About 40 people turned out at Leimert Park last night (November 7th) to protest the racism in Jena, Louisianna. This was one of many such actions that took place across the country, including San Francisco and Chicago. Traffic at this crowded intersection responded enthusiastically. Six to eight police officers watched us from afar in the parking lot.

One of the speakers, Linda, expressed gratification at seeing people of different races participating. “It’s going to take more than black people doing this,” she said. “Doctor Martin Luther King wanted all the different races with us. That’s how we got to where we are now. We had to have all different races to help us. . . .”

She added: “Justice delayed is justice denied. . . . We need to free the Jena Six because if we don’t, it’s going to trickle down on everybody.”

Big Money Griff, a local resident, also spoke. “I was one of the ones that went down to Jena. It was an experience that I never thought I’d [have] in terms of seeing all the youth coming up. So we got a new generation, and it’s time for us to begin the process of [deciding] how we’re going to strategize for the 21st century.

“One of the things that I’m trying to bring forward is an execution bill, a bill that says if you don’t have forensic evidence, you cannot execute. . . . “ [Applause.]

He also announced that on November 19th busloads of people will be traveling to Palmdale to support a girls whose wrist was fractured.

Toni, the next speaker, contextualized the Jena issue with other oppression in this country, including ICE raids.

“What we’re dealing with is not just a group of red necks who are going around hanging nooses from trees, we’re dealing with a system," she said. "This system is no damn good, and it needs to be brought down. We need a revolution, no voting, no waiting around. . . . They talk about democracy, there aint no fucking democracy. This is a fascist agenda. We need to drive out the Bush regime! We need to resist! Resist! Resist! We need to resist every day. We need to start acting like we’re in Nazi Germany. We need to be bringing out not only the people here today, we need to bring out thousands and millions of others to join with us.”

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Jena 6 protest, Leimert Park in Los Angeles

(Picture) Jena 6 protest in Leimert Park, Los Angeles

The idea of going to Palmdale to support this girl is ridiculous as her own doctor was given permission to speak to the media, and he made it clear her wrist was not fractured, and that he gave the girl a brace as a precaution. This is a case where the girl did not want to listen to the authorities at the school and pick up food she let fall on the ground, and she got in trouble.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAZQlgPO8qc

Just weeks after some 20,000 demonstrators protested what they decried as unequal justice aimed at six black teenagers in the Louisiana town of Jena, controversy is growing over the accounting and disbursing of at least $500,000 donated to pay for the teenagers’ legal defense.

Parents of the “Jena 6″ teens have refused to publicly account for how they are spending a large portion of the cash, estimated at up to $250,000, that resides in a bank account they control.

Michael Baisden, a nationally syndicated black radio host who is leading a major fundraising drive on behalf of the Jena 6, has declined to reveal how much he has collected. Attorneys for the first defendant to go to trial, Mychal Bell, say they have yet to receive any money from him.

Meanwhile, photos and videos are circulating across the Internet that raise questions about how the donated money is being spent. One photo shows Robert Bailey, one of the Jena 6 defendants, smiling and posing with $100 bills stuffed in his mouth. Another shows defendants Carwin Jones and Bryant Purvis modeling like rap stars at the Black Entertainment Television Hip-Hop music awards last month in Atlanta.

The teenagers’ parents have strongly denied that they have misused any of the donated money. Bailey’s mother, for example, insisted that the $100 bills shown in the photograph were cash her son had earned as a park maintenance worker.

But civil rights leaders who helped organize support for the youths say they are concerned about the perceptions that are spreading.

“There are definitely questions out there about the money,” said Alan Bean, director of a Texas-based group, Friends of Justice, who was the first civil rights activist to investigate the Jena 6 case. “I hate to even address this issue because it inevitably will raise questions as to all of the money that has been raised, and that is going to hurt the defendants.”