RE: Jena 6: the elephant in the room.

[pepperbear]

There are so many sides to this story, and I am among the first to admit that violence never was and never is the answer. However, to paraphrase Chris Rock, "I wouldn't ever kill anybody....but I understand."

Here's the rub, and the one thing the press never mentions; whether or not those nooses were a harmless prank is irrelevant. The only answer the white kids in that school should have given was something akin to this:

"We apologize that this tree has always been considered to be "the white hangout". We know where that kind of thinking leads and it's wrong. You are welcome to sit under the tree any time you want."

The nooses were unacceptable and sent a message to the world that the black kids shouldn't have even dared to ask about the tree. I am sorry people got hurt, but this is 2007, not 1957. Nobody should be expected to roll over and take that kind of treatment.

[CTyankee]

1. I agree with what you said should have happened. But this kind of vigilante

justice is unacceptable. The issue should have been resolved by the authorities at the school but that would require that a complaint be brought to their attention and the local NAACP brought in. There are better ways to resolve the problem.

[Warpy]

2. Yes, there were better ways to solve this problem

but they didn't seem to occur to the principals involved.

I suppose courses in conflict resolution as part of teacher recertification are out of the question.

[proud2BlibKansan]

5. The principal expelled the kids who hung the nooses

The superintendent overruled him and suspended them.

[EFerrari]

89. A course like that should be part of college GE requirements

because this culture is really screwed up in that area.

[proud2BlibKansan]

7. The problem is the fights that resulted in the criminal charges didn't happen at school

so local law enforcement was involved.

[EFerrari]

15. Did you catch that the DA prosecuting these kids was also

the school's legal counsel?

I've never used the term "clusterfuck" before but I think I'll break my own rules and use it now.

[proud2BlibKansan]

65. Yes just heard that on Amy Goodman the other day

That is really a mind blower.

[sandnsea]

22. and the white kids weren't charged

That's the disparity. That's how we end up with a disproportionate number of minorities in jail, which allows white people like Bill O'Reilly to make such assinine comments like he did about eating at a black restaurant.

December 1 2006 - A black student was beaten by a group of white students at a "white party".

December 2 2006 - At the Gotta Go convenience store, the black student who was beaten up the night before, along with his friends, ran into one of the white students who beat him. A confrontation broke out and the white student went to his vehicle to get his shotgun. The black students wrestled the shotgun away from him and brought it to the police department and told them of the incident. The black students were arrested for stealing the gun. The white student was not charged.

December 4 2006 - A white student, Justin Barker, was attacked at school by a group of black students for taunting them with racial slurs and verbally supporting the nooses that were hung on "the white tree" and also supporting the white students who beat up the black student at the party. He was treated at a hospital and released the same day, attending a social function that evening. Six black students were arrested for beating Barker, and charged with attempted second-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder.

[nofurylike]

75. thank you for adding crucial details, sandnsea. another very

important detail is the man who said he witnessed it, that one person (NOT one of the Jena 6) hit barker, and it wasn't mychal bell, or a group.
that witness was not allowed to testify.

post by flashl, yesterday:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=3000989&mesg_id=3001411

>

This makes it worse

The witness no one called:

http://friendsofjustice.wordpress.com/2007/07/02/ineffective-assistance-of-counsel-what-blane-williams-should-have-known/


Coach Benjy Lewis gave two statements immediately after the school incident in which he clearly states that Justin Barker was facing him when Malcolm Shaw (not Mychal Bell) struck Barker from behind. “I saw Malcolm Shaw hit Justin Barker with his right fist to the right side of Justin’s head, right around the temple,” Lewis wrote. “Justin went down face first, knocked out . . .” Most witnesses agree that a single punch knocked Barker out cold. The only adult who witnessed the punch says Mychal Bell didn’t throw it.

In a signed statement given immediately after the altercation at the school, student Jesse Beard stated that moments after the assault Coach Manning asked him where Malcolm Shaw was.

***

Do you get it? Mychal Bell didn't hit / beat Justin Barker!

>


outrage


solidarity

[robinlynne]

81. As a matter of fact the party beaing was premeditated. A white girl invited the black

boy to go with her to the party, where he was beaten by a large group of whites. It was like the lynching they had already threatened.

