BS: The Jena 6 Controversy

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: bobad
Date: 23 Sep 07 - 11:00 AM

From the FAQ, January 9, 2007: From now on, anonymous posting will be watched and controlled. We've had far too many problems with anonymous posters. If you want to post, use a consistent name. We're not requiring registration, although we certainly prefer that. You may certainly use a pseudonym as a user name, but please use that same name every time you post. If you post without using a consistent name, you risk having your messages deleted.

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: GUEST,different name
Date: 23 Sep 07 - 11:21 AM

The Liberal left is for freedom for everything as long as they dont disagree with them. Thanks for making my point I've blogged this site for a week and I've figured it out. I didnt post anything offensive, just a different view from most people on this site. Dont worry I wont be back

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: jacqui.c
Date: 23 Sep 07 - 11:27 AM

There is plenty of disagreement on this site and the contributors cover the whole political spectrum.

There are rules, one of which is to identify yourself when posting. If you had been around the site for more than a week you would be aware of the problems that have been caused by anonymous posters.

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: Big Mick
Date: 23 Sep 07 - 11:37 AM

GUEST,different name - You have been around a week, and you managed to use 4 or 5 names, referred to people as dumb, fat and lazy. One of the rules here is that you must use a consistent identity. You have not. You are also rude and nasty. Don't let the door hit you on the way out.

Mick

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: Greg F.
Date: 23 Sep 07 - 11:48 AM

"New South" my arse. Deja Vu all over again.
*

Only a Pawn in Their Game
Bob Dylan (Copyright 1963; renewed 1991 Special Rider Music)

        
A bullet from the back of a bush took Medgar Evers' blood.
A finger fired the trigger to his name.
A handle hid out in the dark
A hand set the spark
Two eyes took the aim
Behind a man's brain
But he can't be blamed
He's only a pawn in their game.

The South politician, he preaches to the poor white man,
"You got more than the blacks, don't complain.
You're better than them, you been born with white skin," they explain.
And the Negro's name
Is used it is plain
For the politician's gain
As he rises to fame
And the poor white remains
On the caboose of the train
But it ain't him to blame
He's only a pawn in their game.

The deputy sheriffs, the soldiers, the governors get paid,
And the marshals and cops get the same,
But the poor white man's used in the hands of them all like a tool.
He's taught in his school
From the start by the rule
That the laws are with him
To protect his white skin
To keep up his hate
So he never thinks straight
'Bout the shape that he's in
But it ain't him to blame
He's only a pawn in their game.

From the poverty shacks, he looks from the cracks to the tracks,
And the hoof beats pound in his brain.
And he's taught how to walk in a pack
Shoot in the back
With his fist in a clinch
To hang and to lynch
To hide 'neath a hood
To kill with no pain
Like a dog on a chain
He ain't got no name
But it ain't him to blame
He's only a pawn in their game.

The day Medgar Evers was buried from the bullet he caught
They lowered him down as a king.
But when the shadowy sun sets on the one
That fired the gun
He'll see by his grave
On the stone that remains
Carved next to his name
His epitaph plain:
Only a pawn in their game.

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: John Hardly
Date: 23 Sep 07 - 12:24 PM

"They" it seems to me, fit the metaphor "pawn" much more in the context of Al Sharpton's, Jesse Jackson's, and MLKIII's "game, more than in the context of anyone else's "game".

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: kendall
Date: 23 Sep 07 - 01:10 PM

Guest different name, The right are always chirping about constitutional freedoms such as the 2nd amendment but when it comes to freedom of speech, it does not apply to visitors. They don't want to hear what that Iranian "President" has to say.

Old military saying: "Know your enemy".

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 23 Sep 07 - 01:19 PM

Medgar Evers biography, University of Mississippi website:
Medgar Evers

A much better tribute than the more than 40-year-old rant by Dylan, typical of the artifacts exhumed by rabble-rousers.

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: katlaughing
Date: 23 Sep 07 - 05:52 PM

Oh my gawd, we've been blogged by a nonnie!

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: Bobert
Date: 23 Sep 07 - 07:59 PM

Yeah, I reckon no one has bothered to see just how similar what has happened here in Jena ios to the desegregation of the Little Rock schools...

Yeah, talk about deja vu'... Here you have a bu8nch of white kids who think it is their God-given right to control a section of publicly owned property... In Little Rock it was the schools... Here, it was a shade tree...

But schools/shade tree the underlyin' statement that was being made was one of "white supremecy"... "Hey, we are white and therefore this is mine, mine, mine..."

Any arguments here???

