There's more to the Jena 6 story

[sandnsea]

I do not know why this stuff isn't being reported. They keep acting like the only things that happened were the tree and the one fight. It's way more than that.


A few days later, the entire black student body protested the no-nothing 'punishment' and sat under "the white tree". That day the white District Attorney came to Jena High School for an impromptu assembly, with back-up law enforcement. It has been reported that the DA threatened the silent black students who were sitting under the tree, saying if the did not stop making a fuss about the "innocent prank...I can be your best friend or your worst enemy. I can take away your lives with a stroke of my pen." The school was then put on lockdown for the remaining week.

Thursday night, November 30th, 2006, a fire burned down the main academic building of Jena High School. This incident is still unresolved.

Friday night, December 1st, a black student was beaten by a group of white students at a "white party".

Saturday, December 2nd, at the Gotta Go convenience store, the black student who was beaten up the night before, along with his friends, ran into one of the white students who beat him. A confrontation broke out and the white student went to his vehicle to get his shotgun. The black students wrestled the shotgun away from him and brought it to the police department and told them of the incident. The black students were arrested for stealing the gun. The white student was not charged.

http://jenasix.org/timeline.html

[uppityperson]

1. k&r It is much more than 1 tree and 1 fight.

[bos1]

22. wikipedia has a good summary of the many incidents

and while I recommend that source hesitantly in this case the article is AOK. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jena_Six

[TreasonousBastard]

2. Shotgun guy was later arrested for...

bringing a rifle to school. Doubt he'll get slam dunked like the black kids, though.

Shit! Reading this stuff, even the mainstream stories we all get, is like reliving the 60s.

:wtf: is WRONG with these people?

[annm4peace]

3. Thank God for Democracy Now

They have been reporting on this story before the National NAACP would even help out the 6.

http://www.democracynow.org/ Please check and see where they are in your area or stream them in.

and pass around to friends and family cause Lord knows CNN isn't reporting the real story

[Tektonik]

4. I read about it for the first time in an ISR article

just absolutely heartbreaking :cry:

[mark414]

5. this just gets more and more insane and outrageous

what the fuck is wrong with people?

i long for the day when people will finally be able to understand the simple difference between what is right and wrong. sadly i am too cynical to believe that i'll ever live to see that day - and i'm only 22.

it's a mad, mad, mad, mad world

[sandnsea]

6. I lived in MS in 1976

I had grown up in California. In my mind, cross burnings were a thing of history. I lived in Biloxi for about 7 months, my husband was in the air force. There were TWO cross burnings while I was there. I was 19. I never thought I'd be seeing this shit when I was 50, believe me. We thought we were breaking down barriers, we really did. Then Rush Limbaugh happened and it all went to hell from there. If we manage to beat these people back - never never let them worm their way into the mainstream of public opinion again.

[provis99]

12. There were crossburnings and Klan rallys in MS in 1998

when I lived there. Right in the most liberal area of the state (northeast). Sure was odd watching my local mechanic, who worked right along black mechanics, dressed up in a Klan outfit, shouting about preserving the flower of Southern white womanhood. Wish I'd had pictures. I wonder if they still wave the rebel flag at the Ole Miss football games...

[sandnsea]

15. wow

I recall one of the crossburnings was in the yard of a racially mixed couple, I don't remember the circumstances of the other one. It's just completely out of the realm of any reality I ever knew, and I was raised in the middle of the Cesar Chavez farm worker strikes.

And all these years later, we're hearing of these 'white proms" and now this 'white tree'. How could someone not have sued these schools to stop this nonsense 40 years ago. I just don't get it at all.

[PDenton]

18. Missisippi and Lousiana are dirt poor states

They are also like the deepest you can get in the South. Poor states. Some whites in the South are so poor and angry because the Blacks are more literate than they are, so they feel threatened. Missippi and Lousiana are two states that also haven't seen much economic developement.

I think the school is to blame, they are feeding racist attitudes in the first place by letting this tree tradition continue. IMO, the tree should have been destroyed early on when it was becomming a racist symbol.

[sandnsea]

21. Thirty years ago

I might could have given folks a pass on long held animosities and attitudes. But this should have ended no later than the 80's. I refuse to blame poor people for the behavior of what is just as often the community leaders who think there's nobody to hold them or their bullying sons to account.

