I wonder when Amy Goodman is going to cover the racist F13 gangs in LA. BTW, these are the children of beloved “undocumented” Latino parents who came illegaly to the country to work. They are Amy’s persecuted “immigrants”. The incidents in Jena were reprehensible and revolting, but they pale in comparison to the ethnic cleansing going on in LA.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/61950

“Now it’s the Latino drug gangs that seem tighter and more highly controlled. “The Hispanic gangs like F13 were incredibly regulated, from the street level to the leadership in the prisons,” says Olivia Rosales, a hard-core gangs prosecutor for the L.A. district attorney’s office who prosecuted F13 and Crips homicide cases for two years. She now heads one of the DA’s satellite offices. “The East Coast Crips weren’t as organized.”

Top-down organization in F13 aided the assaults on black gangsters. The federal indictments charge that Mexican mafia leaders “make sure that all the F13 cliques were participating in the assaults of African-American rival gang members.” But the assaults went beyond rival gangs; they “target[ed] African-American individuals for assault,” according to the indictment. Gang leaders even allegedly instructed foot soldiers in how to hunt blacks in the most efficient manner, the feds maintain. A wiretap cited in the RICO indictment reveals that one gang leader allegedly told an underling that “when he went looking for African-Americans to shoot, only a driver and a shooter were needed.” “

For the most part white people in the South are trying to be better people in regard to race relations. What is happening in LA is beyond compare.
There are Latino gangs, who on regular basis go out at night to shoot down a couple of “mayates”. There is a high enough body count of black male and female youths week in and week out to keep Al Sharpton and Jess Jackson in a high rage for a decade of Sundays. Jena is small potatoes in comparison. I find Amy’s foundation grant liberalism disgusting. This has gone on for years, and Democracy Now hasn’t done show 1 about it.

The only reason I figure the liberal establishment is trying to go after whitey is because they are like the dog with the bone in his mouth looking at his reflection in the pond. One bone is the support of illegal alien Latino community and the other is the support of the black community. So those race card liberals are going to drop one bone to get the other bone in the reflection, and they will end up getting none of it.

I am disgusted by the lack principle of mainstream liberals. If they would just support enforcement of our borders then they could have the support of their traditional factions.

Amy, you are a clown.

106540 by MIke Orton

Mike,

Thanks for your comments. I can very much appreciate where you’re coming from.

But, there are problems here, in your perception of what occurred. Because, while you believe these incidents to NOT be “related”, they are indeed very much related. BUT, you would only know that, if you’d been able to follow the entire thing. And, that’s what always happens (not just now, but in day-to-day events just like this). The whole ‘story’ never gets out.

Still, I want to make it very, very, very, clear….that regardless of how you’ve interpreted the actions of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, (and quite frankly, I have no love for Sharpton myself, though Jesse Jackson did –at one time in the distant past- contribute great work to the original movement) there is NOBODY, (at least not any reasonable person on this thread) who has JUSTIFIED the beating that occurred. NOBODY.

HOWEVER, there were other incidents that happened between these incidents, altercations where the white guys showed up with a firearm on one occasion, (the black kids took it away and brought it to the police – nothing happened) and another occasion when the white guys attempted an altercation with broken bottle(s). So, there’s more than this available to the public eye, especially the public eye that remains ‘out of the loop’ in these kinds of circumstances.

So, it wasn’t just the nooses, and then whammo – the black kids attacked. Nor did they beat the white kid, -nearly to death-. Or, if he was near death, he recovered quickly, because he attended a school function later that same day.

So in reality, it’s very much about class/racism. And, while my own ethic/family background is very similar to yours, (a mixed breed of black/white) the reality is that this racism has existed since the beginning of time, and in OUR country…(as opposed to say Spain and Portugal where black slaves were also imported) the racism has been permanent, and has everything to do with the ‘times’ – specifically economic times.

