What happened in Jena goes on every day, all over the country.

[hedgehog]

I am disgusted at the thought of a bunch of high school athletes, whatever color, whatever excuse, beating on another person. Still, the Jena case forces a major issue into the spot light. Blacks continue to be charged with crimes when whites are let off with a warning; blacks do prison time when whites get probation. the worst example of this is the application of the drug laws. Some of it is actually built into the drug laws. Why is crack cocaine treated differently than power cocaine? It's not just a racial issue either. People caught with the drug of the upper classes, Ecstasy,((3,4-Methylenedioxy-N-Methylamphetamine)) aren't treated the same way as people caught with the drug of the lower classes, meth.

[EFerrari]

1. Driving while black.

You made me remember a documentary I saw on LinkTV that showed young black male drivers in Chicago being stopped 8X the rate of young white male drivers.

Sometimes I think we're f#cking unteachable.

[hedgehog]

3. Here's the worst part : How many whites actually approve oft he police

stopping drivers for DWB? People on the public payroll are causing problems without our knowledge or consent.

[EFerrari]

6. If you ask white people, they will probably say, that's awful.

But if you ask them if they know this nation was founded on a genocide and on the backs of a slave population, their eyes will cross. :shrug:

[Name removed]

8. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[EFerrari]

17. DU has come light years, though, since I've been reading it.

This is a really difficult conversation to have because most DUers really are decent, caring, resilient people, as Skinner said. It's painful to know racism is still such a key part of this culture. It's really hard to know you are or have been part of something so wrong, even by just breathing the same air.

I give DU all the credit in the world for trying to sort it out.

[beltanefauve]

27. Gotta agree with you, sfexpat2000

Speaking for myself, I've been a "bleeding-heart" Liberal my whole life, and now the love of my life, who is an African-American male, has enlightened me even further. Racism in this country is even worse than I thought. It is systemic. And yes, the knowledge of this has been painful. But it is necessary for me to keep my eyes and ears open if I am to continue spreading the word to others, and hopefully, initiate change.

[EFerrari]

37. We take the steps we can, I guess.

It just freaks me out that we're here, now.

[tom_paine]

18. DUers claimed Richardson wasn't rascist?

:rofl: :silly:

You're kidding, right?

What would he have to do, then, to be a rascist? Lynch someone right on the stage.

Tell me you are joking or embellshing.

[BlooInBloo]

19. Yup.

[fishwax]

35. it was just a joke--just edgy humor--trying to make people think, and he did

there were a lot of people on here saying that shit :puke:

[amitten]

26. I'm white, I think racism exists, and I think there are many many

examples of it...both in the media and in day-to-day life.

And Michael Richards sure as hell is a racist.

I've seen blacks just walking down the street get harassed by a cop in a car.

I've seen blacks not get hired at a certain business because the interviewer would mark the top of the page with a little circle...to let the manager know the applicant was black.

I've seen people cross the street to avoid passing a black person on the sidewalk.

So yeah...anyone who thinks racism isn't alive and well is an idiot.

PS--All of the above were observed in Northern states, when I still lived up North.

[beltanefauve]

39. Sociologists

have conducted studies whereas two identical resume's are submitted to the potential employer but with different names, say, one is "John Murphy" and the other is "Jamal Murphy". Guess which one does NOT get hired...

[nofurylike]

33. it's true. well said, BlooInBloo. again. may you be HEARD,

and people wakened by you!

i see you keep trying to get this crucial insight out there. please keep trying!

thank you!


solidarity

[hedgehog]

9. We need to review our history. Years ago, we lived in a town that was

pretty much all white. My son saw film from South Africa every night from when apartheid was in its last throes. He assumed that any black people he saw were recent immigrants from South Africa. I had to explain that the blacks were the real Americans, since our family has been here only a few generations.

We can't fix what happened years ago. Some people get resentful because their families got here after the Civil War, after the annexation of California, after the Native Americans were confined to reservations. They feel no responsibly for those events, and their families have painful stories, too. We can fix what is going on today, though.

[EFerrari]

13. I grew up in Silicon Valley when it was just a settlement to house

defense industry workers at NASA. My light skinned Latino family was the "colored" family in the subdivision. I was some kind of school anomaly because I spoke two languages. And they put me in with the slow readers for two years because they couldn't figure out that I learned to read and write Spanish at home when I was three. lol

Our history is so idealized, if that idealization fell off the table, it could break a bone in your foot.