[PDenton]

24. My take: racial tensions, not systematic racism

I think it is just racial tensions. The Jena 6 are guilty of something, 6 people don't suddenly decide to defend themselves by beating somebody in a group. Nevertheless, there was a certain amount of racial "fighting words" used to instigate the incident, so that should be taken into account in balancing justice with mercy.

The behavior of the white students likewise was poor and despicable, and anybody involved in the harassment and intimidation should be expelled. In fact the school was going to expel the students involved in the "white tree" incident but were overturned by the regional school board.

Alot of international media attention is focusing on Jena, as if proof the south is inherently racist. But nationally alot of northern cities are less integrated. If anything this incident in Jena is so explosive because you have blacks and whites going to the same school in large numbers, which is actually pretty common in the south and rarer in the north.

[sandnsea]

26. A "white tree" isn't systemic

A school board that wouldn't expel white kids over hanging nooses isn't systemic. Black kids getting arrested when white kids beat them up, isn't systemic.

Yeah, you and me have different world views.

[KurtNYC]

40. What year is it where you live? 1954?

this incident in Jena is so explosive because you have blacks and whites going to the same school...

OMG!

[Richard Steele]

48. Nope.

[BronxBoy]

58. Involve yourself in the case....

Why do they have to be guilty of anything? There was an adult coach who gave a sworn statement directly after the incident that said the victim was struck and knocked out by a single blow from behind. So, if this is true, then only one of the 6 is guilty of anything. In my opinion the "whole beaten by a mob" meme is just part of the ongoing fabrications spun by the DA in this case.

Keep in my that the main person who asserts and testified to the fact that Mychal Bell kicked the victim when he was down is one of the very same students who hung the nooses that aggravated this situation in the first place. Nice, unbiased witness hun? And the person who testified that he threw the first punch couldn't remember jack shit when questioned the next day by police but suddenly regained her memory at trial time and whose father, who sat on the jury, happened to have graduated with the victimes father.

It is also asserted that the victim was calling the students the "N" word and talking smack when he got cold cocked. Not justifying it but I certainly don't believe that they just decided to attacked this guy at random.

And a lot of attention is being focused in Jena because it's a fucked up case and we're tired of our kids being on the receiving end of this bullshit. A lot of poeple who are involved in trying to overturn this injustice are also working on the Sean Bell case in NY, police brutality cases in Chicago and all around the country. So if anyone is making it out to be a North_South thing, it's you.

I just got home but I'll try to find a link that will help give you a deeper understanding of what is going on here

Start here

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YuoiZnr4jLY

[PDenton]

69. I have read so many different things about the case

I don't know what exactly to believe. One news story I read said that the victim was hit so hard on his head that he had blood comming out of his ears. That is not a minor concussion.

Yes, I believe that sentencing any of the kids to 22 years in prison is excessive. At the same time nobody wants to go to a school where violence is present. I am not saying that nooses on a tree is cool. Quite the contrary. Probably the worst thing in this case was the teens who hung the nooses up were not expelled as the principle intended.

I knew this one guy in school, he was a friend of mine for a few months, but he had a dark side, he fancied himself a sort of white gangbanger and listened to rap music (there were people who called him an epithet, I won't repeat here but it implies a white person acting black). He had few friends, alot of people didn't like him for some reason, but he got along with me (for some reason, I guess I'm a generally tolerant person). He got into confrontations constantly and was suspended alot, even though I tried to steer him clear of fighting with people, there was something about him that made violence his first option, rather than just walking away. He made the mistake once of getting into a really serious, bloody fight in the lunchroom over a girl, and that was the last I saw of him, he was suspended for the rest of the year.

[Blue_Roses]

29. BINGO!

I refuse to blame poor people for the behavior of what is just as often the community leaders who think there's nobody to hold them or their bullying sons to account...

Makes you wonder if someone in the WHITE community would have stood up to these racist bigots, would things be much different now. Whites who disagreed with this hatred were scared shitless themselves for fear of retribution. I know, I was born and raised in Louisiana in the '60's.

[BronxBoy]

60. Good Post! n/t

[bos1]

28. I too remember the feeling when the US went in highspeed reverse in the 80s

Reagan, Limbaugh, Death Squads in El Salvador...

