Rocker Donates to Jena 6 Defense Fund
September 19, 2007
By MARY FOSTER
NEW ORLEANS — David Bowie has donated $10,000 to a legal defense fund for six black teens charged in an alleged attack on a white classmate in the tiny central Louisiana town of Jena.
The British rocker’s donation to the Jena Six Legal Defense Fund was announced by the NAACP as thousands of protesters were expected to march through Jena on Thursday in defense of Mychal Bell and five other teens. The group has become known as the Jena Six.
“There is clearly a separate and unequal judicial process going on in the town of Jena,” Bowie said Tuesday in an e-mail statement. “A donation to the Jena Six Legal Defense Fund is my small gesture indicating my belief that a wrongful charge and sentence should be prevented.”
Bell was found guilty on second-degree battery charges June 28 by a six-member, all-white jury. Before the case was overturned by the state 3rd Circuit Court of Appeal, his sentencing had been set for Thursday.
The court said Bell, who was 16 at the time of the alleged December 2006 beating, shouldn’t have been tried as an adult.
The Rev. Al Sharpton, who helped organize the march, planned to do his syndicated radio show from Alexandria on Wednesday, then travel about 35 miles to Jena in an attempt to visit Bell, who remains in jail because he is unable to post $90,000 bond.
Sharpton says he expects more than 10,000 marchers.
“We are gratified that rock star David Bowie was moved to donate to the NAACP’s Jena campaign,” National Board of Directors Chairman Julian Bond of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said in a statement. “We hope others will join him.”
it’s a good thing i don’t live in the south any longer (i actually lived in huntsville, alabamba a long time ago), because, after my injury, i have become practically incapable of keeping my mouth shut. even before my injury i was reactive enough that it would have been difficult…
Oh, they’re racist alright. For every non-racist in Louisiana, like me, with other thingts to worry about… there is atleast ten other people that are infected by this ignorance. It’s whites and blacks, not just one group. (The people I really feel for are the middle-eastern people who’ve moved in. They don’t bother anybody, but get talked about by EVERYONE and the ones that I know run the coolest liquor stores and sell nice cheap pipes and hookahs) I’ve been watching carefully for years and I see it allll over the place. It pisses me off. Grrrr.
Wanna know what really sucks? Out of all of my friends I have TWO that aren’t racist pricks. The house I live in (and one of those two lives with me there) is full of five other closed minded individuals and more often than not (but not ALWAYS) I keep my mouth shut when they start the racial slurs etc. because they’re the people I love most in this world and they are really GOOD people…. but they are infected by this…. disease.
what gets me all riled up is that the residents of jena say that they’re not racist…
— what???
Ugh, it’s all a bunch of bullshit. It just goes to show that racism is alive and well in America and definitely in Louisiana. Believe me, I live here. This never would have happened if the huge majority of the population (all races and ethnic groups here) wasn’t a gaggle of uneducated, ignorant twits who have never thought for themselves a single day of existence. Prosecute everyone involved, whites and blacks and whoever else. They are all in the wrong.
This whole time, I’m thinking “If this had been that bunch of white boys who hung nooses beating the tar out of some black kid, this would have never made news, and if it had, it would have probably been something like ‘Uppity N***** Gets Comeuppance’ as the headline”. Maybe not in those words, but that would have been the sentiment.