Now, TO WIT: Black kids take exception, go to the school and say, "Hey, ain''t this like Jim Crow, 'er somethin'..." and the school says, '"Yeah, okay, kinda" but nuthin' much is done until the white kids threaten the black kids with the "noose", a symbol that not only represents hatred, racism but also a history of black people being lynched...

Any arguments yet???

Now, TO WIT, Part B: We have a community of white people who think that it was okay for their white kids to threaten the lives of black kids but not okay for black kids to defend themselves???

Hmmmmm???

This is what this case biols down to, folks...

Yeah, I reralize that this joint is made up of primarily white people who probably feel very uncomfortable talking about race... Probably??? Well, for the most part, not at all... I have tried unsecessfully to get the discussion going but most folks here run from it like "pigs from a gun"...

Well, here's my prediction... This will get settled and Bell will get out on bail, cop a plea to somethin' real low and get probabtion and white America will have dodged the bullet once again...

Man, this just ain't right...

(But, Bobert, white America is in control of the power...)

Still don't make it right...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: katlaughing
Date: 23 Sep 07 - 08:11 PM

Yeah, I reralize that this joint is made up of primarily white people who probably feel very uncomfortable talking about race... Probably??? Well, for the most part, not at all... I have tried unsecessfully to get the discussion going but most folks here run from it like "pigs from a gun"...

Bullshit...nothing uncomfortable about talking about it unless someone tries to make out to be something they are not, Bobert, but I still luvya...

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 23 Sep 07 - 08:19 PM

Bobert needs to flush out his septic tank.

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: Bobert
Date: 23 Sep 07 - 08:42 PM

LOL....

No, I tried to get this discussion going on ion the "poverty thread" and, geeze, at least half a dozen other threads over the years and it never, ahhhh, takes off...

Hey, I don't mean to sound like I'm comin' down on anyone persaonlly here... What I see here in Mudville is prrdy much indicative of wnat I see in the general population...

This thread is very much about "race" and it is very much about how white people tend to line up when they are told "It's about race"...

I read a good article in the Style section of the Washington Post today bout how school teachers are so unprepared and uncomfotable in talking about race, slavery, Jim Crow, etc...

I don't think folks here are any different... And I undertsnad that... I really do.... I mean, we have had Southern states who have pushed back apologies for slavery, for lynchings, etc... And I don't think the Midweat is far behind the South in bigotry...

I'm sorry if any one Catter takes offense to what I am saying here but it isn't intended to be an indictment of any one individual but and indictment of white America in general...

White America doesn't get it....

If white America had gotten it, then after the nooses were hung from the tree then the teachers would have altered their curriculum to speak to the history of the civil rights movement.... This is waht educators do when they fell free to do so... But they didn't fell free...

And we here in Mudville don't either... I have offered my ideas about "repair"ations over and over here in Mudville and purdy much either been ignored or told that "Hey, I ain't gonna pay fir nuthin' mah grand-daddy did"...

I ain't gonna beat this horse but so much here but a real discussion ain't been had here...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: John Hardly
Date: 23 Sep 07 - 08:52 PM

Bobert,

I suppose it will never occur to you that "discussion" doesn't imply everyone agreeing with your point of view.

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: katlaughing
Date: 23 Sep 07 - 11:43 PM

Bobert, I think you are preaching to the choir. Why do you think you are the only one of us who gets it? Why do you apparently assume none of us has been in the trenches, etc.?

I consider your kind of po'talk posting to be racist...it may be meant as benevolent, but it comes across as racist and I don't like to think of you that way. It sure isn't going to get you any converts and, as I said, you are preaching, in large part, to the choir. Maybe the majority of white Americans don't get it, or maybe you've been down South too long. I don't know, but I do know a lot of Mudcatters do get it. I also know the demographics of our country are NOT stuck in the past. Americans of Mexican/Latino/a/Spanish/Puerto Rican descent are the fastest growing segment of our population. In some areas they are in the majority now. Young people all over are living mixed race lives with their partners and children, blended families, etc. THEY get it no matter their race.

If, and it is a big IF, I were going to apologise to ANY segment of our population, it would be to the original inhabitants of this land, those mistakenly called "Native Americans" way back when we started taking away their lands.

Should Romans apologise to those of Gaulish descent; to those of all the other nations whose people they enslaved back in ancient Rome? How far back do you want to go? Should I go after whoever it was, Sutherland, I think, who put my ancestors off their land and sent them across the sea to a world they knew nothing about? Almost everyone can find some history in their past which is full of strife, enslavement, torture, etc. Should each person sue for reparations?