[robinlynne]

29. Not true. You have not heard the whole story. before there were any fights, the

polcie were brought in to the school ALONG WITH THE DA, who told the black students, at the school, that he could end their lives with one stroke of his pen, and he held his pen up and pointed it at them. This is during a school lunchbreak, when black students were sitting under the oak tree to protest the nooses that were put there the day before. The DA and police were brought in against the black kids, who had done NOTHING WRONG! Later fights started with a white boy who brought a shotgun TO SCHOOL. Black kids wrestled the shotgun away and they were arrested for stealing the gun!!!!!!!!!
Then a black boy was invited to an allwhite party by a white girl, where he was beaten up.
After all of that, the black kids beat up one of the white kids.
Listen to the hour long amy goodman report from jena. you will get more of the story.

[stillcool]

9. What vigilante justice?

did I miss something?

Demons of racism roam free: The case of the Jena 6
Author: Bill Quigley

http://www.pww.org/article/articleview/11397/1/381

In a small still mostly segregated section of rural Louisiana, an all-white jury heard a series of white witnesses called by a white prosecutor testify in a courtroom overseen by a white judge in a trial about a fight at the local high school where a white student who had been making racial taunts was hit by Black students.

The fight was the culmination of a series of racial incidents starting when whites responded to Black students sitting under the “white tree” at their school by hanging three nooses from the tree. The white jury and white prosecutor and all white supporters of the white victim were all on one side of the courtroom. The Black defendant, 17-year-old Mychal Bell, and his supporters were on the other.

The jury quickly convicted Mychal Bell of two felonies — aggravated battery and conspiracy to commit aggravated battery. Bell, who was a 16-year-old sophomore football star at the time he was arrested, faces up to 22 years in prison. Five other Black youths await similar trials on attempted second-degree murder and conspiracy charges.

Yes, you read that correctly. The rest of the story, which is being reported across the world in papers in China, France and England, is just as chilling.
--------------------------------------------------

But Blacks in this area of Louisiana have little political power. The 10-person all-male government of the parish has one African American member. The nine member all-male school board has one African American member. (A phone caller to the local school board trying to find out the racial makeup of the school board was told there was one “colored” member of the board.) There is one Black police officer in Jena and two Black public school teachers.
---------------
Jena is the site of the infamous Juvenile Correctional Center for Youth that was forced to close its doors in 2000, only two years after opening, due to widespread brutality and racism, including the choking of juveniles by guards after the youths met with a lawyer. The U.S. Department of Justice sued the private prison amid complaints that guards paid inmates to fight each other and laughed when teens tried to commit suicide.


Black students decided to resist and organized a sit-in under the “white tree” at the school to protest the light suspensions given to the noose-hanging white students.

The white district attorney then came to Jena High with law enforcement officers to address a school assembly. According to testimony in a later motion in court, the DA reportedly threatened the Black protesting students saying that if they didn’t stop making a fuss about this “innocent prank… I can be your best friend or your worst enemy. I can take away your lives with a stroke of my pen.” The school was put on lockdown for the rest of the week.

-----------------------------------------
The Chicago Tribune reported the public defender did not challenge the all-white jury pool, put on no evidence and called no witnesses. The public defender told the Alexandria Town Talk after resting his case without calling any witnesses that he knew he would be second-guessed by many but was confident that the jury would return a verdict of not guilty. “I don’t believe race is an issue in this trial. … I think I have a fair and impartial jury.”

[EFerrari]

14. We're talkiing about teenagers, kids.

Where were the adults in this situation? Why were these kids left to manage this on their own?

[fortyfeetunder]

69. The adults ARE the problem!

I know you are asking an honest question though, it led me to ask a second question--

Don't think the kids are the problem -- it's their parents and the other adults in the community who flushed down another generation of intolerance, hatred and bigotry to the younger generation. Like all that MLK Jr's mission was to them -- a bunch of communist hogwash.

Where else are these kids going to get all this bigoted nonsense from?

[EFerrari]

88. Oh, I'm sure you're right.

Kids aren't born embracing racism.

