By Bailing Out on Jury Duty, We Leave the Fate of Young Black Men to Everyone Else
By Tonyaa Weathersbee 

The Jena Six case has gone beyond being just one huge example of how the justice system in that Louisiana backwater is bordering on replicating the black codes of the Old South.

It also exposes other inequities that show how difficult a time black people have when it comes to making the justice system work for them.

This past weekend, an Associated Press story detailed facts that had either been missed or misconstrued in the maelstrom of the case of six youth black men who were slapped with 15 to 20-year sentences for what amounted to a schoolyard fight; a case that has now become the flashpoint of what some are calling a new civil rights movement.

Few of the facts that the AP story claims to clarify; i.e., there were two nooses, not three, and that students of all races sat under the “white” tree at some point, made a difference in the bottom line: The punishments for the Jena 6 are absurdly harsh and don’t fit the crime.

But one fact — that Jena Six defendant Mychal Bell was left to mercy of an all-white jury because the few blacks who were summoned failed to show — is one that begs to have more truth put behind it.

To read the story, click here.