I've tried to stay away from speaking about the goings on in Jena, Louisiana because it is being covered so much in the news and on thousands of other blogs so I didn't think there would be a point. But then I saw the news conference yesterday held by Reed Walters, the District Attorney in that part of the state. Now I have to say something.
I can understand how people might be a little conflicted about how they feel about this case when Al Sharpton is involved. Well meaning people have been burned my him before, and he doesn't admit when he's wrong about a case of racism that turns out not to be that. And he doesn't apologize when he has made a mistake. So I understand the reservation on taking Sharpton at his word.
BUT,
After looking at the things that have transpired in Jena over the last year, anyone who says that there is no racism problem in that town are liars, fools or both.
DA Reed says race played no part in his decision making. He has made a big stink of pointing out that he has no law available to prosecute the kids who hung the nooses from the tree at the high school. He claims that he can't prosecute with the hate crime statue because there needs to be another crime to be able to pile the hate crime rule on top of. While this is true, he is being dishonest in claiming he needs a hate crime law to prosecute the guys who did it. You do not need a hate crime statute to prosecute someone for threats and intimidation. He has also avoided answering why he did not go after the white kids who committed acts of violence against the black kids. In one of the incidents a white kid pulled a shotgun on some black kids, they wrestled it away from him. Instead of the white kid being charged with threatening them with a gun, they were charged with stealing the gun. Prior to that a group of white kids beat up a black kid that involved someone hitting him over the head with a bottle.
Almost nothing was done by the DA to go after anyone with white skin who committed an act of violence against someone with black skin. If he had done his job from the beginning it is possible that what finally came to pass in this small town may never have happened.
What irks me more than anything in this whole case is the claim by local white people and the right-wing propaganda machine that there is no racial problem in Jena. The real truth is there is a huge racial problem there
I grew up in the south, in a town not that much different in size than Jena, albeit much closer to an urban area, outside of Atlanta. I've heard the subtle racist-speak many times. And it is very pervasive in the mouths of the white Jena residents, the DA and the right-wing "press".
The biggest charge is that all of the problems in Jena are being caused by "outsiders" and that there is no problem between blacks and whites there. Check out news footage from the south in the 50s and 60s and you will see the exact same language. The translation is "uppity niggers from up north are causing these problems."
"Outsiders" has always been the code for civil rights workers in the south. The problem isn't that they are outsiders. The problem, for the white people of Jena, is that they are there shining a light on your bigoted ways and encouraging the local minorities to stand up for themselves instead of take their shit.
By the way, there not being a government imposed segregation in high school does not equal no race problem. Self-imposed segregation is still a race problem. Harder to fix than a government sanctioned one to be sure. To not even try to address why whites sit with whites and blacks with blacks at lunch shows a complete disregard for racial equality.
Local officials and the local newspaper have gone on record as saying the noose incident that happened at the high school was a prank and not racially motivated. This may be the most laughable of all the claims made by the whites citizens of Jena. Check out this page (scroll down) of the timeline of events as told by the Jena Times. They go out of their way to claim that none of this is race related and all of the problems are being caused by outsiders and that very few Jena residents are involved. They lay blame on the liberal media for fanning the flames of racism. If you check the staff page of the paper's website you see that there are no blacks represented. But there is no race problem in Jena.
Saying that there was no racial intent to the noose incident is the most offensive claim of the entire sordid chain of events. If it were actually true (which I don't believe) that those white kids didn't know the significance of what a noose hung from a tree means in America, and especially the south, then the high school needs to immediately fire and publicly flog their history teacher.
The other highly offensive thing is something that has been done by the national media, under pressure to show some sort of "other side" of the story. Trying to give some sort of credence to these claims of no race problem in Jena, CNN's Kyra Phillips did a puff piece talking to residents of Jena, including students and teachers at the high school, who claim that blacks and whites get along fine there. Funny thing is, she never showed any black people saying that. Everyone who claimed there is no black/white problem in Jena just happened to be white.
CNN also gives a voice to the vile Jesse Lee Peterson, a black man who calls the NAACP a hate group and runs an anti-civil rights organization backed almost exclusively by right-wing white nationalists. He is even supported by the Council of Conservative Citizens, a white separatist group. He is a pathetic Uncle Tom tool of the white racist movement who is enlisted to give credibility to their agenda by having a black man read off their talking points. "See, this Negro agrees with us, so we can't be racists." (There's a great article about him in The Nation from a couple of years ago)
They have a female version in LaShawn Barber who they rolled out to defend Bill O'Reilly's racist comments about the restaurant in Harlem and also has said publicly that a woman shouldn't be president because they are weaker than men. (And that gay marriage is worse than slavery)
The worst came yesterday, at the press conference by DA Walters. If you haven't seen his quote yet here is what he said toward the end, after announcing he would not appeal the ruling that he never should have tried Mychal Bell as an adult. He decided to take the most mean spirited swipe at the activists who came to his town to protest:
"The only way -- and let me stress that -- the only way that I believe that me or this community has been able to endure the trauma that has been thrust upon us is through the prayers of the Christian people who have sent them up in this community."
And then this:
"I firmly believe that had it not been for the direct intervention of
the Lord Jesus Christ last Thursday, a disaster would have happened."
Anyone who doesn't get what he said, let me translate once again. He basically said that Jesus protected his town from all those trouble-making darkies.
And these people claim they aren't racist. But then so do the Republican presidential candidates who refused to participate in a debate hosted by a traditionally black college that focused on minority issues.
If any further evidence was needed that there is still a race problem in the south, think about a couple of things. LaSalle Parish, where Jena is located, was carried by former Klan leader and Holocaust denier David Duke when he ran for governor in 1991. Exit polls suggested that he took 75% of the white vote in the parish. A Republican stronghold, the current Democratic governor actually carried LaSalle in the 2003 race, when the Republican candidate was Bobby Jindal, the son of Indian immigrants. So much for the "big tent" party.
As for the outsiders causing all the problems in your town, well we'll make you a deal Jena. If you stop sending your stupid crackers in their pickup trucks painted with images of eagles, American flags and burning World Trade Center towers up to lower Manhattan every damn September, we'll stop sending Al Sharpton down there every time you violate the rights of your black citizens. Deal?
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