[robinlynne]

31. The authorities at the school ARE the vigilantes. The DA, who also represents the school

legally determined that the school could take no action, so that he could take criminal action, which he did. The judge also acted illegally. He charged a 16 year old as an adult. The smae DA and judge charged NO white kids, not even the boy who brought a shotgun to school.

[CTyankee]

48. I do not argue about the injustice done to the black students. It is evident, as you point out.

I just wonder what MLK, Jr. would have said about the situation...

[robinlynne]

78. His friends all went to the protest last thursday.

[Evergreen Emerald]

3. I do not believe that the kid who got beat up had anything to do with ...

...the noose. He got beat up because he was white. Violence is not acceptable. Everyone should be held accountable for illegal behavior whether they are white or black.

[TahitiNut]

6. Accountability is being doled out with wildly different-sized spoons.

When people, even young people, even high-school people, reach the limits to which they will tolerate oppression and do not find recourse in the civil systems, they/we will engage in violent revolution. One can sit back and, in the comfort of one's own confidence in that system, condemn those engaging in such revolt as "not acceptable" ... but the fact is that revolution is celebrated in this country every year. Tell people celebrating Independence Day that "violence is not acceptable." The FACT of the matter is that it may be all that's left to people when our civil systems fail them ... or us!

[CTyankee]

8. But if the kid who got beaten up was not responsible for the noose business,

how is this justice? You are going to have to explain that to me in the context of your rationalization.

I am pleading for more nonviolent ways to justice. Like Martin Luther King, Jr.

[EFerrari]

11. That didn't read to me, anyway, as a rationalization

but an explanation of the social dynamics.

[renie408]

83. Same here. They were just saying that when people hit their limit, anything can set them off. n/t

[TahitiNut]

18. There is no requirement that revolt be "just" ... it's an inherently proportional response to ..

... injustice. It's all that is left to any group of people when the civil system offers no other recourse.

Now ... I'll be the first to admit that there's SOME hyperbole in my framing of this atrocious condition. But I think it's important that we remember that youth and adolescence is a time when one's sense of "fairness" is exaggerated. From an adult perspective, the lessons we give our children come home to roost in the rafters of our imperfections (and hypocrisies) at times like these. We teach our young people about us not as we are but how we'd like to be seen ... and our failures to walk the walk are reflected in their reaction.

The ENTIRE rationale for a civil system that offers some approximation of 'justice' is to preclude the inevitable result of failing to do so, both on a local and national and global level. This is a microcosm of our times ... just as many events in our near past have been emblematic of those times.

I think the reaction of "law enforcement" in Jena is a more-than-sufficient proof of the failures of their local "justice system." The result was inevitable.

[Evergreen Emerald]

24. so you are suggesting that it is ok, because of the corrupt leadership

of the town, that people attack each other? Seriously? It is not ok for a noose to be hung in the town square. But how racist to attack someone just because they are white and you are pissed off! Ohmygod, I cannot believe that is ok with someone.

[EFerrari]

26. No, that's not what the poster is saying. n/t

[TahitiNut]

27. It seems to be a waste of time posting --- since what you're reading apparently is elsewhere.

RIF

:shrug:

If you cannot read what I've posted and MUST make accusations of base motives and claims completely without basis in what I've said, then the only thing I can ultimately say is already in my sig. Try reading that instead, then.

[Evergreen Emerald]

28. I believe this is a volatile issue and something that should be

able to be discussed without name calling and without suggestions of narrow minded-ness and ignorance.

It is a shame that you cannot discuss this issue without resorting to such behavior.

I am neither ignorant nor narrow minded. And I resent the implication.

[EFerrari]

35. Hopefully, your resentment will be useful to you. n/t

[Evergreen Emerald]

36. I hope your judgmental attitude will be useful to you

[EFerrari]

38. I'm completely uninterested in random, anonymous projection. n/t

[TahitiNut]

39. Something should be.

:rofl:

:hi:

[EFerrari]

42. We used to argue all the time. What the hell is the matter with us?

:hi:

[TahitiNut]

43. We will again. We can count on it. (We don't have to dislike each other, though.)

I don't. :hi:

People who always agree with me are boring. (Enlightened, but boring.) :silly: :rofl:

[EFerrari]

46. Just out of curiosity, do you remember Mountain Charlie's?

And how the hell did you come to these conclusions being from Los Gatos?