[BlooInBloo]

2. Psst - you're not supposed to talk about it. You're supposed to be shocked (shocked!) each...

... and every time. I'm on my 3247754466th time, myself.

[hedgehog]

5. Dare I introduce politics? This issue is the main reason I'm supporting Obama.

He is the one politician I've heard willing to tackle everyone involved in this mess or even willing to make this mess an issue.

[backscatter712]

34. Is it permissible to be shocked, but not suprised?

[TheFriendlyAnarchist]

4. ....legalize. . .

Still don't see any logical reason why LSD, Psylosin, MDMA, Mescaline, and pot are all Schedule 1-2 drugs. . .

[hedgehog]

7. Damn - after having to sign a book so I could buy some pseudophendrine for

my husband, I say legalize all drugs. My family has had to put up with people drinking themselves to death for several generations. Why should the rest of us be inconvenienced by people who want to do themselves to death with other drugs? That's harsh, but it's how I feel. How about all the people in pain today because their doctors are afraid to prescribe enough pain medicine? I say, build and staff rehab centers, but legalize drugs today.

[PDenton]

10. coke vs. crack

It could be argued that crack cocaine is more addictive, since it is much more alkaline than powdered cocaine. The alkalinity alters the bioavailability of the drug.

Meth is also highly socially destructive and criminogenic. People resort to crime to fund their meth habits. Plus meth production is toxic and bad for the environment. I think meth is the most disgusting drug out there in what it does to society. Probably the only worse drug? Alcohol, but admittedly alcohol is legal.

[stillcool]

14. I've done them all...

and agree with you that alcohol is the worse..the only drug that makes you forget what you did.

[hedgehog]

25. Maybe if Ecstasy was marketed to poor people, they'd commit crimes to

fund that habit?

[PDenton]

29. how addictive is ecstasy?

I haven't used any illegal drugs, ever so I don't know for sure. From what I've read about it, the concern is not so much from the abuse potential but the fact that it can cause hyperthermia (resulting in death even) and also it causes depression during withdrawl, and long term it may cause forms of brain damage and depression.

I have taken kava root, but that's not illegal, and it's not really hallucinogenic.

[sandnsea]

11. The media isn't reporting the judicial disparity

In fact, if it weren't for the nooses, this wouldn't have been reported at all. But it's the fact that white students weren't charged for fighting that is the real fuel underneath it all.

[hedgehog]

15. I'd like to know more about that incident.

The black kid was beaten when he showed up at a "white party". Was he invited? Was anyone invited, or was it an open party that everyone knew was meant to be whites only? Were the police called?

Part of me wonders how much of this situation can be reduced to infighting among high school cliques? The use of race to define the cliques and racist symbols in the fighting may be specific to the location. In other localities, there may be similar activities between groups of whites. What really made things bad here is the DA allowed the situation to escalate and stepped in to charge only the black kids involved.

[NOLALady]

22. It seems that a white female invited him to the party.

It was a setup.

[stillcool]

12. I can not imagine...

how many stories are out there. The only way....anything..anything...is done about it, is if it gets national attention. The most disgusting part of it is, there are supposed democrats here on DU, that are ready to make excuses for blatant racism. It makes me sick. Get your hate on!

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

[hedgehog]

16. What about the police patrolling the halls in New York City Schools?

I've heard of kids getting arrested for trivial acts and principals getting arrested for trying to interfere. I have no idea how race is involved, but I have my suspicions.

[stillcool]

23. a couple of things I picked up...

in my travels...

http://www.ncjrs.gov/txtfiles1/bja/182503.txt
Title: Juveniles in Adult Prisons and Jails.
Series: A National Assessment
Author: James Austin Ph.D., Kelly Dedel Johnson, Ph.D., Maria Gregoriou,
M.A.
Published: October 2000
Subject: Juvenile corrections, jails and jail inmates
Major Findings

This study represents the most thorough examination to date of the issues
presented by youth who are incarcerated in adult facilities. The findings include
the following:

--Approximately 107,000 youth (younger than 18) are incarcerated on any
given day.

