Let's not forget the struggle

By: Sherrell Martin

Posted: 6/18/08

By Sherrell Martin

How easy is it for us to forget those things that outrage us? Sadly enough, Blacks have been stereotyped as making noise but doing nothing. We have been conditioned by years of physical and mental slavery to forget the struggles for equality by pursue the appearance there of. In 2007 the Black community was heart broken infuriated with several eruptions of injustice.

On June 18, 07, a mother and son endured hell on earth as the she was raped and sodomized by up to 10 masked teenagers while her 12-year-old son was beaten in another room. And when the mother thought that it was all over, she was forced to do the unspeakable. At gunpoint, the woman was forced to perform oral sex on her son.

Without doubt the neighbors had to have heard the ghastly screams ringing through West Palm Beach's Dunbar Village public housing complex on June 18. Although the walls in the housing project were thin, and someone should have heard them, a 35 year old Haitian mother and her 12 year old son sat in their bathtub holding on to each other, battered, beaten and crying, - wondering why no one came to help. And now I have to wonder why it is so easy for us to forget.

Do we remember the nightmare of Megan Williams? Williams thought she was going to a party, but, instead, she was sexually assaulted, doused with hot water, forced to eat animal feces, and drink from a toilet, while being taunted with racial slurs.

Williams, a young, black, 20-year-old female endured six white offender's week-long captivity in Big Creek, West Virginia, and survived to tell her story. She thought she was going to a party and voluntarily went to a remote run-down trailer. According to Williams, it was not until she was in the trailer and surrounded by her assailants that she realized that she was in trouble.

When we learned of her ordeal American cried out. We were ashamed of those that hurt her and outraged at the authorities questioning reaction. Many protested at the court house when here accusers were arraigned and several wrote editorials in local newspapers to get her story to the public. So what happened? Were her accusers tried? We lost interest in Williams. Her life ordeal was overshadowed by the Jena 6 rally.

While Williams prepared for justice in the courts, many Blacks rallied in Jena, LA to fight modern day racism. So, what was the outcome? Millions were provoked to speak out against injustice. Have all the boys gone to trial? The cameras are no longer lingering around the small town of Jena and the excitement of the Jena 6 has lost it savor. Blacks across America were angered when learning that 6 Black boys were arrested for an incident that could have been prevented had the school officials taken an interest in preserving racial equality.