:rofl:

[TahitiNut]

50. I LOVED Mountain Charley's! Going back to the late 70s, even.

They had a band there in those days - "Wizard" - made up of professional musicians from other employment (e.g. SF Symphony) ... and they did the BEST bluegrass, rock, and blues (as well as "serious") of any live band I've ever seen in any bar or club. They were AWESOME.

I loved that place - the trestle tables and peanuts and beer by the pitcher. They also had an all-ages crowd - people from barely legal to seniors ... and very relaxed and friendly. The Indian Restauant opposite it on the landing was excellent, too. When I last lived there, though, I'd spend my 'go out' time at Double D's and Jamba Juice and California Cafe and Vasona Park. Mountain Charley's was never the same after the Loma Prieta quake.

I lived in "East" Los Gatos ... which didn't have the snob appeal. :evilgrin:

[EFerrari]

51. My husband played there regularly on Fridays.

It was a great place. We probably shared room temperature AND I was there illegally, at 19. The staff knew and never carded me. And I never ordered liquor, that was just our working night out.

Lol! I wonder if we all don't come from "East" somewhere. :silly:

[TahitiNut]

37. Well, when the foo shits ...

:shrug:

When you ascribe to me stances I've not taken, ignore what I've posted, and then engage in faux disdain and pretend you've got the "vapors" ... it seems the inability to discuss may be more mere projection on your part. Find another whipping boy, OK?

:hi:

[Evergreen Emerald]

45. lovely.

...

[CTyankee]

49. As I have said, the injustice to the black kids was blatant and also unacceptable.

What I am saying is that the result will always be inevitable if we accept that it is. Hence my reference elsewhere on this thread of what MLK, Jr. preached. It should make us pause and give thought to his words.

[TahitiNut]

52. The aspiration to nonviolent civil disobedience isn't reasonably a minimum expectation ...

... particularly for those so young. It's pretty clear (to me, at least) that these kids emulated what the community 'elders' modeled and responded in kind.

I was appalled at the interviews with some of those 'elders' and thought the rhetoric cam out of the 1940s ... when people would say things like "our blacks are happy blacks." The patronizing and avuncular-Tom-ist attitudes were beyond the pale.

[CTyankee]

54. And so the cycle goes on into the next generation...exactly what

MLK did NOT want. My expectations tend to be higher than yours on this. Since the adults would not model the behavior of a just people, another model must be in its place. I plead for it not to be more violence, that's all.

[EFerrari]

55. That's a tall order when the highest law enforcement officer

took time out of his busy day to go to the school and threaten the black kids.

[CTyankee]

56. Yes, it most certainly is a tall order. I am not disagreeing with you on that.

It is good that this situation is getting the publicity it needs. That is an ingredient in change, all to the good. And voices raised powerfully to speak about justice denied. But the continuation of violence with reap more of the same. It always has...

[EFerrari]

57. Sure, and when we chastise the powerless for their violence

in the face of life threatening provocation, that's a recipe for ongoing disaster.

[CTyankee]

59. I am not chastising. I am merely making a point about violence and referencing Dr. King.

If he made the same exact point as I am making, would you characterize him as "chastising the powerless"?

[EFerrari]

61. This isn't a level playing field.

The restraint you're asking for is admirable but also, unreasonable. And it's usually applied to the victims of racism, not to the instigators.

Essentially, we are asking people who are being threatened with their lives not to fight back.

[CTyankee]

63. The playing field during the civil rights struggle was more uneven than it is today.

Dr. King upset lots of apple carts when he suggested what I have said on this thread. And exactly the same arguments about uneven playing fields were made at that time. It is understandable, completely. Why did Dr. King preach nonviolence if it so benefitted the oppressor, not the oppressed? It was a question that was asked at that time. Why should we forego a violent reaction if we ourselves are treated violently? Don't we have justice on our side? Those were questions Dr. King dealt with.

