Thousands of protestrs from all over have descended upon Jena, Louisiana over the prosecution of 6 black kids for beating a white student practically insensate. The protestors are angry, among other things, because they believe that neither the officials at Jena High School nor State and Federal officials took seriously the presence of nooses on a tree in the schoolyard. The tree, known derisively as "the white tree" because only white kids stood beneath it during breaks, sprouted the nooses after the school authorities told black kids they could stand there as well.
It is a complicated and ugly situation no matter how you slice it. An excellent summary of the facts of the case can be found here in today's New York Times.
I don't really know what to think from my vantage point up here 180 miles from the piney woods of LaSalle Parish. But I know these things in general. Those idiots that put those nooses on that tree should have been expelled for the semester. Given the sorry history with lynching in the Deep South any other response to such a provocative act was completely inadequate. On the other hand, the fact that morons put nooses in that tree is no excuse for 6 guys to kick the hell out of another kid. Finally, I close with the observation that the Reverends Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson are little better than charlatans at this stage in their careers. I am a fair man, however. I am willing to concede that Sharpton picks his fights a little better nowadays than he did back in the day when he took on law enforcement in upstate New York over the completely bogus claim that a young confabulist named Tawana Brawley had been raped. Good for him.
But back to Jena. Nothing good will come from any of this. For anybody. Nothing. Sharpton and Jackson will get to blow town once they grow bored with the circus. The people of Jena, black and white alike, will be left to clean up the mess.
1 comment:
The Revs Jackson and Sharpton made big noise over the Don Imus debacle... but when rights were trampled on in reverse, i.e., the Duke lacrosse players falsely accused by a black woman and tried by the likes of Nancy Grace, Jesse and Al were quiet as church mice. What's wrong with this picture?
Either you fight for fair treatment for all Americans, or you are racially biased. And publicity hogs. And users whose real agenda makes use of controversy for self gain.
I agree about what might have been done at the school. I vote to fire the administrators and expel the students - all of them. Hell, shut down the town. And turn away the busloads of protesters. Why do we have to go back to that sad place and time?
Plus que ca change, plus que c'est le meme chose. Makes me sick.
lu
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