BS: The Jena 6 Controversy

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: Bobert
Date: 17 Oct 07 - 09:24 PM

Yes, Rigs, this is ***exactlty*** the way we are going to get the attention of kids who plead ignorance... Ignorance is not an excuse....

Bring up a couple of white kids who think it's cool to hang nooses and find them guilty of "hate crimes" and sentence them to a couple hundred hours of coummunity service workin' in places that service poor people an' guess what??? Two or three high profile cases and white kids (and black kids) will get it!!! Right now, what we have is the exact opposite... White kids are made to be heros among their piers for hanging nooses...

Melissa,

Thanks fir hangin' in here... You is a purdy smart lady...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: Peace
Date: 17 Oct 07 - 02:09 PM

Good point. Sure as hell's afire, the courts are making a mess of it all. And the people from their school board, and anyone else who thinks this is about hatred and race. It's about a lack of understanding and race. Therein is the difficulty. It makes me "Remember the Titans."

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: Riginslinger
Date: 16 Oct 07 - 11:44 PM

"My question is what can be done about the ones who don't feel that there's anything wrong with feeling justified in doing things like that."

                The people who hang the nooses, as far as we know, were kids too. They very well might have realized that there was something wrong with what they did if the principal's original punishment had been left to stand.

                It seems as though Congress is now getting involved. Some members think that the noose hanging should be investigated as a federal "Hate Crime." If that process is pursued to its obvious conclusion, there are going to be some very angry young people getting out of jail in a few years.

                Is this the way to address racism?

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: Melissa
Date: 16 Oct 07 - 01:53 PM

I agree, Bobert. The conversation is inching away from spouting and into a small handful of people sharing their perspectives. The topic's practical aspect is that we can talk in here without the risk of a FireEater riling us into reacting as a mindless group. We're on our own to do whatever we will with the tidbits we selectively pluck from everybody's opinions. There's no point in saying the same thing over and over. When/if I have something to say, I will. In the meantime, I'm perfectly content following along from the sidelines.

I honestly believe that we're stepping into a time of More tension, and it worries me. Treating each incident as an individual outburst (which may or may not fit the mysterious guidelines for becoming a Media Spectacle) seems unwise and unhealthy. Jena is not the Disease..it is a Symptom.

The North/South argument was too big to handle at the time and it's still too big. It was not resolved and every one of us is living with that history. When we try to communicate, we are following the footsteps of Jefferson's basic idea when he was fighting to promote a government based on input from Common Man. I think it's a good thing for us to do when we're talking AND listening. Pompous pronouncements are pretty much a waste of earspace, but that's ok too. It's all part of trying to communicate.
My ego is ok. I don't need to care whether I've won anyone to my bandwagon.

What I hope to gain by following this discussion is a chance to be a little bit more prepared as the CivWar anniversary draws near. I'm likely to end up participating in a few events. It's not the era I prefer (which is pre-1840) but it's the one at hand and there's a niche for me that I'll enjoy. I just want to be as prepared as I possibly can, even if I opt out of attending events. CivWar is an angry topic for a lot of people and the anniversary stuff is going to start being visible before long.
Planning for Lewis and Clark was handled poorly. I see no reason to believe CW will be handled much better and it's a much more incendiary topic.

When I read what you all say, I'll learn.
I just don't have anything to add at this time and sometimes being quiet is the noble option to take.

My question isn't whether nooses are a hate crime. I think we all agree that whether they're legal or not, it's Wrong to hang them around.
My question is what can be done about the ones who don't feel that there's anything wrong with feeling justified in doing things like that.
My question falls outside the surface topic of Jena which is what we've come to this thread to discuss.

M

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: M.Ted
Date: 16 Oct 07 - 01:01 PM

I guess I am the one who is politically correct here, and my ears are burning-- Greg B, you sure have showed us all what's what, with your regurgitation of warmed over 60's Marxist political analysis--

By the way, it's been 40 years since Newark and Watts and Detroit, where's your Revolution?

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 16 Oct 07 - 10:32 AM

Greg-
A spirited and coherent defense of lynch mobs.

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: Greg B
Date: 16 Oct 07 - 09:54 AM

And I'll clarify my position (in spite of attempts at PC
censorship).

