NEWS: Racial Protests Overwhelm Small Louisiana Town

POLITICS: Racial Protests Overwhelm Small Louisiana Town

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not much of a journalist. They have me here at Suicidegirls.com to write somewhat-witty-but-certainly-long-winded political or legalesque stuff so people have something to read before they go post on someone else’s thread. It’s OK. I’m comfortable with that. I gave up my dream of being a reputable newsman years ago. I gave it up mainly because the “reputable” aspect of that particular fantasy didn’t really appeal to me. So naturally, I became a lawyer instead.

However, it’s times like this when I wish that dream was a dream deferred rather than a dream denied. Because there are times when I wish I could be that newsman I wanted to be, down on the front lines covering the story that moves me to action. I wish I were there to write about that particular story that seems so incredibly wrong and so incredibly human at the same time. There are times, like now, when I wish I would have become a journalist so I could cover things like the “Jena Six” story first-hand. It is so unbelievable that a story like that could take place in the year 2007 that frankly I have a hard time wrapping my head around it without having seen it myself. However, it’s happening. And it’s infuriating.

A six-on-one beating rendering the victim unconscious is certainly worthy of serious discipline. But attempted murder for a schoolyard fight seems a tad extreme, especially when the kid was out and about at a social event within a few hours. Regardless of the severity of the charges, they don’t necessarily show racial bias in and of themselves. Perhaps there was legitimate intent to kill or reckless disregard for human life (the general definitions of second-degree murder) apparent from the facts of the case. Perhaps.


Or perhaps not. Perhaps there’s quite a bit more to the story than one would glean from a first glance at the AP story. Unfortunately there does seem to be, and the story gets weirder, more frustrating and more damning the more you read into it.

As with anything this politically-charged, the factual accounts vary and it’s difficult to sort through rhetoric from observation. The Washington Post reported this in June:

Another account of the school assembly from the father of one of the accused (and appearing in a decidedly less “reputable” source than the Post) goes into greater detail:

It’s a similar account to the one in the mainstream press, even down to the “stroke of his pen” line. I can certainly imagine that black students sitting at a self-segregated assembly where the District Attorney is called in to tell students to knock off the racial tensions would feel singled-out. However, it’s a third-hand account from someone directly affected by the situation so it is hard to find this entirely persuasive. Still, it does give one pause because the situations seem so familiar and so plausible. Racism exists. We know this. Self-segregation happens. We know that. So to put them together isn’t much of a stretch.

Following the assembly, racial tensions simmered before a chain of events and non-events led to the brawl in question. Returning to the Post’s piece:

To me, it’s this paragraph that makes the alarm bells go off. This is a D.A. that is so thorough that he’s willing to go after 16 year old schoolyard brawlers for attempted murder but he doesn’t think enough to report a lynching threat to the police? Walter said he didn’t charge the three students found responsible for the nooses with a crime because he couldn’t find one on the books in Louisiana to charge them with. Assuming that’s true, are we to assume he had never heard of federal hate-crime legislation? Not buying it. He might not have been able to charge those kids under federal law himself, but as gung-ho as he appears to be about law and order one would think he’d make the effort to try and kick that one up to the feds. I guess he had better things to do or something.

I find it similarly unbelievable that Mr. Sloan was only charged with simple battery for his attack on Bailey. I’ve seen people charged with assault with a deadly weapon for attacking someone with a bottle. Granted, jurisdictions differ but the crimes don’t seem very far apart.

Undaunted by criticism of his actions and the apparent unequal treatment given these assailants, the District Attorney pressed on with his seemingly excessive charges, convicting Mychal Bell, one of the six, of aggravated assault and conspiracy. Those convictions carried a maximum sentence of 22 years in prison before they were subsequently overturned because Bell was too young to be tried as an adult. Facing increased pressure from civil rights groups, prosecutors have begun to lessen some of the charges faced by the other five. Bell remains in jail while the D.A. figures out what to do with him next.

