The same brand of fear that propels a young man to spear another man with an American flag and prompts High School students to hang nooses from a “Whites Only” shade tree is exploited to advance Bush's “War of Terror” and propagate the “immigration crisis” wedge issue.
How long are we going to keep falling for this shit?
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Watch reports from WGBH's 10 O'Clock News archive:
Ted Landsmark's press conference.
State Senator Owens:”People of color are not safe to come here to Boston and we are asking people across the country, of color, to stay away.”
Please share widely!
http://www.pamshouse…
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Laurel, feel free to correct me if I err, but I got the impression that the issue is not so much that the black youth should not be prosecuted for their assault and battery, but that there is a distinct difference between the way that the (white) prosecutor has been handling substantially similar incidents regarding white youth perpetrators against blacks. Therein likes the discrimination.
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Regarding the picture, I’ll tell you another of my little stories. It involves the (white) South Boston High School riots of 1973 (or so) which made Louise Day Hicks famous. This was long before I moved to Boston, but I was talking about it with my Southern uncle (Norfolk VA). He pointed out that Northerners like to lecture Southerners about racism, while many of them are racist themselves. Oh, and that was very true, and, I’d be willing to wager, it will continue to be true for many years.
…the Jena 6 incident and demonstration has reached the foreign press. From Der Speigel
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Zehntausende marschieren für die “Jena six”
Ausnahmezustand in einer Kleinstadt im US-Bundesstaat Louisiana: Zehntausende Menschen haben in dem Ort gegen die harte Bestrafung von sechs schwarzen Jugendlichen demonstriert, die einen weißen Mitschüler verprügelt hatten. Mancher Protestler träumt bereits von einer neuen Bürgerrechtsbewegung.
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http://www.spiegel.d…
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translated as
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tends of thousands marcehed for the Jena 6 exceptional condition in a small city in the US state of Louisiana against the exceptionally hard punishment of six black youth who beat up a white student. Many who protested dream for a new citizens’ rights movement
because Tony Snow has said that
And he said this in his capacity as President Bush’s press secretary, so you know it must be true!
No sensible person supports racism, but there are a hell of a lot of non-sensible people out there.
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As far as it being a big deal, I don’t think it is a big deal institutionally, but on an individual level, it’ something that will never go away. C’est la vie, unfortunately.
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While I’m here: my take on Jena? 1 in 3 black men will be in jail in their lifetimes, and the black community finally gets up and says something about it only AFTER 6 black boys put a white boy in the hospital. Should they get charged with attempted murder? No. Should they be freed? No.
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I would love to hear Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton chastise the black community for gang violence and crime without something like this happening. Sad thing is, it wouldn’t get any press.
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And the white kids who hung the nooses? Charge them with inciting a riot and make an example out of them. Nobody in this event is innocent. Nobody.
the white kid wasn’t “put in the hospital”. he was treated and released the same day, and attended a school event that very same evening. i am not trying to excuse the black guys for beating him up, but neither should anyone think he was left at death’s door. charging those guys with attempted murder, and trying them as adults is so far out of proportion it isn’t funny. the white guy who pulled the shotgun on the black kid? not charged. no one is saying any of these guys doing illegal things shouldn’t be punished. what they, and i, are saying is that the punishments need to be fair and impartial. so far, not even close.
While I’m here: my take on Jena? 1 in 3 black men will be in jail in their lifetimes…
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For your statistics to make any sense, you have to assume that elected prosecutors treat and charge black people the same way they treat and charge white people. The sad fact that you have is that the elected prosecutors don’t.
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Pay attention to the second paragraph of the blockquote at a post on the Jena incident at Pam’s place http://www.pamshouse… Similar phenomena have been noted many times. Elected prosecutors, via their prosecutorial discretion, are more likely to charge blacks than whites for similar incidents. And, moreover, they are more likely to charge them with more serious offenses if they charge white people at all.
And I bet the prosecutor in Jena is in his last term as we speak. What else can you do though besides boot them out of office?
that the people electing these guys feel the same way about blacks as they do, and that is why they stay in office? what leads you to bet that the prosecutor is in his last term? really, i’m asking. because all i hear out of jena by the whites interviewed is “the nooses were just a joke, they can’t take a joke?” not one local white was willing to show concern over the gross disparities this case has demonstrated. these are the people that keep biased prosecutors in business.
Moreover, there are a few more things that you might want to consider.
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What else can you do though besides boot them out of office?