--Of these, approximately 14,500 are housed in adult facilities. The largest
proportion, approximately 9,100 youth, are housed in local jails, and some
5,400 youth are housed in adult prisons.

--Of the 50 states and the District of Columbia, 44 house juveniles (age 17 and
younger) in adult jails and prisons.

--In recent years, the number of youth in jails has escalated, while the number in
prisons has stabilized or declined.

--The actual number of youth who experience incarceration in an adult prison is
much higher than the number shown by a 1-day count, with an estimated
13,876 juvenile state prison admissions in 1997. There are no current estimates
of the number of youth admitted to jails each year.

--In terms of their legal status while incarcerated, 21 percent were held as
adjudicated juvenile offenders or pretrial detainees, and 75 percent were
sentenced as adults.

--Of the 44 state prison systems that house juveniles as adults, 18 states
maintain designated youthful offender housing units.

--In comparison with the adult prison population, a higher proportion of youth
were black (55 percent of youthful inmates versus 48 percent of adult inmates)
and were convicted of a crime against persons (57 percent of youth versus 44
percent of adult inmates).

--The vast majority of these youth are age 17 (79 percent) or age 16
(18 percent).

--Approximately 51 percent of the youthful offender population were housed in
dormitory settings, 30 percent in single cells and 19 percent in double cells.

--Health, education, and counseling programs were fairly standard, with little
evidence of efforts to customize programs for youthful offenders. A few states
operate programs specifically for the most difficult to manage juveniles

http://www.ashrafdehghani.com/articles-english/on%20pri ...
A Report on the Injustice System in the USA
Written by: Pauline (a contributing writer to IPFG’s Publication; Payaam Fadaee)
Published in Payame Fadaee, Spring edition 2002

The US ruling class has established the largest forced labour sweatshop system in the world. There

are now approximately 2 million inmates in US prisons compared to 1 million in 1994. These
prisoners have become a source of billions of dollars in profits. In fact, the US has
imprisoned a half million more people than in China which has 5 times the population.
California alone has the biggest prison system in the Western industrialized world. It has more
prisoners than France, Germany, Great Britain, Japan and Holland combined while these countries
have 11 times the population of California. According to official figures, Iran
incarcerates 220 citizens per 100,000, compared to US figures of 727. Overall, the total
"criminal justice" system in the US, including those in prison, on parole and on probation, is
approaching 6,000,000. In the last 20 years, 1000 new prisons have been built; yet they
hold double their capacity.
Prisoners, 75% of who are either Black or Hispanic, are forced to work for 20 cents an hour, some even as low as 75 cents a day. They produce everything from eyewear and furniture to
vehicle parts and computer software. This has lead to thousands of layoffs and the lowering of
the overall wage scale of the entire working class. At Soledad Prison in California, prisoners
produce work-shirtsexported to Asia as well as El Salvadoran license plates more
cheaply than in El Salvador, one of the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere. A May/99
report in the Wall Street Journal summarized that while “more expensive private-sector workers may
lose their jobs to prison labour, assigning work to the most cost-efficient producer is good for the economy.” The February/00 Wall Street Journal reported “Prisoners are excluded from employment calculation. And since most inmates are economically disadvantaged and unskilled, jailing so many people has effectively taken a big block of the nation's least-employable citizens out of the equation.”

Federal Prison Industries (FPI) whose trade name is UNICOR exports prisoner-made products as well as selling them to all federal agencies as required by federal law. FPI manufactures over 150 different products in 99 factories in 64 prisons (with 19 new ones on the way) in 30 states. It is the federal government's 35th largest contractor, just behind IBM and is exempt from any federal workplace regulations.
FPI's prison workforce produces 98% of the entire US market for equipment assembly services, 93% of paint and artist brushes, 92% of all kitchen assembly services, 46% of all personal armour, 36% of all household furnishings and 30% of all headset/microphone/speakers, etc. RW. Feb/00 FPI consistently advertises for companies "interested in leasing a ready-to-run prison industry" especially following congressional testimony in 1996 that reported a "pent-up demand for prison labour." Meanwhile, shareholders profiting from prison labour consistently lobby for the legislation of longer prison sentences in order to expand their workforce. At least 37 states have legalized the contracting out of prison labour to private corporations that have already set up operations inside state prisons. Prisons' business clients include: IBM, Boeing, Motorola Microsoft, AT&T Wireless, Texas Instruments, Dell, Compaq, Honeywell, Hewlett-Packard, Nortel, Lucent Technologies, 3Com, Intel, Northern Telecom, TWA, Nordstrom, Revlon, Macys, Pierre Cardin, Target Stores
California, with the third largest penal system in the world after China and the US as a whole, spends more on prisons than on the entire educational system. In recent years, California's university and college system cut back 8,000 employees while its Department of Corrections added 26,000. CA has built 19 prisons vs. 1 university in the past 10 years. The state spends up to $60,000 per year to incarcerate a young person, while only spending $8,000 per year to educate the same youth.
http://www.siahkal.com/english/on%20prison.htm
Twin Towers Correction Facility: Largest jail in the world

