Weeks ago, we all watched as a perfect storm of political activism, social commentary, legal advocacy, and community organizing resulted in the nation finally turning its head southward to monitor the injustices that divide our nation by race, class, and region. While the Jena 6 case is the result of violence and injustice fueled by a social culture rooted in the acceptance of artificial racial hierarchies generated by slavery and segregation, we can’t forget that this incident and the aggravation it caused throughout the nation are not unique to Louisiana, the gulf region, or the south in general. Yes, we were angry about the nooses hanging from a tree. Yes, we were angry about what happened to those six young men. Yes, we were so caught up with this one case that we didn’t see all of the “Jena 6” abuses that continue to victimize youth of color in other parts of the country.
Only days after hundreds of thousands of people across the nation marched and stood in solidarity with the protests that were taking place in Jena, a small group of high school students in the Los Angeles area were excessively handled by school security officers for an incident involving a dropped piece of birthday cake. In late September 2007 at Palmdale Knight High School, Pleajhai Mervin had her wrist broken, was ticketed for littering, and called “nappy head” after dropping cake on the floor and failing to pick it up. Her classmate—another African American student—was manhandled and apprehended after filming the incident.
Seriously, this is not about enforcing a culture of cleanliness in our schools. This, like the Jena 6 case, is about the racial overtone with which our modern justice and educational systems are converging to reinforce oppressive and hostile learning environments for youth of color. This is about our endless struggle for justice—not the “justice” we see exhibited on the news, and increasingly in our schools, but a real and true demonstration of a sacred formula to honor what it right.
We come to this place every now and then, when we learn of yet another racially charged event that so enrages us that we feel compelled to stand up against what we feel are demonstrations of injustice. But let’s be honest. How many of the folks attending these rallies, marches, and walkouts are committed to the type of long-term education and agitation it takes to generate systemic change? How can this be a Civil Rights Movement when so many of us, even in this sophisticated digital age, only find out about egregious demonstrations of racism and institutional bias if we belong to social justice listservs or comb through civil rights blogs? Unless we strike at the foundation of these injustices—the criminalization of poverty, the criminalization of youth, the dehumanization of people of color (men AND women)—we’ll never see the change many of us demand…especially, if we keep up our on-again, off-again relationship with pursuing justice.
We don’t need another Civil Rights Movement. We need a Human Rights Movement. We need to adopt a culture of resistance that does more than just allow us to respond to incidents, but that motivates us to stand for justice—justice beyond Jena; justice beyond Los Angeles, New York, Miami, and any other city or town that reflects an unjust status quo. Our Movement will have to strategically advocate for Justice in the universal and individual sense of the word, where we don’t have to explain what we mean because our actions have already told the story.
What should the Movement look like? This, I believe, is our work in progress…
Resources:
“Students, Parents Protest Treatment of Student by Security Guard” FOX-News LA. September 28, 2007
“School Security Guards Beat Teen over Cake Spill” FOX-News LA. September 29, 2007.
“The Case of the Jena Six: Black High School Students Charged with Attempted Murder for Schoolyard Fight After Nooses Are Hung from Tree” by Democracy Now!
Free the Jena 6
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