The 'Jena Six' - Why the controversy?
-Editorial-
Jena Six - Why the controversy?
Let's start with some basic facts. The South is segregated. In the Deep South it's always been that way. Always has, always will. The government, the police, the schools, the media and the controversy surrounding the 'Jena Six' are never going to change the fact that the South is segregated. The media can delude itself all it wants but the reality is that civil rights activists and politicians are never going to change the South.
What went on in Jena is a microcosm of what goes on everyday in this country. The media pretend things like this only happen in Jena, but the reality is that it happens all the time throughout the United States. People from different socio-economic backgrounds and racial identities tend to stick together in groups. The simple fact is that, despite idealism, races segregate themselves. In Maryland, I went to racially diverse schools (50%black/50% black) and this was reality. Despite what idealists want us to believe, the cafeteria was predominantly segregated. White students sat together and separately black students sat together. And despite some crossover, for the most part, lines were drawn by race.
This so-called "prank" which involved a noose hanging from a tree was undoubtedly a racially provocative act. The kids who put the noose on the tree should be charged with a hate crime. The hanging of a noose from a tree is just as provocative as burning a cross in a black family's yard.
But all this outrage and controversy regarding the 'Jena Six' seems misguided. Our society is governed by the rule of law and in a civilized society you don't take the law into your own hands. Six black guys almost beat a white student to death was and now they're complaining about their rights? Why shouldn't they be charged with second degree attempted murder? The 'Jena Six' are simply a band of vigilantes operating outside the law. They are just as guilty of a hate crime as those who placed the noose in the tree. It is ironic that there is such a controversy over the trials of the Jena Six when they themselves are responsible for committing an act akin to lynch mob vigilantism.
No one is above the rule of law. If the District Attorney has acted improperly, the Federal government will intervene. But the fact remains that if you commit a hate crime, no matter what the cause, you should be given a fair trial and if found guilty, punished.
Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jena_Six
Labels: david bowie, district attorney reed walters, hate crime, jena 6, jena six, mos def, noose, white tree
posted by Editor at 9/20/2007 06:17:00 PM
4 Comments:
I AM IN AGREEMENT WITH YOU THAT THE BOYS WHO HUNG THE NOOSE ON THE TREE ARE JUST AS GUILTY AS THE JENA 6
THERE IN IS THE PROBLEM, THE JENA 6 ARE IN COURT WITH TIME PENDING ON THEIR HEADS. WHERE ARE THE BOYS WHO HUNG THE NOOSE.
THAT IS WHY THERE IS THIS UPROAR
JUSTIFIED I THINK YES
Yes and no. I think you're right that all hate crimes, just like all crimes, should be punished. The issue in Jena isn't really that these boys were being punished, but that they were being punished so severely when a (roughly) similar physical assault of a black student merited just a--relatively speaking--slap on the wrist. Which is of course to say nothing of the unpunished nooses.
Hate crimes, of all kinds, should be punished, I agree. But Jena's a terrible case of disproportionate punishment, and that should not--can not--be accepted.
As I've been watching and reading the coverage... the long-awaited coverage... of the Jena Six situation, I cannot help but feel angered at my former profession, the "media".
First, it's covered this travesty in Louisiana far too little, and covered Paris, Lindsey, Brittney, and OJ far too much... in my humble opinion.
Now, when the "media" does cover the marches and vigils... and NOT the story itself, it is leaving out some crucial facts to the story.
Please read the following Chicago Tribune story, dated May 20, 2007. And, note the facts about the white kid beating the black kid and the white man pulling a gun on three black students that the "media" is now evading, overlooking, and/or simply leaving out to, in my humble opinion, "craft" the essence of the story of the Jena Six:
Racial Demons Rear Heads
Howard Witt
hwitt@tribune.com
Senior Tribune Correspondent
reposted from thechicagotribune.com
The trouble in Jena started with the nooses. Then it rumbled along the town's jagged racial fault lines. Finally, it exploded into months of violence between blacks and whites. Now the 3,000 residents of this small lumber and oil town deep in the heart of central Louisiana are confronting Old South racial demons many thought had long ago been put to rest.
One morning last September, students arrived at the local high school to find three hangman's nooses dangling from a tree in the courtyard.
The tree was on the side of the campus that, by long-standing tradition, had always been claimed by white students, who make up more than 80 percent of the 460 students. But a few of the school's 85 black students had decided to challenge the accepted state of things and asked school administrators if they, too, could sit beneath the tree's cooling shade.
"Sit wherever you want," school officials told them. The next day, the nooses were hanging from the branches.
African-American students and their parents were outraged and intimidated by the display, which instantly summoned memories of the mob lynchings that once terrorized blacks across the American South. Three white students were quickly identified as being responsible, and the high school principal recommended that they be expelled.
"Hanging those nooses was a hate crime, plain and simple," said Tracy Bowens, a black mother of two students at the high school who protested the incident at a school board meeting.
But Jena's white school superintendent, Roy Breithaupt, ruled that the nooses were just a youthful stunt and suspended the students for three days, angering blacks who felt harsher punishments were justified.