Just a very quick read from yesterday’s news indicates multiple other ‘incidents’ of ‘noose hanging’ since this occurred in Jena. What is says (to a social-scientist) is that there are the same fundamental reasons for this sort of violence to be on the rise now, and they aren’t strictly related to race, but rather a combination of things, of which race is ALWAYS a component. But, it’s more than that. There really is a much larger picture here.

Now, I’ll agree that neither Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton are helping the ‘cause’, because their actions are misinterpreted. They worked at an earlier time in our history, (at least Jesse’s….I’m 54, so I remember when he was part of the CRM along with Dr. King and many of the others – I don’t know WHEN Sharpton appeared on the scene). Still, they could have done more harm than good in this case. On the other hand, I don’t know that ANY of them, (including the more progressives like Cornel West, or even Travis Smiley) could have done anything to PREVENT this injustice. Because, back to the bottom line, this isn’t an ‘isolated’ incident, but rather an outcome of an institutionalised system (racism) that has been in place for hundreds of years, up to and including right now, as I speak.

It isn’t as noticeable in some places (like urban and suburban regions) and definitely no place is as bad as the South, where time has stood still). But the reality for this particular incident, is like any other. The damn burst…as it will, when the oppressed become just that much more oppressed…and it seems that the entire world is ignoring the injustice. So, when you live with these injustices, -DAILY- every day of your life, and when they are BLATANT – then this is actually to be expected. One thing leads to another, and then another, and then another.

Meantime, Mychael Bell is back in jail.

So Ray Hicks believes that investigative journalism that speaks truth to power is “extremely dangerous.” Ray, are you sure your name isn’t George Orwell?

#102322 by Ray Hicks

So Ray Hicks,

What’s up with the less-than-subtle attempt to smear Amy Goodman as being “amusing” out of touch with reality, and “nostalgic”, and all of that. (see also your post (#102186).

I see just two comments from you, (though there could be more) on the only thing you do in either one of them, is to diss Amy Goodman.

So, what do you think is so “amusing”, or nostalgic about what’s going on with the Jena Six. Doesn’t seem all that amusing to me. Not a damn bit really.

And, the only “nostalgia” I see to it, is that it’s a continuation of an age old poisoning institution...Slavery and the dehumanization of black folks. I’d say that’s closer to an on-going nightmare than anything the least bit funny.

So, what’s up with that? Do you have an opinion on the actual topic, or just Amy Goodman? Lots of the rest of us watch or listen to her everyday as well, and can pretty much judge her talents and abilities as a journalist for ourselves.

And, one of the things that makes her show what it is, is her GUESTS, and what she’s talking to them about. How does that translate to a couple of less-than-subtle diatribes on her?

#102150 Conservative Yankee
• Oh, BTW, this is Mychal Bell’s third assault conviction. In “liberal” California, and Urban New York the charge would constitute a class 2 Felony.

You’re wrong again Conservative Yankee, so maybe you haven’t read enough yet. Any prior charges of Mychal Bell would not have been considered in his trial, because that’s the law, not just here in “liberal” California or “urban” New York, but everywhere, since this is the “law”. So, it doesn’t matter. It’s a MOOT point.

And, one of the reasons for that, is depicted in this incident. We have a SERIES of crimes perpetrated by the SAME mob group of white students, against the same group of black students. Aside from a variety of beatings, (prior to the beating of the white kid) there was also the incident of the white kids pulling a gun on the black kids, and then there was the incident with the white kids approaching the black ones with broken bottle(s). So, we’re up to two class A FELONIES right there that had already occurred, (perpetrated by the white ones against the black ones) but NONE of those assaults with deadly weapons were even noted by the police. Gee, What’s up with that? Do ya think that if maybe those FELONIES had been addressed, that all of the kids might have these various and sundry crimes on their records?

And, can I mention again, that this doesn’t have shit to do with Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton, seeing as neither one of them are attorneys, and their kids weren’t involved, and they don’t live in Jena, LA? They are activists, who as members of the black minority in this country, have frequently come to mobilize the rest of the minority in order to bring to the rest of the nations’ attention to the fact that outside of their own little white bubbles, this racist form of injustice continues to occur everyday?