Your concerns have been voiced before, during darker times than these for AFrican Americans in this country. I am old enough to remember those days of peaceful civil rights demonstrators being beaten by white racist mobs. I remember the snarling dogs and the water hoses and the systemic violence and injustice. I grew up in segregated Texas with white and black only water fountains, schools, movie theater sections, buses.

But I still believe that ultimately Dr. King's message is the right one. I just try to inject that here...

[EFerrari]

64. And Martin was shot for his trouble.

Yes, he was right, I couldn't agree more.

And, somewhere between being right and staying alive is where the community is.

[CTyankee]

67. So was Gandhi. It is sad... n/t

[robinlynne]

33. Go to democracy now.org and listen to amy goodman's interviews with all the parents of the white and

black children. She interviewed ALL of them.

[Evergreen Emerald]

41. You are right.

I am unaware of the whole story. For example: I was under the impression that the white kid who got beat up was a passerby and had nothing to do with the underlying situation. (Not that there is ever justification for violence).

Thanks for the suggestion.

[robinlynne]

80. oh no. That happened after weeks of provocation.

[Coexist]

73. and what bothers me is that Jena was already famous

for having a privately run juvie that needed to be shut down because of the horrendous abuses by the guards. You know that in the minds of that town lingers that idea.

Even if charged as juveniles, kids in this area get sent away and get raped and beaten.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2000/05/09/60II/main193636.shtml

and, btw - Wackenhut (under a new name) is now opening the Jena facility as an adult prison.

WTF??!

[TahitiNut]

76. Again we see how 'justice' is meted out by the powerful.

For a teenager on drugs? Rape, beatings, and all manner of exploitation - under the cover of "rehabilitation." For the guards who raped and abused them? Well, they lost their jobs.

It's like the pretense that impeachment is some "cruel and unusual punishment" ... for a privileged psychopath who shares the responsibility for the homicides of MILLIONS.

It's totally stunning ... that "loss of job" is so terrible for Cunningham, Craig, Cheney, Bush and other obscene violators of the public trust ... but rape and torture is "typical" for kids caught doing drugs.

When the basic sense of "justice" is so completely and totally corrupted in a society, that society loses its right to even exist.

[flashl]

84. Good ole "we don't have any problems here" Jena

Justice Department Sues, Files For Emergency Relief To Protect Juveniles In Louisiana's Jena Juvenile Justice Center

Justice Department Press Release March 2000

The Justice Department today sued the state of Louisiana and the owner and operator of the Jena Juvenile Justice Center alleging that the juveniles at the facility are subjected to excessive abuse and neglect. At the same time, the Justice Department filed for emergency relief to protect the juveniles from the dangerous and life-threatening conditions there.

[sandnsea]

17. That's not true

December 1 2006 - A black student was beaten by a group of white students at a "white party".

December 2 2006 - At the Gotta Go convenience store, the black student who was beaten up the night before, along with his friends, ran into one of the white students who beat him. A confrontation broke out and the white student went to his vehicle to get his shotgun. The black students wrestled the shotgun away from him and brought it to the police department and told them of the incident. The black students were arrested for stealing the gun. The white student was not charged.

December 4 2006 - A white student, Justin Barker, was attacked at school by a group of black students for taunting them with racial slurs and verbally supporting the nooses that were hung on "the white tree" and also supporting the white students who beat up the black student at the party. He was treated at a hospital and released the same day, attending a social function that evening. Six black students were arrested for beating Barker, and charged with attempted second-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder.

[stillcool]

20. poor white kids...

..did nothing wrong.

On Friday night, Dec. 1, a Black student who showed up at a white party was beaten by whites. On Saturday, Dec. 2, a young white man pulled out a shotgun in a confrontation with young Black men at the Gotta Go convenience store outside Jena before the men wrestled it away from him. The Black men who took the shotgun away were later arrested. No charges were filed against the white man.

On Monday, Dec. 4, at Jena High, a white student — who allegedly had been making racial taunts, including calling African American students “n———” while supporting the students who hung the nooses and who beat up the Black student at the off-campus party — was knocked down, punched and kicked by Black students. The white victim was taken to the hospital treated and released. He attended a social function that evening.

http://www.pww.org/article/articleview/11397/1/381

[Evergreen Emerald]

34. I think alot of people did something wrong.

Starting with the school and ending with the judicial system.