Whereas retaliatory racial violence may or may not be objectively
justified, it is the inevitable result when racial violence
is initiated by the dominant group, and where justice is not
given by other members of that dominant group who are duty-bound
to enforce the law.

It is fairly easy, from the point of view of one who is not
the member of a group which is currently under organized attack,
or oppression to criticize those who either, in a calculated manner,
return violence for violence, or lash out in anger at members of the
dominant group.

To demand a 'civilized' and 'reasoned' response from those who
face oppression and organized violence is, however, to buy right
into what dominant groups who have most of the guns and the
courts and the laws and the prisons and the economic power have
done for a long time...to declare that the ones with grievances
are nothing but hooligans, thugs and 'terrorists.'

The results become clear--- the 'White Night' and Rodney King riots,
Watts, Newark, Detroit. Closer to home, the 9/11 attacks and the
aftermath bear witness to what happens when we sit in our positions
of power and refuse to act justly.

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: M.Ted
Date: 15 Oct 07 - 11:26 PM

Read the link above on Federal Prosecution of Hate Crimes, Bobert, you will be unpleasantly surprised. Most hate crimes are investigate and prosecuted by state and local jurisdictions, under state laws, not federal.

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: Bobert
Date: 15 Oct 07 - 08:33 PM

Well, as I have pointed out before, it's up to the asdults to bring the charges... It's up to the judges and juries to figure it out...

Hate crimes is federal... When a noose was recently found at a black progfessors office it was being invetigated as a hate crime... If the prosecutor in Jena had at the very least mentioned that thease white kids could have possibly be brought up on hate crime charges then a ***real*** message would have been sent...

He didn't, and in not doing so sent another message: Jim Coew is just okay, with us, long as you don't kill nobody...

This is a terrible message to send... All it doen is enforce all the emotions that both blacks and whites have had to live with going back a long, long time...

Melissa,

Don't quit now... It's just gettin' good... I mean, meaningful... You can't just stop in and if you don't persuade everyone with your opinions then quit... That ain't what discussions are about... And this discussion is long overdue...

Yes, I fully understand Dick's position and it is one that is heal be lots of people... I don't find fault with it if it is taken purely as one incident... No, we cannot condone violent acts, period...

But we cannot condone acts of threatned violence, either...

That is what is at issue here...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 15 Oct 07 - 03:29 PM

Just to clarify my position--
I have no idea whether or not a legal case can be mede for considering noose hanging as a hate crime. I think the principal's proposed action in suspending the culprits was an appropriate one.

I think that the white kids who assaulted a black kid should be prosecuted, and I think that a failure to prosecute them is unconscionable. THose in authority should be investigated and punished appropriately.

I don't think any of the above justifies--in any way-- te actions of the six black kids who beat up a white kid.

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: M.Ted
Date: 15 Oct 07 - 01:51 PM

I am talking about Louisiana Statute RS 14:225, linked to above--the one that the local prosecutor is responsible enforcing--most hate crimes are investigated by "hate crime squads" that are operated under the authority of state and local governments--the federal government prosecutes relatively few hate crimes--the Federal Hate Crime statute applies only if a Federal Felony of Violence has been committed-

Here is a quote from the following article, from the Houston Chronicle
Federal Prosecution of Hate Crimes

>Donald Washington, the U.S. attorney for the Western District of Louisiana, chose not to >pursue hate crime charges against the three teens accused of hanging nooses at Jena High >School because it could not be established that the nooses were meant to intimidate black >classmates. He also did not bring hate-crime charges against the Jena Six, black students >accused of attacking a white classmate, because there was no evidence the beating was >acially motivated.

>Washington said that the noose-hanging would have been a misdemeanor anyway and a hate->crime must be "a federal felony of violence."

Note that the federal prosecutor indicated that he considered the noose-hanging to be misdemeanor--which means that it could have been prosecuted under Louisiana law(see the link above), had the local prosecutor wanted to do so, but that it didn't meet the criteria of the Federal Law--

The only investigation of these crimes was conducted locally-- the information on the crimes that the federal prosecutor received came only from Reed Walters, the local prosecutor, who had decided already that there were no racial motivations in the noose hangings--so obviously, he wouldn't have made a strong case to the federal prosecutor that it was a racial incident--

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: Melissa
Date: 15 Oct 07 - 01:36 PM

Lots of words and very little communication.
The things we're thinking/feeling are too big for our vocabulary..although we're an undeniably brilliant bunch.