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Point one. Who is going to boot them (the elected prosecutors) out of office? If one in three black males will be in jail in their lifetimes (your statistic, not mine) it is probable that they will lose their right to vote in many states, even after they have served their sentences. The US Supreme Court has held that to be constitutional, and the largely white power structure in the Southern US has rigged it specifically to reduce black influence in elections. Indeed when the “loss of franchise” laws were initially proposed in the US South, they were primarily directed to felonies that the state legislators believed that blacks were more likely to commit–not to all felonies. So white boys, at most, get slapped on the wrist (no lack of franchise), and black boys get felony convictions (lack of franchise).
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Point two. It is obvious that the elected prosecutors are doing what the white power structure wants them to do. To disenfranchise black people. The white power structure can’t do that via literacy tests or poll taxes, so it does it via other means.
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Point three. Racism isn’t just in the US South. It’s also in the US North. It’s probably before your time, but there was an incident a few years ago in the Boston Police Department in which a couple of white officers had draped a noose–a symbol of lynching–over a black officer’s paraphernalia. The white officers called it a prank, too. Sorry, such is not a prank. I don’t recall the outcome of that incident, but it did occur. I would have considered it totally unprofessional conduct and fired them immediately.
Don’t commit crimes. It’s worked for me, it would probably work for them.
because outwardly it seems like I’m being overly simplistic and not sensitive enough to the their plight, but nobody forced those kids to beat someone up. Especially six to one.
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Worried that you’re going to get unfair charged leveled against you? Well, in a perfect world that wouldn’t happen, but we don’t live in a perfect world and there’s a lot of assholes out there. So what do you do? Don’t commit felonies. It’s not exactly rocket science.
…apparently are still are unable to understand the racial issue with elected prosecutors.
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I had believed that I made it perfectly clear. An alleged perpetrator cannot be convicted of a felony–and thereby lose his right to vote for or against the elected prosecutor–unless the elected prosecutor charges him with a felony. And it has been observed that elected prosecutors are more likely to charge blacks with felonies than whites based on similar sets of facts.
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Go to law school, learn something about prosecutorial discretion, and maybe you’ll understand something about what I’m writing.
…JoeTS, I do not rate, so I have no idea who gave you the three.
and it’s disgusting. I think that the charge of attempted murder is too much. Way too much. However, there is the fact that 6 people beat up one person. To charge them with misdemeanor assault wouldn’t fit what they did, I don’t think. So the prosecutor called the tennis shoes a weapon and charged the 14 year old with aggravated assault.
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Still, the problem stands that since these prosecutors are elected, and if we assume that the white majority is ok with their behavior and, although ethically deprived, but legally allowed discretion of charges, what can a person do besides not commit crimes?
please use the *below to get around right margin indent hell
Blacks are charged more severely for the same crimes as whites or other races? Absolutely false. Check any number of statistical studies or sources — present day reality is that sentencing among blacks and more precisely within black communities is consistently the least severe for the same crime.
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Was this always the case? Of course not — for decades the opposite was true. But for at least the last 20 years it has been the case and Jena 6 is hardly an exception. It is unlikely that any of “the 6” will see any kind of real punishment (regardless or irrespective of the ‘protesters’). But can you imagine, for a moment, what would happen if 6 white youths beat senseless and continued assaulting while unconscious a lone black youth? Are you to tell me that reaction would to seek “justice” by letting the white youth go with a school suspension?
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The “first” civil rights movement was based on assuring all human rights be equally applied; ending segregation and government sanctioned violence, where people couldn’t feel safe or vote or have any equal treatment in the hometown. That was a movement that united the country (eventually) and nearly all people of America.
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In the old era, there would be an all-white jury because blacks were kept out, directly and deliberately. In the new era, blacks were called for jury duty for the Mychal Bell trial but DID NOT SHOW UP! The all-white jury was a black conspiracy, not a white conspiracy. Interesting switch.
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How many reported or recorded cases of of all-white juries convicting black defendants were similarly a result of blacks failing to show-up for jury duty? I suspect a lot and it is frankly disgusting. Would that have happened in the south of 1960s or 1950s? No way. But how long did it take for the majority of the black to community forget what was fought for, and to sit home blaming everyone but themselves.
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In the “new civil rights movements” what really mobilized people is to allow 6 six youths, at least one with a lengthly history of assault, to beat someone nearly to death with impunity. No one disputes (save for perhaps defense lawyers) that the “Jena 6” did what they did, nor has anyone alleged they received an unfair trial (I have seen nothing impugning the process of law, just the severity of sentencing which has already been thrown).
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The rally was to affect sentencing, but even though the conviction was overturned, the “show must gone on!” Of course it does, the professional race-baiters need the face-time.
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But the notion that blacks are sentenced at a rate unfair to others is a red-herring. There are always exceptions to prove the rule, but if you want to paint numbers with big sweeping brushes, as seems to be the intent of the Jena 6 proponents, then you have to accept the reality that blacks face both far lower conviction rates and more lenient sentencing than other races.
