Not a Post Racisim Society: LA Injustice.
by KevinJuly 18th, 2007
This is disgusting:
Last September, a black high school student requested the school’s permission to sit beneath a broad, leafy tree in the hot schoolyard. Until then, only white students sat there.
The next morning, three nooses were hanging from the tree. The black students responded en masse. Justin Purvis, the kid who first sat under the tree, told filmmaker Jacquie Soohen: “They [other black students] said, ‘Y’all want to go stand under the tree?’ We said, ‘Yeah.’ They said, ‘If you go, I’ll go. If you go, I’ll go.’ One person went, the next person went, everybody else just went.”
Then the police and the district attorney showed up. Substitute teacher Michelle Rogers recounts: “District Attorney Reed Walters proceeded to tell those kids that ‘I could end your lives with the stroke of a pen.’ ”
… Jena, a community of 4,000, is about 85 percent white. While the black community gathered at a church to respond, others didn’t see the significance. Soohen interviewed Jena town librarian Barbara Murphy, who reflected: “The nooses? I don’t even know why they were there, what they were supposed to mean. There’s pranks all the time, of one type or another, going on. And it just didn’t seem to be racist to me.” Tensions rose.
Robert Bailey, a black student, was beaten up at a white party. Then, a few nights later, Robert and two others were threatened by a white man with a sawed-off shotgun at a convenience store. They wrestled the gun away and fled. Robert’s mother, Caseptla Bailey, said: “I know they were in fear of their lives. They were afraid that this man was going to shoot them, you know, especially in the back, running away from the scene.”
The next day, Dec. 4, 2006, a fight broke out at the school. A white student was injured, taken to the hospital and released. Robert Bailey and five other black students were charged … with second-degree attempted murder. They each faced 100 years in prison. The black community was reeling.
Now ask yourself: are the good white folk who don’t think nooses hanging from a tree are racism or who think its terrible that black kids would sit on a bench where white kids sit going to treat a white and black job applicant the same? Are they going to fund schools for blacks at the same rate as white kids? Are they going treat a black man in front of a jury the same as a white man?
Nows tell me again the pretty little fairy tale of the end of racism and a color blind society.
Categories: Culture, General, Legal Issues, Race |
Am I the only one who had to re-re-re-read this to make sure that it was 2006, and not 1966?
Dan M:
No.
I kept looking for a date on the article thinking it may have been something reprinted from the 60’s. That being said:
1. You can never legislate “stupid” out of people and it is pretty clear that the racists in that town are plenty stupid.
2. I would be very wary of suggesting that what is happening in this town is indicative of the overall society.
3. Racism will NEVER be completely eliminated. It is inherent in human nature and is far more than just a white/black issue. (i.e. Chinese/Japanese, Jews/world, etc.) That is not to say it should not be dealt with severly when it raises its head, but to hope to see it eradicated is not even realistic. In every race, all over the world, there are people who judge others based on race.
It’s not so much the judging that’s the problem, as the imprisonment and killing.
“Soohen interviewed Jena town librarian Barbara Murphy, who reflected: “The nooses? I don’t even know why they were there, what they were supposed to mean. There’s pranks all the time, of one type or another, going on. And it just didn’t seem to be racist to me.”
Don’t be too hard on them for their ignorance. After all, you seem to be ignorant of your latent (and active) racism in your support of Affirmative Discrimination. You can’t seem to understand that giving special privileges to people based on their race is racism.
To Fred:
No Fred, Affirmative Action, which I don’t actually support (I am a Black man) is NOT racism. Racism is more than “prejudice” and that is something people tend to not comprehend. Prejudice is simply a prejudgement on someone or something based on opinion, bias or past experience- and yes everyone does it. Racism, particularly in America, and particularly as practiced against those of Black and Brown skin by Caucasians, is an institutionalized system of subjugation affecting all areas of human relation (economics, religion, labor, politics, et al).
We need to grow up and come to grips with the TRUE history and contemporary reality of race relations in America…and simply trying to be “color-blind”, as if the events of the past few hundred years never happened, will NEVER bring stability to this situation.
…and last time i checked, freedom from fear of intimidation, murder and assault is not a “special privilege”.
“Racism, particularly in America, and particularly as practiced against those of Black and Brown skin by Caucasians, is an institutionalized system of subjugation affecting all areas of human relation (economics, religion, labor, politics, et al).”
I’m glad you are not the one who gets to define words.
…and last time i checked, freedom from fear of intimidation, murder and assault is not a “special privilege”.
Have you heard about the “gay agenda”?
I don’t blame anyone for being furious when they read these articles. But the stories are somewhat twisted. Barbara Murphy is not even the town librarian. Robert Bailey struck a female teacher in Jr High, burned office referals on the principals desk, and when he was “beaten” at the fair barn it was by ONE white boy that was trying to stop him from pulling an unwilling girl from her car. The next night at the convenience store Bailey and 2 friends saw a young man (Only slightly older than them) that had been at the party the night before…when he went inside the store they ransacked his truck and they were trying to take his gun…guys from small southern towns are into hunting. That is why they were arrested for theft. Does it seem strange to anyone that Bailey was in three fights in one week?
People are getting the wrong information. I can’t understand the media.
The nooses in the tree were real…and they were disgusting. I am still angry about that, one of the boys that was responsible for the nooses is hateful and cruel… to whites and blacks alike. So yes, there is SOME racism in Jena. However, the white boy that was beaten was not involved…why didn’t the “6″ retaliate against the culprits?
What about the rest of the “6″? I have heard horror stories about 2 more. I don’t know about the other 3.
By the way, I was so disturbed about Mrs Murphy’s statements that I asked her about it. She says that her interview was altered…she said that she didn’t know anything about the nooses but she she was aware that there were serious pranks happening, she didn’t know what they were or what they meant. Some other people in town had their interviews torn apart…what was printed did not resemble what was actually said.
Also, it really was an ALL WHITE JURY. We have 15% black population and the blacks that where called did not show up. I don’t know why…but they didn’t. Who’s fault is that?
Just remember,most of the information has been very distorted. Guess those reporters are trying to make a dollar.
My main purpose of writing this is to let people know that Jena is a nice place to live and I think racism is minimal.
[...] This is perhaps the best piece on the Jena 6 I have seen today (for those of you who have not seen the news, there is a massive protest going on today over this case. The article in question has a good summary of the facts, and here is a post we did on this back when we first heard about the story.) Indeed, the Jena 6 case, like the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, is a violent reminder that our country is actually many nations. Despite all of the progress that has been made, racism is still a part of too many American kids’ ideological diets. A noose, even in 2007, struck these good ol’ Southern boys as an apt symbol for the fear of “the other” that had been bred in them from birth. And their elders — the school administrators, city officials, and parents — called their inexcusable hatred by cutesy names: pranks, child’s play, boys will be boys. It is a wake-up call to us all: The work of ending racism is far from over. [...]