It’s a damn shame that there are places like Jena, LA where racial prejudice not only lives but thrives! Places where a black kid can get beat up by white kids because he choose to sit under the wrong tree, places where children have been brought up to hate based on the color of a person’s skin and where these children are taught that the hangman’s noose is a symbol of “white justice,” places where racism has infiltrated and corrupted the judicial system to the point where the prosecutors file criminal charges based primarily on race rather than on the circumstances surrounding the act.
Then again its just as much of a damn shame that there are racists on the other side, racists like Rev. Jessie Jackson and Rev. Al Sharpton, who care nothing about justice — unless its justice for blacks. I may be wrong, but I doubt if Jessie Jackson or Al Sharpton have ever stood up for a white man, woman or child falsely or overly charged with a crime where the victim (or supposed victim) was black. Men like these are as much of a scourge on our civilization as are cities like Jena, LA.
This week, thousands of protesters came to Jena to rally against, to quote the Associated Press: “what they see as a double standard of justice for blacks and whites.” That by itself is a good thing because it seems apparent, according to almost all media accounts, that there is indeed a double standard in Jena — that was all but proven by the fact that five black teens were charged with attempted second-degree murder (because the sixth perpetrator is a juvenile, charges against him were never publicized) because they ganged up on a white teen and beat him into unconsciousness. That’s a brutally violent act but it apparently was a charge trumped up due to prejudice on the part of the white prosecutor and because of the public outcry those charges were reduced to aggravated second-degree battery — before the kids had their days in court.
What is perverse about the situation is that now that the charges have been lowered to a reasonable level, by all appearances, the protests have changed from outrage over injustice to support for six kids who clearly committed a criminal act. These kids should be considered outcasts — they are every bit as ignorant and evil as any member of the Klu Klux Klan. There was nothing noble or worthy of public support in what they did, regardless of why they think they did it. They should have justice applied as it should be applied to everyone else regardless of their race. If the protests in Jena accomplish that, they will have accomplished something notable — and perhaps, after this incident has ‘died down’ and after the protests end, the officials in the justice system in Jena will be a little more introspective about their prejudices and a lot more interested in justice, before creating another unwelcomed situation for the city.
As for the citizenry of Jena, it’s very likely the black citizens of Jena will listen and take to heart the negative messages spread by the likes of Rev. Jackson and Rev. Sharpton, as the reverends stir their pot full of resentment. That’s what they do, everywhere they go and they always have lots of willing ears. What the citizens of Jena (both white and black) should be listening to, instead of race baiters on either side, are messages that make them aware that the only reason this situation started and is being perpetuated is because many of them have raised their children, as they were raised, to be ignorant brutes rather than thoughtful individuals.
It may be a damn shame but there will always be racists, black ones and white ones, who look at you and see nothing but the color of your skin. Racism is motivated by fear and a lack of understanding of a different culture and is complicated by the fact that it is a ‘learned’ attitude. Kids in kindergarten look around at kids of a different race and ignore the differences — what’s important to them is which kids are fun to play with. Wouldn’t it be a much better world if we didn’t teach those kids to hate and disrespect based on appearance?
News Links:
Boston Globe Editorial: Long memories in Jena
Newsday: Jena rally lacks ugliness of decades past
From the Blogosphere:
The end of elite media empires and rise of citizen journalism: What do Hillary and Obama have to say about the Jena six?
Plantation Life: Jena Six and the Emasculating Nature of Society
News and commentary by: Whymrhymer can also be found at the My View from the Center and at The American Chronicle Family of Journals
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7 users commented in " Jena, Louisiana: Perpetuating Racism "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackWhymrhymer,
I couldn’t have written it better myself! You are absolutly right… it is a damn shame we will always have racist. You’re right about Rev. Jackson and Rev. Sharpton, if my priest ever went national for only standing up for white rights, wow the caos!
Things would be better if we all had the same innocence as we did in kindergarten. But I am also glad my parents raised me with an open mind to see beyond skin.
Thanks for writting a blog that states the truth.
I disagree with your premise that racism thrives in Jena, LA. A handful of children is not thriving racism. Its racism that’s almost defunk.
Jena is also NOT “where a black kid can get beat up by white kids because he choose to sit under the wrong tree” because that has never happened there. A black kid did that very thing in Jena and was NOT beat up by white kids.
Also, a hangman’s noose is also prop. Still undetermined is whether the nooses that hung on the tree in Jena were placed by whites to intimidate or by students as part of decorations for an upcoming football game against local rival Cowboys, an opposing football team. The fact that the nooses were painted in school colors gives credance to the football explanation. The noose incident may have been a case of poor timing.
Finally, the prosecutor DID file charges based on the act and prior convictions of the black kids. Two of the six kids are suspects in the ongoing arson investigation. Four of the six have criminal records, including battery, arson, and sexual assault. All had received probabtion as first time offenders, the same as the white kid who received probation as a first time offender. The two kids with no priors are very likely to receive probation as well. I have yet to find the claimed injustice in Jena’s civic processes.
