SOME CIVIL RIGHTS ADVOCATES QUESTION HIS DECISION TO CHAMPION SUSPECTS IN THE BRUTAL CRIME
Chicago Tribune
The attackers doused the victims with household chemicals — pouring them into the boy’s eyes — and attempted to set the pair on fire before fleeing.
Yet outside of South Florida, the attack last June largely escaped notice, and it scarcely registered on the radar of national civil rights leaders because it involved the topic of black-on-black crime.
Three weeks ago, however, the Rev. Al Sharpton and local representatives of the NAACP held a news conference in West Palm Beach where they declared that four black teenagers arrested for the Dunbar Village attacks are being treated unfairly because they remain jailed without bail, while five white teenagers recently accused of sexually assaulting two white girls in nearby Boca Raton, Fla., were freed on bail.
“You cannot have one set of rules for acts that are wrong and horrific in Boca and another set in Dunbar Village,” Sharpton said, as parents of some of the Dunbar defendants nodded. “You must have equal protection under the law.”
Online uproar
It was, for Sharpton and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, a familiar situation and a routine news conference: contrasting the treatment of blacks and whites in the criminal justice system and calling for fairness.But Sharpton’s remarks — and his apparent call for the Dunbar Village suspects to be released on bail — triggered outrage on dozens of Internet blogs devoted to civil rights, feminism and the interests of black crime victims.
The Dunbar Village case is deepening a growing schism between traditional civil rights organizations and a new, Internet-driven generation of younger activists who take a more nuanced view of many issues.
“For Sharpton and the NAACP to come out and recklessly say we need to free these guys because some white guys over in Boca Raton are out on bail is just unconscionable,” said Gina McCauley, an Austin lawyer and author of an influential black-oriented civil rights blog called What About Our Daughters?
Color of Change, a Web-based civil rights group that counts nearly 400,000 members, criticized Sharpton for choosing the accused Dunbar Village assailants to champion.
“I question whether this is the case we want to be standing up for,” said Mervyn Marcano, the group’s spokesman. “At the end of the day, when we choose to fight for equal justice, we have to be aware of who’s being affected. A lot of people think no one was speaking for the victims of this terrible crime.”
Sharpton strongly denied last week that he was ignoring the plight of the Dunbar Village victims or insisting that their accused attackers should be freed on bail. He said his comments at the March 11 news conference had been misunderstood, and that he had visited Dunbar Village several times this year to show support for the residents and denounce the “hideous, deplorable” crime.
“My position is there ought to be one standard,” Sharpton said. “The white kids in Boca Raton ought to be held just like the black kids in Dunbar Village. Why are they not doing the same with the white kids?”
Maude Ford Lee, the president of the West Palm Beach NAACP chapter who joined Sharpton at the press conference, said she hoped Sharpton’s presence would help expose the “injustice” of the case.
“Our kids are incarcerated, they can’t even get a bond, and it’s unconscionable what is happening,” Lee said.
Sharpton’s critics say it was wrong to equate the Dunbar Village and Boca Raton cases in the first place because the Dunbar case was more vicious.
In the Boca Raton case, the five white teenagers are accused of sexually assaulting two middle school students after the group of seven engaged in a night of drinking. The Dunbar defendants, by contrast, face felony counts for the torture and gang-rape that could send them to prison for life.
(Article courtesy of the Houston Chronicle: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/nation/5659159.html )
RELATED LINKS: https://kathmanduk2.wordpress.com/2007/11/05/suspect-14-offers-to-tell-all-in-dunbar-village-rape-case/
https://kathmanduk2.wordpress.com/2008/01/17/spotlight-on-dunbar-village/
https://kathmanduk2.wordpress.com/2007/11/05/the-war-to-destroy-black-women/
And the story that started it all: https://kathmanduk2.wordpress.com/2007/08/10/dunbar-village/
Ann
Let them out … let them out so they can be dealt with in a just manner. Otherwise lock them up in gen pop and plaster the walls with articles detailing what these SAVAGES did the innocent … either way …. they WILL receive punishment. I just only hope they suffer as much if not more than their victims. To HECK with their rights! They have NONE! They have confessed! Finish them.