I had just started to hear trickles of this story yesterday on Michael Baisden's show on 98.7 here in NYC.
Since I had turned the show on late, I hadn't really caught the whole story, but it did pique my interest.
I then came across Cornell West and Mos Def on Bill Maher's show talking on various racial issues and
was interested enough to keep it on for the remainder of the show, and Bill Maher also brought up the case.
How Bill Maher stated the facts had me enraged. I mean, you don't have to be black or the same
race as anyone suffering such vicious racism to be empathetic. According to Mr. Maher, there was a
tree in a town of Louisiana called Jena that apparently was for "whites only". So when a group of white
students saw a group of black students sitting under the tree, the white students attacked. In the
aftermath of the fight, the white students that had beaten up the black students were charged with
battery and the black students that had beaten up the white students were charged with attempted
murder. My jaw dropped with such a blatant example of how racism is not only alive and well in our
current society but how it still affects policy, and in this case, overtly caused the black students to
get more serious charges for the same offense.
Now, I started to check out the story online and it seems it went a little differently from how Mr. Maher
stated. It is still definitely bad at it's core but I think there are a lot more subtle issues that one has to
take into consideration before passing judgment. I read a few different sources, but I found
this one to
be the most helpful.
As the story goes it does seem that Jena is still is a town with some heavy race issues. The tree part is
apparently true. It had been accepted as a place for on white students to gather. It was not written anywhere
but according to the article I cited, it was understood. Some black students, wanting to sit under the tree,
asked someone in the school for permission, and it was apparently granted. So they did so. The following day
there were nooses found hanging from the tree. The white students that were found guilty of hanging the nooses
were suspended for their actions. Whether or not a suspension was a sufficient enough punishment is an arguable
point. A part of me feels it isn't.
Now this is where the facts get somewhat twisted for me. The noose incident, understandably, incited a lot of anger
in the black community. It seems a lot of fights and so on started taking place, all with racial undertones throughout
the school. The towns district attorney was brought in to speak to the black students. Now that is another issue.
Why would the DA be brought in solely to address black students? Now I did not hear what he said. I did not get a
full transcript of his speech, however, I did see a quote taken from what he said in which he told the black students
he could "end their life with the stroke of the pen." You know how the media now takes things out of context in order
to prove their point. But no matter how much I think about it, under any circumstances, can I see that statement as
harmless or not offensive and threatening.
Now, I don't know what led to the incident at hand, but it seems now a group of black students "jumped" a white student.
Those students are now the focus of all this attention. By no means by the way is this a recent story. It seems this
whole thing started somewhere as far back as September of 2006.
The subtleties that I am talking about in reference to what happened is the whole circumstances surrounding the
actual fight that led to the kids being brought up on charges. I mean, I understand how one can feel in a
racist environment where you are treated as less than human, but if these black students just attacked this white
student as some sort of retaliation, is that ok?? I do not want to be unsympathetic, but there is right and wrong, and
it doesn't
necessarily change regardless of what is going on around you.
Maybe I am missing something. Is there a racial issue in Jena? I think that goes without saying. Do these particular
students deserve the charges they got? I don't know. I need to know more.
Please anyone with any info about everything surrounding this whole Jena issue, let me know what I am missing. Maybe
there are some instances of white students jumping black students there and getting charged with a lot less than the
attempted murder charges the black students got.
Let me know. It is easy to jump to conclusions a lot of the times and just act purely out of passion and take the issues
at hand to heart. I would love to know all the facts.