America would do well to back off and allow the good folk of Jena to go about their business.
God bless…
Jena LA, is like most cities and towns in the south. Racism exist everywhere in here. I do not practice racism or believe in its purpose. Something to blame. I have been a victim of a brutal beating. Almost three years later, I am still doing rehab on my injuries. KNOW ONE deserves a beating by five others for any reason. The color of ones skin is not the issue here. The fact is that someone was brutally attacked. The purpotrators’ must pay for there crime. End of story. They did the crime, they must do the time. Good luck to anyone who is or ever has been a victim of someone else’s stupidity and ignorance.
What is racism? You ask 10 different people and you will get 10
different answers. You ask Jesse Jackass and Al Sharptong and you
get their reason for existing. If not for racism, what would they
do? They don’t have any skills other then using black people as their
puppets. Racism is an interesting topic. I recently returned from Japan
and those people believe that everyone is inferior to their race. I
didn’t see any I repeat any blacks there. I wonder if you would consider
this racist? I also recently returned from Africa I did not see any white
people in any government position in either Angola or Nigeria. And by the
way I have never seen black people treated so bad in all my life.I wouldn’t
treat a dog that bad. This is a black on black government.
The sad thing about all this is that the black race in this country
will be dragged down again because they believe all these slave masters (Jesse Jackass and Al Sharptong ) dressed like negros. All they do is make excuses
so that the real issue never gets attention.
Jena High School administrators, teachers and students, according to ABC News, say virtually all students—black as well as white—congregated beneath the “white tree” from time to time. According to local reporters, the black student who asked permission during a school assembly to sit beneath the tree did so in jest; the entire auditorium erupted in laughter. The three white students who hung nooses from the tree claim they were they did as a continuation of the joke. This sounds hard to believe, but federal agents from the Justice Department investigated and determined there were not grounds to file hate crimes charges. The three students were not simply suspended for three days. They were forced to attend an alternative school for one month and then were given an in-school suspension. Federal investigators looked into the incident and determined there were no grounds to charge the three with a hate crime.
The other incidents in Jena were not connected to the noose-handing incident. They stemmed from a fight at a private party. Both black and white students attended the party, but trouble started when a group of uninvited black athletes attempted to crash the party. Rather than call police, one white teenager, who was not a student, beat up one of the students (Robert Bailey) who were attempting to crash the party. Similar fights take place all the time across the Untied States when groups of uninvited teenagers, regardless of race, attempt to crash private parties. The white non-student was charged with assault.
Witnesses support the white student’s testimony in the convenience store incident. The same group of black students who attempted to crash the private party confronted the white teenager—who had attended the party—inside the convenience store and chased him to his truck in the parking lot. He pulled the shotgun to defend himself. His fears seem well-founded since the black students were the same ones who would later beat Justin Barker at Jena High School.
The black students involved in the Barker beating say they were angered because Barker taunted Bailey about losing the fight at the private party. Barker denies he taunted Bailey but claims he was attacked simply because he was at the party. Barker was not one of the students who hung the nooses, and none of the black students involved claimed they were motivated by the noose hanging incidence. The black students followed the white student from the locker room to the school ground. One of the black students hit Barker from behind and knocked him unconscious. As he lay unconscious, one of the black students stood on his head while the others kicked him in the head and body. (It was more than a schoolyard fight. Imagine the outcry if the six attackers had been white and the victim black.) The attack probably doesn’t qualify as a hate crime, because the black students didn’t single out the victim merely because he was white but because, they claim, he taunted Bailey about loosing the fight at the party.
The original charges of attempted murder were dropped before 16-year-old Mychal Bell’s went to trail. The probably reason the local prosecutor want to charge Bell with attempted murder was so that he could be tried as an adult. His conviction on aggravated assault was overturned because the court ruled he should not have been tried as an adult under the lesser charges. He remains in jail because he was on parole from previous convictions, including two cases of battery and two conviction of criminal damage to property. He beat his 17-year-old girlfriend so severely her eye was dislocated from its socket. He was placed on probation until his 18th birthday. All the other defendants also have prior criminal records.
Thank you all for commenting!
Judging from most of the comments (assuming that the commentators are from the Jena area) I’d say that newspaper accounts about the “Jena Six” and about the city itself led me to a conclusion or two about the city that may have been unfounded. If I owe an apology to Jena it is hereby proffered.
My basic point, however, remains unscathed. Racism exists and the only way to combat it. in the long run, is to combat it on the home front, i.e., raising children that see beyond the color of a persons skin. That’s a very slow road to the resolution of the problem and it may be only one of many roads, but its a road that must be ‘traveled’.
i really appreciate and totally agree with you. keep voicing your opinions
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