When there is media hysteria and a frenzy over another overblown incident of high caliber racialized treatment of more Black children in places like Lowdown Louisiana, the young people who get the media attention are expected to go on with their lives and do better than they were doing before.
Some gratefulness should be shown to the people who went out of their way to get you out of trouble, and just such a thing has been the case with one of the most infamous of the once-famous “Jena 6” of Jena, Louisiana, Mychal Bell.
The Louisiana Parish wasn’t one that was known for having very many outstanding high-intellect “movers and shakers” of any race living within its boundaries, and even worse off -as usual- were the lower middle income and poorer Black children attending Jena’s public school systems.
Mychal Bell, of Monroe and Jena, LA, College Graduate
But one day, there was such a thing as a “White Tree” on Jena High’s campus, and the Black children who attended the High School were told that they better not ever be caught sitting or standing under it.
In an act of outright defiance, these six Black children went and sat under that tree anyway — and found themselves in quite a row with the school’s white students, of whom it was said that they the proceeded to follow, assault, and harass the Black students for defying their white supremacy orders.
A fight (or a few fights) broke out, escalated, and one of the miscreants of the white race then went and got a loaded weapon and threatened the six Black children with it.
However, when the expected ass-whipping took place and one of them landed in a hospital with quite a few stitches, punctures and black eyes, it wasn’t the white harassers and threateners who started it who ended up getting excessive jail time for the trouble they had caused, but the Black ones who had sought to defend themselves against it.
One of the Black students was Mychal Bell, who stood out because he was a running back on the high school’s football team.
It was Bell who received an over-bloated excessive extreme sentence for what amounted to self-defense on his part; and the judge who threatened to take away his entire life “with the stroke of a pen”? Well … the judge wasn’t a typical white racist one, but a Black man who really should have known better.
Well … the judge wasn’t a typical white racist one, but a Black man who really should have known better.
Word got out to the media and all hell broke loose on Jena, bringing in a round of the usual suspects every time a case is high profile enough to make the news, including Al Sharpton.
Sometime in 2009, Bell, who had been the prime beneficiary of the public’s ranting and raving salvation, attempted to take his own life because of the pressure he felt to be “perfect” as an act of gratitude to all the people who had supported him and fought that judge tooth and nail for his life.
Yeah, pretty much if people go all out for you like that, they don’t expect you to turn right around and screw up again and prove that they totally wasted their time. It makes it easier to throw people who ask for help again “under the proverbial bus,” because the white racist systems these judges all bend over and kiss have already chalked these Black children up for nothing more than failures and statistics in life, anyway.
Well … there’s good news, these eight years later.
After a few rounds with falling for the voice of the devil on his right shoulder who kept telling him he wasn’t going to make it and to just give up and follow his predestined life as a criminal element Black male, Mychal Bell has finally graduated from college.
Yes. He did it.
He finished up and graduated this year from Southern University with a degree in Education.
We here at Urban Intellectuals wish him all the best.
We’re not only glad that he decided he didn’t want to go out of this world as a “disappointment,” but we also congratulate him for being one of the main instruments in the school’s decision to cut down that “white [supremacy] tree.”
No, the tree didn’t do anything, but the folks who used it to install their lascivious version of white privilege and racism lost that tree as a result of their actions. As well they should have.
Good job, Mr. Bell, College Graduate and Black Man About Town.
Instead of being stuck on stupid, your name just went down in the Annals of all of the Black History books that have yet to be written.
Go with good, and Go with God, Professor Bell.
Black people and everybody else where human progress is being made ought to be paying you thousands in speaking endowment engagements to visit schools and colleges all over the nation.
Up Next: PhD for Dr. Bell!
REFERENCE
White Women, Please Don’t Expect Me to Wipe Away Your Tears
(…she was TOO polite about this, but it was dead on point…)
Ok. I see a plethora of comments stating, things are not true. This article is bs or what have you. Well got damm, speak the truth….I’ll wait. ………………………………………………………………………..still waiting……………..oh okay then. Shut up and congratulate this young man instead of taking time out of your world to comment. Let’s hear the facts Jena attendees. .