[stillcool]

40. I'm curious...

have you been following this story?

[Evergreen Emerald]

44. not as much as I should have been

I have not watched TV this week (due to work). So, what I heard was that some random white kid got beat up by a group of black kids who were pissed off at being treated unfairly at the school. And in that vacuum, I believe violence is not the answer. And that was the basis of my statement.

I know that racial issues are hard to discuss here on DU. And it appears that DU is not the same as it used to be. We could discuss without resorting to all sorts of name calling--or maybe DU is a microcosom of our society with attacks coming first.

[EFerrari]

47. DU is not the same as it used to be. We've gotten much better

at sorting out racism.

I'm sorry if your feelings were hurt on this thread. This is a difficult topic and it's so much easier to type than to consider.

[stillcool]

53. It is hard to discuss any issue..

when the facts are not in evidence. This story has been in the news on the net, for some time now. It only made it to the big screen because of the national attention garnered through the internet. There have been many here who have been writing the governor asking her to intervene, and donating money to the legal defense. I think that if you spent some time researching this story you would find there is really nothing to discuss but the appalling racial injustice that takes place in this country on a daily basis. For every story that makes it to the big screen, just imagine how many are never heard about. Nothing about these stories should be difficult to discuss.

To some in Paris, sinister past is back
In Texas, a white teenager burns down her family's home and receives probation. A black one shoves
a hall monitor and gets 7 years in prison. The state NAACP calls it 'a signal to black folks.'
By Howard Witt
Tribune senior correspondent
Published March 12, 2007
----------------------------------------------
There was the 19-year-old white man, convicted last July of criminally negligent homicide for killing a 54-year-old black woman and her 3-year-old grandson with his truck, who was sentenced in Paris to probation and required to send an annual Christmas card to the victims' family.

There are the Paris public schools, which are under investigation by the U.S. Education Department after repeated complaints that administrators discipline black students more frequently, and more harshly, than white students.

And then there is the case that most troubles Cherry and leaders of the Texas NAACP, involving a 14-year-old black freshman, Shaquanda Cotton, who shoved a hall monitor at Paris High School in a dispute over entering the building before the school day had officially begun.The youth had no prior arrest record, and the hall monitor--a 58-year-old teacher's aide--was not seriously injured. But Shaquanda was tried in March 2006 in the town's juvenile court, convicted of "assault on a public servant" and sentenced by Lamar County Judge Chuck Superville to prison for up to 7 years, until she turns 21.
Just three months earlier, Superville sentenced a 14-year-old white girl, convicted of arson for burning down her family's house, to probation.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0703120170mar12,1,1921178.story?coll=chi&ctrack=1&cset=true

[Evergreen Emerald]

68. whatever

mom is that you?

[stillcool]

70. sorry..I thought you ...

might actually care.

[TahitiNut]

77. Silly girl!

:eyes:


:rofl:

[Blue_Roses]

90. with all due respect, if you haven't been following this case,

then maybe you should wait to comment when you have all the facts. This story has been on DU for sometime now.

"I know that racial issues are hard to discuss here on DU."

Racial issues are difficult period. Discussing is what is needed. We simply don't try to understand one another's culture. That's what it all boils down to.

I don't mean to sound snarky, but I was born and raised in Louisiana in the '60's, watched integration start when I was in the 7th grade (that went real well:eyes:) and went to college not too far from Jena. There's not too much about this "difficult discussion" that I haven't witnessed personally. When someone starts talking about something that they really have no idea about, it rubs me the wrong way.

[robinlynne]

79. don't forget the pople hanging nooses.

[NOLALady]

58. He was taunting the

"N...... got his butt whipped" at the party a few nights before. He was taunting and he knew there would be problems because he told his GF to use another door.
He was white. But, he was beaten because he thought it was OK to taunt a classmate about a severe beating.

I agree, everyone should be held accountable for illegal behavior. But, that did not happen in Jena. No one was held accountable for the nooses. No one was held accountable for the beating of the Bailey boy. No one was held accountable when the man pulled the shotgun on the 3 teenagers.

