case

This is what can happen when folks get organized.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Friday, June 26, 2009

ColorOfChange.org applauds plea deal in Jena 6 case

Online civil rights group raised more than $275,000 for legal defense

Oakland, CA- The organization that led the online mobilization in support of the Jena Six today applauded news that five of the young men have pleaded no contest to greatly reduced charges–a development the group called a just resolution to the racially-charged case. Though the defendants had initially been charged with attempted murder and conspiracy, they ultimately pleaded no contest to simple battery, and will serve a sentence of just 7 days of probation.

ColorOfChange.org said Friday that the plea deal marked an acknowledgement by officials that the Louisiana justice system initially treated the then-teenage boys too harshly, privileging white students’ accounts of a schoolyard fight over those of black students in the largely segregated town of Jena.

“Today’s plea deal shows that the original charges in the case were unfair and vastly overblown,” said James Rucker, ColorOfChange.org’s executive director. “The story of the Jena 6 was an extreme example of what can happen when a justice system biased against black boys operates unchecked. But it’s also an example of what can happen when hundreds of thousands of people across the country stand up to challenge unequal justice. Together, we drew the country’s attention to this case and raised the money necessary to fund a strong legal defense.”

ColorOfChange.org, the first national organization involved in supporting the Jena 6, was instrumental in drawing national attention to the case, working alongside local activists in Jena and black bloggers across the country to spread word of the excessive charges and the story behind them.

More than 300,000 ColorOfChange.org members signed petitions to elected officials, urging that the charges be dropped and that then-Governor Kathleen Blanco intervene. The group organized more than 10,000 of its members to march in Jena on September 20, 2007. The same day, thousands of members in over 150 cities across the country held rallies and vigils and distributed flyers about the case; they also made more than 6,000 phone calls to public officials in Louisiana.

ColorOfChange members also contributed more than $275,000 toward high-quality legal teams, which succeeded in getting a biased judge removed from the cases and ultimately achieved today’s victory.

Rucker said that the collective effort–joined by bloggers, black radio personalities, and national and Louisiana-based activists–turned the tide in favor of the young men.

The sixth teenager charged, Mychal Bell, pleaded guilty to battery in juvenile court on December 3rd, 2007.

With more than half a million members, ColorOfChange.org is the largest African-American online political organization in the country.

Yes, This Fool Actually Went There

You really had to use a watermelon prop, didn’t you, Glenn Beck? Thanks for being, erm, subtle about it. Asshole.

Carry On, Michael Jackson

I heard at work. First, one of our barista’s boyfriend called to break the news. Then, I received a few phone calls from customers, random people, who must have thought that being holed up in a store meant we hadn’t heard the news. One customer asked us to broadcast the news over the load speakers. Think about that for a minute. For all of his troubles, Michael Jackson touched a lot of people’s lives in a profound way.

I grew up with Michael Jackson. My siblings and I used to argue, back in the day, over who was the baddest: Michael Jackson or Prince? Truth be told, we always ended up giving it up to Prince; but we always went back to Michael. Moms would get mad at us, scared we were gonna wear the carpet down from trying to do the Moonwalk in the living room, or blow the stereo speakers from cranking “Thriller” too loudly, or give her a headache from cranking “Beat It” too loudly.

And even before then, my parents had all of the Jackson 5 45s. I used to sit in my room when I first discovered the pleasure of music, with my little orange box record player and rock the hell out of “ABC,” “Rockin’ Robin,” “I Want You Back.”

Later in life, when I started DJing, I always made sure to have a Jackson 5 cut in the mix. It had become necessary, never cliche.

Let us not forget The Wiz. I grew up loving the Wizard of Oz, and seeing The Wiz in the theaters just blew my little mind. The story took on a whole new level of awesome once I saw it with brown folks playing all the roles.

This is how I’m going to remember Michael Jackson: The joy, the pleasure, the family. Yes, Michael had his demons. We all do. That his demons were obviously exacerbated by fame, pressure, race and gender in the face of enormous fame, and many more things that I (and you?) might not ever understand will surely be lost on a lot of folks (MSM, I’m looking at you). I’m not trying to say that he was beyond criticism. I am saying that right now, I want to honor Michael Jackson for all of the joy that he has brought me and mine. And for all that other stuff, well, I just don’t know. I didn’t know before he passed away and I’m not going to pretend like I know now.

I just hope that Michael Jackson is now resting in peace.

U.S. Supreme Court Upholds Voting Rights Act

Bloomberg:

June 23 (Bloomberg) — Consensus is back at the U.S. Supreme Court under Chief Justice John Roberts — at least for a day.

