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?