The noose started the chain of events. The school fight seemed to be a continuation of the party fight a few nights before.

[EFerrari]

66. In what world is it okay to deliver death threats to our youth?

Because that's what those nooses were.

And, I don't care if people say the kids that planted them didn't know better. That's cr@P!

Death threats.

[Coexist]

74. and the nooses were painted in school colors.

How sick is that - 'this is OUR WHITE SCHOOL - don't get any ideas' is what I personally read in that.

[proud2BlibKansan]

4. I agree

It's all about those nooses. That's how this crap got started.

[EFerrari]

13. Has anyone heard from Anita Garcia? She was going to the protest. n/t

[Catherine Vincent]

10. I agree.

And it was silly that they cut that beautiful tree down. That was very telling, imo.

[EFerrari]

12. The school burned down and the plan was to build a large,

one story building to replace it. The tree would have to be cut down regardless.

[hedgehog]

16. The school burned down? When?

[EFerrari]

21. Sometime between that incident and now.

The school board guy who Amy Goodman interviewed made this point. He gave no date but he said, the tree would have to be cut down to accommodate the building plans. I hope he's not in the PR business.

[stillcool]

23. from the above link...

On the night of Thursday, Nov. 30, 2006, a still unsolved fire burned down the main academic building of Jena High School.

[EFerrari]

25. Thanks! What really struck me was the description

by a former administrator of the black school, a school that was shut down during de-segregation.

He said, roughly, that the black school was shut down and yet the white school maintained its sense of racial entitlement. Didn't sound like progress to me.

[stillcool]

30. it's appalling...

I came of age in the early 70's...reading Langston Hughes and Malcolm X. I went to college in Boston, as did a friend of mine, who is black. When we met at a local bar back home, we talked about racism. I said that I hadn't witnessed any in Boston...he laughed his ass off...a lesson in perception.

[EFerrari]

32. That's right. It's just like baseball. You have to know how to look.

:(

[aikoaiko]

71. In 1992 I moved to Malden (outstide boston) and went to the T-station for the first time and ...

....asked the offical T-station worker behind the glass booth if this line went to Ruggles station (the station closest to my campus and on the edge of Roxbury, a black neighborhood in Boston. This average middle aged Irish ancestry looking women responded, " Why would you want to go down there with all the ni****s".

I was dumbfounded. I barely eked out that I was going to Northeastern.



ps. Boston, 1970s, how did you miss the bussing riots in the Southside of Boston?

[Richard Steele]

19. K&R

[BlooInBloo]

60. Just realized I've never known: is it pronounced "Jenna" or "Jeena"?

[EFerrari]

62. I know, me, too. And why that is important escapes me.

But, it is.

I've been hearing it as "jeh-nah" but the residents seem to say "jee-nah".

[aikoaiko]

72. Gee-nah

[BlooInBloo]

92. Thanks!

[renie408]

82. There are consequences for actions. I don't think it is an unimaginable consequence

to get the amoral shit beat out of you for hanging a noose in a tree in an effort to intimidate a bunch of black kids. It doesn't mean that the black kids were right for beating up the white kid. It means that it is a mitigating circumstance in my mind. There is blame for all and should be punishment for all.

[LisaL]

85. It is not alleged that the kid who got beat up was the one

who hang up the nooses.
Are you saying that beating up a white kid because some other kids hang up the nooses is a mitigating circumstance?

[EFerrari]

87. The whole community is embroiled in this situation.

And it seems cowardly to me to push it off on the kids.

[Blue_Roses]

86. exactly!

:thumbsup:

[laureloak]

91. Careful that you "adults" aren't giving the wrong messasge

to the younger generation. As an example, what would you consider to be justice in this case?

http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/1856076/

[laureloak]

93. Here's an excerpt.

-snip

After a search, the Moore County Sheriff's Office took Michael Graham Currie, 18, into custody Monday night. All three teens were charged with one count of first-degree murder and one count of breaking and entering. All are from Cameron.

Twelve-year-old Emily Elizabeth Haddock was shot to death Friday in her home on Marks Road outside of Vass, authorities said. The girl had stayed home from school with strep throat and was alone.

snip

WRAL.com link in above post