My ex-son-in-law (as the father of my grandsons and someone whom we dearly love, he will always be a part of our family) and I talked about how my ancestor may have "owned" some of his ancestors in the Caribbean. Did he expect or demand an apology from me? No, he comes from an island of predominately black people, not Americans, and has a completely different take on race relations. He definitely feels discriminated against here, but he doesn't feel anyone "owes" him anything for what was done 2-300 years ago.

kat

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: Greg F.
Date: 24 Sep 07 - 08:21 AM

A much better tribute than the more than 40-year-old rant by Dylan, typical of the artifacts exhumed by rabble-rousers.

Artifacts, huh? Rant? Seems a pretty contemporary analysis & germaine to me. The white power structure & its M.O. don't seem to have changed much if at all; e.g. the sainted Senator Jesse Helms employed "nigger-baiting" to keep his seat until the day he died. Plenty of other contemporary examples- Ol' Jesse was just primus inter pares.

Just curious, Q - how old are you? Vass you dere, Charlie, in 1963?

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: Bobert
Date: 24 Sep 07 - 05:29 PM

Point well taken, kat... Yes, the original inhabitants certainly deserve an apology... and more... Those who live on reservations are some of the poorest folks in our general population...

Sorry also 'bout my hillbilly dialect... It ain't meant to be mimickin' anyone... It's really the way I talk in real life... I'm jus' tryin' to write the way that I talk... Those who have met me or heard me perform would say, "Hey, that's the way the boy is..." If it were mimiscking tho, I agree with you that it would indeed be racist in that I was putting down white hillbillies... Heck, white hillbillies is my neighbors and my friends... Yeah, most of them know that I ain't 'xactly into that bluegrass an' old timey music but don't seem to bother them none that I play alot of blues... Actually, jus' about every party I play up here in the mountains theres folks who come up and say stuff like "I ain't never heared of that kinda music but I like it..."

As fir what I have said here about a discussion of race, no, I don't necessarily thuink I'm am preaching to the chior... Maybe with you, kat, but from reading what others have said, if they are in the choir then count me out... We ain't singing in the same key...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: katlaughing
Date: 24 Sep 07 - 05:41 PM

Thanks for your reply, Bobert. I've no doubt you do have an *accent* but I do think you were putting it on a bit. As for the choir, I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.:-)

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: Riginslinger
Date: 24 Sep 07 - 10:30 PM

So it was mentioned on NPR today that the kid who was beaten up had nothing to do with the hanging of the nooses. Is that common knowledge, or did I just miss it?

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 25 Sep 07 - 12:24 AM

I still have my poll tax receipt. Yeah, I was there in 1950 when Herman Sweat(t) finally was able to enter the University of Texas. "Mum's the word for Sweat" was the word at that time- I doubt that a foreigner would understand the full meaning of that phrase in the South even if he knew of the multiple meanings of mum. A number of people at the University and in the State supported Sweat and condemmed the failure of Pres. Painter and other educators to take up the torch with the Texas Legislature.
(It may help to know that this deodorant, no longer marketed in the U. S. or Canada, among other things was recommended for use on sanitary napkins)

The Vinson court held that the equal protection clause required that Sweat be admitted to the Univ. Texas Law School because the hastily set-up "School of Law of the Texas State University for Negroes" did not have equal facilities. This victory had immediate application in several states.
The next important decision was against the Topeka, Kansas, Board of Education- not a part of the South. This decision quashed the idea that equality was possible under a policy of racial separation. This came in 1954, and opened the undergraduate, in addition to graduate and professional, degrees to Blacks, not only in the South, but in mid-western and western states that had similar laws to those of Texas and southern states.

Tne NAACP of the time, I seem to remember Thurgood Marshall was their Chief Counsel, worked hard to forward African-Americans in their striving for equality. Marshall later became a justice of the U. S. Supreme Court.

All this was being done without the intervention of outsiders. Throughout the South, in the next ten years, African-Americans, with the aid of the courts, tore down much of the enforced segregation, rampant not only in the South, but practiced in many ways in the North and West. They marched and demonstrated and sometimes suffered for their activities.
They were joined by a circus of white demonstrators from outside who only built resentment among southern whites that continues to this day. Unfortunately, the NAACP and other groups of the time, failed to discourage them.

Many law enforcement and court officials in the South today are African-American, including chiefs-of-police and court officials. Poor whites as well as poor blacks still are poorly treated by the system, but this is universal. Money thrown at this and similar social problems instead of into stupid wars would help our society to heal the wounds of the disadvantaged.

