Amy Goodman: Tipping the Scales of Justice in Jena

[marmar]

from Truthdig:


Tipping the Scales of Justice in Jena


Posted on Sep 18, 2007
By Amy Goodman


The tree at Jena High School has been cut down, but the furor around it has only grown.

“What did the tree do wrong?” asked Katrina Wallace, a stepsister of one of the Jena Six, when I interviewed her at the Burger Barn in Jena, La. “I planted it 14 years ago as a tree of knowledge.”

It all began at the start of the school year in 2006, at a school assembly, when Justin Purvis asked if he could sit under the schoolyard tree, a privilege unofficially reserved for white students. The next morning, three nooses were hanging from its broad, leafy tree branches.

African-American students protested, gathering under the tree. Soon after, the district attorney, Reed Walters, came to the school with the police, threatening, “I could end your lives with the stroke of a pen.” Racial tensions mounted in this 85 percent white town of 4,000. In December, a schoolyard fight erupted, and the district attorney charged six African-American high-school students, the soon to be dubbed Jena Six, with second-degree attempted murder.

I recently visited Billy “Bulldog” Fowler in his office, a white member of the LaSalle Parish School Board. He says Jena is being unfairly painted as racist. He feels the hanging nooses were blown out of proportion, that in the high-school setting it was more of a prank: “This is the Deep South, and black people know the meaning of a noose. Let me tell you something—young people don’t.”

That night, I went to see the Baileys in their mobile home in Ward 10, one of the black neighborhoods in Jena. Two of the Jena Six, Robert Bailey and Theo Shaw, were ironing their clothes. I asked them what they thought when they saw the nooses. Robert immediately said: “The first thing came to mind was the KKK. I don’t know why, but that was the first thing that came to my head. I used to always think the KKK chase black people on horses, and they catch you with rope.” ....(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20070918_tipping_the_scales_of_justice_in_jena/