And, how is it that you can live in Massachusetts, and run a half-way house (that you call foster care) paid for by federal and your own state tax payers (that would be your “salary” and whatever they pay for the kids’ care) and NOT be aware of such blatant racism? (obviously you don’t “foster” any black kids from the “urban” areas of Massachusetts) .
If you do, they should run for their lives and demand another “foster- caregiver” or immediate emancipation, seeing as how you sound way more like a warden or plantation overseer than a foster care-giver.  I’ve only needed to read a few hundred words from you, to know that I would have torn my ass outta YOUR establishment a LONG time ago!!! ( I would have found a way to kick in that 50 cents for my dental work too.)

Meantime, you’ve given me an idea. I need a job to supplement my very measly retirement income, so I think I should just take in a few foster kids, and let the government PAY me, to do what I’ve always done anyway, without any “formal” arrangements. What is it up to now, about $1,825. per month, per kid now? (I guess it depends on the state/county/etc.) And then, they pay for all of their required care too, like their medical, dental, school stuff, right?) Well, except for that 50 cents that you now have to kick in. So, I’m guessing 3 or 4 kids would surely ease a bit of the strain, and then I’d also have my own little personal body guards, to protect me from the BlackWater Shirts.

So, thanks for the tip. I hadn’t even thought of it before. Like I said, I’ve been doing it for free all of this time.

Conservative Yankee, you see only what your ideologically blinded mind wants to see.  And since when does racial injustice occuring within one of these “united” states become “distant” trouble? Define “distant.”

To FFURKS:  I will add to my last post.  How does the “fact” that slaves were transported on “New England scows” alter the fact that the “institution” of slavery existed and persisted in the South, continuing long after the slave trade (the seizure of free Africans and transportation on those ships) became an international crime?  Do either you are Conservative Yankee possess the ability to maintain an intellectual dialogue without straying into irrelevant matter having no bearing on the issue at hand?

• #102118 by Peter2891
Well Peter, fortunately, Ernest Canning has taken-up the chore of having already responded to this inquiry from you, so I’ll just ask that you read it though, and hope that you might now “get it”. I see that you still don’t. What I can say is that while I am OVERWHELMINGLY FAMILIAR, with the phenomena of Louisiana being a “codified law state”, it also has some laws on the books that make what has occurred to the Jena Six UNLAWFUL, even in THAT backward ass state.

So, that’s what I meant about justice needing to be equal, or it not being justice. You have chosen to take what I presume to be the same information that all of us have obtained, which is not complete, but is far MORE complete than what we generally hear of these incidents, and you have interpreted it in your own way, so that it’s “the black kids fault” for allegedly ganging up on one white kid, who (according to the same information) attended a school SOCIAL function later that evening. (maybe to continue the fight?)

And yes Peter, it WAS a fight. It was a series of fights, each time with one more injustice added to the sum total, (beginning with when the black kid ASKED PERMISSION to sit under the tree). Is that what you meant by the codified nature of Louisiana state law? In other words, it wasn’t actually “written anywhere”, that the black kids couldn’t sit under that tree, but THEY KNEW THEY COULDN’T SIT UNDER IT, because it was “codified” as in “codified racism” because it has existed there, for so very, very, long. Like, as long as I’ve been alive, and I know the area well, since the paternal side of my family has 6 generations rooted right there.

So, you’re right Peter. There’s no “law” that says you can’t hang a noose or a few dozen on a tree. Just like there’s no “law” that says that a black kid, or 5 or 6, shouldn’t be able to sit under a tree – any tree, on their own school yard. And yet, because of the “codification” of old southern racism, (that also has existed in the North, East and West) the KIDS knew that they needed to ask their white “peers” for “permission” to sit under that tree. And, while that permission was apparently “granted” at the moment; the very next day, the 2, 3, or however many nooses appeared in the same tree, and the black kids knew what THAT meant as well. (more codified stuff).