[proud patriot]

20. We Have a long way to go to resolve this

I'm sick and tired of the institutionalized racism in this country .

:grr:

[uppityperson]

21. Good post until you got the drug part. Meth does not = Ecstasy.

Hmm, tell my kid's friends they are now upper class since they do ecstasy? I agree with your post until you compare meth with ecstasy since I think the potential for abuse, including all the crap that goes along with it, is very different. I'm open to ecstasy education though, if I'm wrong.

[hedgehog]

24. Ecstasy isn't really "harmless" although I suspect it can be used

more or less safely if proper precautions are taken. I look at the chemical names and it strikes me that two drugs with the same root can't be that different.( Ecstasy - methlenedioxmethamphetamine meth - methylamphetamine). My guess is that there is a difference in how the drugs are absorbed and how quickly tolerance to the drug is built up. Maybe a low dose of Ecstasy produces the desired effect while it takes a higher dose of meth. Maybe the higher dose carries more side effects. Who knows? Is the potential for abuse really different, or is is that the users self select? (Happy people choose one, desperate people choose the other?)Many of our attitudes toward a particular drug depend more on us than any intrinsic characteristic of the drug. Alcohol was once considered such a hazard to families that morphine was considered a wonder cure. Alcohol drinkers spent all their wages on booze, got into fights, then went home to beat their wives and children. Morphine addicts quietly went about their business and took care of their families.

[Brewman_Jax]

28. The Tulia, TX drug case

After all of what the wrongfully convicted had to go through (mostly black), I could find no article showing that any associated public officials suffered any punishment. The rogue "investigator" cop got probation. Hell, Nifong of the infamous Duke lacrosse case did less to the accused and suffered more punishment.

[BlooInBloo]

31. Like anybody reads, say, Bob Herbert,

[BronxBoy]

30. I'm glad you disgusted at the thought

of high school athletes beating up on another person.

But who said that is what happened in this case?

[hedgehog]

36. My understanding is that the group that was finally arrested included

members of the football team. It's not unknown for groups of teenagers to carry on a series of fights even when everyone involved is of the same race and same socio-economic group. There used to be fights between kids from Fulton and kids from Oswego. What sets the situation in Jena apart is that racism appears to have been the cause and official racism has been piled on top of that. To my knowledge there was an incident of white teenagers beating a black and a matching incident of black teenagers beating a white, yet only the black teenagers were arrested.

[BronxBoy]

41. I understand

But a lot of the outrage that is coming from the Black community stems from a belief that there may have been no gang beating at all.

Mychal Bell says there wasn't and so do the other boys. And the principal witnesses who claim that there was have credibility problems to say the least. And the victim remembers squat.

And given the biased way in which this prosecutor has approached things, I'm not ready to believe that this incident occurred the way the prosecution wants us to believe.

[nofurylike]

32. absolutely!! horrifying!!! thank you posting this, hedgehog.

k&r


solidarity

[Rex_Goodheart]

38. Just STOP!

STOP defending the Jena 6. If the victim had died under Louisiana law they would have been charged with second degree murder. So they beat a technical deficiency in Louisiana law, which should be modified to make deliberately beating an unconscious person exactly what they were charged with: attempted murder.

Also, since the offense was clearly racially-motivated they should be charged with hate crimes, or does that only work on white-on-black crime?

[BronxBoy]

40. Oh go suck on it

The are strong indications that there were no gang beating and that if anything was racially motivated, it was this prosecution.