Black high school students in Louisiana threatened with lynching (TomPaine.com)

[marmar]

Black high school students in Louisiana threatened with lynching
Submitted by Rick Perlstein on June 28, 2007 - 8:10am.

I supposed this is part of our ongoing "yes, you read that headline correctly" series here at the Big Con. Read ongoing coverage here.


In September 2006, a group of African American high school students in Jena, Louisiana, asked the school for permission to sit beneath a "whites only" shade tree. There was an unwritten rule that blacks couldn't sit beneath the tree. The school said they didn't care where students sat. The next day, students arrived at school to see three nooses (in school colors) hanging from the tree....

The boys who hung the nooses were suspended from school for a few days. The school administration chalked it up as a harmless prank, but Jena's black population didn't take it so lightly. Fights and unrest started breaking out at school. The District Attorney, Reed Walters, was called in to directly address black students at the school and told them all he could "end their life with a stroke of the pen."

Black students were assaulted at white parties. A white man drew a loaded rifle on three black teens at a local convenience store. (They wrestled it from him and ran away.) Someone tried to burn down the school, and on December 4th, a fight broke out that led to six black students being charged with attempted murder. To his word, the D.A. pushed for maximum charges, which carry sentences of eighty years. Four of the six are being tried as adults (ages 17 & 18) and two are juveniles....


A while ago I invited my readers to send their favorite exposés of The Big Con from this blog to their conservative friends and relatives - a failed experiment. None of us are talking politics any more with our conservative friends and relatives. Please file this one away nonetheless. The "racism isn't a problem any more" trope is a perennial in America. Next time you hear it, send them the news from Jena, Louisiana.

(UPDATE: An all-white jury has been empaneled.)

http://commonsense.ourfuture.org/black_high_school_students_louisiana_threatened_lynching?tx=3

[Phredicles]

1. A "harmless prank"?!?!?!?

:wow:

Sounds like a case of rotten kids getting their rotten outlooks from rotten adults.

[EFerrari]

2. It's enough to break your heart. n/t

[marmar]

5. I know....it's extra distressing when young people are still carrying on this crap.

Hopefully college or some other experience will unchain their minds.

[EFerrari]

7. Or, having to live through it. High school is hard enough

all by itself. :(

[marmar]

12. True that......

n/t

[Horse with no Name]

13. Weren't there some here who didn't see anything wrong with an All-white prom?

I guess we haven't learned enough from history.:(

[whistle]

3. Right on que with the SCOTUS decision supporting resegregation

....next we'll be seeing KKK marches down the main streets of Amerika as the masked reTHUGlican racist policies and code words of the last 45 years again become the official open behavior and rhetoric in this country. Ignorance is always just one generation away from becoming the norm

[Solly Mack]

4. k/r

:(

[Warren DeMontague]

6. Jeee-Zus. nt

[BlooInBloo]

8. You missed the all-white jury they got!

[marmar]

10. Added....

n/t

[BlooInBloo]

11. thx!

[kineneb]

9. new school uniform- white hood & robe

for those pitiful misfits who put up the nooses. Guess nothing really has changed. Sigh. Racism is so immature.

[Solo_in_MD]

14. I want to remember seeing that some verdicts came in today, but can not find a link

[DeSwiss]

15. UPDATE.............

Mychal Bell, the first of the Jena Six to face trial, was found guilty of aggravated second-degree battery and conspiracy to commit the same a few hours ago.

http://www.thetowntalk.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070628/NEWS01/70628023/1002

K&R

[Mythsaje]

16. Are they TRYING to ignite a race war?

Or at least a repeat of some of the riots of the past?

This is a good way to go about it.

"Good" being relative, that is.

You know, the more I think about it...

[harlinchi]

17. K & R with disgust! n/t

[marmar]

18. I hear ya....posted with disgust.....

:cry:

[The Backlash Cometh]

19. With a conservative Supreme Court, you're surprised?