Here’s the bottom line Peter, that you still don’t get. Justice is not equal, when it is not equally administered. Black people in the South (and elsewhere) know this. It’s a fact of life. You being the typical racist in denial, will always find something “codified” in your mind, that you’ll use to excuse or denounce anything, depending on which side you’re on. One minute you’ll use traditional/customary turned codified law, and then you’ll turn it around in the same sentence, and claim that whatever you’re using doesn’t matter, because the written law says something else.
Read what happened,. Then you can whip out your LA state statutes. But, you’re gonna have to look at the Federal Laws too, (which you’ve also chosen to ignore) and see if you can come up with some better explanation for how justice can be justice, even when it’s administered unequally. You’re going to have to ask yourself why an appeals court overturned the illegal conviction of a minor on adult charges. (because it’s the law) and you’ll have to ask yourself why, even after that, the kid still sits in jail without bail.

Like I mentioned before, these are common occurrences, and if it weren’t for the integrity of investigative journalists like Ms Goodman, who was on this LONG BEFORE the celebrity black folks were, we wouldn’t know, unless we were there and witnessed it ourselves. You weren’t, and in this case, neither was I.

And BTW, this isn’t about Jesse J. or Al Sharp.

Well, the only wonder is why it took this long before a neo-Nazi nut job entered the discussion as an unregistered guest, who like the cowardly KKK hiding underneath the white sheets, adopts the name “Anon,” as he or she spews idiotic propaganda about Communists invading our schools, who expouses the barely disguised but altogether blatant racism that lies at the core of the anti-immigrant bashing ("illegal Mexicans”?) and who refers to the African Americans who flocked to Jena to damand equal justice as a swarm of “flies.”

But then what did we expect would happen, given we have posters like FFURKS and Conservative Yankee directing our attention to one irrelevancy after another in an effort to suggest that the Southern history of Jim Crow and its peculiary brand of injustice is a figment of our imagination; that by pointing to such facts as that 60% of the LaSalle Parish voted as late as 1991 to make a former Grand Wizzard of the KKK their governor, we are merely assuaging our own guilt because, after all, there were New England ships involved in the slave trade some two hundred years ago.  What rubbish!

Finally, let’s put something to rest.  No one I have read on this site, not Amy Goodman, not one of the posters disgusted by this racist brand of Southern Justice, has suggested that “any” of the assaults at issue in Jena were justified. 

What is at issue the inequal application of justice, starting with the failure of the school board to punish those students who hung the noose, followed by the remark by a white DA who, in response to a peaceful protest amounting to nothing more than students sitting under the tree en masse, came to the school in the company of armed officers and told the peaceful assembly that he could end their lives with a stroke of a pen.  Next we have not one but several physical beatings of black students by whites; no arrests, no prosecutions.  Next we have a white student pointing a gun at two black students, who wrestle the gun away and then call the police.  When that occurred, the black students were arrested; charged with the theft of the gun.  The white student was not charged with anything.  Finally, we have a white student injured in an altercation with black students.  The details of that altercation are sketchy--we do not know how it started, and, despite charges being brought against six black students, we do not know whether all six actually made any physical contact with the white student.  We know that the white student was injured (one eye swollen shut, bruises and a concussion).  It is probable that one or more of the the Jena 6 is guilty of the crime of battery and should have been charged with that crime in Juvenile court.  That is not what occurred.  The same DA who told them he could end their lives with a stroke of a pen; who failed to prosecute any of the whites for prior assaults, over-charged them with the crime of attempted murder as a means to try these black students as adults before an all-white jury.

Those are the facts.  They entail a continuation of Jim Crow injustice in the heart of the deep South--facts that are in no way altered by the fact that New England ships were involved in Middle Passage some two hundred years ago.

