Racism in Louisiana? I’m SHOCKED.
Recently, I was directed to an article about an event that happened in Jena, Louisiana where a black student asked Jena High School administration if he could sit under “the white tree”. Here are the details:
In September 2006, a black student at Jena high school asked permission from school administrators to sit under the “white tree.” School officials advised them to sit wherever they wanted. They did.
The next day, three nooses, in the school colors, were hanging from the “white tree.” The message was clear. “Those nooses meant the KKK, they meant ‘Niggers, we’re going to kill you, we’re going to hang you till you die,’” Casteptla Bailey, mom of one of the students, told the London Observer.
School spirit or racism? I think it’s pretty clear. The principal expelled the boys who put the nooses up, but the superintendent of schools over-ruled the principal and gave the students a three day suspension saying that the nooses were just a youthful stunt. “Adolescents play pranks,” the superintendent told the Chicago Tribune, “I don’t think it was a threat against anybody.”
Youthful stunt? What the hell? How very 1860 of the Jena superintendent.
On Monday, December 4, at Jena High, a white student – who allegedly had been making racial taunts, including calling African American students “niggers” while supporting the students who hung the nooses and who beat up the black student at the off-campus party – was knocked down, punched and kicked by black students. The white victim was taken to the hospital treated and released. He attended a social function that evening.
Six black Jena students were arrested and charged with attempted second degree murder. All six were expelled from school.
Black students decided to resist and organized a sit-in under the “white tree” at the school to protest the light suspensions given to the noose-hanging white students.
The white District Attorney then came to Jena High with law enforcement officers to address a school assembly. According to testimony in a later motion in court, the DA reportedly threatened the black protesting students saying that if they didn’t stop making a fuss about this “innocent prank… I can be your best friend or your worst enemy. I can take away your lives with a stroke of my pen.” The school was put on lockdown for the rest of the week.
Worst enemy eh? Sounds like blacks aren’t allowed the freedoms provided under the 1st amendment of the constitution, but that’s just my opinion. Call me crazy, but I like black people. Guess what - they’re people - I’m not kidding. Someone tell Jena.
This is the question: Had white students protested and sat under the tree on behalf of the blacks or even sat with the blacks, would the DA have come and threatened the students? I’m guessing not. And I’m a damn good guesser.
On the morning of the trial, the DA reduced the charges from attempted second degree murder to second degree aggravated battery and conspiracy. Aggravated battery in Louisiana law demands the attack be with a dangerous weapon. The dangerous weapon? The prosecutor was allowed to argue to the jury that the tennis shoes worn by Bell could be considered a dangerous weapon used by “the gang of black boys” who beat the white victim.
Most shocking of all, when the pool of potential jurors was summoned, fifty people appeared – every single one white.
Seems here like we have an opportunity to appeal on the grounds that the part of the law that says “Jury of your peers” was pretty much ignored. I’m wondering if you have to qualify for a certain level of racism to be allowed to be a juror in Jena? Couldn’t they have at least moved the trial to a different parish?
How about moving it to Lincoln parish? Oh wait, even there the blacks have their own town (Grambling) apart from the white folks. I’m going to get major grief from my relatives and friends in Ruston (where I was raised - which is the “white town” in Lincoln parish). But I don’t care. I think Louisiana has to be one of the most racist states in the USA. Anyone remember David Duke? He was the former Grand Wizard of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, and later became to represent the people of Louisiana by becoming a member of the house of representatives in the state of Louisiana (at different times, for both republican and democratic parties). You can’t tell me or anyone else that politics in Louisiana aren’t messed up.
If you want to read the full article: http://freethejenasix.com/
Update: The “white tree” at the high school has been cut down! Yay.
as an act of civil disobedience, I updated the wikipedia entry for Jena high school. I changed the school motto from “student learning is our top priority” to “student racism is our top priority”. In case they wise up, I’ve included an image for proof.
Update: CNN has posted a story about this situation today. Maybe now it will get appropriate coverage.
August 31st, 2007 at 3:22 pm
About a year ago, we had 2 friends from Jamaica (both black) who were graduating from a college here in Louisiana and leaving for Texas. They were telling us how they were surprised to see how blacks and whites did not hang out much together. In the cafeteria blacks sat on one side and whites on the other with few opposite races sprinkled in.
I spent a lot of time saying how growing up here I never through anything of it and black friends that I know who grew up here don’t think anything of it either. I hit my usual talking points of:
- things have come a long way, and it is ok for blacks and whites to be friends and no one is going to tell you anything.
- Racism is pretty much gone,
- victim’s mentality of a lot of people here
- and how racisms has evolved into classicism more than anything.