None of this has anything to do with the prosecution of a young criminal in Jena, Louisiana. The circus that took place there is ludicrous and hopefully will not be repeated.

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: Greg F.
Date: 25 Sep 07 - 09:13 AM

All this was being done without the intervention of outsiders... a circus of white demonstrators from outside who only built resentment among southern whites that continues to this day.

Yup, Q- right you are. Everything was just hunky-dory for Black folks following the Brown decision & all the subsequent "unpleasantness" was caused by them damn "Outside Agitators". An somewhat idiosyncratic, but not all that uncommon (unfortunately), view of the civil rights movement.

        We didn't know, said the congregation, singing a hymn in their church of whites
        Press was full of lies about us, preacher told us we were right.
        The outside agitators came, they burned some churches and put the blame
        On decent southern people's names to set our Colored people aflame
        And maybe some of our boys got hot and a couple of niggers and Reds got shot
        They should have stayed where they belonged!
        The preacher would have told us if we'd done wrong.

        We didn't know at all, we didn't see a thing.
        You can't hold us to blame, what could we do?
        It was a terrible shame, but we can't bear the blame.
        Oh, No, not us! We didn't know.

                        -Tom Paxton

Theophilus Eugene Connor would be proud. I suppose you also believe the fiction that the Civil War was fought over "States Rights" rather than chattel slavery?

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: Greg B
Date: 25 Sep 07 - 10:30 AM

Yep, it's always them outsiders. Dang old meddling agitators.

Guess Goodman, Schwerner, and Chaney got what they deserved for
meddling in the affairs of Southerners, who were well on their
way to working out their 'negro' problem on their own, right, Q?

Heck, by now they'd have been so integrated that the little black
kids would be saluting the confederate battle flag, if those
New York Jews hadn't come down and got in their business.

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: Peace
Date: 25 Sep 07 - 10:36 AM

"None of this has anything to do with the prosecution of a young criminal in Jena, Louisiana."

There are more than a few young criminals in Jena. But let's definitely get the Black kid. We don't keep those folks in their place and they'll be wanting to vote next.

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 25 Sep 07 - 03:04 PM

Such ignorance!

Voting facts.
"In that time period (1980-2004), blacks in Louisiana have reported higher registration rates than blacks outside the South. In fact, beginning in 1988, the difference has been at least ten percentage points, with the one exception of 1994. In 2002, Louisiana blacks were 16.5 percentage points more likely to report being registered than non-southern African Americans."
"....by 2004, blacks were almost 30 percent of the registered electorate, a figure basically identical to [their share of] the voting age population."

A complication- while 30% of LA"s registered electorate is African American (equal to their percentage of the electorate as a whole), they tend to vote Democratic in a state in which George W. Bush won 75% of the white vote in 2004. This does not as important on the parish level; blacks hold 20% of the seats in the State Legislature, and are represented by more than 700 elected officials.
Bullock-Gaddie Report on Louisiana, Feb. 10, 2006, AEI website.

Louisiana voting

Again, this has nothing to do with the Jena criminal case.

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: Greg F.
Date: 25 Sep 07 - 03:55 PM

In point of fact, Q, it has nothing to do with anything at all! Certainly not with anything under discussion on this thread.

Now, whether your posting it is a sign of ignorance, or something else, its not for me to say.

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: Janie
Date: 26 Sep 07 - 12:25 AM

Sad and interesting thread.

Again and again I read a number of posts of people who understand the issue here is institutional racism and equal justice -

And again and again I read posts from people who don't see that at all.

Some one pulled in the Duke case. That is still a good example of the pervasiveness of institutional racism, and one scumbag prosecutor's almost successful efforts to exploit our common knowledge of it's existence to his own ends.

FWIW, the Southern Poverty Law Center is located right here where I live and is a well respected institution in these parts, by ALL parties, even those likely to find themselves on the opposite side of a lawsuit.

FWIW, I am the clinical consultant for the mental health court in a County here in North Carolina. In the course of completing diagnostic assessments I take a complete psychosocial history, including prior arrests, convictions and jail sentences. I took on this assignment about 4 months ago. In that short time, it has become very apparent to me that Black defendants are much more likely to have done jail time, especially prison, than are White defendants with very comparable histories of offences.

Speaking in generalities, it is clear to me that white antisocial thugs do not receive as severe sentences, and the threshhold for sending them to prison is noticably higher than for black antisocial thugs.

I am impressed by the professionalism of the judges, DA's, probation officers and defence attorney's on the team. Black or white, none of them are consciously racist. But the fact remains that justice is meted out unequally. The poor and working class, white or black, fare worse than the middle class, white or black. But within socioeconoic classes, blacks fare worse than whites.