[bos1]

27. I'm twice your age

and I am still waiting. But "Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out. "
-Vaclav Havel

[AuntPatsy]

7. We are being brought back in time, it is trully terrifying.

[mark414]

9. and they are all emboldened by the crazy motherfuckers in charge

[AuntPatsy]

10. Oh that is more than obvious, yesterday there was an thread showing

pictures of free republic people having been invited to the white house for a picnice and some veterans etc, the only person of color noted in those pictures were of condi..very telling and should be chilling every honest Americans soul.

[Blue_Roses]

30. brought back?

with all due respect, we never left. There have been pockets of racism that have never been flushed out. It's like time as just sat and waited.

[EFerrari]

8. Exactly. Thank you for posting this.

[Triana]

11. K & R and...

...the website this information is posted on is registered to "James Rucker, founder of ColorOfChange.org. Founded in the wake of Katrina, ColorOfChange.org is the leading online citizen lobby for African-Americans and their allies. Formerly, Rucker was director of grassroots mobilization at MoveOn.org."

Mr. Rucker has written other articles online at Huffington Post, etc.: (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-rucker/battling-modern-day-jim-c_b_59048.html) - Google his name to see more.

I had previously wondered whether the white students who hung up the nooses and did the other racist slurs and harassment were ever charged or punished or even spoken to about what they'd done - about why it was wrong.

The last sentence of the write-up at http://www.jena6.org reads:


"The white students who hung up the nooses in "the white tree" have never been charged."

Huh...

[Pesky_Hound]

13. heartbreaking

It is truely heartbreaking that a fight can break out over race. It just goes to show how far we have to go for true equality.

[sandnsea]

14. It's heartbreaking there's a "white tree" in 2006 n/t

[emlev]

17. WAS a white tree. They cut it down.

In case you were wondering who was really at fault. Clearly it was the tree. If there had been no tree, none of this would ever have happened.
:sarcasm:

[sandnsea]

19. What are you saying?

You don't think this 'white tree' contributed to this situation? It's a daily reminder to every high school student that racism is an accepted institution in Jena. Maybe I misunderstand your sarcasm.

[bos1]

25. if it's true they cut down the tree, that's a shame.

[Blue_Roses]

32. I agree...it's not about the tree...

ridiculous:crazy:

[Blue_Roses]

31. I think what the post was trying to say was that it didn't take a

"tree" to flush out racism in Jena. It's been going on for a long, long time.

[emlev]

50. Sorry to be unclear, and thanks for trying to clarify

What I was trying to say was:
1) they DID cut down the tree (according to yesterday's Democracy Now!)
2) I thought that sounded like they were saying the tree was to blame, which is of course absurd. Reminds me of the time my new roof leaked in the first storm of the season and the roofer said the roof had been there for three months and hadn't leaked, and obviously the problem wasn't the roof...it was the rain. (True story.)
3) That racism in contemporary Jena clearly already existed before this series of incidents, or the incidents never would have happened. It's horrid that there was a "white tree," and I'm betting there are other de facto "whites only" places there; in fact, I did hear one reference to one of the African American kids being told to go back to his side of town.

Thanks for the opportunity to clarify. Did I succeed?

[emlev]

55. see reply below

[Dr. Strange]

45. And once the city was rid of the evil tree...

they all lived in harmony.

[donkeyotay]

46. I'm glad they got to the root of the problem. nt

[BronxBoy]

62. You're right.....

I've seen the light.

We need to kill all of the SOBs and then hang a noose over their burning bodies!

goddamn Trees!! Always stirring up shit!

Burn em all....Burn em all

:sarcasm:

[me b zola]

16. k&r

[nofurylike]

20. thank you for this crucial added information on this tragic

insane INJUSTICE!!

blows me away.....

:kick: and R


peace and solidarity, always

[bos1]

23. Apart from the noose, this is an everyday story of modern America

Excellent report by Gary Younge of the Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2170643,00.html

[Blue_Roses]

33. wow--this is even getting coverage in the UK?

:wow:

[hootinholler]

34. I heard about it second on the BBC

I heard bout it first on DU.

-Hoot

[Blue_Roses]

36. I heard about it on DU and I live in Texas

and on top of that, I was born and raised in Louisiana in, still have friends there, went to college not too far from Jena, and I STILL didn't hear anything on the news about it until recently--MUCH LESS when it happened last December! Ridiculous! I was just sitting here wondering why, WHY didn't anyone pick this story up---this f@#$%^&* close! :mad:

This kid has sat in jail for almost a year! Beyond insane:crazy:

[Coexist]

35. on my local news - there was no mention of the nooses

just that six black kids beat up a white kid. Seriously.

