Where is the NAAACP where is Al Sharpton where is Jesse Jackson.To busy burying the n word to deal with real problems.If this was about a white DJ and national attention you can bet your ass they would be there.The crime here is that the above bring with them tons of media and that media attention could really help these kids but no too busy burying the n word.These are the modern equilavents of lynchings.

I was a person born in the north and lived in Calif for 20 years and I went to La. to live, and the race issue is not below the surface it is on the surface, and the main reason is poverty, and in New Orleans the poor will not return because this administration has keep funds for the poor at a low level, what I am referring to is HUD money, the money is not there therefore the HUD Housing in N.O. is not there and the housing that can be fixed the money for that will not be available also, when you take lack of housing, lack of schools and lack of jobs that is the reason people will stay away from N.O.

The reason for the flood in N.O. was man made, you had this channel dug during the 50ies or 60 ies and little used, but it was perfect for the water surge and the water was toxic also, but people will say the levees should not be rebuilt, you know if Denmark and the Netherlands can do it why not here?

Again the race issue will be around as long as issues like what happens in La. Tx and Mississippi exist.

If these kids are actually convicted, they should file a lawsuit against NIKE for producing and manufacturing “dangerous weapons.”

In this way, NIKE would intervene to argue that their shoes are not “dangerous weapons” and the “aggravated battery” charges will be forced to even lesser ones.

It then forces the prosecution team to be scrutinized even closer as to what their real motives are.

Racism has become the most easiest thing to recognize and deal with in America. The only defense a racist has against the accusation is: “Nuh-unhhh!”

This is another disturbing story of the no so latent racism that continues to simmer, just under the surface, and then occasionally boil up down in these parts. Just to put things into geographic perspective consider that in June 1998 James Byrd was dragged to death by racist skinhead Neo-Nazi about 3 hrs southwest of Jena in Jasper, Tx (the three suspects were convicted and sentenced to life and/or long prison terms).

In 2003 a group of white kids at a ‘pasture party’ beat Billy Ray Johnson senseless in Linden, TX (home of ragtime composer Scott Joplin, the Eagles’ Don Henley, and birthplace of blues legend T-Bone Walker [They Call It Stormy Monday’]) about 4 hrs drive northwest of Jena. The “kids” received minimal sentences from an all-white jury in their criminal trial - “Just boys being boys” - but the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Morris Dees recently won a $9 million settlement for Mr. Johnson in Jasper’s civil court . Mr. Johnson is confined to a care facility for the rest of his life as a result of his head injury.

On December 30, 2006 newly elected black mayor Gerald Washington of Westlake, LA - 3 hrs southwest of Jena (right near Lake Charles) was found dead of a single gunshot wound to the chest in a parking lot. Although much controversy arose over this death and the evidently cavalier investigation by the local sheriff’s dept it now appears that his death was a bona fide suicide brought on by the recognition that his new found notoriety would also make public his massive gambling losses and serial marital infidelities and the case has been closed. The family, it must be said, continues to contest the findings of several supporting investigations and a 3rd autopsy by an independent pathologist hired by the family was inconclusive due to insufficient material evidence - a likely result of the poor crime-scene management.

On the 1st Sunday of the New Year, parties still unknown fired two shotgun blasts through the front windowof the newly elected black mayor of Greenwood, LA - about 3 hrs northwest of Jena, just west of Shreveport - without injury to anyone. Despite an investigation including the FBI no charges have been filed.

On April 23rd, 2006, two Neo-Nazi skinheads in Spring, Texas - about 51/2 hours southwest of Jena - attacked 17 year-old Latino David Ritcheson for allegedly attempting to kiss a white girl.  They beat him senseless, burned him with cigarettes, sodomized him with an outdoor umbrella pole, poured bleach over him, carved a swastika on his chest, and left him for dead.  The assailants were both convicted of aggravated assault and imprisoned for life. After enduring more than 30 reparative surgeries, Ritcheson committed suicide earlier this month (delayed homicide?).

Viewed in this perspective, it’s not at all surprising to see the Jena Six charged, and convicted, from the Jim Crow edition of the U.S. Penal Code.