Common Peace Initiative
Friends of Justice speaks regularly to the general public about our work to defend due process for all Americans, telling compelling stories of injustice and offering hope that they can be remedied. We are most effective when invite the victims of civil rights abuses to tell their own story firsthand. Since we are a faith-based organization, we are able to cultivate strong ties to diverse religious communities, to build a new consensus among people of faith about the need to hold our criminal justice system accountable to our nation’s highest values.
Friends of Justice leaders also write original commentary on faith and criminal justice for national outlets like Sojourners Magazine and Relevant Magazine.
To arrange a Friends of Justice speaking engagement to inform or inspire your faith community or organization, contact Alan Bean at bean_alan@att.net.
DO JUSTICE. LOVE MERCY. WALK HUMBLY.
Too often have certain segments of the population received the maximum punishment for the most minimal PERCEIVED offenses while others do the most heinous acts with impunity. Granted the Jena Six made a mistake in jumping that student and deserved to be SUSPENDED, but NOT charged with aggravated assault or attempted murder.
Likewise, those who tied those nooses deserved to be charged with a HATE CRIME, not merely suspended. If one is to apply justice, be objective about it.
I have experienced being jumped several times; sometimes in full view of a teacher, but never had anyone who ever done so been charged with aggravated assault. And I certainly know what constitutes a hate crime. White boys on bicycles rode down our street and threw jagged tin can lids at my sister and me, but that happened in the late 1970s before the word hate crime was ever coined. Yet my efforts to defend myself would get me put behind bars.
That’s why my wife and I learned several languages and left the country we both once fought a minimum of three wars to defend. We both hoped that people would take on the attitude of “Racism? That’s sooo twentieth century!” Unfortunately, the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and now this has patently shown us that racism and injustice has followed us into the new century.
Please prove us wrong and show that we fought for a country that stands for Liberty and Justice for All by freeing those six boys and by charging those that hung those nooses under that tree that provoked all this unpleasantness with a hate crime, disorderly conduct, disturbing the peace and those are just what I could come up with now.
By: p.s. gary on September 26, 2007
at 3:21 pm