F*** The Jena Six

Pro or con you can fill in the blanks as you like.

If you caught the news yesterday or read the paper you couldn't escape the events in Jena, LA yesterday.

For those who have chosen today to crawl out from under their rock here is some background.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/law/09/20/jena.six/?iref=mpstoryview

Before I comment on the situation I have to first address this from the above linked story.

Jena's racial tensions were aggravated in August 2006, when three white teens hung the nooses the day after a group of black students received permission from school administrators to sit under the tree -- a place where white students normally congregated.

Why would a group of students need permission to sit under any tree? That, if correct, sounds like there was racial tension long before this incident. Maybe me being from the north and growing up in a mostly white city and all white neighborhood leaves me impossible to comprehend why permission was even sought.

Having said that it was a solid three months between the hanging of nooses from this tree and the beating to which the Jena Six are now known by.

Three months.

Of course there are those that immediately draw a nexus between the two events but I tend to disagree. The US attorney's office declined to bring federal charges as they believed the two incidents were not related.

At the very worse, hanging nooses would have constituted a hate crime. Even so it would have been a hate crime in which no one was injured and no personal property was damaged.

Somehow, at least to me, there is no equality between the damage hanging the nooses caused and the beating of one individual by six others.

It appears that the 15-20,000 who marched upon Jena, LA would think I am wrong. Remember....THREE whole months elapsed between the two events so how can you connect the two separate events together? I believe you cannot.

So what you now have is six individuals who together beat and/or kicked one individual while he was down on the ground. They were initially charged with attempted murder. I don't know whether that charge was correct or not but since then the charges have been reduced. What would you expect from kicking a person in the head while he was down on the ground and unable to defend himself???? Would you expect a slap on the hand and a stern talking to???

I would hope not.

Then again all those who marched upon Jena might think differently.

Some people scream injustice and I would remind them the injustice was the six beating up the one. There is nothing even remotely smelling of equality in that equation. 1 vs 6. Maybe that inequality, that injustice should have been the reason compelling so many people to walk away from their obligations for a day to march upon a town of 3200.

Can we all just get along? I think so but we still need to work on it.