There's been an analogous problem at our local high school in Morehead, KY where white students brought guns to the school recently after a dispute with the very few black students at the school.
Funny though, all the white residents of Jena seem to think there's no racial tension in the town.
They have the freedom to march and freedom of speech, but our town is not racist like this is being depicted," said a white resident who would identify himself only as Jay. "The nooses were just a joke."
No officials of the town, which is 85 percent white, offered any comments about Thursday's march. In the past, they have angrily insisted that Jena suffers from no racial tensions.
Those must have been color-blind nooses.
SPEAKING OF NOOSES. It seems that nooses have become the symbol du jour for white racial hatred since the Michael Richards incident. A Waverly, Ohio student at Morehead State University told me that somebody put a noose up on the entrace to her town last December.
Perhaps Confederate flags are no longer an adequate expression for racist sentiment--not that the Confederate flags weren't symbolizing lynching among others.
NEW DIRECTIONS/OLD DIRECTIONS. The prosecutor abuse in Jena represented a reversion back to the traditional kinds of abuses that target the black population. Conservative critics of Michael Nifong's abuses during the Durham rape case must be relieved to see the Jena prosecutor go back to tradition.
However, the march on Jena manifested a new level of strength and influence among African-American bloggers who worked outside the traditional civil rights institutions to publicize the problems in Jena and get the march going.
If only there were more overlap between African-American bloggers and white progressive bloggers.
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Jena is not racist? That's like saying a white sheep is purple!! Insanity apparently is considered normal and traditional down there.
Take a look at this from www.crooksandliars.com.
"What we learn from this among other things is that the hate website says: “In Case Anyone Wants To Deliver Justice.” The editor of the website with a swastika at the top says on an audio at the site “I’d like to go down there and put a bullet in each one of those little black kids …”
When asked if he might have brought any harm to the Jena 6 by posting that, he told CNN '"I don’t know that doing justice can be considered doing harm.'"
What a complete hatemonger!!
Why can't people see the truth here? This is much more than a single incident. It is rather the beginning of a twenty-first century civil rights movement.
In the twentieth century, African-Americans had to fight for where they sat on buses. Now, they must fight on how they sit in a courtroom.
It never stops. The hate, the racism, the institutionalized discrimnaion.
When will we learn?
It is rather the beginning of a twenty-first century civil rights movement.
In the twentieth century, African-Americans had to fight for where they sat on buses. Now, they must fight on how they sit in a courtroom.
If you are going to steal from Jesse Jackson, at least give him the courtesy and respect to credit him, rather than plagarizing him.
Was the student(s) that hung the noose Republicans? How does that action of a high school student indicate an all encompassing race problem?
Is this what the civil rights community has come to? 6 black youths beat 1 white student unconscious, and continue to kick him on the ground, three months after a horrible and despicable action, and they are protesting that these students are being prosecuted? Good Allah. One would think that they would want to find an issue with more sympathetic "victims".
I think the truth is somewhere between JD and Ric. The fact is these kids/adults were wrong to beat the kid up, even it was retaliation for one of them getting beaten up at party.
Nonetheless, the Prosecutor was your typical racist jerk when he accused them of attempted murder. That kid wasn't even hurt that badly.
The Jena 6 need to be tried for aggravated assault and accept their punishment. It does no one any good to declare them heroes.
The kid was not even hurt that badly? He was unconscious. He had over $12,000 in medical bills. I suspect that not being hurt that badly might be different were you the pinata laying on the ground.
Retaliation makes it no less acceptable. It makes it thought out and pre-meditated.
I fully agree with your last sentence.
I made a mistake. I believe it was over $5500 in medical bills. Certainly not as bad as $12,000, but not significant.
Being a future lawyer and all, I am sure you can show us where in statutes it delineates between kind of hurt, hurt, and really hurt. Were you the unconscious kid that had his head slammed on the concrete, I doubt you would be making those distinctions.
I read an interesting article by Jason Whitlock from the Kansas City Star about the Jena 6.
Attempted murder was obviously a stretch, but overcharging people is not something limited to certain ethnic groups. It is a habit of prosecutors.
Actually, JD, I imagine the aggravated assault is over-charging and they will all plead to battery (although with Jesse and Al in town, there's a chance to get off with nothing!)
What I meant by hurt was that he was treated and released and even went out with his friends later that evening. There was no permanent injury.
Nonetheless, and I refuse to defend the attackers, but isn't what they did the same thing old angry white men say they will do if someone burns a flag around them. Conservatives, not necessarily you, JD, often say things like "if that guy said that to my woman, or burned my flag, then.... There is a such thing as common sense and to that end, if you outnumbered 6 to 1, perhaps you should keep your racial epithets to yourself?
Doesn't excuse what those guys did to him, but it will be a mitigating factor in sentencing.
People are responsible for their actions. The victim may be a vile hate filled fucker, but believing vile hate filled thoughts is not yet a crime. The 6 who chose to react in a vile and physical manner to a trangression that allegedly happened well in the past are responsible for their actions. Period. If I lash out in violence at someone, I, nobody else, I am responsible for the results of my actions, and the consequences stemming from same. Nobody else. Me.
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