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Look at the statistics (okay these aren’t statistics but look up any published stats). . .
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the likelihood of a death sentence following a conviction of white-killing-black is virtually guaranteed (it is an extremely rare crime, but receives the highest punishment).
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In contrast, the more frequent (albeit still rare) instance of black-killing-white receives statistically by far the lightest punishment of any homicide.
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Black-on-black homicide is by far the most common, and least punished (2nd only to black-on-white crime in terms of leniency). In any major city there are hundreds of black-and-black murders every year and a tiny fraction result in any significant penalty (death or life).
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Those who are rallying for the “Jena 6” have already received what they cry out of — not justice but leniency. In most parts of the country, particularly up here, blacks can commit crimes with impunity, to the extent unlike any other race. Is this justice? Is this social equality or some kind of affirmative action to make up for previous decades of asymmetric justice?
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If that is the intent, it has worked out horribly. For whites, it is nearly inconsequential. But for blacks, it means that highest rates of murder in America are the predominantly or all-black neighborhoods. The civil rights movement of today should focus on the fact that black neighborhoods are more dangerous than Fallujah. But it is nothing that whites can fix. Any attempt to prosecute would be met with protest; and “stop snitching” culture means that no one will cooperate with police.
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Whites are literally (check the stats) more than 10 times as likely to be assaulted by blacks than blacks are to be whites, and the rate of punishment is even more asymmetric. But more than anything else, blacks are likely to be assaulted by blacks; and the value of property in black neighborhoods, because of black-on-black crime, is a fraction of that of other areas.
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The calls for “justice” are to prevent conviction and/or or to “free” Mychal Bell, since all the others are already free and facing minimal penalties if convicted on what are now significantly reduced charges. Despite what be all measures was a gruesome assault not a school yard rumble, by someone (Bell) who had previously been convicted FOUR times of violent crimes. Bell is a violent criminal who probably assaulted members of his own community.
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For get the fact that blacks are routinely murdered and assaulted without conviction. But the what REALLY gets the black community energized, is the idea that blacks assaulting a white youth might actually get punished. For Sharpton I get it; theres no money in trying to shake down drug dealers and gang bangers. Pandering to white guilt is a lot more lucrative.
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But for the people who drove from Houston to Jena at their own expense so they can rally for leniency for Mychal Bell who at the age of 17 is facing his FIFTH conviction for a violent crime — ???
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I guess it really is “a black thing” as I definitely don’t understand.
apples with potatoes.
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The issue that I raised was prosecutorial discretion in regards charging. The issue that you raised was sentencing after conviction. Those are two completely separate issues.
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An alleged perpetrator will not be convicted of a crime at a particular degree unless the prosecutor charges him with the crime at the particular degree.
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For evidence that blacks are charged more harshly than whites for similar infractions, take a view at http://links.jstor.o…(1985)19%3A4%3C587%3ARAPDIH%3E2.0.CO%3B2-K
and I am comparing the entire judicial process — charging, pleas, conviction rates, and sentencing — in all cases in aggregate blacks face more leniency than whites and/or other races.
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I would be curious to look at your study, but from what I can glean from the link it was a 1985 study. A 20-year study done in 1985, yes I would absolutely believe that blacks were charged more harshly than whites. Today, no.
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And the result is — you are far, far more likely to be a victim of crime living in a black community than in other areas, notably a white community. To be as clear as I can possibly be, the leniency within black communities and lack of conviction is destroying black communities at a rate the KKK could have only dreamed of.
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If some kind of legal order can’t be restored within inner city black communities in this country then we are going to be facing a problem unlike anything we’ve ever seen. We owe it not only to this generation of African-Americans but to the fate of the entire country to turn this around.
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All of which makes the Jena 6 matter all the more absurd. The black community needs to clean its own house, as a generation or more of white guilt has not helped and you’re sure as hell not going to see any benefit from Sharpton/Jackson/et al.
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We need to do something. Point the finger of blame wherever you want but something has to be done. But to suggest that there is some kind of crisis of justice when a five-time violent offender faces possibly 10 years for a vicious assault that put some in the hospital, that is just absurd.
…it apparently comes in two pieces. Piece them together using notepad and you will get the appropriate URL
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Regarding
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A 20-year study done in 1985, yes I would absolutely believe that blacks were charged more harshly than whites. Today, no.
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your evidence for that statement being what?
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BTW, the link leads to an abstract of the article, which I will past here for your convenience so that you won’t need to bother with the URL:
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Now, your task is to provide evidence that circumstances have changed.
would want to highlight. That the Jena 6 matter is absurd and an embarrassment and insult to those who gave so much (in some cases all) for the civil rights movement of the 1960s, 50s and prior.
