James Peterson on the Sean Bell Verdict

You Know How We Do
By James Braxton Peterson | TheRoot.com

For Whom the Bell Tolls (Part II)

"Perchance, he for whom this bell tolls may be so ill, as that he knows not it tolls for him" - John Donne

Part one of this essay appeared as a blog on Blackprof during the fall of 2007. At that time, the 'Bell' in the title referred specifically to Mychal Bell of the Jena Six. I serialize the title here not because of my love for Hemingway (or Donne for that matter), but to revisit the theme of death and valueless black life in the criminal justice system. Sean Bell, like Michael Bell before him, did not receive fair treatment under the law. The Bells' lives are seen as less than that of their white counterparts, whether those counterparts be racist high hchool bullies or racially indoctrinated officers of the law. It is interesting that of the officers involved in the shooting, the black cop shot the least, (4 bullets); the mixed-race cop shot 11 times, and the cop of Lebanese decent shot 31 times. I read this sliding scale as corollary to the effects of the racial and social indoctrination or our nation's police forces.

But the deadly confrontation between Sean Bell and his friends with those undercover detectives was not just about race. This confrontation had as much to do with the manifestation of black masculinity in the public sphere as it did racism - institutional or personal. It had as much to do with gender and gender roles as it did with race.

Read the Full Essay @


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James Braxton Peterson is an Assistant Professor of English at Bucknell University and the Founder of Hip Hop Scholars, LLC .