Jena: The Ignored Story of Legal Lynching

[babylonsister]

Jena: The Ignored Story of Legal Lynching
by Linn Washington Jr.

For many African-Americans today, the main battle field against terrorism is not Iraq or Afghanistan but Jena, a small town in the state of Louisiana.

This rural town about 40-miles northeast of Alexandria, La is where a group of six black teens are enduring criminal prosecutions for a school yard fight that many see as a legal lynching.

The prosecutor in Jena is pressing serious felony charges for this fight that produced no serious injury on the specious claim that the Jena 6 used deadly weapons in that fight: their tennis shoes…used to allegedly kick the white victim.

This is the same prosecutor who refused to pursue comparable felony charges against white teens who smashed a black teen in the head with a beer bottle while ejecting him from a ‘whites-only’ party and a young white man who pointed a shotgun at black teens.

The reason why African-Americans react to the Jena injustice as domestic terrorism is rightly rooted in America’s history of racism, that scourge that still infects American society and is still widely ignored.

For most Americans, the face of terrorism is a foreign Islamofascist.

However, for African-Americans - long before 9/11 - the face of racism enforcing domestic terrorism was a fellow citizen wearing blue suits or black robes as well as white KKK sheets.

more...

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/09/20/3970/

[ChairmanAgnostic]

1. come, the beer bottle to the head was self defense.

And, the shotgun? well, black folks are invisible at night, so you have to be ready for anything.

a glass beer bottle vs. gym shoe
It is so clear which is more dangerous. The laces, through a whiplash motion, can achieve great speeds and inflict horrific damage, while the chemicals contained int he soles are known carcinogens.

The ugly side of racism in the US comes to the surface. About time. The question is what to do about it?

What democratic candidate will speak out?
Kucinich yup
Biden probably
Clinton no way
Edwards he already has
Richardson yup
Obama no

and which GOP candidate will speak up?

Thompson ("I didn't follow the story, so I won't comment")
Tancredo when hell freezes over
Guiliani no way
Mit the git nada
Huckabee - yeah
Paul Already did.
McCain If he can remember where he is, and remembers which religion he is supposed to follow that particular day.

[againes654]

2. Obama has spoken about this

I heard him on a morning show one morning.

[babylonsister]

4. So, what did he say? nt

[againes654]

6. Come on,

do you really think he wouldn't stand up for this.

I don't have his exact words, but it was something to the extent that this can not happen, but it does. He said it was WRONG, and that we as a country have to stamp out racial injustice for all, not just blacks.

[babylonsister]

7. Thanks! nt

[babylonsister]

3. Good list made on the fly, and pretty right on, too.

Obama hasn't said a word? That surprises me. And I heard about Thompson not even knowing what/who the Jena 6 was. Not surprising.

[jojo54]

5. I love the McCain comment!

But seriously, the problem of racism IS a serious issue and I'm afraid it will continue to be a serious issue. We've been through, what.....3-4 generations since slavery, but this stain still persists. I fear we will have to live through more like centuries rather than generatons, until everyone sees eye to eye, not race to race, religion to religion, etc.

[intheflow]

12. More like 5-6 generations since slavery.

A generation is generally thought to be about 25 years. Slavery was abolished on paper in the US in 1865, 142 years ago.

[Baby Snooks]

8. Just a sad reflection

Jena has become a sad reflection of the reality of our country which has managed to hide its inherent racism until recently.

What happened in Jena happens every day in every city in this country with two standards of law being applied. If you are a minority, you have a different standard of law applied and usually applied to keep "your kind" in their place.

The Justice Department could and should prosecute quite a few district attorneys around the country under the Color of Law provisions. And yet it doesn't.

It is not a matter of the "Bush" Justice Department. It is just a matter of the Justice Department. Things have not gotten better or worse under Bush. If anything, it is just business as usual.

[intheflow]

11. Tancredo will endorse the racism.

"We should have built a wall around centuries ago, before any of those 'African immigrants' were allowed into our white nation." :puke:

Of course, such a wall back then would have kept your Italian ancestors out, Tom, but, hey, no need to let that fact cloud your racist views now, right?

[Joanne98]

9. K&R!

[emlev]

10. Democracy Now's coverage of the protest linked here

link

[CitizenRob]

13. 6 kids beat 1 kid until unconscious, and then continue until forced to stop...

