Howard Witt claims rift between Rev. Al Shapton and Web based activist movement in Dunbar Village rape case

Howard Witt once gain writes about a relevant issue in the African-American community for the Chicago Tribune. He has a theory that there is a rift between old guard activists -Rev. Al Sharpton, Rev. Jesse Jackson, NAACP- and new school internet advocates. Howard Witt’s theory is (mostly) right.

One thing that I don’t like is how the media has chosen to join Sharpton and Jackson at the hip. Though their work is similar, their styles and tactics are not the same. Even at the Jena rally, by the afternoon, Rev. Sharpton had left town while Rev. Jackson was still speaking and marching. I think the frustration lies more with Sharpton and the NAACP more that with Rev. Jackson. The names Jackson-Sharpton have become a punchline amongst whites and many well to do blacks. It is unfair to both, but especially to Jesse Jackson.

Anyway, we’ve been wondering for months why there hasn’t been more attention given to Dunbar Village. The story first appeared on this website August 5th, even before the Jena 6 march. June 18th of last year, a mother (with son present) gang raped in their W. Palm Beach apartment complex (Dunbar Village). Both the victims and assailants were black.

See the horrific details of the attack by clicking here and reading my November 1, “Day of Blogging for Justice” post.

The call has been for black leaders to speak out against the actions of the attackers in the Dunbar Village case. There has been virtually nothing on that front. So when Rev. Sharpton called a press conference in support of the accused teens, many black bloggers were outraged. I posted an article from Electronic Village on March 20 titled Al Sharpton and NAACP are wrong in Dunbar Village Gang Rape Case.

With all that said, here’s are parts of the Howard Witt Chicago Tribune Article. See the entire story here.

• Three weeks ago, however, 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 attack are being treated unfairly because they remain incarcerated without bond, while five white teenagers recently accused of sexually assaulting two white girls in nearby Boca Raton 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 behind him. “You must have equal protection under the law.”

• “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, Texas, attorney and author of an influential African-American civil rights blog called What About Our Daughters? “We’ve lost our way in the civil rights movement…”

• 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’s critics say it was wrong to equate the Dunbar Village and Boca Raton rape cases in the first place because the Dunbar assault was far more vicious. Among the awful details: The attackers forced the mother to perform oral sex on her 12-year-old son.

• The rift between the new generation of civil rights activists, organized via blogs, Web sites and e-mail lists, and their old-guard forebears such as Sharpton, Jesse Jackson and the NAACP, opened last September over the civil rights march through Jena, La., that drew more than 20,000 demonstrators…Two months later, black civil rights bloggers were perplexed when Sharpton organized a march for justice in Washington without tapping their organizing abilities.

It should be noted that the local NAACP participated in the Sharpton press conference, but the national organization has not been involved to this point.

Click here to see Rev. Sharpton’s Florida press conference.

Click here to see very detailed accounts at the Dunbar Village Blog.