[Blue_Roses]

37. figures

:eyes: Makes me even wonder if some realize the hatred behind the nooses. It seems that some so conveniently forget.

...and people wonder why the cycle continues...:crazy:

[ThomCat]

38. Unfortunately, that does not surprise me.

Racial issues are almost always framed to benefit the white perspective in the MSM. When racism is mentioned, it's almost always carefully taylored to implicate only "a few bad apples."

[Coexist]

41. I was so pissed I emailed them a rational letter on that.

[sandnsea]

43. what local news

we're going to fix that.

[Coexist]

54. bay news 9

http://www.baynews9.com/Home.html

[BronxBoy]

59. Here you go

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YuoiZnr4jLY

I'm not surprised that they are playing it that way

[ecstatic]

39. a question

In a town like Jena, where I'm sure most of the sentences have been unusually cruel for minorities, how did this story make national news? I'm sure this was just business as usual for them.

[BronxBoy]

65. Good Question

A few things happened.

First of all, several of the families reached out to Rev. Al Sharpton. Say what you want about him, our people go to him when no one else will listen.

Then the story bubbled up to the radar of several national Black radio personalities: Warren Ballantine, Tom Joyner and Michael Baisden being some of the more prominent.

From there, it took on a life force of it's own.

[The Count]

42. Thanks for this. Very chilling.

We are living in a fascist caountry.

[Bassic]

44. This is disgraceful....

I can't believe this fucking case, it's just incredible.

[RockaFowler]

47. Thank you for clearing this up

I knew there had to be more than what the Liberal Media was telling us!

[butterfly77]

49. Why do they think they own this tree...

[BrklynLib at work]

51. So, the media is reporting this incident unfairly...Presenting it in a very slanted, biased way.

HOLY CRAP!! WHAT A SHOCK!!!
:sarcasm:

The very first time I read about this incident, all those details were included, but as the story has been spread around, and hit the mainstream media, the really dirty, disgusting, racist details have been expunged.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

52. I never heard about this story at all until last week

And it's quite shocking.

For the record, I think there should have been some degree of punishment for the individuals accused, because violence just shouldn't be an acceptable response, even against hatred and bigotry.

But with that being said, attempted murder? Charged as an adult? Exhibit A of a overzealous prosecutor, to say the least.

And if the things being said about the DA are indeed true, the guy needs to be fired and possibly investigated. If such a blind eye were turned, they've got problems.

Funny how we heard all the wailing and gnashing of teeth about Mike Nifong in the Duke Lacrosse case, about how he epitomized the overzealous prosecutor. Yet how many people have even heard of Reed Walters?

[gaspee]

53. unfuckingbelievable

"The black students were arrested for stealing the gun."

But don't you know there's no such thing as institutional racism? It's those black people who are too lazy to improve themselves, keeping themselves down.

Do I really need a sarcasm tag? Really?

[Imagevision]

56. This speaks volumes about our news reporting agencies, where's badass .50 when you need him?

bunch of bullshit when the blacks have also been staying away from this story, not banding together because They too fear how all the FOXnews agencies out here will paint this story.

-->"the white student went to his vehicle to get his shotgun. The black students wrestled the shotgun away from him and brought it to the police department and told them of the incident. The black students were arrested for stealing the gun. The white student was not charged."

[BronxBoy]

61. WTF?

What are you trying to say?

[in_cog_ni_to]

57. Damn this pisses me off.

Fucking racist pieces of shit.

I heard today on CNN that all the residence of Jena left town for before the March. CHICKENSHITS.

[Raine]

63. CNN is having a special

on this, they seemed to be covering it pretty throughly.

[BlooInBloo]

64. It's not being reported because white folks KNOW it can't be racism.

[BronxBoy]

66. True...

It's just got to be a mis-understanding.

I'm sure of it

[Grandrose]

67. Daeja view.... all over again!

One of the CNN readers stated Jena residents are big supporters of David Duke, enough said!:eyes:

[Pesky_Hound]

68. The DA needs to be Nifonged

That would be a start, I think he actually belongs behind bars. Overzealous doesn't even cover it. I would not doubt he has put people away that were innocent of any wrong doing.