"Adolescents play pranks," said Breithaupt, the superintendent of the LaSalle Parish school system. "I don't think it was a threat against anybody."
Yet it was after the noose incident that the violent, racially charged events that are still convulsing Jena began.
First, a series of fights between black and white students erupted at the high school over the nooses. Then, in late November, unknown arsonists set fire to the central wing of the school, which still sits in ruins. Off campus, a white youth beat up a black student who showed up at an all-white party. A few days later, another young white man pulled a shotgun on three black students at a convenience store.
Finally, on Dec. 4, a group of black students at the high school allegedly jumped a white student on his way out of the gym, knocked him unconscious and kicked him after he hit the floor. The victim -- allegedly targeted because he was a friend of the students who hung the nooses and had been taunting blacks -- was not seriously injured and spent only a few hours in the hospital.
But the LaSalle Parish district attorney, Reed Walters, opted to charge six black students with attempted second-degree murder and other offenses, for which they could face a maximum of 100 years in prison if convicted. All six were expelled from school.
To the defendants, their families and civil rights groups that have examined the events, the attempted murder charges brought by a white prosecutor are excessive and part of a pattern of uneven justice in the town.
The critics note, for example, that the white youth who beat the black student at the party was charged only with simple battery, while the white man who pulled the shotgun at the convenience store wasn't charged with any crime at all. But the three black youths in that incident were arrested and accused of aggravated battery and theft after they wrestled the weapon from the man -- in self-defense, they said.
"There's been obvious racial discrimination in this case," said Joe Cook, executive director of the Louisiana chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, who described Jena as a "racial powder keg" primed to ignite. "It appears the black students were singled out and targeted in this case for some unusually harsh treatment."
That's how the mother of one of the defendants sees things as well.
"They are sending a message to the white kids, 'You have committed this hate crime, you were taunting these black children, and we are going to allow you to continue doing what you are doing,'" said Caseptla Bailey, mother of Robert Bailey Jr.
Bailey, 17, is caught up in several of the Jena incidents, as both a victim and alleged perpetrator. He was the black student who was beaten at the party, and he was among the students arrested for allegedly grabbing the shotgun from the man at the convenience store. And he's one of the six students charged with attempted murder for the Dec. 4 attack.
The district attorney declined repeated requests to be interviewed for this story. But other white leaders insist there are no racial tensions in the community, which is 85 percent white and 12 percent black.
"Jena is a place that's moving in the right direction," said Mayor Murphy McMillan. "Race is not a major local issue. It's not a factor in the local people's lives."
Still others, however, acknowledge troubling racial undercurrents in a town where only 16 years ago white voters cast most of their ballots for David Duke, the former Ku Klux Klan leader who ran unsuccessfully for Louisiana governor.
"I've lived here most of my life, and the one thing I can state with absolutely no fear of contradiction is that LaSalle Parish is awash in racism -- true racism," a white Pentecostal preacher, Eddie Thompson, wrote in an essay he posted on the Internet. "Here in the piney woods of central Louisiana ... racism and bigotry are such a part of life that most of the citizens do not even recognize it."
The lone black member of the school board agrees.
"There's no doubt about it -- whites and blacks are treated differently here," said Melvin Worthington, who was the only school board member to vote against expelling the six black students charged in the beating case. "The white kids should have gotten more punishment for hanging those nooses. If they had, all the stuff that followed could have been avoided."
And the troubles at the high school are not over yet.
On May 10, police arrested Justin Barker, 17, the white victim of the Dec. 4 beating. He was alleged to have a rifle loaded with 13 bullets stashed behind the seat of his pickup truck parked in the school lot. Barker told police he had forgotten it was there and had no intention of using it.
PLEASE, make sure that you get the word out... ALL OF THE WORD OUT... to people who need to know the TRUTH.
I am Pat McCollough, also known around campus as, "Coach Pat." Returned to the education industry at Hawthorne Middle/High School and became the victim of a hate crime.
on 1 Jun 2007, the last day of school, I feel prey to racial discrimination and a victim of hate. This happened on campus during the school day. My classroom was the only one spray painted with hate graffiti.
One student was identified as a suspect. Why was this student out of class and allowed to just roam around without a pass or without any supervision anyways. This was exam day.
The administration was passive about the entire situation. They gave me the impression that they mainly looked the incident as a "criminal act" or maybe "just a prank" and had not taken into consideration how the event traumatized me as a human being. They stated that they must have misread me because I was a pillar of strength and so well composed though out the entire situation. Well, Isn't that how professionals are suppose to respond.
If this type of racial behavior continues and is condoned with little or no consequences to the real criminals, someone could get seriously hurt...remember Jena 6? I wonder if those three nooses hanging on the tree traumatized any of the students or were they provided with any type of professional psychological counseling after having been subjected to such hate. I requested professional psychological counseling and was denied at two different levels. I had to eventually seek professional counseling through other resources outside of the school district.
It is a known fact there is a current issue with safety and security within the Alachua County School District, Gainesville, Florida.
I did not return to teaching.
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