Cyrena
I feel pretty confident I understand what is happening.  I don’t think I’m “missing the point”.  Although I would like to know how this incident was “hyped” so as to allow it to come about in the first place.
If, as you say, nobody is trying to justify the beating of Justin Barker.  Then you must agree Mychal Bell and the five other’s charged in this incident committed a crime and should be held accountable for their actions.
You state Justin Barker was “allegedly” rendered unconscious.  And, that he recovered quickly enough to attend a “social school function” later that same day.  Don’t you mean allegedly recovered quickly enough to attend a school social function that same day.
You state that if justice is not equal “then it’s not justice”.  Please clarify because it appears to me your just spewing pent up 60’s anti-establishment rage.  Justice isn’t tit for tat.  That’s revenge, which is exactly what the savage six were bent upon when they brutally attacked Justin Barker.  If justice was dependent on past injustices then there never be any justice for anyone or anything.  And that’s “the flippin point”.
You also refer to the beating of Justin Barker as a “fight”.  Six people attacking on person, without warning or provocation isn’t a fight.  It is an assault.  If six people assaulted you while you were walking down the street would you feel you had been involved in a fistfight or that you had been assaulted?
You state that if the incident involving the nooses hanging from the tree had been sufficiently and equally dealt with the beating of Justin Barker would never have occurred.  I question how the incident could have been dealt with “equally” since there was no similar incident preceding to use as precedent.  The three imbeciles that hung the nooses were expelled.  The expulsion was reversed by the school district administration and they were suspended.  That apparently was not sufficient for the black community in Jena.  Okay, what should have been done.  Louisiana is a codified law state.  There is no law against tying nooses to trees.  So no crime occurred.  A wrong occurred, so what’s the punishment?  Apparently it’s a racially motivated assault on a friend of the original three imbeciles, and an attempt to burn down the school.
The racism occurring in Jena was initiated by a single black student that didn’t like the idea of white students congregating under a tree.  He is the one that threw the manure into the the wind machine if for no other reason than to see where it would land.  Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton seized upon the incident to get some headlines, because that’s what they do, and spark a new race war.  Why, again because that’s what they do.
Now, do YOU GET IT.

Cyrena, thank you for an excellent comment and for your kind words.  While we are on the subject of historical accuracy, here are some facts provided by Amy Goodman on Democracy Now!

Jena is located within La Salle Parish, La.  In 1991, David Duke, former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, ran for governor of La.  He received 60% of the vote in La Salle Parish.

Ref#101836 by Ernest Canning

• “I simply don’t understand those posters who can be presented with an accurate historical context of the present-day…”

• “No matter the accuracy in recounting this ugly chapter in “American history,” these posters find it necessary to say, yeah but it happened elsewhere or to other people.  What relevance does that have to the context of an article about nooses hung from a tree in Jena?” …My answer: NONE.

Ernest, I can always count on you to sum up this (and other) phenomena of the human denial process, and far better than I could, because this is always a tricky thing for me, at least when I’m trying to stay away from “generalizations”. (ie, they “all” think this way, because not everyone is afflicted).

My new these people are the “rubberband-man” argument folks. For me, they are slightly more sophisticated than the typical straw-man argument, because they take their imaginations a little further, which allows them to come up with a method to de-contextualize and/or obfuscate ANYTHING. It’s the “deny, deny, deny, syndrome”. And, if you listen to them over a period of time, we realize that either they honestly DON’T know, (read…ignorant) or they just can’t take the truth, because of it’s ugliness, and because…well, that also leads to (maybe) a little self-examination, that would make them at least indirectly complicit in the perpetration of all of these social ills and evils.

But, if one can pretend that these realities don’t exist, or that they are the fault of “someone else”, (and absolutely NEVER them) then that tidies it up for them, all very neatly. The standard answer is, “well, THEY did it too”…and so that somehow means that they’re off the hook.

An example of this is a comment by Jena resident Ricky somebody, yesterday during the march/demonstration at Jena. He said, (and this is a paraphrase from memory), that he did not like the the suggestion that there was a problem of RACISM in his hometown, because according to him, his town is NOT racist, and –everybody gets along-!!

And for HIM, everybody DOES “get along”, so long as black people “stay in their place”, subservient and on their “side of town”. It’s only when they want to sit under the white folks’ tree, that there becomes a problem. And, that’s not racism, (according to them) that’s just black folks stepping out of their place. If they didn’t there would be no racial problems; at least in their minds. And, they’re pretty convinced of this argument, even though it makes a rational mind reel.

