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Protesters Stand Up For
By Tracie Powell
Sep 20, 2007, 04:47
A Black
West Virginia woman was sexually assaulted, stabbed and tortured, with one of
her White abductors telling her, “That’s what we do to niggers
around here.” Hate crime charges are yet to be filed in the case because
the penalty isn’t as stringent as state-level kidnapping, assault and
rape charges.
Genarlow Wilson, a
Six Black teens in
This isn’t the 1950s, these events all happened in the past year.
What is happening in
“Many Whites believe that
‘the system’ is color-blind, which is true,” he says.
“It cannot see beyond its own invisible whiteness.”
Meanwhile, several conservative court decisions coupled with the federal
government’s anemic enforcement and unwillingness to bring forth race
cases have set back civil rights advances and protections, advocates say.
In June, U.S. Supreme Court justices limited the use of race in school
desegregation plans. Last summer these same justices made it harder to prove
discrimination in voting rights cases. And at the moment, the constitutionality
of the newly reauthorized Voting Rights Act is already being challenged; its
future, if it lands before a more conservative U.S. Supreme Court, might be in
jeopardy.
The judicial system most certainly is not
color-blind, adds Angela J. Davis, a professor of law at
For
At first glance the casual observer may view the Jena Six and Wilson cases as
having nothing to do with the savage torture of a Black woman in
“We have seen in the last 10 years a roll-back and a retreat from strong
enforcement and prosecution of race crimes. It’s looking pretty
grim,” says Julie Fernandes, senior policy analyst and special counsel
for the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights in
“At the same time we’re seeing a series of bad court decisions that
make it harder to get into court and harder for people to prove that they are
victims of racism,” she says. “It’s a double whammy.”
In addition to faulting the Bush administration for not acknowledging that
racism is still a problem in
In response, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights is working to get an enhanced
federal hate crimes law authorized that will include additional protected
groups, such as homosexuals. President Bush has vowed to veto the legislation.
The organization also wants to see a federal racial profiling law and renewed
civil rights act passed, Fernandes says.
Both pieces of legislation have been languishing in Congress since 2001 and
2004, respectively.
“This isn’t about politics,” Fernandes sums up.
“It’s about civil rights and court fights that impact our everyday
lives.”
For now, people like the marchers in
"There
is no reason to expect that these hard-crafted racial attitudes will be
softened by any pleas to a common humanity," he added. "That, in
fact, that is not what African people should be aiming for anyway.
"We have to support the Jena Six because any of those boys
could be any of us, and that they are lending financial support and going
to
- Tracie Powell
Good article. The lead local news station did a
package on the coming protest but NEVER mentioned anything about the Black
female student who was raped and tortured by White students. The local station
just made it seem as though 6 beastial Black boys had brutally beaten “an
innocent victim.”
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