I'm out.
M

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: Greg B
Date: 15 Oct 07 - 01:24 PM

Ted, the only line I crossed is one that you might make up
after the fact about political correctness. I'm not real concerned
about that one.

It was indeed probably because of their shared experience
that American Jews were amongst the first white folks to in great
numbers and with great effect embrace the question of civil rights for
African Americans. That experience indeed goes beyond the Holocaust,
and extends to CENTURIES of being the subject of terrible acts of
violence with no redress in the legal system. And, while this was
happening, they were exploited for their 'useful' services. C.F. Venice in the Renaissance. It is failure to mention that connection
which does a disservice to all.

I submit, Ted, that you're not so much worried about the way
the point was made, but afraid of the point itself and using the
politically correct fog of pseudo-indignation to try and negate it.

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: Peace
Date: 15 Oct 07 - 11:56 AM

Gentlemen, it's time to take a look at the remarks we're posting here. I see no point turning this thread into a spiteful thread. The problem is in Jena, USA, not Mudcat, World.

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: M.Ted
Date: 15 Oct 07 - 11:52 AM

GregB--I think that you've stepped way over the line with your "Greenhaus, that's a...." comment. In your own way you're hanging a noose on a tree, because you don't like what Dick has to say--

When you invoke the holocaust,call attention to his ethnicity, and are very specific as to some of the terrors that people of his background have been subjected to, the message can easily be construed as hateful--I hope that it was only an over-zealous, and ill-considered remark. An apology, quick, and profuse, would appropriate here--

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: Greg B
Date: 15 Oct 07 - 11:42 AM

The statue in question is a FEDERAL one, not a
state one. It was under that statute that the
federal prosecutor declined to do so.

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: M.Ted
Date: 15 Oct 07 - 11:31 AM

The hate crime statute under which the investigations of the NYC noose incidents that Katlaughing posted above is essentially the same as the the Louisiana law--so, in fact, hanging nooses *is* against the law. However, prosecutions are strictly at the discretion of the prosecutor, and he has chosen not to act in this matter.

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: Greg B
Date: 15 Oct 07 - 10:29 AM

In his New York Times Op-Ed (referenced somewhere above) the Jena
DA claimed that he referred the issue of the nooses to the US
attorney for the area. He was careful to point out that said US
attorney is a black man. (I was careful to point out that he's
a Bush administration official who survived the 'purge.') His claim
was that the US Attorney found that the nooses were not a "hate crime"
and thus not a violation of federal law.

That's not the way I read the federal statute. In fact, I can't fathom
a reasonable person reading it that way. School = protected activity.
Noose = actual violence or threat of violence.

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: Riginslinger
Date: 15 Oct 07 - 08:02 AM

"Why weren't the white kids criminally charged for hanging the noose???"

                      Hanging nooses is not against the law.


          "Why were the sespensions lifted???"

       They shouldn't have been, and that's what really started things into motion that eventually built a fire under Al Sharpton.


    "Why were there no charges brought against the white students who beat one of the Jena 6 black students days before the white kid was beaten???"

                If the media is reporting on this, I haven't seen it.

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: Bobert
Date: 15 Oct 07 - 07:51 AM

Well, I think what both Melissa dn Greg are saying is not all that far apart...

Yes there are missing parts from the story and it is exactly that that makes the controversy...

Why weren't the white kids criminally charged for hanging the noose??? Why were the sespensions lifted??? Why were there no charges brought against the white students who beat one of the Jena 6 black students days before the white kid was beaten???

Yes, there are missing parts of the story... Just as in the old train accident log that I possess where there are entries that read like this: "Unindentified Male Negro, 20 to 25 years of age, found dead on the tracks 2 miles west of Short Pump..."

This is what many of us are trying to get others to see... Institutional racism is all about holes in the story becuase, all to often, the official story ins't that from an American perspective but from white America's perspective... Take our own supposed "American History" that is taught in schools... It is chocked full of mythology and white perspectives...

This is why this has become a story... White America resents that it has become a story and would love nothing more than to leave out the missing parts and that seems to be where this is going... I can't see the white power structure in Jena, having come this far to cover-up it's own comlicity, all of a sudden saying, "Let's talk straight..."

