It's actually a rope on a tree branch. But it symbolizes more than that. Maybe we have moved past that, maybe the people of Jena have moved past that, but I just have to disagree with you if the only proof you have that the symbolism of a hung noose is archaic is your opinion. What does this prove? Just because some students weren't intimidated by the nooses doesn't meant they weren't intimidating. Maybe we're past that, maybe Jena is past that, but if we are why did so many people show up for the Jena 6 rally? And if Jena is past that, why did black folks in Jena get so upset about it? That crap was uncalled for and was anything but a harmless prank. Maybe the offending kids shouldn't have been expelled, but it should have been made clear to them it wasn't a joke. Maybe it was? I'm not sure the punishment they received was enough.
Uhhhh . . . what? The same reason they rallied for OJ. The same reason they rallied for Tawanna Brawley. The same reason they rallied against the Duke Lacrosse Team. It's publicity and attention for the "Reverends" Jackson and Sharpton. It wasn't the locals who created this firestorm of protests, it was firebrand outside agitators doing what they always do--making mountains of molehills, misreresenting the truth, and trying to keep the otherwise dead "civil rights movement" alive. It's how they make a living, not by preaching the gospel. Because the DA overreached with the attempted murder charge. If he had just charged them with assault and battery, the story would have never been printed outside of LaSalle parish. Harmless, no. But a prank, yes. These were 16-year-old kids, not the KKK. They got suspended for 2 weeks and spent another month in an "alternative" discipline school. There is no Louisiana statute against hanging a noose unless somebody is in it. How can they be charged with a crime? I think it is very clear to them that it wasn't a joke. Anyway, using this incident to forgive a gang beating is absurd. It happenned six months before the beating and the student who was beaten was NOT one of the noose pranksters. It was a premeditated assault by six people on an unsuspecting victim . . . and that is definitely a violation of a Louisiana criminal statute.
RED,I'm definately not ever going to go against you in anything.You have a gift of representing the truth.
Just because some kids were playing with the nooses doesn't mean that no kids were intimidated. I'm assuming you stated that kids were playing with the nooses to make the point that the nooses didn't affect anyone. Err, there must be some tension for the rev's to be able to get people worked up. The media grossly misrepresented the incident, I agree. But for people to still get so upset, there must be something there. Maybe all those folks are sheep and puppets, but I think they must have some idea of self and must have some tension built up. There was racial tension building up in the town directly related to the nooses according to the article in the Jena paper. Before there was a Jena 6. The Jena 6 incident exacerbated things. I didn't hear all that. That does sound like adequate discipline. The Jena paper only said they served in school suspension for a few days and left it at that? You usually get your facts straight, so I'm assuming you know more about the punishment dolled out than I do. I don't think they should have been charged with a crime if one doesn't exist. I totally agree.
Yes. Very well said. On a side note, have the recent circumstances around Michael Vick turned away any of his black fans? I wonder. It seems to me that Vick was very popular amongst all black people, not just Falcons fans & was specifically not very highly thought of by all non-Falcons white fans. Maybe I'm over-generalizing, but I'd say that the marijuana & dog fighting stuff only confirmed both sides' opinions. Black people still love him for being "real", and white people still don't like him because he is... I can't think of a PC way to say it.
Indeed it did. I think the DA was more interested in getting himself re-elected in an 80% white parish than he was in justice and in defusing racial tensions. There has been a lot of misrepresentation in the national media. But my mom lives in the Alexandria area and the paper in Alex has been on top of this story since day one. A few national outlets are starting to pick up on the rest of the story. This one gets the facts straight for the most part, including the true punishments handed out by the school. http://www.connpost.com/ci_7008738 other misrepresentations and untold stories: That blacks and whites got into several fistfights and only blacks were suspended. Not true. Both parties were suspended in any fistfights broken up by Jena teachers. The "Jena Six" assault was not a fistfight, the victim was sucker punched and knocked out cold without lifting a finger. Then he was kicked repeatedly in the head by six cowards, most of whom had juvenile convictions, Mychal Bell had five and was still under probation at the time. If they had been wearing boots instead of Air Jordans, the victim could have been killed. The Federal prosecutor (a black man) declined to prosecute the noose pranksters on federal hate crime charges because a statute had not been broken and none of the youths had previous convictions or hate incidents. he correctly perceived it as a thoughtless juvenile prank that got out of hand. The sad thing about all of this is the simmering resentment of the white residents of Jena. In time the media and the "Revrunds" will move on to hotter stories and leave the local blacks alone to face resentment from the whites that did not exist before. Jena High has been integrated for 35 years and there is not separation of the races there. The classes, the athletics, the cafeteria, the band and alll school activities are complely integrated. At lunch and during breaks, students congregate in both mixed and sparate groups. There are all-black gatherings in certain parts of the schoolgrounds, too, and white students respected them. This whole incident didn't start with the noose incident. It started with a black student in a school assembly demanding to sit with a white students group during breaks. He did not respect the white students and did not really want to associate with them--he was trying to make a racial statement . . . another thoughtless juvenile stunt. In America we have a constiutionally protected freedom of association. We can associate ourselves with any group that we want to. If we want to hang with a group of white kids from our neighborhood we can. If we want to associate with a group of black students from our neighborhood, we can. There are all-black bars in BR that I'm not welcome in and all-white bars in Livingston parish that blacks aren't welcome in. Same with many churches and civic groups. Many are integrated, but many are not and that is just fine with the constitution, as long as there are no Jim Crow laws in place and no government regulations that are broken. It's just the way things are. Some folks (black and white) just can't live and let live.
I don't know. I didn't really feel one way or the other about Michael Vick until the dog fighting business, especially the dog execution incidents. Dog lovers feel very strongly about dog abusers in this country. Perhaps fewer black households own dogs . . . or maybe they are just accustomed to backing each other up, no matter what.