And under Louisiana law that counts as attempted second degree murder. The law says in section one that "When the offender has a specific intent to kill or to inflict great bodily harm;"

The six kids undoubtedly had the intent to inflict great bodily harm. That is enough to charge somebody with attempted second degree murder. If they had killed the kid it would have been flat second degree murder. This is not racism, it's application of applicable law. You do a real disservice to the cause of civil rights when you claim otherwise.


Here's the law in its entirety if you don't believe me:

Louisiana Second Degree Murder
LA R.S. 14:30.1

A. Second degree murder is the killing of a human being:

(1) When the offender has a specific intent to kill or to inflict great bodily harm; or

(2)(a) When the offender is engaged in the perpetration or attempted perpetration of aggravated rape, forcible rape, aggravated arson, aggravated burglary, aggravated kidnapping, second degree kidnapping, aggravated escape, drive-by shooting, armed robbery, first degree robbery, or simple robbery, even though he has no intent to kill or to inflict great bodily harm.

(b) When the offender is engaged in the perpetration of cruelty to juveniles, even though he has no intent to kill or to inflict great bodily harm.

(3) When the offender unlawfully distributes or dispenses a controlled dangerous substance listed in Schedules I or II of the Uniform Controlled Dangerous Substances Law* which is the direct cause of the death of the recipient who ingested or consumed the controlled dangerous substance.

(4) When the offender unlawfully distributes or dispenses a controlled dangerous substance listed in Schedules I or II of the Uniform Controlled Dangerous Substances Law* to another who subsequently distributes or dispenses such controlled dangerous substance which is the direct cause of the death of the person who ingested or consumed the controlled dangerous substance.

B. Whoever commits the crime of second degree murder shall be punished by life imprisonment at hard labor without benefit of parole, probation, or suspension of sentence.

[CitizenRob]

14. P.S. Feel free to argue the second degree murder bar is too low.

If there is a real problem here it is that the bar for second degree murder is so low that a prosecutor can use it on a whim.

That's the real problem. Not racism.

[chasitynola]

15. I am curious to know,

what is the letter of the law in regards to the placing of nooses in the schoolyard tree? I agree that the teens should be properly punished for beating someone up, but what charges should have been brought against the white teens that were "marking their territory" around that tree? If that issue had been properly addressed, maybe the 6 on 1 crime could have been avoided.

These are high school kids. They need guidance. The teachers, school officials and parents (black, white, purple and green!)could have taken that incident and used it as a catalyst for change. Most hate is based on pure ignorance. And cutting down the tree does not solve the problem!!! That was a beautiful tree. Why not let it be a symbol of trying to make a change?

[CitizenRob]

16. Interesting you should ask...

So there was a case http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist_Party_of_America_v._Village_of_Skokie">Nazi's Vs. Village of Skokie in which the Supreme Court ruled that the NAZI's could march in full Nazi regalia with swastikas and everything through a Jewish neighborhood. They ruled that the speech was protected.

What about a noose though? (The noose by the way is not relevant to this case since the kid who was attacked was not involved in the noose incident.) The noose poses an interesting question, was it just a symbolic gesture, or was it an actual threat? Could anybody looking at the noose think it was specifically intended to be used against them? I would say no since the black kids sat and had lunch (bravo to them!) under the tree with the nooses.

I think everybody agrees that the ADULTS in this town did a terrible job of stopping this before it reached this point.

[classysassy]

19. The law

is that bad law ever used against whites?,We still live in a racist country.

[CitizenRob]

20. Yes it is actually. You're a racist.

You're making an awful lot of assumptions about what it is to be white. White people are overcharged all the time when they fall into the clutches of the legal system, believe it or not.

[Karenina]

17. ...

[CitizenRob]

18. Let's celebrate the heroism of the Jena 6, the Moore 3, and the Norfolk 7

Moore 3: WRAL News

Norfolk 7: WAVY News

Jena 6: Wikipedia

Do we need an entire month for Beat A White Kid Holiday celebrations, or just one day?

[CitizenRob]

21. let's add more heroes to the list...

The latest additions are the Fayetteville 4: http://www.wral.com/news/news_briefs/story/1860553/
and the Miami 4: http://www.local10.com/news/14199127/detail.html

Oh the COURAGE of people willing to form a mob to attack an individual. Yes, there is so much to celebrate here! These are REAL civil rights heroes, every single one of them... not that any of them ever did anything single handedly, more like in a group, and violently.

So much to celebrate, do we need a day for the holiday, or a whole month?