Janie

I understand why Azizi bailed on this thread.

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 26 Sep 07 - 02:59 AM

Yes Janie, when the "unenlightened" want to speak about the specifics of the situation rather than simply understanding the greater scope of the struggle against injustice which overrides anything as puny as the facts in a particular case, the "enlightened" tend to find the entire thing just a tad grimy. If we could stick to noble proclamations and generalities we could all agree and have a much nicer conversation. Frankly, I don't appreciate the holier-than-thou attitude.

I saw a clip of the Little Rock 10 on CNN. Yes, these were students who bravely walked into Central High in Little Rock, Arkansas in the 50s to gain rights to an equal education. They followed Dr King's method of non-violence, patience, and correct action, and broke the back of the segregated school system in Arkansas. A woman now in her 60s who was one of the ten related how she had been harrassed by several white female students. "I called them white trash", she said, "and I've never been able to forget that, and how bad I felt for having said it." When the reporter asked why, she replied "because it was below my character. It put me down to their level."

So please, don't give me the Jena 6 and Mychal Bell as your courageous pioneers for equal treatment under law. And if I have the honesty to bring up my objections due to some very specific reasons, you may want to listen to them and learn something from them rather than sulking, pouting, or calling me a racist. I am certainly willing to listen to your side of the argument. You don't have to convince me that unequal treatment under the law exists. But I think the Jena 6 and Mychal Bell are such a weak argument that they could very well have the opposite of the effect intended.

And no Bobert, I didn't take what you said personally. And when you talk about reparations etc you may be "preaching to the choir" but I'm not and never have aspired to be a member. But I like the way you play guitar.

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 26 Sep 07 - 01:25 PM

Justice in Jena, by Reed Walters.
This reasoned explanation of the necessary actions taken by this prosecutor appeared in The New York Times, 26 Sept. 2007.

Justice in Jena

Not a 'member' of any choir.

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: Riginslinger
Date: 26 Sep 07 - 01:41 PM

Okay, then why did they bring attempted murder charges in the first place?

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: Donuel
Date: 26 Sep 07 - 02:03 PM

After seeing the video of the beating/fight (taken via phone device by one of the white kids) between one white kid and 5 black kids I do not see any evidence of attempted murder.

When I watch the Video of the white truck driver who was pulled from his truck and struck with a brick during the race riots in LA I do see evidence for attempted homocide charges.

I agree that these kids are all poor examples of character, culture, integrity and rationality. The local sheriff, principal and district attorney have all failed justice in my eyes.

Business is good for Sharpton since the Imus affair.

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: Peace
Date: 26 Sep 07 - 02:13 PM

The principal and the vice principal may have been the only people to have acted correctly in this fiasco. The principal's decision to toss the kids OUT of school for putting nooses in the tree was over-ridden by both the superintendent and the school board, so instaed they got a tap on the wrist and that most stupid of all punishments--a three day in-school suspension.

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 26 Sep 07 - 02:29 PM

Thanks to Q for the comments of Reed Walters. He sounds like a man motivated by duty and a sense of what is right, and he sounds like he won't be cowed by the pressure put on him. If the facts are as he states, more power to him. I challenge Peace, Bobert, the 2 Gregs, Janie, and whoever else argues for the overarching nature of prejudice as justification for Bell's actions to read it and comment.

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: Big Mick
Date: 26 Sep 07 - 02:38 PM

What a wasted opportunity this whole fiasco is. There was an opportunity to take an incident of incredible stupidity, and a moment when the racial incidence was at the friction stage, and turn it into a teaching moment. You might have caused an epiphany. I remember watching, earlier in the year, an episode of Oprah where this organization held an assembly at a school, and through the use of "crossing the line if....." they taught the young folks how badly they were making each other feel. Bullying, whether racially based, or on the basis of body image, or religion, was exposed for what it was. There were epiphanies in the lives of virtually every kid that attended that session. In Jena, they had such an opportunity, but no one chose to take it. The friction escalated to smoking embers, smoldered, and erupted. Now we are faced with a bunch of self righteous poms on both sides of the argument more interested in defending their positions, and using the incident to gain self serving publicity, than getting to the bottom of a sad situation. A fucking pox on all your houses for the wasting of a magnificent chance to effect change in the hearts and minds of these young folks. I am disgusted by all of this, and by the attempts to justify the actions of the kids that did the beating, and the kids that fostered the racial hatred that led to the beating. There is no excuse for the beating. And there is no excuse for allowing and justifying the racially charged hanging of the nooses. The fact that months went by isn't justification for condemning the black kids. Rather it serves up proof that the racial tensions were allowed to fester and erupted in this act.

