And that’s the problem I have with this situation.
FTM, I wonder if things would have escalated had the school and law officials charged the white kids appropriately for thier thuggish behavior prior to the beatings.
I don’t support anyone’s ‘right’ to beat up anyone else. I do support equal punishments for equal criminal acts. Which, alas, is a civil rights issue, I believe.
Nobody gets to sit under that tree anymore. Now it’s a stump. Townfolk cut it down afterwards in a kinda clumsy attempt to defuse lingering hostilities. Once fuel, now it’s… umm… firewood.
There’s quite a history of bad behavior all around. What they need to do is make sure the charges against these six youth are fair and just and look into whether additional charges need to be levied against others, black or white, for previous transgressions, like the black youth assaulted at the white party.
The US Attorney and FBI were looking into hate crime violations back when the nooses were hung from the tree and declined to indict but there have been a number of fights in the interim. Why the hell weren’t those acted upon? Why did it have to get to this? And yes, using racial politics to influence justice does have its dangers. Equating this with the Rights marches of the 60s has the potential to be a real, demeaning mistake.
That article’s pretty light and loose on the details…in particular regarding the fight at the party on December 1st and the shotgun incident on December 2nd. What you actually have here is a group of thugs, some of which already had a record of violent crimes, getting into 3 fights over the course of 4 days. They are criminals and they need to be punished appropriately.
That said, calling a tennis shoe a deadly weapon and a schoolyard fight attempted murder is beyond what is appropriate, IMHO. It sounds like the charges are being backed off to something more reasonable. Seems to me, justice is being served in the end.
Agreed. I think they’d be able to drum up more sympathy for their cause if instead of chanting:
“These boys need to be set free just like the white boys went free”
to
“Those white boys need to be punished just like these boys are being punished.”
After reading lieu’s post, I wanted to clarify my own thinking.
I believe that there’s enough indication here to believe that there have been civil rights violations by the powers that be in Jena.
I do not believe, however, that these violations are systemic through even Louisiana, let alone the US.
Which brings me to the comparisons that some people trying to rally for the Jena Six are making: AIUI the Civil Rights marches of the sixties were about changing the legal environment of the US, as a whole (though, admittedly with a special focus on the South), to extend equal protection before the law to all persons. With the Jena Six we’re not facing a flaw in the law, we’re facing idiocy and possibily corruption in those people charged with enforcing the laws.
As lieu points out - the comparison just doesn’t work. The great marches of the Civil Rights era were about establishing a new standard in the national consciousness. A march in support of the Jena Six, while not without merit, is a tactic to force individuals, or an isolated group, to live up the laws that we have, now.
I want to make it clear - marching fo the Jena Six may well be a very worthy act. I think it would be, at least. But, it’s not on the same sweeping, national goal that the Civil Rights era marches had.
On preview: Sanity Challenged, my problem is not the charges, nor even the sentence that the six currently are serving, it’s that the very similar actions by the white teens have gone without any official punishment. Whatever the reality might be, the impression this leaves me with is that it’s fine, in Jena, for a white kid (Well, okay - a group of white kids.) to beat on a black kid - but let the black kid try the same act, then we’re going to go for attempted murder!
Which would have been easy had no one picked up a gun in the first place, especially when, not having been threatened with a gun, self-defense at that level wasn’t called for.
lieu, Otakuloki, thank you for your fair and reasoned responses.
Jena is about as backwoods and redneck as a Southern hick town can be. This whole mess began with the high school administration, who hugely fucked up their handling of the initial problems, and with continuing ongoing fuckups at every level of authority. There is a level of institutionalized covert racism in the South that you absolutely cannot comprehend if you have not experienced it or if you don’t want to acknowledge it. Just because black people were mean to you once doesn’t mean that racism isn’t a potent force in our society.
The reason why tens of friggin thousands of people descended upon a small town in Louisiana today over this relatively minor incident is because there is an undercurrent of fucking rage at seeing people being obviously treated unfairly because of their race by the justice system EVEN IF THE INITIAL MISCARRIAGE OF JUSTICE IS RECTIFIED. What if no one had made a fuss about this? It surely seems that if you are a young black male, you cannot count on a prosecutor treating you fairly in this benighted goddam country. If you are white, if you have money to pay for a better defense, if you have resources, you will serve less time than someone who doesn’t.
