No, but reading between the lines I see “wilful misinterpretation” and “pointless nitpicking”. Jeez, let it go.
You’re right, Dead Badger, that was just me letting my interpretation divert me into nitpicking; I guess I’m letting my emotional reaction to the nitpicking of the facts in this situation by those who think “the Black Man is out to get us” distract me.
Thanks for reminding me of what’s really important to focus on here.
I think you are probably right that the 1st Amendment doesn’t give one the right to display a noose on public property. On the other hand, it would be difficult to draft a criminal statute, punishing such behavior, that is consistent with the Constitution.
This is still the most intelligent sentence in this whole thread. These logical arguments of ‘justice for all’ (the black and white kids) just do not mesh with the day-to-day realities in a state that still has its fair share of segregated proms and Klan chapters. Bell had a criminal record? How many white kids could get off the same charges because some cop knows their parents or they have the cash for a lawyer?
And sure anti-white racism exists. How the hell could it not? So does white privilege, so ingrained in most white Americans they can’t even see that it’s there and just assume they’ll be allowed to eat in every restaurant they’d like and be served in any store they enter. The people who think whites have it worst in America tend to be the same folks who are under the impression that evil feminists are taking over the world. They are delusional.
I’m thinking that existing laws about defacement and intimidation will work here just fine.
Sorry to nitpick but hate speech per se is not illegal. Hate crimes legislation only stiffens the penalties for offenses which are already illegal but which are motivated by animus against a particular race/religion/ ethnicity, etc. A person who spray paints graffiti on a synagogue is guilty of vandalism but a person who spray paints a swastika on a synagogue could be found guilty of a hate crime but only because the vandalism is already a crime. A person who spray paints a swastika on his own house is guilty of nothing except extreme assholery and trolling.
The stuff with the nooses at the school was grounds for suspenion or expulsion and a violation of the school’s own code of conduct but it was probably not a criminal act unless it can be shown that it was intended to convey a specific threat against a specific person or persons. That’s hard to prove in a court of law.
Did they do that to him simply because he was white? Or did they do that in revenge because he threatened them with lynching? It does make a difference. The first is a hate crime; the second is an assault. The law makes a distinction even if you don’t.
Two wrongs don’t make a right. Beating someone up, 6 on 1, isn’t OK, or legal, nor should it be permitted. But the white on black racism wasn’t OK either, and it WAS permitted. This is what causes people to take justice into their own hands. It’s never going to change if the root causes aren’t addressed, and it seems to me, the root cause in this case was white assholes hanging nooses in a tree on school property with impunity. Please correct me if I’m wrong.
Can you link to them please?
In somebody else’s yard, no. In your own yard, yes. Speech is protected, no matter how offensive or risible it may be, as long as it does not impose on someone else’s property or civil rights or does not rise to the level specific threats or intimidation. There are some gray areas here. I can remember a case, for instance, about some Kluxxers burning a cross on their own property but within sight of their black neighbors. I believe the Klansters were actually arrested and charged and there was some public debate about whether they were within their rights on their own property or whether it constituted an attempt to threaten or intimidate their neighbors (I don’t remember how that was resolved).
The nooses at Jena are kind of in a similar area. Is it enough to constitute a criminal threat? I think it would be hard to prove, especially in rural Lousiana (I’m from Louisiana and I know for a fact that parts of that state are still living in the distant past. Let’s not forget that this state once ran a former Grand Wizard of the KKK and an avowed “white nationalist” as the GOP candidate for governor).
I do believe that the victim’s race was a strong motivating factor to 6 violent criminals who by continuing to kick and beat a singular victim after he lost consciousness deserve at least a violence related felony conviction.
Only if they do it because he’s white, which was not the case in Jena. They did it because he was an asshole and he needed a beat down. They probably went too far with it, but it wasn’t a hate crime.
I think it’s more correct to say that the victim’s racism was the motivating factor, not his race.
Well, I’m not in LA, so I don’t know what the specific laws in that state are. Defacing public property, and I’m sure you will agree that a public school is public property, is generally considered a crime. I don’t believe that the defacement must be permanent.
My take on this was that the school should have punished the offenders appropriately by expelling the noose-hanging students. Because I am unwilling to accept the idea that nooses are a prank. This probably would have prevented the legal situation that arose. If expulsion didn’t take care of the problem for some reason, then the law gets involved.
This whole thing is a clusterfuck on so many levels.
Sure, and I never argued that the beating was legal and should not be prosecuted. But it’s not a hate crime. They wouldn’t have selected the white kid for a beating just because he was white. They beat him because he was part of a group of whites who committed acts of racism towards them without consequences. There is a legal distinction here. I am not defending group beatings, but I am asking that the hate crimes be called what they are, and assaults what they are. Not all black on white or white on black violence is a hate crime. When nooses are inciting incident of the story, though, it strongly implies that white on black racism is at the core of the problem here, and all subsequent violence flows from that. THAT is what needs to be addressed if you want all the violence in this situation to stop.
So you are an advocate real life mob violence?
When I was in high school, many students who were running for class president put flyers up. I never heard of any of them being prosecuted. I would be surprised if there were a law making such an act a criminal violation.
So. in your world putting up flyers for intra-scholastic politics that is endorsed by the school is the equivalent of defacing property?
Interesting perspective.
How would you define “deface”?
The problem with attaching a rope to a tree is the message you are communicating, not the fact that you are damaging or impairing the value of public property.
In Jena, if somebody had attached 3 big flyers to the tree, each with a picture of a noose, would that change the situation in any way?
By the way, can somebody tell me exactly what it was that Justin Barker did that resulted in him having been attacked by the Jena 6?
You do realize this is a ridiculous thing to say, right? Nooses hanging from a tree is an iconic image of racial murder and cause a visceral reaction due to the history attached to it. Pictures of a noose stapled to a tree are not going to have the same effect. The song goes “strange fruit hanging from the poplar tree,” not “photocopied pictures of strange fruit stapled to the bark of the poplar tree…”