Wow!!!! I guess any white person that comments on this is racist??? I’m not racist against skin color. I’m racist towards stupidity!!!! This was supposed to be about Mychal and his accomplishments not towards anything else. But this goes to show that’s Peolpe will never change. Some folks love living in the past instead of the future. Not everyone is racist just because their white or African American. Before there can be a change in the world there must be a change in us. As a Mother of 5 I hope my children never have to go through what any race went through hundred of years ago. Rather it be slavery or depressions or poverty. We should be more concerned about the blessings God gave each and everyone of us as a People not a race. And reassure Our children that there was men and woman that stood up for what was right and that’s why We as the Anerican People have Freedom!!! Now God Bless each and everyone of y’all! Hope y’all all have a Blessed and Merry Christmas! And remember skin color doesn’t define ones heart!!
No, but you can always count on some folks to come in to shit and stank on someone else’s ‘Hallelujah parade’ by making what was supposed to be something wonderful about THEM into something stupid about YOURSELF.
Practice what you preach!! We all stand for something but if we don’t stand together then it really doesn’t make much of a difference!
Wow Misty, really? Those who profess I’m not Racist, truly are. Skin color indeed does not define ones heart, it defines being a walking target for many ethnic groups and where a few small minority of Americans feel that they have entitlement. By the way, I’m not an AFRICAN AMERICAN, I’M AM AN AMERICAN who’s ethnic grouping is that of American Native, Jewish, Black and Latin…and there’s historian papers on my ancestry. However, you’ll see a Black skin, which does not describe the contents of my character, beliefs, nor dignity. And it is a given fact and or perception, you sooner would walk and clutch your purse to your chest than to give the benefit of the doubt, that a Black man passing you might rob you. How easy it is for you as a “christian white person” easily speak about past history. History, still lives on in the PRESENT in this Country. Apparently, certain a certain Ethnic group feels as though Blacks and Latinos aren’t dying off as plan. So, OPEN SEASON, kill off the youth, use the legal system and hide behind it, call it JUSTIFIED. Exactly what did you think was going to happen. WE..ARE..FIGHTING…BACK!!!! We’re EDUCATING OUR YOUNG AS BEST AS WE CAN…AND WHEN ONE MAKES IT…WE, ARE OVERJOYED!!!! AND, this young man will be an EDUCATOR!!!! TRULY GOD IS GOOD!!!! AND, THE MORE we can SHOW OUR YOUTH HOW ONE CHILD HAS OVERCAME!!!!! WE, WILL MARCH, FIGHT WITH ANY MEANS NECESSARY….AND GIVE PRAISES TO THEM AND THE GLORY TO GOD FOR ALLOWING THESE VICTORY…So dear heart, you better look around, you are now the MINORITY. And unless you stand with us in EQUALITY FOR ALL, than God fearing are not, God sees you for what you TRULY ARE, and WILL TAKE YOU TO TASK…Myself, I’m going to pray for you apparently you needed the attention, and now you have it.
Clearly you took everything I said and twisted it so you can write your big long message! So who needs attention now????? Don’t put words in my mouth that I didn’t say!!!!! And if you could see past SKIN COLOR YOU COULD HAVE SEEN WHERE I CLEARLY STATED WE NEED TO ALL STAND TOGETHER!!!!! So plz by all means find someone else to put words in their mouths!! And I’ll pray for you as well.
I feel you
Clearly you took everything I said and twisted it so you can write your big long message! So who needs attention now????? Don’t put words in my mouth that I didn’t say!!!!! And if you could see past SKIN COLOR YOU COULD HAVE SEEN WHERE I CLEARLY STATED WE NEED TO ALL STAND TOGETHER!!!!! So plz by all means find someone else to put words in their mouths!! And I’ll pray for you as well.
Take careful note: None of these beatches are over there CONGRATULATING Trayvon Martin’s brother, Jahvaris, on his college graduation. That’s enough to tell you what their [real] issue is with this article.
My issue isn’t with the article! My issue is with the comments and the hatred I’m reading!!! God created each and everyone of us. We are to love our brothers and sisters no matter their race. I’m from Jena but I was not living here when all this happened. I don’t know the whole story because I didn’t want to know. Yes thhere is racist idiots that live in Jena but their of all races not just white. So instead of pin pointing one town let’s address the whole world because it goes on everywhere. I have a very close friend who is African American and it got so bad that she stopped telling people she was from Jena because she didn’t want to be stuck being know because of the whole issue at hand. I used to could have said I was from Jena and people was like where is that. Now you mention Jena and it’s oh the Jena 6 place. Some people want to move on.
It ends when it ends.