As I said...... a pox on all your houses. The young folks are being poorly served by those charged with teaching them values. If someone deserves to go to jail, it is those who failed in a sacred obligation to use life's rough spots to teach the next generation to be better than the last.

Mick

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 26 Sep 07 - 02:43 PM

For the most part, I agree with you Mick. But read the "Justice in Jena" link provided by Q several posts up. The Prosecutor sounds like a guy who is painfully persevering in trying to do his job. I don't think his house deserves a pox.

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: Peace
Date: 26 Sep 07 - 02:44 PM

"If someone deserves to go to jail, it is those who failed in a sacred obligation to use life's rough spots to teach the next generation to be better than the last."

If that's yours, Mick, may I quote you?

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: Big Mick
Date: 26 Sep 07 - 02:57 PM

Ernie, my comments go to a much earlier moment in all this. Had this been handled as it should have been, by the school, and the community, we wouldn't be having this whole debate. The second those nooses appeared, it should have been a red flag for people that truly care about the young folks of both sides of the racial divide. There is no excuse for the handling of this. While I completely understand the District Attorney's position, his is locked into the moment of the beating as it must be. But in the larger analysis, the most important analysis, the analysis of what happened and how and where do we go from here, this is a monumental failure on the part of the folks that are charged with teaching so much more than just reading, writing and arithmetic. It is a monumental failure by the parents of all concerned. It was an exquisite opportunity to make this town, and these young people, better citizens and human beings.

The real lesson of Jena is that we are not where we need to be in the struggle to respect and understand one another. Those that act like racism, whether benign or overt, is a thing of the past are in a state of denial. The hanging of those nooses should have raised a flag in the minds of decent white folks and parents that said, "We must deal with this". Those that thought it just a harmless prank are reprehensible and lie at the root of the problem.

Mick

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: Big Mick
Date: 26 Sep 07 - 02:58 PM

Yes, Bruce, it is mine. And you may use it any way that you deem fit.

Mick

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: Peace
Date: 26 Sep 07 - 04:23 PM

Thank you, Mick.

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 26 Sep 07 - 04:45 PM

Well said, Mick. I think that is the point... things we all need to do in our daily lives to address this problem. The lady I mentioned, the one who was in the Little Rock 10, was very articulate. She went back to the school on the 50th anniversary and was asked how she saw the whole issue of integration, looking back. She said "I'm shocked and surprised. We thought a new day was dawning back then. We thought that schools would be filled with eager, happy children, anxious to learn, black and white together."
We should know by now that dreams can come true. But it takes a hell of a lot of work.

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: Bobert
Date: 26 Sep 07 - 08:38 PM

You know, this situation wouldn't have grown into what it has become if the "noosers" had been been charged with real crimes... "Nooser" are hatefilled people and that is why we have a "hate crime" laws on the books...

It isn't at all helpfull when black kids see that white kids aren't prosecuted when they do dumb stuff... It reaffirms the same story that their parents and grandparents have have told them about how unjust American is...

Does this make the schoolyard fight right???

Well, no...

But let's keep this in some perspective here...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: Big Mick
Date: 26 Sep 07 - 09:24 PM

Perhaps it is you that needs to do a little research before you make pronouncements, Bobert. What these young folks did isn't classed a hate crime. You are mixing what seems right, with what the law is. Hate crimes in the code can only be used to enhance a violation of the law, and hanging a noose from the tree isn't a violation of the law.

And I find your suggestion just as ludicrous as the suggestion that this all popped up months later and the black kids are just thugs. Neither of those suggestions would do anything to break the cycle that is going on here.

This community had it in their power to resolve this in a way that would have had a positive effect. But they didn't have the will or desire. Shame on them.

Mick

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: Bobert
Date: 26 Sep 07 - 09:58 PM

Mick,

We have a governemnt thaqt has suspended some 700 years of accepted law here in suspending habeas corpes... If our copuntry can do that then, by golly, the white ***adults*** can figure out a way to stop white kids from practicing Jim Crow...

Yeah, stick with the "letter of the law" all you want... It's comforting for folks who don't have the balls to stand up to racism and Jim Crow...

I'm bored with yer brand of politics as I'm sure you are with mine...

And I don't need no "Big Mick Testimonials" about just why your opinions are better than mine... I've been in the streets, too... So spare me...

