I had the local Fox affiliate's morning show on as I got ready for work this morning, and they made a brief mention of the Jena 6 rally in Louisiana today. They said participants were protesting "uneven" treatment by local police, saying it was racial.
"Uneven"? Yeah, I guess you could say that. There was no mention whatsoever of the fact that a black teenager was charged with attempted murder for beating someone with a sneaker in a schoolyard fight, and certainly nothing about the nooses hanging from a tree on school grounds after black kids asked why they couldn't sit there.
And I could just picture those all-American Fox viewers, turning to each other and saying, "There they go again."
You know who "they" are, don't you? Those colored folks. The ones who don't know how to behave.
I was shocked when a Taser incident involving a white college student was given so much attention this week with so little context: Namely, that minorities are unjustly submitted to indignities and even death for specious reasons all the time, and that they are quite familiar with Taser guns.
It's not so important when it happens to black people because of the unspoken assumption most white people are still privileged to hold: "They must have done something to deserve it."
I know better. I grew up in a working-class, blue collar Philadelphia neighborhood. The boys in my neighborhood (including my own brothers) were forever being beaten up by cops; it was a fact of life. I know that whatever rationale the cops claimed, they really beat them up for some variation on the same reason: Because I can and there's nothing you can do about it. "Deserved" it? Yeah, if you can call not being able to read a cop's mind and know just how quick of a hair-trigger he had that minute a crime. Excuse me, officer, but have you gotten laid recently? Any money troubles? Kids okay?
And so white people - people who never had to worry about real-life police brutality - just tune it out. It doesn't seem logical to them, that cops and elected officials would simply treat a black kid differently for no reason other than the color of their skin. After all, they're always so polite to them.
We're still so very far from a world where we're judged on the content of our character and not the color of our skins. But still, it gives me hope to see so many college students from all over the country (including Philadelphia's Temple University) headed to Jena to stand in peaceful protest at today's rally. Kudos to those kids for standing up for their civil rights!
As for me, well, I'm just embarrassed that all these years later, we're still here.
These lynching were seldom if ever prosecuted and there were 0 convictions. In that light, the nooses are every bit as inciteful as a crossing burning on a lawn. When a postcard openly went on sale commemorating the lynching it didn't take much to realize your constitutional rights were a joke to the community you lived in. I was born in 1957 and well aware of what that time was like. I guess political correctness demands I no longer remember and certainly not bring it up in conversation.
When a white person drives by a small town store I suppose they see a little store. When I drive by I see the little store in West Virginia where my mother was told by the owner that the Pepsi-Colas and crisp white shirts were saved for the good white folks, but she could have a Dr.Pepper or a 7-Up if she wanted a pop... I graduated from high school in '75; my memories are not that old.... Racism is alive and well - it's also become very sophisticated. As a black man I know I encounter it almost daily but it is so subtle I sometimes think I'm imagining it and it makes me feel a little crazy sometimes... and then, nope... it's right there hiding in plain sight....
beaten went to a dance that same night..I wore black today, I also attended the March on Washington in August of 1963..Not much different in the justice system all across this country..check sentencing for crack cocaine as opposed to powder...come to think of it, where did all that crack come from and right around the time of Iran contra????
Here ya go:
http://www.lycaeum.org/drugwar/DARKALLIANCE/reganr.html
This is an extraordinarily violent culture. Our armies commit artocities by land and air in nearly every part of the globe in support of private interests. We are the most heavily armed citizenry in the history of the world. Extereme fighting is becoming a favorite spectator sport, right up there with firer car crashes. TV screens are littered with corpses on most all the favorite shows. Hostility is becoming quite normal in everyday interactions, and on and on.
Relations between the various races has always been and probably will always remain horrible in the extreme. And if it's white boys on black boys, or black boys on white boys, the race mongers on both sides will always be sure to get in on the act. Their power such as it is, depends on it.
If there is one figure of power and authority left in the USA who can say, violence is not the answer, and be believed, I'd like to know who that is.
According to the Rather lawsuit against CBS, one of the bones of contention is the effective censorship of CBS news by the White House and their right-wing cronies. Looks like it doesn't stop at CBS.
Now, I've never been on the receiving end of racism, but it seems to me that the noose routine would classify as some sort of terrorist act, a burning cross lite, if you will. And those responsable should be dealt with appropriately.
I went to an integrated high school and this is exactly the sort of thing that would happen, only in those days, the media was not as, as, well, whatever they are today. There'd be a provocation, an incident, then an escalation, and more escalation until all hell broke loose, and the school had to close for a few days to calm things down. This happened at least three times that I can remember. In a way, it reminded me of the opening sequence to West Side Story only with different ethicities and less dancing. But you can see the same pattern in Jena.
In the Jena case, the noose perps should have been vigorously persued and apprehended. That would have nipped things in the bud.
Any reason in particular?
In THAT earlier incident, one white kid out of the group was charged with battery.
The kid who got beaten?
The incident with the shotgun occurred two days before the white kid was beaten.
The white kid, Barker, was beaten by a group of students and left unconscious.
Perhaps the prosecution is overreaching by charging attempted murder, but the outcry over this case is way out of proportion. I am starting to wonder if there is some sort of mass psychosis at work here. How about "white guilt syndrome?"
"Just before the incident that resulted in stiff charges for the Jena Six, white youngsters had attacked one of the six black boys, Robert Bailey, 17, striking him with beer bottles as he tried to enter a party. Only one of the attackers was charged -- with simple battery."
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-jena15sep15,0,3927872.story?coll=la-home-center
As someone that comes from a family of cops, had the law been applied evenly, I would agree with you.
Instead, in this specific case, law enforcement was selective as to who would be charged and how they would be charged.
Had law enforcement done it's job after the first attack, providing the kids with some hope that the system does work, the second attack would not have occurred.
This entire thing is horribly racist or, at least, as ethnocentric as Bosnia before their war.
That is part of the problem. It seems to be so easy to accept that people "just" get too severe a punishment, without any consideration of what that means.
More and more, we are watching young people get arrested and sent away for incredible periods of time for "crimes" which wouldn't even have been deemed worthy of reporting just a couple of decades ago. Our prisons are overrun, and yet we seem to look for more and more excuses to send people away for longer periods of time.
There is racism here, but there is also an intense level of authoritarianism which is at the heart of 99% of the problems which currently plague us.
Anything? Nothing?
Aren't you abandoning logic because of the color of the skin of the people who beat the white student?
Isn't that racism?
If you don't understand this, then it can't be explained to you.
No, it doesn't legally justify the beating.
But when you push people too far, sometimes they push back harder than you expect them to.
I'm a MN progressive queer who relocated to rural Louisiana...it's like a time warp down here.
A lot does depend on what part of the country you live.
Rural Louisiana is a century or two ago when compared to modern Europe or the northern half of the West Coast (from the Bay Area through Vancouver).
I'm may not be gay myself. But, I'm always looking for places that are not primitive within the United States. THEY ARE NOT EASY TO FIND!!!
My advice? When you have a chance, ditch LA for smarter pastures.
Like the constitution alluded to, if democracy is not working where you live, dump it for something new and better (and smarter) just a little bit further out west.
Best of luck Qbear!