That is what ***institutional*** racism is all about... It is part of our ***culture*** to not "Let's talk"... I'm really not placing blame on any one individual because what we are seeing is the way that our people have been educated to bahave,,,

That is why, in my HO, it is time to "talk"... We can't begin to tout our country as a just one when there isn't one universal standard of justice...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 14 Oct 07 - 10:20 PM

Greg-
I never have, and never will join a lynch mob. And hanging a noose-like object, reprehensible as it may be, is not the equivalent of having
"You and your sons kick my butt.". Certainly not with a time interval of several weeks.

I have been attacked, physically for being Jewish--and I responded in kind. THat simply is not what's being discussed here.

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: Greg B
Date: 14 Oct 07 - 07:50 PM

Dick---

Greenhaus.

That's a Jewish name, isn't it?

Suppose I paint a swastika on your daughter's (or grand-daughter's)
window, because she maybe slapped our cousin 'Beau' in the face
when he said that he heard that Jewish girls were easy?

Then we get her cell-phone number and text her a few messages
threatening rape.

You go to the sheriff.

He ignores you. You're a Jew, and convenient because you own a local
business, but that doesn't mean he has to like you.

You and your sons kick my butt.

Do you have pangs of conscience and say that my behavior doesn't
excuse yours? Do you surrender yourself and your sons for
incarceration, leaving your daughter/grand-daughter undefended?

Or do you make it very clear--- 'mess with one of us and you mess
with all of us?'

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: katlaughing
Date: 14 Oct 07 - 01:10 PM

Noose-hanging is popular right now, it seems:

By Tom Hays, Associated Press | October 13, 2007

NEW YORK - A copycat may have been involved in the second of two incidents this week in which nooses were found, first on a black professor's door at Columbia University and then outside a post office near ground zero, police said yesterday.

Speaking to reporters following a ceremony at a police memorial, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly suggested that the noose outside the post office could have been an attempt to imitate the discovery at Columbia, which shocked the Ivy League campus and received extensive news coverage.

"We have to be concerned about a copycat being out there," he said, adding that police had no suspects or motives in either incident.

At Columbia, detectives were still reviewing several hours of videotape captured by a half dozen security cameras in and around the building where the noose was found Tuesday morning. It was strung over the office doorknob of Madonna Constantine, a professor of education and psychology who has written extensively about race.

In the other case, the noose was found Thursday dangling from a lamppost above some scaffolding erected around the post office, which was closed for nearly three years after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks because of contamination from asbestos, mercury, and debris from the fallen twin towers.

"At this point, there was no target that was evident or any motive," a US Postal Inspection Service spokesman, Al Weissman, said yesterday morning. He said no postal workers had reported any threats or other problems.

Both incidents were being investigated by the New York City Police Department's hate crimes unit, which returned to the Ivy League campus Thursday after a caricature of a yarmulke-wearing man and a swastika was found on a university bathroom stall door. Police said there was no reason to believe the two campus incidents were linked.
© Copyright 2007 Globe Newspaper Company.

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: Melissa
Date: 14 Oct 07 - 12:21 PM

Are you offering me a picture, Donuel?
Maybe you could send it to someone in a position to help you DO something instead. I'm sure the media would be glad to see it if your Locals can't/won't make a healthy effort.

I don't understand why you haven't called the phone company and asked them to clean their pole. If you're afraid to call, give me the number of your phone company and I'll do it.

Where I'm from, the polite term for doing nothing when a problem is identified is "horseshit" and snarling at strangers is considered impolite.
It sounds like your community needs something. You're the leader, tell me what I can do to help.
Good effort toward making the world less ugly is never wasted.

M

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: Donuel
Date: 14 Oct 07 - 09:52 AM

Down here the polite excuse for racism is "Its just their way"

Hey would you like a picture of the lyching display next door to judge for yourself?

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: Donuel
Date: 14 Oct 07 - 09:20 AM

My neighbor has hung a cardboard black man in Halloween in effigy on the telephone pole with a noose in front of their home.

The telephone pole is on city easement property so I bet a controversey could be raised.

There is no sign indicating the hanging is intended for anything except Halloween entertainment.