Our justice system is BROKEN, people, and a lot of it has to do with race.
I’m wondering if the black kid who was beaten at the white party even attempted to go to the police and that is the reason why nobody was charged in that incident.
Either way, two wrongs don’t make a right and there should be charges in both incidents regardless of race.
From Wike, see bolded text:
"Fair barn party incident
On Friday, December 1, there was a private party, attended mostly by whites, at the Fair Barn. Five black youths, including 16-year-old Robert Bailey, attempted to enter the party at about 11 p.m. According to U.S. Attorney Washington, they were told by a woman that they were not allowed inside without an invitation. The five youths persisted, stating that some friends were already in attendance at the party. A white man, who was not a student, then jumped in front of the woman and a fight ensued. After the fight was broken up, the woman told both the white man and five black youths to leave the party. Once outside, the black students were involved in another fight with a group of white men, who also were not students. Police were then called to investigate. Several months later, Justin Sloan, a white male, was charged with battery for his role in the fight and was put on probation. Bailey later stated that one of the white men had broken a beer bottle over his head, though there are no official records of medical treatment being given."
The impression you were left with was due to the misleading information in the timeline cited in the OP. The facts (see, for example 5-4’s post above) are not “one night a bunch of white kids beat up a black kid and didn’t get punished, and then a bunch of black kids beat up a white kid and got severely punished.”
…
Didn’t Mychel Bell have several prior convictions for violent crimes? That might be one reason why the poor darling was tried as an adult!
You might find a tennis shoe a deadly weapon if there was a foot in it that was kicking you in the head!
Sanity Challenged, please be clear, that, while my post does spell out a bit more clearly what Otatoluki was alluding too, I am in no way condoning the absolute perversion of justice that has been actively pursued up to this point by school administrators and authorities in this situation.
Case in point I: read the entire wikipedia entry.
Case in point II (short version): My junior year in high school in Mississippi I was threatened with being lynched by three students well capable of making it happened because, during a heated argument, a young white girl (a friend no less) slapped me and I slapped her back. School authorities said their threat was a prank also.
Not really. I mean, generally the idea of a weapon is that it improves your damage-dealing considerably (at least, that’s how i’d categorise it). If you go with that, you could say anything there; was his sock a deadly weapon too? Did he have odour-eaters on? Widening the concept of “weapon” to include a shoe (assuming it’s not a spiked shoe or something) seems to me to make the idea of assault “with a deadly weapon” pretty much useless, since *anything * is.
Really? Cite?
"Mychal Bell trial
On June 26, 2007, the first day of trial for defendant Mychal Bell, Walters agreed to reduce the charges for Bell to aggravated second-degree battery and conspiracy to commit aggravated second-degree battery.[21] A charge of aggravated battery requires the use of a “deadly weapon”. Walters thus argued that the tennis shoes that Bell was wearing and used to kick Barker with were deadly weapons, an argument with which the jury agreed. Despite conflicting witness accounts on whether he was involved in the attack,[22] Bell was found guilty and faced the possibility of up to 22 years in prison when he was to be sentenced on September 20, 2007."
Yes, Mycheal Bell did have two prior convictions for battery, but this was only a factor in the denial of lowering his $90,000 bail, not the initial and subsequent charges levied equally against him and the other co-defendents.
Sorry, wrong wiki quote, re Mychel Bell:
“A request to lower Mychal Bell’s $90,000 bond was denied on August 24, 2007, due to his juvenile record, which showed that he had been previously convicted of four other violent crimes. Bell was put on probation for a battery that occurred December 25, 2005, and he was later convicted of yet another battery charge and two charges of criminal damage to property.”
Please let me be whooshed. I was just watching the news and saw footage of the tree. It is/was absolutely beautiful. Like a big ole umbrella. It reminded of something you’d see on the Seringeti, except lusher.
A further example of misguided decisionmaking.
Yeah, they chopped it down.
Actually, I was going by the story I’d read in today’s local paper up here. Apologies for going with the bad information. Again, even looking over the more detailed timelines available in the thread, I’m still convinced that there is a huge, unacknowledged difference in what the authorities will tolerate from white instead of black persons.
Which leads to the sort of justified anger that lisacurl mentions in her post.