Bell’s overturned convictions didn’t stop thousands of protesters from descending upon Jena this Thursday, September 20th, and thousands more from protesting in solidarity at satellite actions around the country.

Any time you have racial tensions overflowing in the South (or most anywhere, really) you’re going to evoke memories of the civil rights movement, the manifest inequality that spawned it, and the atrocious injustice of slavery that preceded even that. In that sense, the last quote in the above paragraph is the important one, the one that elucidates why this story has touched such a nationwide nerve. Because while many in America believe that Jim Crow have been laid to rest, those that are paying attention know that he’s alive and well and working in our criminal justice system. Beyond the Jena Six are stories like Genarlow Wilson. Beyond that, there is the appallingly racially uneven way that the death penalty is applied. And on and on. Few address it because they choose to fall back on the apparent equality in the way laws are written, but that doesn’t mean they are equally applied. All evidence seems to point to the contrary, in fact.

I don’t know what happened in Jena, Louisiana the day that white kid was assaulted by six black teens. I can’t say for certain that they don’t deserve to be charged with attempted murder. I can say I seriously doubt they do and that I strongly suspect racial bias. However, I know that the justice system is racially biased. While I’m aghast at what this prosecutor has put the Jena six through, I am very encouraged by the response it has received. Reverend Sharpton in a speech at the rally in Jena said that he hoped these protests for the Jena Six would help spark a new civil right’s movement aimed at correcting racial injustice in sentencing. That remains to be seen, but the overwhelming response to this situation speaks to a deep undercurrent of resentment and anger about the way the criminal justice system treats people of color. After all, no one else from around the country really knows what happened either, but you can only see a pattern repeat itself so many times before you begin to believe it is intentional. This situation is just another heavy straw on the camel’s back.

Will it ever break?

its quite amazing to think people actually believe we have gone above the racial intolerance that generations before us were up to their necks in. really though we have just gotten better at hiding it and avoiding it. im not sure what exactly would break the camels back but, its going to be monumental in that its going to either break this country or start the change where we just dont see racism like this anymore.

I hope this gets people to finally realize what's going on in the country. It's well documented that the modern prison system was a direct result of the reconstruction period, essentially creating facilities to shuffle the newly freed slaves out of the public eye. Any institution with that origin isn't going to right itself without serious intervention.

The history of prisons is almost more shameful than slavery because everyone knows about slavery and says it was bad. But no one seems to know or cares about the abuse of justice that's been around ever since. Even many extremely liberal people don't want to think about prisoners. With so many other causes to fight for, who cares about people that've been convicted of crimes? Out of sight, out of mind.

Nice treatment of the issues, Subrosa.

racism is alive and well, and thriving in the south. the horrible south. southern culture is a disease that should be stamped out, since the "proud south" can't seem to clean up it's act on it's own.

Nice article. I am well aware of the racial bias present in our justice system. At the same time I find it hard to sympathize with 6 people that think it's acceptable to gang up and attack a single person. In my opinion, as soon as someone uses violence in a non-defensive way to solve their problems they are wrong and open to whatever punishment they receive.

What?

Excellent article on an issue I've been following. I still can't really believe that this is happening.

Indeed.

Well said.

This actually terrifies me, that people who're seemingly fighting the Civil War still exist.

the press is very sleepy on this story right now.

too much OJ and the usual bullshit

That's one opinion. Another one is that everyone should be treated equally under the law and given reasonable punishments according to their crime. That opinion is also known as the Bill of Rights.

I hope this whole situation gets untangled and that we see some effort to change for the better on both sides of this issue. I'm a pessimist though who looks at the record of humanity so far toward racial tolerance, let alone racial harmony, and groan. These atavistic evils have still not evolved out of our race, and perhaps never will. Maybe it's time we look at new methods to eliminate racial hatreds...but I'm at a loss to say what hasn't been tried before...sometimes humanity really sickens me with this constant wretched boil forever festering on our neck...slaves to hate, and what is worse some of us like it that way...