I think I had her pretty much convinced.
Then she called me last week to tell me about this story and basically said “told you so”.
I love Louisiana but this was rather embarrassing. I didn’t have much to say except that I hope this is an exception rather than a rule and the courts would sort it out. I hope.
Just when you think you are getting somewhere with building bridges, some idiot comes along with a tank of gas and a match and burns your bridge.
August 31st, 2007 at 4:30 pm
The most infuriating part to me is the links on this page.
It’s amazing to me that people think that just because black people exist on their side of the world/city/cafeteria/etc and generally act civil towards each other, that means racism is gone and they are not prejudiced. Look at the example of the barber..
People seem to think that even though they don’t want to interact or share their resources with black people in any way, as long as they’re not beating and hanging them, they’re not racist. They think that as long as black people are allowed to hold jobs and attend school, that the system is completely fair and equal. Well, as the Supreme Court taught us (after decades of institutionalized racism that THEY endorsed and upheld), separate is inherently unequal.
I bet if you asked the boys who taunted and threatened and assaulted the black kids if they were racist, they would say, “No, I’m not racist. I have black friends. I play with a black kid on the football team. I have a black kid in my study group. We don’t really hang out, I would never invite them to my house or out to a party, but we never talk about race, so it’s fine. I’m not racist at all.”
It’s so absurd.. The saddest part is that the kids of Jena high school are the biggest perpetrators. I expect the parents and administrators and government official to be racist and closed minded and corrupt. But I always thought my generation saw beyond that, I thought kids these days realized the stupidity of their parents and were determined to change that. It’s so sad to me that there are still kids under the age of 20 who have a pre-desegregation mentality of “blacks should just stay in their place and not try to mix with us.”
These are the same people who are going to get married, have kids, and teach their kids “We’re not racist. Blacks are fine, as long as you don’t date one or try to hang out with them outside of school. And make sure you lock your doors if you see one walk by your car.”
I can only hope that someone steps in and rights the terrible wrongs that have been done in Jena. These boys needs to be punished, but so do the white kids who have been harassing them, and the parents and school administrators who condoned it.
August 31st, 2007 at 8:49 pm
On the barber quote:
“I don’t think we’re racist here,” barber shop owner Billy Doughty, 70, said. “People work together, go to school together. We never talk about race.”
While I generally agree with Stacy, I can understand what the barber is saying. From his perspective, he probably grew up in a time and place where blacks were regarded about as highly as farm animals. And when I say farm animals, I mean as highly as I personally regard farm animals.
So from his perspective, if people are just being civil towards each other that would have been unthinkable to him at one time in his life when they would have been actively cursing and literally trying to kill each other.
I think it is just hard for us to comprehend just how things were at one time and how far they have come.
August 31st, 2007 at 9:51 pm
Does that mean we should just laugh and say, “Oh, that’s just crazy Barber Billy, don’t mind him, he’s just old and set in his ways”? Clearly we’re not going to change the minds of people who were raised to believe that African Americans are no better than “farm animals” but we still need to point out how absurd, ignorant, and closed minded those beliefs are, so that the younger generation doesn’t get trapped in the same cycle of hate.
August 31st, 2007 at 9:53 pm
Also, keep in mind that while Barber Billy may have lived in a less enlightened time, the kids who hung those nooses and harassed and bullied the black students did not. When they were born, blacks had full equality under the law. The civil rights movement was effectively over. They haven’t seen “how far things have come” at all. So what’s their excuse?
August 31st, 2007 at 10:45 pm
Thats essentially the point my friend made to me when she called. Her whole thing was we need to raise awareness about this issue.
I can’t put my finger on it, but it just seems that something is missing.
September 1st, 2007 at 11:16 pm
There will also be racism in any part of the world as long as different races live together.
It is an unfortunate fact of society and people in general. As generations evolve gap of dislike does seem to grow, however the families of different cultures will continue to raise their kids differently.
There are white families that will teach their kids that they a superior to the black kids in their community.
There are black families that will teach their kids that all whites hate them and police are going to put them in jail, so there is no reason to try.
It is like Bill Cosby said it is really all about education, black and white kids are all the really the same, but the gap is really about education.
as far as the story goes, they story really gets bad when violence enters the situation. Some white racist ignorant asshole does something stupid like hanging a noose, but physical harm will always be considered worse in the eyes of the law. thats a fact.
Ruston is not really a racist town as far as i have seen. Grambling is a town based on a traditionally black college. There is alot of black students in the public school system in Lincoln parish.
September 2nd, 2007 at 6:35 pm
My wife is black and she was telling me how in her country. Ok, I lied. She is from Japan. But anyway, she was telling me how she remembers her grand father telling them as kids how the “buraku” were an inferior class of Japanese and how he hated them. Told them not to talk to them, not to learn any of their ways, etc.
