The Jena Six fraud
Thursday January 10, 2008
Categories: Culture
Speaking of a culture tolerating violence the strong impose on the weak... The Atlantic Monthly sends a reporter to Jena, Louisiana, to find out what really happened in the Jena Six case, and she pretty much determines that the so-called...
Filed Under: Atlantic Monthly, Jena Six
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About Crunchy Con
Rod Dreher is an editorial columnist for the Dallas Morning News, and author of "Crunchy Cons" (Crown Forum), a nonfiction book about conservatives, most of them religious, whose faith and political convictions sometimes put them at odds with mainstream conservatives. The views expressed in this blog are his own.
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"I can tell you that despite it all, blacks and whites there get along better than they do in the northern cities in which I've lived."
There is a saying that Southerners didn't mind blacks being too close, as long as they didn't get too high, while Northerners didn't mind how high they got, as long as they weren't too close. While Reconstruction, Jim Crow, and the civil rights movement changed that to a certain extent, there are still both of those types of racism around, as well as reverse racism and the "blame whitey" syndrome. Throw all these things together and it becomes obvious that, as you say, the race issue in America is far more complex than as presented by the media.
I'd also say Jena has a sports problem, as do many rural small towns in the Midwest and Texas. Sports participation and achievement are prized far over academic achievement, regardless of race. This is particularly true for boys, but becoming so even for girls. It infects private schools as well as public ones.
"Local whites were as outraged as blacks, though an older black man I interviewed told me that he couldn't help wondering whether whites would have risen up in their defense had the landowner been a local
man instead of an outsider."
Isn't it obvious that a local man wouldn't have tried to shut down the church?
Rob G.:
The sad (and much balder, it may be offensive to some) aphorism I've always heard is that Southern whites "love the people and hate the color," and Northern whites "love the color and hate the people."
Rod:
Since you've printed a blisteringly anti-Bell excerpt of a long article yet say the article also shows whites in a bad light, would you mind giving us a quick excerpt you particularly thought captured an example of white racism?
Yep, Rod...things have changed a lot in the South.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/12/19/national/main3630915.shtml
White Separatist Group Sues Town Of Jena
Group Wants To March In MLK Day Parade; Town Says They Must Post Bond, Not Bring Guns
JENA, Louisiana, Dec. 19, 2007
(AP) A white separatist group planning a Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade next month in Jena is suing the town, claiming officials are violating the Constitution by asking participants not to bring firearms, changing the parade route by one block and requiring the posting of a bond.
The Nationalist Movement filed the federal lawsuit Dec. 14 and is seeking a temporary restraining order to keep the town from interfering with the Learned, Mississippi-based group's "Jena Justice Day" rally. Group officials claim the town's rules violate their 14th Amendment rights under the U.S. Constitution to due process.
Let's see...we have two stories explaining why the nooses were in the tree...both given by residents of Jena.
First this one: http://southerncrown.blogspot.com/2007/09/jena-louisiana-true-story.html
"The square at Jena High School has been known as the center of school spirit and/or pranks for many years. I've seen everything from "funerals" of opponent football teams to the tree and surrounding area covered with toilet tissue. Jena High School is known for themed activities surrounding football games. This particular week, JHS was playing a team whose mascot is "Cowboys." Hence, the nooses in the tree... "hang'em high!" Not for one moment did the thought of racism cross my mind or the majority of the others. It was football season. We were playing the Cowboys. The kids, both girls and boys, wore boots to school and had a western themed pep rally. Nooses = cowboys and horse thieves in my world. Maybe I've watched too much "Gunsmoke," but racism was not even a thought. Due to the reaction of ADULTS in the black community, not the kids at the school, the boys were suspended. The entire punishment for those boys was never published because of the confidentiality of the issue. However, the boys were suspended. They and their families were required to go to counseling. The boys had hours of community service. The boys and their families continue to receive threatening phone calls, but yet no one has addressed that issue."
Nooses to support the football team. Interesting. And according to this person the punishment for the boys was never published.