Oh, please. Racism is alive and well in the North. Racism is alive and well in the Midwest. Racism is alive and well on the East Coast, in Australia, in India, in Africa, in Europe, everywhere. As long as you pretend the problem is isolated in the "horrible" South, it will be alive and well right next to you.

Yes. Unfortunately my folks (from NC/VA and I'm from FL) are racist as hell, especially my mother and grandfather, so I can speak from personal experience. They sent me to a private school so "none of them niggas would knife me in the bathroom" and that's a literal quote from my mother.

Fortunately I've been exposed to the Open Source/Libertarian "who cares WHAT color/age/gender/size you are, if you can write code or think for yourself" attitude, and I've been trying hard to kill my own racist attitudes.

true that the southern culture is filled with racism as one who grew up in canton,tx i have seen it
but i can honestly say that it is a two sided coin this racism thing and i cant wait until the day when its no longer a black thing or white thing or a racist thing but a humanity thing
a thing where right and wrong are not just words but where doing the right thing or not doing the wrong thing is the way we all live regardless of ethnicity

It's much easier to go after a black man than it is to defend one.

The first time I read anything about this was on Facebook, of all places, in a group that was founded by a student at the high school in question. (One more check for Facebook over Myspace.)

The race issue has become increasingly bastardized over the course of the years. First there was all that anti-affirmative action nonsense, then the Supreme Court's mental lapse over school desegregation, now this. We have completely forgotten the lessons that we learned in the '50s and '60s. War, economics, nationalism, race. We've rescinded on everything that we learned in those days. Now we seem to be under the absurd impression that to lend aid to blacks is to be racist against white people, and that our white politicians and our white judges are racist against their own race. It's backdoor racism, a way to express bigotry without being up-front about it, and it's rampant among Republicans and Republicans alone, the very party that opposed desegregation in the 50s. If someone said I was racist for being pro-affirmative action, I'd kick them in the balls and stuff the Civil Rights Act into their esophagus.

PS staff: the posting is fucked.

I realize now that what we are experiencing is almost a direct and full repetition of what the nation experienced in the 1960s. An unpopular war, a potentially earth-altering election (with more than one candidate with the likability, youth, vigor, and hope of JFK), the fight over race reaching new heights, the disenchantment with popular culture. More than anything now is an opportunity for this generation to show its fucking balls and change the world, which a combination of MTV and the stagnant newsmedia has heretofore prevented.

My question is this: if some white kid is guilty of beating up a black kid, shouldn't the protesters be seeking to put THAT kid(s) in jail, and NOT freeing anyone who is guilty?

It sounds like to me that you're saying hanging nooses in a tree is a hate crime? As ignorant as it may be, I don't see a crime.

Besides the incident itself, what I hate most is how people whine about how horrible this country still is. How is it not obvious that we've come so far in 30 years? Yes, we've still got some shit heads teaching their children to hate, but they'll die off soon enough (of course I'm speaking of both white parents and black parents who pass down racism).

And for god's sake, don't be so stupid to turn this into a southern problem.

Racism isn't natural. Suspicion and negative attitudes about people outside your group (however that's defined) is. But racism as such is a social development that evolved during the European colonization of the New World, as an ideological support of a rigidly-defined caste system. That's the legacy we're dealing with currently, both in the Americas and in Europe. It's not atavistic at all, really, but it's so deeply ingrained in our culture that we experience it that way.

You mean right next to him in Texas?

Read for comprehension my friend. What the protesters are protesting is not that the kid was put in jail, it was that the charges were attempted murder when a white assailant was given no jail time.

That's exactly what I'm saying.

Just because you don't see it doesn't mean it's not there. 18 U.S.C. Sec. 245.

So yeah. It's a crime.

Again, you're twisting what was said and also ignoring the problem. I didn't say we hadn't come far, I said we clearly haven't come far enough. There's a difference. You may think this situation is fine and dandy, but I've seen the gross inequalities perpetuated under this criminal justice system and I think it's pretty good to try to do something about them. Your mileage may vary, of course.

Please show me where I did that.