I got the same thing yesterday in a message from the Conservative Yankee, when I suggested that he be “objective” in his stated arguments for his hatred of the Clintons. He stretched/jerry-rigged that around to suggest that it was the same as expecting someone to ADVOCATE on behalf of the murderer of their own mother.  So, what I suggested as an exercise of critical thinking; (being objective, weighing the facts, the connection of the facts, and allowing for or acknowledging one’s own bias within that analysis), turns into a suggestion that in order to do that, one must be willing to ADVOCATE on behalf of the murderer of their own mother.

So, he obviously confuses or de-contextualizes the concept of “objectivity”. I say: be “objective”, and mean that we should look at the WHOLE, and try to divorce it from individual biases that we have, (at least to the extent of acknowledging our own bias) and he turns that into being an “advocate” for the murderer of one’s own mother, just as he blames Clinton for the travesty of the eminent domain ruling that devastated a community in Massachusetts, even though Clinton had long since left the WH when that occurred, and wouldn’t have had a “say” in it, even if he WAS still the president at the time.

So, that’s what we’re dealing with, with these kinds of posters. They aren’t ever gonna see, and they won’t ever accept any historical accuracy that doesn’t fit the denial.

FFURKS:  a) I am not a “northerner,” b) I never said that lynchings were limited to the South.  In fact the book I cite, “Beyond Sanctuary” contains photos (and post cards) of lynchings of African Americans in Duluth Minnesota, Marion, Indiana, Hastings, Omaha & Calloway, Nebraska, and Cairo, IL.  It includes photos of whites who were lynched as well.

There is no doubt that racism was (AND IS) a nation-wide phenomenon.  But none of that erases the fact that it was the South in which the “peculiar institution” (aka slavery) was centered.  While much was made about de facto segregation in the north and west, often enhanced by restrictive covenants in the conveyance of real property, the institution of formal Jim Crow laws was unique to the South.

The fact is that lynchings of Africa Americans was far more prevalent in Southern states than elsewhere, which became famous for its unique concepts of inequitable justice--one white, the other black. 

I simply don’t understand those posters who can be presented with an accurate historical context of the present-day hanging of three nooses from a tree in a central Louisiana high school.  No matter the accuracy in recounting this ugly chapter in “American history,” these posters find it necessary to say, yeah but it happened elsewhere or to other people.  What relevance does that have to the context of an article about nooses hung from a tree in Jena?  Surely no one would suggest that the fact that past lynchings took place in “northern” or “western” states somehow absolves the deep South of its moral responsibility for barbarism!

When white students hung those nooses after a black student sat under “their” tree, their message was clear.  It was the same message delivered back in the 60s by Bull Conor and his snarling police dogs; the same message the local DA delivered when he told the peaceful African Amerian student protesters who had gathered under the tree that he could destroy their lives with a stroke of his pen--"Stay in your place, boy!”

The subsequent events in which a white student who points a gun at black students is not even charged with a crime, yet the black victims of this assault with a deadly weapon are charged with theft for wrestling the gun away; when the DA brings no prosecutions when blacks are beaten by whites and then charges blacks with attempted murder when a white student is injured in a fight harkens back to the days when the KKK would terrorize African Americans, burning down houses and churches, carrying out lynchings and then be absolved of all responsibility by all-white juries.

Cyrena, you make an excellent point about equality and justice.  One of the incidents leading up to the “alleged” battery (which the DA converted into attempted murder charges) involved a group of white kids who beat up one of the black kids for entering an all-white party.  No arrests.  Another entailed a white student who pulled a gun on two black students.  The black students wrestled the gun away from him, fled then called the Jena police.  The black students were arrested and charged with theft of the gun.  The white student was neither arrested nor charged.  When you pull a gun and point it at someone, you are committing an assault with a deadly weapon.  No explanation has ever been provided by the Jena police or the DA, who has also not explained why, in response to a peaceful demonstration in which the black students sat beneath the tree en masse, he personally showed up on campus, accompanied by armed police officers, and told the quiet gathering of students that he could end their lives with a stroke of a pen.