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Having race-baiters like Sharpton and Jackson, demanding “justice” vis-a-vis freeing a five-time violent offender just because his victim was white is grotesque. Having 1,000s of people march under the same circumstances is worse. And that fact that so many people can rally for that circus but ignore the reality in our inner cities is beyond sad.
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But I am missing the point, you might say. It is not because the victim is white (??) If so, again please tell me the role of messers Sharpton and Jackson were it 6 whites on 1 black individual. It would be outrageous and disgusting a crime for sure, but they wouldn’t be holding signs that say “free…” anybody. We all know that, let’s not kid ourselves.
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As for the “facts” (sigh) I still can’t get your URL to work but here is a relatively recent (’94-’96) study specifically in Florida tables race and severity of charges and sentencing.
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http://fldoc.gov/pub… although the same study shows a very limited correlation between race and sentencing http://fldoc.gov/pub…
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One of the issues, is how black Hispanics are categorized (who make up a large percentage in Florida but not in Southern California, for example).
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But when you look at crime statistics by race, blacks commit a larger total number (not just as a percentage of population) than whites, while whites commit at a much higher crimes less likely to be kicked up or more likely to be plead out, such as vandalism, drug possession (not distribution), etc.
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The result is that blacks are convicted for more violent crimes as a percentage of population than whites, but in reality at a much lower rate of crimes committed. Thus the argument that blacks are treated more harshly by the judicial process is not true, and in fact the opposite is true. And as a result, the small densely populated communities where these crimes have been concentrated have been turned into wastelands.
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Choose whatever stats you want. I have been looking at the numbers for years in various CJ capacities so they all blur together to me. I would be curious to see the study you’re talking about, but the URL won’t work for me.
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You can look at some at examples at the current FBI UCR http://www.fbi.gov/u…
Raj dusted off a study from over 20 years ago. he he he Hey Raj, that study is older than I am. LOL
“I don’t think it is a big deal institutionally, but on an individual level, it’ something that will never go away.”
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It is a big deal. There’s a book by Georgetown Professor and social critic Michael Eric Dyson I recommend to you. It’s not a cover-to-cover type book, it’s a collection of transcripted dialogs between Dyson from radio, tv, Senate testimony and academic conferences. He talks with people like John McCain, Bill O’Reilly, Ann Coulter, and many other people. You can jump around.
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It’s a great book because there will be people who might represent opinions you have and those opinions are represented in the dialogue by very smart people. I’d bet it’d be available at your library.
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Here’s Dyson on the Colbert Rebort:
http://www.comedycen…
http://books.google….
“While I’m here: my take on Jena? 1 in 3 black men will be in jail in their lifetimes, and the black community finally gets up and says something”
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People are pissed and people are working to quell this problem. But like you say further down in your comment, it doesn’t get press. Did you hear about the teenagers who sat-in at Governor Patrick’s office last week? How much press did that get?
The problem that you have is not whether the black kids should have been charged with, that with which they were charged. I’m not going to discuss that issue. Laurel has already discussed it.
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The issues that I am going to discuss, and would like you to take it to heart, are
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(i) whether the treatment of the white kids who were involved in similarly violent acts against black kids was discriminatory, and
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(ii) whether the white kids use of the nooses was intentionally inflamatory, bordering on “fighting words.”
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The prosecutor did not prosecute the white kids who perpetrated those acts, but he did prosecute the black kids were. You can whitewash it all you want, but the fact is that you still have a racist mentality in more than a bit of the US.
…this incident is all over German language media here in Germany.
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The problem that you have is that these incidents are not to be taken in isolation. The black kids who beat up the white kid should certainly be subject to the criminal justice system. But, as has been reported elsewhere, the elected white prosecutor most probably overcharged them.
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But what the black kids did followed an incident in which a few white kids hung hangmans’ nooses over the bench on which one of the black kids was graciously allowed by the school to sit. And the elected white prosecutor did nothing about it. He claimed that there was no Louisiana statute under which the could have been charged. But, quite frankly, that strains credulity. Virtually every jurisdiction has a statute against “disturbing the peace,” and it strikes me that hanging a symbol of lynching from a tree in the South is disturbing the peace. At least he could have tried for it; but he didn’t. The prosecutor didn’t do anything against the white kids. The black kids retaliated against the white kids, and the prosecutor did something about that.
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Therein lies the discrimination. You do realize that the issue with Jena is discrimination, don’t you?
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Regarding your two links, as far as I can tell they still regard sentencing, not charging. The issue is the prosecutorial discretion regarding charging
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I have no comment regarding Jackson and Sharpton. They’re irrelevant to this issue.