John Hardly, how can anything be an INJUSTICE TO THE CIVIL RIGHTS
MOVEMENT OF THE 60S, as you shout so loudly? It was a movement, not a
person. Why should that even be a concern?

There is a parallel to that period, in that the fight here is about
institutionalized racism and the practical racism of public officials
in the American South.

There's another parallel in that the 'movement' of the 60's had
both pacifist and violent undertones and overtones.

There is a difference between now and the 60's in that the racism
which is currently at issue is not set down in law. In fact, the
law seems to forbid it.

Where Civil Rights movements have failed, and continue to fail, is
in resolving the sort of insidious racism (and the faulty conscienses
which underlie it). In Jena, we have the perfect examples:

1. That in this day and age there should be permitted in a school
   a culture where such a thing as a 'white tree' could exist.
2. That in this day and age ANY young person of high school age
   should believe for one moment that the presentation of a noose
   in a tree to an African American isn't a crime.
3. The institutional racism that had the school board not just
   reinstate the expelled culprits, but actually reduced the
   punishment to little more than a slap on the wrist.
4. The institutional racism that has the Jena DA finding ways
   to justify not prosecuting a clear hate crime while 'throwing
   the book' at a young African American man who, by all appearances,
   was caught up in the aftermath of the hate crime
5. The institutional racism which has an African American Bush
   Administration official unwilling to go out on a limb (you'll
   pardon the pun) to prosecute the noose-hangers.

Jena makes it clear that, for all the trappings of equality, the
hearts and the minds of the white population have not been won,
at least not in places like Jena. That although the laws have
changed, those who uphold it aren't willing, for various reasons,
to do so.

That is the tragedy of Jena--- and it belongs on the front page
with Al Sharpton standing on the courthouse steps and calling it
what it is.