From the cavalier dismissal of the nooses as simply a “prank,” to the failure to charge a single white student with assault, to a willingness to convert a simple or possibly aggravated battery (depending upon the number of black students actually involved) into attempted murder charges, we see inequity arising from virulent racism.

#101622 by Peter on 9/20 at 12:08 pm

...."Nothing pior to the incident involving the “Jena Six” justifies six people attacking one person, beating him unconcious, and then kicking him in the head, while unconcious, until his ears bled."…

Peter, I think you’ve missed the point here, possibly guided by the same hype and mentality as what allowed this to come about to begin with.

In short, NOBODY is trying to “justify” anything! OK?
And that included the beating of this one white kid, (and we don’t KNOW how many others were actually “involved” in the actual “beating”, because Mychal Bell is so far the only one to be tried. So, we don’t know.

We know that the kid was allegedly rendered unconscious, and that he recovered well enough and quickly enough to attend a social school function later the same day. That’s what we know.

But, there is no “justification” for the beating, and that’s not the flippin’ point!! The POINT, is that “justice”, (be in in the form of punishment or reward) is supposed to be EQUAL!! If it’s not, then it’s not justice.

THAT is the reason why I suggested that it would be helpful to know the circumstances leading up to the alleged beating, that allegedly rendered the white kid unconscious, and wound six black ones in jail, with one so far tried as an adult, when in fact there is not state law that allows for him to be tried as an adult on these charges.

And, this particular incident was only the last in a series of fights, (from the first racially motivated one, as a result of the nooses) and that absolutely NO “punishment” had been delivered to ANY of the white ones involved, in ANY of the earlier fights. (sorry, a few did get suspended a few days, from school, while the black ones went to jail… all the same fight)

So, in case you didn’t get it, this isn’t about a “justification” for anything. It’s about the fact that this fight may never have gotten to this point, if they had all been sufficiently and EQUALLY dealt with at the time when the noose incident first happened.

Get it now?

Purplewolf erects a straw man.  While similar atrocities can be cited with respect to, for example, the genocidal campaign carried out against Native Americans under the racist banner of “Manifest Destiny,” the plain and simple fact is that lynchings became a peculiar form of “Southern Justice” during the era known as Jim Crow. 

During this period, the lynchings were celebrated events.  As noted by Leon Litwack in “Beyond Sanctuary,” “Varying only in degrees of torture and brutality, these execution rituals were acted out in every part of the South.  Sometimes in small groups, sometimes in massive numbers, whites combined the roles of judge, jury and executioner.  Newspaper reporters dutifully reported the events under such lurid headlines as ‘COLORED MAN ROASTED ALIVE,’ describing in graphic detail the slow and methodical agony and death of the victim and devising vocabulary that would befit the occasion.  The public burning of a Negro would soon be known as a ‘Negro Barbecue,’ reinforcing the perception of blacks as less than human.”

Litwack goes on to note how the use of photography “to memorialize lynchings testified to their openness and to the self-righteousness that animated the participants.” Litwack quotes a contemporary account of the 1915 lynching of Thomas Brooks in Fayette County, Tennessee:

“Hundreds of kodaks clicked all morning at the scene of the lynching.  People...came from miles around to view the corpse dangling from the end of a rope....Picture card photographers installed a portable printing plant at the bridge and reaped a harvest in selling postcards showing a photograph of the lynched Negro.  Women and children were there by the score.  At a number of country schools the day’s routine was delayed until boy and girl pupils could get back from viewing the lynched man.”

The book contains a photos of two sides of a post card made during a 1902 lynching in Georgia.  One side depicts the charred torso of an African American hanging in mid air.  On the other side, someone wrote:  “Warning.  The answer of the Anglo-Saxon race to black brutes who would attack the womanhood of the South.”