I found it very interesting that even in countries that are ethnically the same people (physically look the same), society still breaks them up into different castes anyway and makes rules that these people are ok, while these people are not good.
September 3rd, 2007 at 7:56 pm
That is pretty much a historic fact on how races interact.
September 8th, 2007 at 10:58 am
Yeah, I read this in the news several weeks ago. It’s not surprising whatsoever. However, with a little more digging around, I found the racial tensions in this situation weren’t entirely instigated by the whites. It was both sides taunting each other and has been going on for some time. I have several friends and a close family-friend from Gena. Podunk towns will never catch up to the rest of the world in racial diversity and acceptance. Or at least the feigned acceptance we have in the larger towns/cities.
September 20th, 2007 at 9:49 am
I found this article interesting:
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/law/09/20/jena.six/index.html
Meanwhile, the U.S. attorney who reviewed investigations into the nooses and the beating said he believes the incidents — though likely symptoms of racial tension — were not related.
“A lot of things happened between the noose hanging and the fight occurring, and we have arrived at the conclusion that the fight itself had no connection,” said Donald Washington, U.S. attorney for the Western District of Louisiana.
“There were three months of high school football in which they all played football together and got along fine, in which there was a homecoming court, in which there was the drill team, in which there were parades,” Washington added
September 21st, 2007 at 12:40 pm
i love how the person writing this article defends the black students right to the first amendment. But he says nothing of defending the the first amendment of the white students.
September 21st, 2007 at 12:44 pm
Heh, keep in mind. Speech is protected until it violates the rights of another. Threatening speech is not “free”. YOu may do it, but to your detriment. The hanging of those nooses (it can be argued) is a physical threat to those black kids. This was (preliminarily) proven today because JUST TODAY someone hung a noose on someone’s truck, and that person (and another) were both arrested.
September 21st, 2007 at 12:53 pm
did they say anything about direct physical threat?
There was “no connection that a prosecutor could take into court and say, ‘You know, judge or jury, we’re prosecuting these white kids for these nooses, and look at all the damage they caused downstream, all the way down to the fight at Jena High School on December 4,’” he told CNN’s Kyra Phillips on Tuesday.
“We could not prove that, because the statements of the students themselves do not make any mention of nooses, of trees, of the ‘N’ word or any other word of racial hate.”
LaSalle Parish District Attorney Reed Walters, who oversaw the local investigations into both incidents, rejected the idea there was “a direct linkage” between the hanging of the nooses and the schoolyard attack.
“When this case was brought to me and during our investigation and during the trial, there was no such linkage ever suggested,” Walters said in a news conference Wednesday in Jena. “This compact story line has only been suggested after the fact.”
the beating of the white student happened 3 months after the noose incidents.
September 21st, 2007 at 12:57 pm
White farmers, who have been ruthlessly murdered by Blacks in South Africa in acts that can only be described as mass-genocide, have now received warnings from their very own government that these farmers, who have lived on the land for generations, must now give up their land or pay the price. While the International Community ignores the viciousness occurring in South Africa, seemingly because the victims are White and the perpetrators are Black, the genocide of the White farmers continues unabated, with the South African government turning a blind-eye to this wicked massacre of people who merely want to grow crops on the land and feed the population.
Peter Moatshe, a prominent senior member of the African National Congress, spoke before the National Council of Provinces recently and told the White farmers in not so many words:
“The people who are yearning for land are running out… of patience. . . . The Freedom Charter does not say those who came must go. What… it says is white and black in this country must share the land. The land belongs to the people of this country. Therefore we make this challenge to those who have the land, that they shall make up their minds, otherwise it will be too late.”
It goes without saying that when he speaks of people “sharing the land,” that no Blacks are being dispossessed of their land–only Whites, many of whom have been murdered in vicious acts of genocide. Thousands of whites–men, women, children–even babies–have recently been hacked to death by Black hatemongers, who feel that White farmers owe them. Meanwhile, as a result of these murders and the government’s land “redistribution” efforts, hunger is increasing significantly there–in a country that, until a few years ago, was able to practically feed all of Africa, and have crops to spare!
I would like to see you write a article about a real injustice.
September 21st, 2007 at 1:01 pm
“the beating of the white student happened 3 months after the noose incidents.”
a snowball takes time to grow.
September 21st, 2007 at 1:04 pm
“When this case was brought to me and during our investigation and during the trial, there was no such linkage ever suggested,” Walters said in a news conference Wednesday in Jena. “This compact story line has only been suggested after the fact.”