When Barack Obama was elected as the 44th president of the United States of America, some people wondered if it marked the end of racism in this country.
Three hundred people gathered at Pulaski Park on Main Street in Northampton yesterday gave an emphatic "no."
The Committee for Justice for Jason Vassell (CJJV), along with several hundred members of the community, held a rally yesterday to deliver a petition with 4,500 signatures to Northwestern District Attorney Elizabeth D. Scheibel. They were there to defend Jason Vassell, a black man, against charges brought up in the wake of an altercation with two white men that resulted in severe injuries.
In 200 or so words it said this: Let the man go.
Jason W. Vassell was an undergraduate at UMass when he was harassed and threatened by John C. Bowes, 20, of Hancock, N.H., and Jonathan Bosse, 19, of Milton, Mass., in and around his Southwest dormitory.
What sparked the interaction between these men is unclear, but it is clear that racial slurs were used, a window broken and three lives changed in a span of a few short minutes.
In the end, both Bosse and Bowes had been stabbed, Vassell's nose was broken and a controversy that would last almost an entire year gripped the UMass campus. A member of the community is facing 20 years in prison. That much is known for certain.
The rest has become an issue of debate.
There are those who say that this isn't a race issue, that Vassell just happened to be black, and his assailants, or victims, depending on whom you ask, just happened to be white. To me it seems unlikely, but possible.
But the CJJV has been quick to point out that nobody's contesting that Bosse and Bowes started the fight, yet only one, Bowes, is facing any charges.
Misdemeanor charges.
It remains unclear whether Vassell's stabbing of Bosse and Bowes can be legally construed as self-defense. It's pretty obvious, though, that their role in the incident - from the racial slurs to the broken window and Vassell's broken nose - call for more than misdemeanor charges.
Vassell has also been criticized for calling a friend, Vishan Chamanlal, instead of the police. If Vassell was innocent, it has been said, why didn't he phone the police and sit quietly in his room?
Two things:
For one, I've never been a black man. But I've been told it makes dealing with police a slightly different experience. That's not to say that the University of Massachusetts Police Department wouldn't have handled the situation ably, but I'm not going to hold it against a person of color for not thinking to dial 911 before he called his buddy.
What's more, nowhere in any statutes involving assault and battery, attempted murder, self defense - the whole nine yards - does it say anything about innocence or guilt hinging on whether you called the police. Not calling the cops is not an admission of guilt.
For what it's worth, the CJJV is doing a very noble thing in protecting a member of the community. They have, however, been unabashed in their claims to a monopoly on truth. A column that ran in The Collegian questioning their motives drew demands that the paper print an 1,800 word response, unedited, to "correct" factual errors in the piece.
The column in question came with several police reports from the Belchertown courthouse as sources. The "correction" came with none. Of course, a police report is hardly the objective truth, and there wasn't much in the column that I agreed with.
But it's dialogue, and not finger pointing, that's going to bring about justice.
And while the CJJV has called for a dismissal of all charges, Vassell's attorneys haven't requested anything of the sort, according to a statement from Scheibel to The Daily Hampshire Gazette.
"All victims, and defendants, no matter how popular or unpopular, have a right to a fair trial before an impartial jury, with the benefit of rules of evidence and procedure," Scheibel wrote, "not in the court of public opinion."
Regardless of whether community members are leaning one way or another, it's important that they know the facts of the case, many of which will unfold when Vassell is tried early next year. Wherever justice falls, a UMass student's life is at stake.
In an interview yesterday, SGA President Malcolm Chu, a member of the CJJV, said the purpose of Wednesday's rally was to send a message to the D.A.'s office "not to under-judge how strong the will of the community is."
"This is not a student issue, it's a community issue," he said.
That much is true.
S.P. Sullivan is a Collegian columnist. He can be reached at spsulliv@dailycollegian.com.
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