And lastly, have a nice life... You have become the new "Dickey" in my life...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: Big Mick
Date: 26 Sep 07 - 10:51 PM

Bobert, take a pill. And you are hardly one to talk about being preachy. I am tickled to death that you are "in the streets". I hear that all the time from you. Funny, I never see you there. Perhaps you could come on out and give me a hand with ICE. We could always use another body with these Homeland Security boys.

As to "sticking to the letter of the law", perhaps, in you're brilliance, you could figure out how the prosecutor could prosecute someone for breaking a law they didn't break. I agree that what was done was hateful, and should be a crime. It just isn't, and you can't make one up. If we allow that to be done on these knuckleheads, how do we stop it when they do it to us?

As to my opinions being better than yours, sounds like a bit of envy to me. I have never contended my opinions are anything more than just that. My opinions, offered up for the scrutiny of all here. Your reading something more into that speaks more about you than me.

And you have a nice life too. But do me a favor, see if you can do it with a little more of that phoney country boy accent. I do so enjoy that.

Why I let guys like you suck me into this shit, I'll never know. Gotta go now, the street calls. Hope to see you there.

Mick

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: Peace
Date: 26 Sep 07 - 10:56 PM

Gentlemen, you have started your engines. But the motors are over-revving.

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: Dogwhistle
Date: 26 Sep 07 - 11:07 PM

Indeed, as Peace has stated, red-line on the tachometers.

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: Janie
Date: 27 Sep 07 - 12:50 AM

LEJ,

I am a bit stunned at the rancor of your response to my post. If my post sounds sanctimonious to you or to others, I apologize. that is not my intent. However, the post was not directed to you or anyone else in particular. The post reflects my own thoughts and reactions to the over-all thread to that point.

I have gone back and read the post several times now. It still reflects my wholistic impression and reactions to the thread to that point. I must note that I did not call you or anyone else a racist, nor did I say anything to make any attempt to imply that. Niether did I assert that the 6 black kids in Jena, or Mychal Bell in particular, are courageous volunteers. Nor did I sulk or pout.

I do wish I had said "....Black or white, none of us are consciously racist." Perhaps that is why you interpreted the post as sanctimonious. Perhaps that is what you are referring to when you accuse me of calling you a racist.

After reading Q's linked article, my view is unchanged. In my view, the phenomenon of The Jena 6 is a sociopolitical entity where the sum is greater than the parts. The people of Jena must feel like roadkill on the turnpike headed for that somewhat mythical terminus of real social justice and equality regardless of differences in race, class or ethnic group. I can sympathize. I have personally been roadkill on the same highway, and shared that story a while back on a different thread about affirmative action, or a similar topic. Individual justice and social justice are not always mutually inclusive. That simply reflects the realities of the tension of the the interdependent relationship between the individual and society.

Mick, there have been a number of opportunities for 'teaching moments' in this. I think it is necessary to ponder why all those opportunities were missed. I don't think it likely anyone involved made like Johnny Depp in whichever Pirates movie it was and said, "Ah yes, I just love those moments. I like to wave to them as they pass by." Your perception (and mine, and probably the perception of most people who have posted to this thread) is that those opportunities were 'shoulds.' It might be more fruitful to reframe them as 'coulds.'

The Jena 6 is now at the level of national discussion, I believe, because of both the reality of institutional racism and also the perception of institutional racism. Perception is every bit as potent as reality. And that perception has to be dealt with on a societal level.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: Greg B
Date: 27 Sep 07 - 11:55 AM

I'll rise to the challenge to comment on Reed Walters (the Jena DA's)
apologia in the New York Times.

Mr. Walters strikes me as making an excellent closing argument,
doing a fine job of presenting himself as a well-meaning public
officials whose hands are tied by law and regulation.

A regular hero of jurisprudence.

Who gives new meaning to the term 'self-serving.' He, and his
colleague in the US Attorney's office.

I'm sure that Messrs. Sharpton and Jackson would point out that
whereas the KKK did their work with burning cross, noose, and
shotgun, any number of Southern public officials have done theirs
with a sheaf of papers, an off-the-rack suit, and an air of genteel
Southern civility. While passing literacy requirements, poll taxes,
and so forth. Whether it's Jim Crow, or James Crow Esq. JD, though
it's all the same. It's just that some thugs have paneled offices.

