In a silent demonstration Monday, members of the Black Student Union and other participants walked out of class, met in Malcolm X plaza and marched around the SF State campus as part of a nationwide student walkout to support the “Jena 6,” according to Penny Saffold, Vice President of SF State Student Affairs.

A group of 10 students swelled to more than 40 as they walked, holding signs that read: “End White Supremacy” and “Stop Racism.” Outcries of racial and political anguish burst from the silent demonstration into the late morning air.

“If you’re not outraged, then you’re not paying attention,” yelled one participant as the parade passed Café Rosso.

They asked on-lookers the question, “What does the noose mean to you?” in reference to the nooses that hung from a tree in a Jena, La. schoolyard and incited a racially motivated fight in which a white teen was knocked out, which lead to a charge of attempted murder against one of the black assailants.

After chanting “Fired up, can’t take it no more!” the demonstrators stopped in front of the Ethnic Studies building, assembled in a crescent shape, and took turns speaking to the flow of students that trickled by.

One male student, who preferred to remain anonymous to preserve the collectivity of their message, compared today’s demonstration to the political activism of the 1960s.

“This is bigger than civil rights, this is about human rights, “ he said, “and this (demonstration) is for everybody who is oppressed around the globe.”

Speaking after the demonstration, Professor Kevin Washington of the SF State Africana Studies Department referenced Martin Luther King, who said, “Injustice anywhere, is injustice everywhere.”

The devaluation of African Americans is a global phenomenon, no different from that of African descendants throughout the world, Washington said.

“Its not that the 'Jena Six' are being incarcerated,” Washington said, “It’s the process of incarceration that is repeated,” against African Americans.

He compared telling white San Franciscans that racism exists here, is like “telling a fish what water is.”

Washington said the demonstration was “a response to the injustice and dehumanization of a people.”