Rev. Danny Fisher

This week, rock-and-roll legend David Bowie donated $10,000 to the legal defense fund for the “Jena Six”: Mychal Bell, Robert Bailey, Theodore Shaw, Carwin Jones, Bryant Purvis, and an anonymous juvenile classmate of theirs. Bowie called the donation a “small gesture,” but it is a powerful expression of what I think many people are feeling with regards to this case: outrage.

What is happening to these six black high school students in Jena, Lousiana, right now is an injustice of the highest order. That Mychal Bell is languishing in jail, denied bail, is totally unacceptable.

It’s 2007. We cannot complacently watch institutional racism in action and do nothing. To do so belies all the promises we’ve made ourselves as students of history. To do so would be one more way we allow ourselves to get even further away from those things our country was founded upon. To do so would be inhuman.

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., once wrote:

You may be thirty-eight years old, as I happen to be, and one day, some great opportunity stands before you and calls upon you to stand up for some great principle, some great issue, some great cause. And you refuse to do it because you are afraid. You refuse to do it because you want to live longer. You’re afraid that you will lose your job, or you’re afraid that you will be criticized or that you will lose your popularity, or you’re afraid that someone will stab you or shoot at you or bomb your house. So you refuse to take the stand. Well, you may go on and live until you are ninety, but you are just as dead at thirty-eight as you would be at ninety. And the cessation of breathing in your life is but the belated announcement of an earlier death of the spirit. You died when you refused to stand up for right. You died when you refused to stand up for truth. You died when you refused to stand up for justice.

Stand up for justice. Follow this link to sign a national petition asking the Louisiana governor to intervene in the case. Join with Mr. Bowie by making a secure online donation to the Jena Six Defense Fund here.

And stay aware of what’s going on. If you’re not familiar with this case or are only vaguely aware of it, I recommend taking a look at the below video from Collateral News. (Thanks to Peter Rothberg for the pointer.)