The people who did this of course display their Bush Christmas cards at the entrance to their house and speak in in proud language that Rumsfeld and Cheney are great Americans. I have also heard them use all the code word regarding their embracing the core values of racism.

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: Melissa
Date: 13 Oct 07 - 11:51 PM

Something that leads to the obvious conclusion probably didn't take the story a different direction. Somebody was looking for a fight and the storyline (as far as we know) didn't deviate from that goal.
The nooses are an obvious step toward escalation, but that's not where the story started.

There are a lot of sayings, GregB.
At the instant when you're calling someone an asshole for cutting you off, you're looking for a fight. Fortunately, in most cases, the fight doesn't happen.
Sometimes it does happen though and nobody has any way of knowing the full story because each person involved happens to think of themselves as a person. Confrontation is an aggressive attempt to defend individuality.

Implied threat of rape.
Implied threat of lynching.
Which one is the media spectacle when it turns from implication to reality?

The discussion at hand is a case where we're being given information that manages to distract most of us from the underlying problem. There were more than seven kids present at the fight. Where were they during the beating? Why one white kid? Why not the whole treestump gang? Why not three noose hangers?
There are gaps in the story and basing a judgement on the parts we know does not advance our collective grasp of the underlying problem.

Without knowing the full story and having the capability of completely understanding exactly what the tree issue was/is, WHY would you assume that justice would have prevailed IF the 6 had been given the spot?
BandAids are not an effective treatment for fractures.

M

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: Peace
Date: 13 Oct 07 - 10:47 PM

Hey, y'all. It's real hard to get the egg back in the hen (if ya know what I mean).

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 13 Oct 07 - 08:52 PM

"And a jury of his peers might well find him 'not guilty.'

And maybe they should."

That's what we need. Some more racially-motivated law enforcement. Look--there's a fundamental difference between abuse (verbal, symbolic or verbal) and physical harm.
At most, the nooses were a bigoted, venom-filled, abusive, stupid example of a hate misdemeanor. As were the nooses and the caricature/swastika at Columbia. Perpetrators should be punished. Appropriately

Which in no way excuses violent reprisals. Is it only a vigilante action when majority dudes do it?

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: Greg B
Date: 13 Oct 07 - 06:49 PM

Melissa--- the story took a decidedly different turn when
the nooses appeared. It was escalated to a different level.

If I'm driving down the street and a black dude cuts me off,
and I yell out 'stupid asshole!' that's one thing. It's quite
another, and apt to escalate considerably more quickly if I
yell out 'stupid nigger!'

Heck, he probably knows and accepts that he's an asshole. But
almost no self-respecting black man considers himself a 'nigger,' as
the term is applied to him by a white man.

New game, new rules, at that point.

I've just invoked a few years of oppression and bigotry in order to
'put him in his place.'

Of course, it would still be illegal for him to come over and beat
the living crap out of me.

That might not stop him.

And a jury of his peers might well find him 'not guilty.'

And maybe they should.

You use the analogy of pads as a misogynist symbol. Okay, that
would be one kind of statement. But what if the symbol, instead,
said 'no wimmen allowed: violators will be raped'?

Nooses displayed to black folks; rape threatened to women;
swastikas spray-painted on synagogues: All of these are more
serious than mere epithets because they evoke the very symbols
of oppression and genocide which cause, and are intended to cause,
visceral feelings ranging from anger to terror in those to whom
they're directed.

I submit that if the Jena 6 (or the black folks of Jena) had been
given justice--- the right to sit under the shade tree at the
high school--- in the first place, this whole thing wouldn't have
gotten out of hand.

No justice, no peace. Isn't that the saying?

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: Melissa
Date: 13 Oct 07 - 12:33 PM

Why does the conversation start with the 'noose-like' ropes instead of the tree?
Isn't the tree given as the first bit of the story?
IS it racist to gather in the same spot with your friends every day? Isn't the tree a Territory thing?

There's a thread which consists of Musicians discussing the problem of shaky eggs. The gist seems to be that shaky eggs are perfectly fine...as long as they don't mingle with the Musicians. Consensus seems to be that egg shakers need to realize that they are not a viable part of the loosely defined group.
In other words, egg shakers should stay on their own side of the tracks?

Hate is hate, no matter how humorously it's presented.