So, purplewolf, when the descendants of these white barbarians hung the nooses in Jena, the black students immediately understood that they were not alluding to the Salem witch trials or to atrocities carried out against Native Americans.  They understood only too well what those nooses referred to.

#101537 by hippy pam on 9/20 at 3:36 am

….”OR ELSE THEY COULD HAVE GOT A LAWYER AND CLAIMED PREJUDICE,OPRESSION AND BIGOTRY...AND WE ALL KNOW THEY WOULD HAVE WON THAT CASE ...I REPEAT-THERE WAS NOT ANY “IN CHARGE AUTHORITY” AND THE “ANIMALS” WERE ALLOWED TO RUN THAT ZOO....”

Hippy Pam,

I know you probably meant well, but in the reality of this situation, in the South, (Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, as well as bits and pieces of other States in the general vicinity, LAWYERS ARE NOT AN OPTION, for these folks. Even if they COULD have found a lawyer, they wouldn’t have been able to do a damn thing about the PREJUDICE, OPPRESSION, AND BIGOTRY!! Nope, not a damn thing!!

Ernest Canning said it already, time has stood still, in Central and other parts of Louisiana, and the NOOSE MENTALITY is still alive and well, and living in the South. This is not “one incident”. It is a continuation of what has been going on for Centuries, and unless you’ve lived though it, you aren’t gonna know. And, that’s OK. But, since you don’t know, you have to withhold judgment until you do.

Meantime, for a course in how things are done in the South, you can read an excellent book by Mamie Till-Mobley, mother of Emmett Till, who was lynched and thrown in a Mississippi river just over 50 years ago. He was 14 years old at the time.

The book is “Death of Innocence”. This is that same thing, happening now, and it’s been happening all along. You just rarely hear of this stuff, because poor black people in the South, DON’T HAVE LAWYERS, and prejudice, oppression, and bigotry are still standard fare in this neck of the woods.

# 101520 Ernart Canning:

With comment to yours about “Lynchings”. This is nothing new to this country and it certainly is not a “black thing.” It is totally deplorable to hang someone,but it is a part of American history that goes back to the Salem witchcraft trails,where innocent,mostly women were hanged as witches.A white on white crime. Then we can move forward a few hundred years to the Native American Indian. Hanging was a way of controling and killing Indians once the white man took over and stole the land. Indians were often hung,having commited no crime but as a way to control them and steal more away from the indigenous peoples.It was used as a way to teach them a lesson that if you do not do as the(goverment/calvary/white man)wants,we will kill you until you finally do as we say or we will have to punish all of you to teach you a lesson so you will learn,makes a lot of sense one you kill off everyone. So when lynching came about in the southern part of this country it was no surprise as this has been used before to “control” people whom some feel threatened by.It was wrong them and it is wrong today.

“P.T.  Please provide the ‘source’ of your ‘version’ of what occurred.”

I have no one source.  I have pieced things together from different newspapers.  Articles other than those in Louisiana newspapers are often very cryptic—a few paragraphs.

One almost never sees mentioned that Mychal Bell seems to have a habit for this sort of thing.  He’s got four prior cases, two of them for assault (but it doesn’t seem to have slowed him down much).  I thought Louisiana was supposed to be a law and order place.

What’s the “source” for your “version”?

Boston Globe—September 20, 2007

“The Rev. Jesse Jackson appeared to backtrack yesterday from criticism of Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama for not being more vocal about the controversial case of six black teenagers charged in the beating of a classmate in Jena, La.”

P.T.  Please provide the “source” of your “version” of what occurred.

Sept.20 (ANI): American civil rights leader and former presidential candidate Jesse Jackson has accused fellow Democrat and African American, Barack Obama, of “acting like he’s white” in his campaign for the White House.

Reverend Jackson, whose chequered political career has been regularly punctuated with controversial race-related outbursts, told an audience in South Carolina that he did not think Senator Obama was bold enough to catch up with the party’s frontrunner, Hillary Clinton.

It was not a fight; it was an attack.&n