I don't by Walters' argument isn't a 'hate crime.' A hate crime
is committed, at the Federal level, when someone "by force or threat
of force willfully injures, intimidates or interferes with... any
person because of his race, color, religion or national origin and
because he is or has been" attempting to engage in one of six types of federally protected activities, such as voting or going to school."
(See Wikipedia)

It seems fairly clear to me, by simple inspection, that the hanging
of a lynching noose in response to an African American sitting under
the 'white tree' at his high school pretty well fulfills that
provision of 'threat of force' and it's enumerated that going to
school (with full freedom to participate in everything and be
anywhere any other student can be) is a protected activity.

That, as Walters states: "the United States attorney for the Western
District of Louisiana, who is African-American, found no federal law
against what was done" makes it fairly clear why this particular US
Attorney was spared by Gonzales purge. Apparently the defendant isn't
the only one who was found useful for his ability to play ball. That
he's African American says less about his credibility than it does
about his inability to remember just how it was that an African
American ever was able to rise to a position such as his.

The whole scenario is a classic, one used by racist or sectarian
governments everywhere: you ignore injustice after injustice
perpetrated upon the group who are the objects of persecution.
The inevitable outcome is that the group, or individuals from
that group, will retaliate. Either in some organized way, or
in some sort of angry outburst.

Now the outburst may be against a member of the 'elite' group
who turns out to be innocent. Everyone decries that--- but then
again does it ever occur to those who steeple their hands and
cry 'foul' that those to whom injustice was routinely dealt
were probably just as innocent? No.

And the perpetrator of said vengeance may have a checkered past--- he
may be 'an angry young man.' Of course, guys like DA Walters will
tell you that it's not their job to look at how the community
which they've served have spent 15 or 20 years manufacturing
those 'angry young men.' No, they're supposed to 'uphold the law,
and nothing but the law.'

Never mind that they and their cronies been running the "angry young
man" factory themselves, via selective prosecutions, via 'not finding' any violation of civil rights laws in threats of lynchings, via
turning expulsions into slaps on the wrists, and on and on.

We can find thousands of examples, from the roots of American
Independence, and Irish independence, to the Rodney King riots
in LA and those that went before in Detroit, Watts, Newark,
and so on.

The law is beautifully civil and articulate both when it turns its
back on society's second- and third-class citizens, as well as when
it prosecutes them when they respond with the kind of violence and
injustice which has been done to them.

As Woody Guthrie once said "Some will rob you with a six gun---
and some with a fountain pen."

Or as the Who said: "The men who spurred us on, sit in judgment
of our wrongs."

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 27 Sep 07 - 12:46 PM

Or as the man said as he beat his wife "sorry honey, it ain't me doin' this. It's all the other women that done me wrong."

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: Greg B
Date: 27 Sep 07 - 02:13 PM

A terribly flawed analogy if I've ever read one.

EJ, the fact of life is that we have to deal with how people
actually behave, not how we would have them behave. It does no
good to, for example, rage against the Rodney King rioters after
you allow the LAPD to, for decades, get away with beating on
people of color, then move the trial of a group of conspicuously
guilty ones out to a white suburb, and acquit them.

If, as the more powerful group, you do all the things that create
interracial rage, you don't get to go 'tut tut tut' when, as
surely as night follows day, that rage gets expressed in awful
and even unjust (by your rules) ways.

So whatever side you come down on regarding Mr. Bell's behavior
or his guilt or innocent, you've failed miserably if you don't
take a hard look at the conditions set up by those in power which
contribute to the creation of angry young men.

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: Bobert
Date: 27 Sep 07 - 04:26 PM

Mick,

You must not live or worked in rural South or you would know that presecutors, unless there is some high level of scrutiny do purdy much what ever they like...

Here in Page County a black kid was arrested for wearing a mask while driving a motor scotter... Is there such a law against it??? No, but the commonwealth's attorney held the kid for several months until it fianlly made the news... Kids are arrested for all kinds of dumbass things that adults never thought needed to be codified...

The prosecutor ***could*** have found something to haul these white kids in on and threatened to prosecute them with a statement that in his or her opinion these actions were at the very least hateful... Actually, I believe that the noose represents a "battery" in terms of most law...

Janie,

Yeah, I've made the same point as you have about the situation in Jena being an opportunity... Problem is, if things in that area are like things around here, there is no will by the white adults to have the schools do much in the way havfing a discussion on race... Plus, I know several local teachers and these folks just wouldn't have a clue...

But at least some of the adults here are making an attempt to have this discussion becuase it is long overdue... What I am afraid of, however, is that most white adults really would rather it just go away... Plus, the right wing has hammered programs aimed at leveling the playing field that alot of white adults think it's perfectly okay not to have the discussion...

But one thing one can take to the bank and that is that Jenas won't just go away 'cause Jim Crow ain't dead yet...

Bobert