Issuing perhaps the most highly anticipated ruling of its nine-month term yesterday, the justices voted 8-1 to avoid ruling on whether a central provision of the Voting Rights Act is constitutional. Roberts’s opinion for the court circumvented that issue by instead making it easier for some jurisdictions to change election procedures and district lines.

The compromise ruling comes from a court that has divided along ideological lines in the past two years on race, terrorism, campaign finance, abortion and the death penalty. The decision recalled Roberts’s first term in 2005-06, when the court ruled unanimously in an abortion case and Roberts spoke publicly about his desire for consensus.

I could go on at length about that one dissenting vote, however, a picture really is worth a thousand words.

Old School Friday – Dance for Me

Wait a minute? Wasn’t the last OSF just yesterday? Damn if time doesn’t fly lately. So, this week’s theme is Dance for Me! Ahhh…this is a theme close to my heart. I’ve never understood those that don’t love to dance, every chance they get.

This one, I dedicate to Jay-Z. Hee hee.

Zapp – “I Can Make You Dance”

This is probably my old crankiness kicking in, but what happened to energy like this in music?

Sly and The Family Stone – “Dance to the Music”

Peaches and Herb – “Shake Yo Groove Thang”

Happy OSF Y’all! Thanks for playing, and as always, much love to all the other OSF participants.

Regina | MrsGrapevine | Conversations With Marva | Electronic Village | Over Analyze It | The Punkin Patch | Sojourners Place | Dee | The True Urban Queen | Songs In The Key Of Life | What Would Thembi Do? | Wonderland or Not | Hagar’s Daughters | Miscellaneous Matters | The Happy Go Lucky Bachelor | Slant Truth | Traces of a Stream | There Already | The Certain Sound | SoulAfrodisiac | The Young and the Reckless

LGBT Groups Speak Out Against DOJ Defense of DOMA

What they said, yes.

From the ACLU

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: (212) 549-2666; media@aclu.org

We are very surprised and deeply disappointed in the manner in which the Obama administration has defended the so-called Defense of Marriage Act in a brief filed today in Smelt v. United States, a lawsuit brought in federal court in California by a married same-sex couple asking the federal government to treat them equally with respect to federal protections and benefits. The administration is using many of the same flawed legal arguments that the Bush administration used. These arguments rightly have been rejected by several state supreme courts as legally unsound and discriminatory.

We disagree with many of the administration’s arguments, for example, that DOMA is a valid exercise of Congress’s power, is consistent with Equal Protection or Due Process principles, and does not impinge upon rights that are recognized as fundamental.

We are also extremely disturbed by a new and nonsensical argument the administration has advanced suggesting that the federal government needs to be “neutral” with regard to its treatment of married same-sex couples in order to ensure that federal tax money collected from across the country not be used to assist same-sex couples duly married by their home states. There is nothing “neutral” about the federal government’s discriminatory denial of fair treatment to married same-sex couples: DOMA wrongly bars the federal government from providing any of the over one thousand federal protections to the many thousands of couples who marry in six states. This notion of “neutrality” ignores the fact that while married same-sex couples pay their full share of income and social security taxes, they are prevented by DOMA from receiving the corresponding same benefits that married heterosexual taxpayers receive. It is the married same-sex couples, not heterosexuals in other parts of the country, who are financially and personally damaged in significant ways by DOMA. For the Obama administration to suggest otherwise simply departs from both mathematical and legal reality.

When President Obama was courting lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender voters, he said that he believed that DOMA should be repealed. We ask him to live up to his emphatic campaign promises, to stop making false and damaging legal arguments, and immediately to introduce a bill to repeal DOMA and ensure that every married couple in America has the same access to federal protections.

More later. I have some thoughts on this nation of laws argument that seems to be popping up all over the place. (*cough cough* I smell bullshit.)

Old School Friday – Keep It in The Family

Having missed the last few OSFs, I felt especially obligated to sneak one of my last minute OSF posts in the mix. This weeks theme is Keep It in The Family.

I’m sure I’ll see this on a few other OSF posts, but I must drop this classic gem. The Staple Singers doing “I’ll Take You There.” Yowza!

Y’all remember Car Wash, right? Only one of the best movies ever made, and The Pointer Sisters kill it in this scene with Daddy Rich.

Sorry, as much as I love me some Jackson 5, that’s too easy.

Happy OSF Y’all! Thanks for playing, and as always, much love to all the other OSF participants.

Regina | MrsGrapevine | Conversations With Marva | Electronic Village | Over Analyze It | The Punkin Patch | Sojourners Place | Dee | The True Urban Queen | Songs In The Key Of Life | What Would Thembi Do? | Wonderland or Not | Hagar’s Daughters | Miscellaneous Matters | The Happy Go Lucky Bachelor | Slant Truth | Traces of a Stream | There Already | The Certain Sound | SoulAfrodisiac | The Young and the Reckless

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