Then we have this story, again told by someone from Jena...a local journalist.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1024/p09s01-coop.html?page=1
"Myth 2: Nooses a Signal to Black Students. An investigation by school officials, police, and an FBI agent revealed the true motivation behind the placing of two nooses in the tree the day after the assembly. According to the expulsion committee, the crudely constructed nooses were not aimed at black students. Instead, they were understood to be a prank by three white students aimed at their fellow white friends, members of the school rodeo team. (The students apparently got the idea from watching episodes of "Lonesome Dove.") The committee further concluded that the three young teens had no knowledge that nooses symbolize the terrible legacy of the lynchings of countless blacks in American history. When informed of this history by school officials, they became visibly remorseful because they had many black friends. Another myth concerns their punishment, which was not a three-day suspension, but rather nine days at an alternative facility followed by two weeks of in-school suspension, Saturday detentions, attendance at Discipline Court, and evaluation by licensed mental-health professionals. The students who hung the nooses have not publicly come forward to give their version of events."
Hmmm...the nooses were directed at the school's rodeo team, based on an idea from "Lonesome Dove." And this "journalist" knows exactly what the punishment was.
And then we have the opinion of the FBI agents who investigated the noose incident.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/law/09/19/jena.six.link/index.html
"Washington said FBI agents who went to Jena in September to investigate the noose report, and other federal officials who examined what happened, concluded it "had all the markings of a hate crime.""
Now, let me see if I have this right. One resident says that the nooses were all about the football team, another says they were about the rodeo team, and the FBI says they look like a hate crime.
A question for you, Rod...and anyone else who wants to answer it. If the nooses were about the football team or the rodeo team, why did the HS principal, Scott Windham, recommend that the kids who hung the nooses be expelled? Was he unaware of the "tradition" of hanging nooses from the tree to support the football team or taunt the rodeo team? Did he not know about the "Lonesome Dove" story?
If this was all just a prank, as so many in town now contend, why did the FBI agents say that it "had all the markings of a hate crime?" Why did the Principal recommend that the kids who hung the nooses be expelled?
Something doesn't add up here, Rod. Surely, as a journalist, you can see that.
Yes, this is a very complex issue that cannot be neatly looked at with just the lens of racism. It's also about sports culture and a twisted local judicial system exacerbating a particular racial incident. Of course, the media presented it as only a racial issue, and so we get people on both sides screaming various injustices but not realizing that they are pawns. And then comes the sensationalism desired by the media: having blacks and whites so distrusting the other's motives and accusing prejudices for taking any particular side of the matter.
The school officials were wrong for not addressing a problem with some violent students that were violent long before the incident. But they were also wrong for ignoring the truly racially motivated pranks of a few students, that ought to have been addressed. Yes, the perpetrators need to be punished for their crime, but so do the other students involved, even if some of them happen to be white. And I am concerned that race is a factor from jumping what normally would be a charge of manslaughter for beating a human being all of the sudden jumped to attempt of muder. We cannot impose harsher sentences just because we're pissed about what happened and that the criminal deserve to suffer. That turns justice into vengeance.
We need to prevent the political overreaching in a corrupted judicial system. For beating a person, rarely is the crime considered attempt to murder if it were by a white man, or even if it were a white man beating a black woman or child (there have been other beatings such as these that have been reported by the news but neither blacks nor whites have given much of an outcry about them). It's because of that racial disparity in the racial that many people, whether black or white, are calling for "hate crime" legislation. Hate crime legislation would not be needed if you're more likely to have an inappropriately favorable sentence than a person not of your own race.
The charge that would have best fit the motives and outcome of the crime would have been manslaughter, and would have been most easily proven than attempt to murder, according to legal definitions for both charges.
So yes, shame on those who have made the Jena Six undeserving heroes, but also shame on those who want to go the opposite extreme and see black boys be convicted as murderers even if their crime does not fit that legal definition.
We need consistency in the judicial system.
As for asking a white separatist group to be disarmed, it's not just about denying one group their rights. I do think there should be legislation that participants of parades, regardless of their agenda, to not bring fire arms. If they don't bring fire arms, then there will be no question of their innocence should a violent episode arise between conflicting parties, and such things do happen. People can be rightfully speak against police brutality if they harm protestors that put up no physical or armed resistence. Yes, people have a right to defend themselves, but if people are going to be present who are angry at you, defending yourself with a firearm under a emotionally charged state can lead to the unintentional harm of innocents.
"there are no heroes here, white or black, nor any pure, uncut villains either. Just flawed human beings"
This is one of the truest things you may have ever said, Rod. Until both whites and blacks can face up to our genuine problems, we'll not see progress in our country.
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