When someone feels invaded, they get pissed. I don't think that's abnormal. Retaliation is generally stupid by nature and obnoxious teenage behavior is more likely to lean toward non-subtlety. What are they going to do? Nooses. If the problem was with girls invading 'their' space? Pads...and that would make it sexist instead of racist?

I fully agree that hatred and injustice are wrong...and shame on the generations that have taught/allowed this problem to have happened. Punishment does no good when the punished have not learned the concept of Consequences and/or Personal Responsibility.
Shame on all of us for not knowing how in the world to fix what is broken..I, for one, am beginning to dread the upcoming Civil War Sesquicentennial.

As a human being, I am ashamed of intolerance, irresponsible reactivism and bullying.
What's gained by arguing to save our own opinion when a little open minded acceptance might give us a chance of understanding something that was maybe a little bit hazy or unformed in our thoughts when the thread began? If we can't talk here without feeling threatened, how are we going to be part of the Solution?

Hanging noose-like items in a tree is decidedly creepy, but I believe the story started before that.
I don't think any of us know why, with that many peer witnesses, there was only one kid with injuries. It seems to me that if the whole story was racially oriented, his friends would have gotten riled and joined the mess.

I think we all agree that injustice is wrong and therefore must be stopped. However, I'm certain that the media spectacle is not going to provide enough information for any of us to figure out how to Save the World. The responsibility for figuring that out lies within our selves.

Cutting down the tree seems a lot like locking the barn after the horse was stolen and since it was apparently a popular tree, it seems like cutting it down would escalate tension instead of making it go away...but then again, a person who can't figure out why good folks would get bloodthirsty over Shaky Egg Intolerance could easily be mistaken about logical repercussions.

M

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: katlaughing
Date: 12 Oct 07 - 11:53 PM

M.Ted, thanks for the link. Very interesting publication.

One comment on the article: it would not be unusual for a lot of small towns in the West to also wind up with all-white juries, etc. A lot of small towns out here have few if any minorities and, in Colorado, those would most likely be of Latino descent. Just an observation, I would prefer it were otherwise.

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: M.Ted
Date: 12 Oct 07 - 10:02 PM

There is pretty good evidence that these prosecutions are retaliatory--I know that a lot of people want to believe that that sort of thing doesn't happen in this day and age, but it does--and it will continue as long as people are content to deny it---

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: Bobert
Date: 12 Oct 07 - 08:09 PM

Yup, Greg... Welcome to the South...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: Greg B
Date: 12 Oct 07 - 07:15 PM

The Rodney King riots were the inevitable result of justice
denied. You can push a people only so far. Okay, so how about
another example. 1968. The inner cities.

What do I know of what passes for 'justice' in Jena? Only what
I've read in the numerous articles, which strongly suggest that there
is one justice for the white man, another for the black man, and both
are administered and/or controlled by the white man.

It seems to me that in a place like Jena, we don't know much of
anything, because the truth is bent to the purposes of the
racist establishment.

In such an environment, 'truth' is elusive.

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 12 Oct 07 - 06:13 PM

What do you know about justice in Jena? What do you know about the laws of Louisiana (or anywhere else, for that matter)?.
Like some others who have posted, the message conveyed is that passion in an argument is inversely proportional to the amount of real information advanced.

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: Riginslinger
Date: 12 Oct 07 - 04:21 PM

In the end, Rodney King seems like kind of a bad example to persuade public opinion.

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: Greg B
Date: 12 Oct 07 - 03:59 PM

Q... given what we know about 'justice' in Jena, it doesn't seem
to me like there's much credibility to anything they say about
a young African American male--- prior convictions or present
subject matter. So you really don't have much of a foundation
to say that 'Jena is safer with him in custody.'

Indeed, if Jena continues with their brand of 'Southern justice'
things may get one hell of a lot less safe. Can you say 'Rodney
King?'

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: Peace
Date: 12 Oct 07 - 02:07 PM

M Ted: Thank you for that link. I hadn't read the whole story phrased in quite that way. Makes a guy hope that that isn't what constitutes 'justice' in the USA.

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 12 Oct 07 - 01:50 PM

The sentence was very lenient considering the history of anti-social criminal acts, including violation of parole, by this person.
Jena is safer with him in custody.

