Jena 6

[Miffed67]

What do y'all think of this?

"Free the Jena Six!" (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16885997/)

[goldenboy]

Is the kid that was beaten one of the same ones who did the sick, pathetic noose thing? Is there a direct connection there? Are people mad cos they weren't charged with a "hate crime"? Or...intimidation, like a burning cross on someone's lawn?

Why do those signs say "Free the Jena Six"? Are the protesters saying they know for a fact that these six guys didn't do the beating? If the charges were trumped up, too severe, then it's good they've been reduced. DAs around the country seem to be getting into more trouble lately for trumping up charges.

Also, these kinds of cases are—without exception—exploited for political/power purposes. There may be very good, necessary reasons to protest, but if Al and Jesse are there...I'm instantly more wary, just in general.

[Black King]

news.yahoo.com/s/huffpost/20070 919/cm_huffpost/065010

this describes the case and circumstances in more details. The African American students are being railroaded through the justice system for beating a white student. In all honesty this was handled poorly by both groups of students.

[N4H]

I'd say tempest in a teapot exaggerated by outside agitators for political purposes. There's most likely more to the story if you knew all the background details though. Or less depending how you look at it.

BTW I couldn't get that last link to work.

[Miffed67]

I agree, n4h.

What this makes me wonder is how will this incident affect cases such as the West Memphis 3? Or is that a dead issue now? What about precedents? This is by no means the last time a person will be arrested for assaulting or killing a person of another race....it happens every day. Those crimes are not necessarily race fueled. Will every criminal act now be automatically considered a racial issue, if the victim and perpetrator are of different races? What about racial profiling? How does this incident add up in the "numbers" game that racial profiling is?

[Vilandra]

If they did it, then they should be arrested. Whatever the white kids did shouldn't make any difference - beating someone senseless is never right unless your life is immediately threatened. If they want to protest the fact that the white kids didn't get punished enough in their opinion, go for it. But don't expect special treatment because of what someone else did.

[prydain]

Wow, they hung a noose from a tree. Wrong, sure. But beating someone nearly to death is not justifiable. I hope they're not let go. If they're set free I'll think it is simply because of race.

I cannot stand how people think whenever they don't get they're way it's because of racism. Bitches, please.

[Angels baby101]

I am in no way raciest i mean i have friends of different race, religion and heritage... and yes it was wrong what some stupid white teenagers did and yes its a hate crime but so is 6 black kids beating the crap out of one little white kid but no one seems to believe that, Its wrong that their is still problems with peoples race and religion in the world today but there is... two wrongs dont make a right. It hurts to say this but if it were 6 white kids beating the crap out of a black kid the charge would definatly be maximum charge... Its because people today are afraid to really bring justice apon someone of different color in such cases because it could lead to be labeled badly... as unfair judgement. I mean White people get just as many wisecracks about our race as people of different skin tones but we are forced to deal with it like its nothing. But if we use the N word we are raciest... If we say we're proud to be white we are raciest i mean no matter what someone is always raciest in this world.

It was wrong 200 years ago and its wrong today...

[N4H]

What I always find interesting about these kinds of stories is the stuff the media chooses not to tell you. Like in this case it's the noose. We're being told the noose is this evil thing, because of it's racial implications. We're being asked to believe this is an indication of some strong movement of racial hatred within the community. This somehow justifies a counter-attack of 6 on one.

But if the noose is the problem, tell us about it? Was it an isolated incident. Were a couple of stupid kids just goofing around? What was going through their heads. The fact the media doesn't want to tell us about that suggests to me there's more to this story.

[Miffed67]

And taking that a step further, if there were other incidents leading up the noose in the tree; burning crosses and effigies, Klansmen throwing rocks, random racial violence perhaps....what were they? Something like that would be indicative of a deeper problem, one that law enforcement should be addressing. It was wrong of whoever put the noose in the tree to do that.....but it was wrong for the black kids to retaliate, as well. They'd like us to think that the punishment is harsher for the kids that assaulted a white teen, because they're black and justice isn't equal, especially in the South. The crimes weren't equal, either. I can understand the community outrage over the connotation of a noose hanging in a tree, but they're boiling all the anger down to a simple white vs. black conflict. In my mind, 6 kids beating up on one is a much worse crime and one that's deserving of harsher punishment.

[goldenboy]

Thought this was a pretty eloquent summation of the sitch..

THE DEAD HAND OF THE PAST. This is no Rosa Parks moment. While it seems clear that injustices have been done, the facts of the situation reflect discredit on every side. Yes, white people have behaved badly -- so badly that most Americans won't even be able to relate it to their own experience. It's as if this part of Louisiana belongs more to the realm of backwoods horror movies than to the nation whose last two secretaries of state have been black. Popular perception is likely to be that the local neanderthals need a good smacking around, not that the rest of the country needs to be immersed in another nationally orchestrated guilt trip. Nooses dangling from a 'white folks' tree? No. Sorry. That's not us. That's just some kind of sick throwback to a time we really have overcome. An anachronism so yellowed in its stereotypes that it's not a symbol of anything, just a repellent exception.

But the other side -- the aggrieved, victimized black side -- is just as replete with stereotypes, including thuggish acts by young black males, an absentee father who shows up only when his troubled son has been transformed by the media into a famous victim, a chance for a young man, Mychal Bell, to escape into a better life via a sports scholarship --a chance thrown away for multiple instances of violent behavior. We are not talking about the persecution of the innocent here; we are talking at most about excessive punishment for indisputably bad behavior.

What we have, in sum, is a whole bunch of unattractive people whose worst impulses were sparked into criminality by the perennially easy excuse of race. Sad, yes. Cause for a nostalgic reenactment of the most stirring scenes from "Eyes on the Prize"? No. In this context, sixties-style marches seem every bit as anachronistic as the nooses on that now-slain tree...
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