Racial Protests Overwhelm Small Louisiana Town
Ill be the first to admit that Im 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 elses thread. Its OK. Im 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 didnt really appeal to me. So naturally, I became a lawyer instead.
However, its 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, its happening. And its infuriating.
Months after declining to charge three white high school students who were briefly suspended for hanging nooses in a tree, local prosecutors charged five of the six with attempted second-degree murder in the beating of a white student. The sixth defendant's case is sealed because he is charged as a juvenile.
Critics allege the cases show authorities in this predominantly white town are disproportionately harsh toward blacks. District Attorney Reed Walters, breaking a long public silence Wednesday at a news conference, denied racism was involved.
Walters said the suffering of the beating victim, Justin Barker, has been largely ignored. Barker was knocked unconscious, his face badly swollen and bloodied, though he was able to attend a school function that night.
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 dont 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 theres 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 its difficult to sort through rhetoric from observation. The Washington Post reported this in June:
Black residents said the tying of the nooses was evidence that race relations have not improved that much. They said the superintendent's decision to hand only a three-day suspension to the white students who tied the nooses, overriding the principal's decision to expel them, sparked the anger that led to the disturbance.
The chain of events began at the start of school last September. At an assembly that kicked off classes, a black freshman asked the white principal if black students could sit under "the white tree" -- a shade tree where only white students regularly sat. The answer was, "You can sit anywhere you want."
But when black students showed up in the broiling hot yard, they found three nooses hanging from the tree's branches. After a number of scuffles, the district attorney came to the school and gathered students for a tough talk.
"I can make your life go away with the stroke of a pen," they recalled him saying. Black students said he looked directly at them. Walters denied it.
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:
"Now remember, with everything that goes on at Jena High School, everybody's separated. The only time when Black and white kids are together is in the classroom and when they playing sports together. During lunch time, Blacks sit on one side, whites sit on the other side of the cafeteria. During canteen time, Blacks sit on one side of the campus, whites sit on the other side of the campus.
"At any activity done in the auditorium-anything-Blacks sit on one side, whites on the other side, okay? The DA tells the principal to call the students in the auditorium. They get in there. The DA tells the Black students, he's looking directly at the Black students-remember, whites on one side, Blacks on the other side-he's looking directly at the Black students. He told them to keep their mouths shut about the boys hanging their nooses up. If he hears anything else about it, he can make their lives go away with the stroke of his pen."
Its 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, its 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 isnt 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 Posts piece:
The incident was never reported to police, said U.S. Attorney Donald W. Washington. A report might have triggered a hate-crime investigation, although federal authorities rarely go after juveniles for such crimes. Washington added that if the students had been expelled, tensions might have been eased and the violence avoided.
To me, its this paragraph that makes the alarm bells go off. This is a D.A. that is so thorough that hes willing to go after 16 year old schoolyard brawlers for attempted murder but he doesnt think enough to report a lynching threat to the police? Walter said he didnt charge the three students found responsible for the nooses with a crime because he couldnt find one on the books in Louisiana to charge them with. Assuming thats 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 hed make the effort to try and kick that one up to the feds. I guess he had better things to do or something.
In the weeks that followed, the fighting continued. In one scuffle, Robert Bailey, one of the six teenagers now facing trial, said a white man broke a beer bottle over his head after jumping him at a party, but there was no immediate investigation. Months later, Justin Sloan, who is white, was charged with simple battery and given probation for that attack.
Bailey was involved in a second incident when he and friends spotted one of his attackers at a gas station. As Bailey and his friends approached, they said, the white teenager ran to his truck and brandished an unloaded shotgun at them. Bailey helped wrest the weapon away, refused to give it back and was charged with stealing the gun.
Days later came the school fight that led to the prosecutions. Sheriff Carl Smith said the crimes justified the charges.
I find it similarly unbelievable that Mr. Sloan was only charged with simple battery for his attack on Bailey. Ive seen people charged with assault with a deadly weapon for attacking someone with a bottle. Granted, jurisdictions differ but the crimes dont 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.
Bells overturned convictions didnt 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.
Thousands of chanting demonstrators filled the streets of this little Louisiana town Thursday in support of six black teenagers initially charged with attempted murder in the beating of a white classmate.
The crowd broke into chants of "Free the Jena Six" as the Rev. Al Sharpton arrived at the local courthouse with family members of the jailed teens.
Martin Luther King III, son of the slain civil rights leader, said the scene was reminiscent of earlier civil rights struggles. He said punishment of some sort may be in order for the six defendants, but "the justice system isn't applied the same to all crimes and all people."
Any time you have racial tensions overflowing in the South (or most anywhere, really) youre 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 hes 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 doesnt mean they are equally applied. All evidence seems to point to the contrary, in fact.
I dont know what happened in Jena, Louisiana the day that white kid was assaulted by six black teens. I cant say for certain that they dont 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 Im 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 rights 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 camels back.
Will it ever break?
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MessyJessy
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