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: Riginslinger
Date: 12 Oct 07 - 08:14 AM

Mychal Bell is back in jail;

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: M.Ted
Date: 01 Oct 07 - 11:50 PM

With due respect, Dick, hold back your judgment on this issue until you read Bill Quigley's Account of the Jena 6 He is a human rights lawyer and law professor from Loyola University and has been active in bringing the issue to public attention.

Also, read the article above, "What Blane Williams should have..." it was written by Rev. Alan Bean, who attended the trial and whose organization, Friends of Justice, have conducted an investigation of the incidents involved in this issue.

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 01 Oct 07 - 06:50 PM

Bobert-
I'm well aware of part A. The school principal tried to take appropriate action, but was overruled by the school board. If you want to say that that's a good reason to get rid of school boards, I wouldn't argue. What I'm objecting to is some posters' idea that what the black kids did was in some way justified.
I'm also well aware of institutionalized racism in this country. I just don't think that this case is the best one to illustrate it. Anymore than I thought OJ's murder trial was much of a peg on which to hang an accusation of anti-Black legal bias.

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: Bobert
Date: 01 Oct 07 - 06:43 PM

No, Dick... You are missin' Part A of the strory where the swastika was hung and the the4 grown ups in the community did nothing...

This is less about the Jena 6 than about the treatment that the white kids got for hanging the noose...

I don't think anyone here condone's the beating of the white kid, even though it should be pointed out that one of the Jean ^ black kids had been beated by a group of white kids just days before... And again, what was the response to the black kid gettin' beaten??? Nothing, that's waht???

This entire situation is about the dual system of justice and why we have two systems at all... Well, I'll tell ya why... It's because we have institutional racism in this country... Jena has proven that beyond any shadow of doubt...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 01 Oct 07 - 06:31 PM

Let me get this straight. If some asshole should hang a swastika in a local park not generally frequented by Jews, I, as a Jew,have the right to assemble a bunch of friends, three months after the incident, and beat the hell out of some German-American who I happen to encounter, but who may or may not have anything to do with the "hate crime".

C'mon ---get real. There is a real and serious problem concerning unequal treatment of minorities by the law, but these six and Mychal Bell in particular, seem to be particularly unattractive poster children for the cause.

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: Bobert
Date: 30 Sep 07 - 08:14 PM

No, pd-ster... It is very much a crime... Historically the "noose" has been used as not only a threat but a threat that has been carried out...

Ignorance of the law by the white kids is no excuse... They should have been chareged and it is my argument that had they been charged that it would have ended there...

And BTW, a noose ain't all that hard to make and I don't have a Boy Scout merit badge in knot tying whioch, of course, ain't all that surprising seein' as I wasn't a Boy Scout...

As for your assessment that the noose ain't all that scarey.... Ahhhh, come on down to the Southland and live a couple weeks as a rural balck and I think you might have a differnt perspective... In much of the South black folks still have to walk the white man's line... But don't tell me that these black folks ain't aware of the institutional racsim that is built into the systems around them... I've spent most of my life livin' in rural South...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: pdq
Date: 30 Sep 07 - 07:54 PM

Just a small aside: Do you really believe there are 15-year-olds who can tie a proper hangman's noose?

I can't do one and I have my Boy Scout merit badge in rope tying. (such a thing was not included, of course)

I think my phrase "noose-like piece of rope stuck in a tree" is more accurate. Rude: yes. Scary: probably not very. Illegal: No.

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: Bobert
Date: 30 Sep 07 - 07:38 PM

My exact point, pdq... It is a practice for prosecutors to bring more serious charges...

Exactly what did the prosecutor bring against the white "noosers"???

Nuthin'...

(Well, Bobert, there ain't no laws about "nooses"...)

Bull... There are laws when the noose is interpreted as a physical threat... That makes it a battery, at the very least...

So why weren't the white kids charged with anything other than being, ahhh, friggin' suspended from schools and having their white only tree cut down???

This is what this is all about... It's about equal justice...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: Peace
Date: 30 Sep 07 - 05:38 PM

Innocent pic here.

Subject: RE: BS: The Jena 6 Controversy
From: Greg B
Date: 30 Sep 07 - 05:30 PM

Other witnesses claim that a person wearing a green jacket, struck the blow. Bell was wearing a black jacket.

And they say Southern justice isn't color blind! :-)