Jena 6: persecution, not prosecution
Aziz P
I knew nothing - absolutely nothing - about this story until I listened to this report on NPR.
So a bunch of black ruffians beat a white kid nearly to death? No, actually the victim had superficial injuries and went to a party later that evening.
The black students were unprovoked and this was out of the blue? No, actually it was the culmination of a year of racial tension that began when white students hung nooses on a tree to intimdate black students.
HUNG. NOOSES. FROM. TREES.
And loony lefty liberals are making a false analogy to the days of Jim Crow? No,
The first to go to court was Mychal Bell, the team's star running and defensive back. Bell's court-appointed lawyer refused to mount any defense at all, instead resting his case immediately after two days of government presentation. An all-white jury found Bell guilty.
A talented athlete, Bell had a real shot at a Division I football scholarship. He now faces up to 22 years in prison. The other five black students await trial on attempted murder charges.
Why is Jena important? Why make such a big deal out of it? The New York Times piece on Jena says it all:
"I think a lot of people recognize that the criminal justice system grinds down people of color every day," said J. Richard Cohen, president of the Southern Poverty Law Center, the civil rights group based in Montgomery, Ala. "Oftentimes, it's nameless, it's faceless. We know the story in a generic way but not specifically. People see Jena as the tip of the iceberg and ask, 'What lies beneath?' "
I think in the case of Jena, it's pretty obvious. And anyone who says otherwise is either willfully underinformed, or simply in denial.
Related Posts (on one page):
- Jena 6 revisited: passions cool, injustices multiply
- Jena 6: persecution, not prosecution
End of debate, because Aziz says so, and that's the bottom line!
Actually I pretty much agree with you based on what I've read about it, but your final statement is basically sticking your fingers in your ears and shouting "NAH NAH NAH I CANT HEAR YOU."
Remember, it was obvious that those lacrosse players raped that black stripper, "And anyone who says otherwise is either willfully underinformed, or simply in denial."
Which, I agree, is offensive and wrong.
But it is also an exercise of free expression which does not grant the offended the right to ignore laws and abuse the offender in any way.
This is the same argument we've had over the Cartoon Jihad. Screw the Jena 6.
If there was indeed a miscarriage of justice in Jena, I want it corrected. But given the fact that the New York Times was such a vocal supporter of the Duke 88 and Mr. Nifong practically to the day he went to jail, their "argument" here has zero credibility. They have cried wolf many times too often.
Just like they did the last time!
According to JASON WHITLOCK:
Black US attorney investigated the case and found no connection between nooses incident and beating three month later.
The jury was all-white because no black people answered to the summonses.
Inept public defender was also black.
Mychal Bell was brought before the court for the third time on assault charges in a two-year span.
Aziz
I'm glad to see someone around here believes in absolutes, because that's what you are presenting your reader. If one disagree with you s/he is either stupid or "in denial" - a term that's pretty much lost its original meaning decades ago.
There is Truth - and if you don't see it there's something wrong with you. I happen to agree that there is such a thing as absolutes, and believe that reading too much Kierkegaard results in mushy-minds.
No one around here trusts the System 100%. I recently wrote about local thug behavior in the St. George police dept outside of St. Louis, and people around here remember Nifong's antics too.
So what's your point - other than to bludgeon the readership?
But in his outrage, Aziz hasn't realized that he has become downright Robert Spencer-ish in his haste to condemn a whole people for the alleged crimes of a few. Even if the facts are as bad as NPR and the Times make them out to be, that doesn't make a "tip of an iceberg" that proves a prevailing problem.
Put another way there is truth and here is knowledge. As Madeleine L'Engle said: Truth is eternal. Knowledge is changeable. It is disastrous to confuse them.
It's surprising how much racial tension you can still run into in America. Back in college, I was threatened by a big black guy with his friends who was yelling "I hate white people!" over and over, as he came onto the front stairs of the dorms where I was waiting with a friend. He spotted me and very aggressively demanded I give him a cigarette. I refused as I don't like people trying to intimidate me, and he went to hit me but his (black) friends were very cool about the whole thing and just laughed and dragged him off.
Anyways, looking to the facts here, Bell is clearly no Martin Luther King. People have also pointed out many sympathetic (white) people tried to help him with his football career. A few (white) jerks hung nooses, which is definitely an asshole thing to do, but beating the guy was worse, even if his hospital stay was short. Attempted murder seems excessive, but the charges were reduced.
It's hard to feel too sorry for any in this story. But I hope Bell's sentencing is lenient enough he gets a chance at a football career.
Yup, poor old OJ never had a chance...
There's some clarifying Jena stuff here from Eddie Thompson, the white pastor from the original Chi Trib article.
Cite, please?
Because in a world where victim-politics carpetbaggers have been caught faking ideologically-motivated assaults on themselves, we can no longer simply propose (as above), let alone actively assume the default scenario of oppressor-class intimidation to be the case.
This shows a clear bias in favor of children, because if he had been treated as an adult, he would be in prison for the rest of his life.
Like this AP story:
The real story is that on Dec 1, some thugs were denied entrance to a party, which caused a fight. On the second, there was an altercation between one teenager and several others, where the several others stole a shotgun the single teenager was defending himself with.
Finally, on the fourth, several teenagers beat another teenager unconscious and continue beating him beyond that point. One of them had an extensive history of violent crime for a juvenile, and was charged as an adult with attempted murder.
That's the whole story. The nooses three months earlier had nothing to do with the four days of thugishness -- until the thug who was charged as an adult started looking for an excuse for his crimes.
Right, and if some asshole white guy hung nooses from trees, that gave these thugs the right to beat some other white guy - any white guy will do - within inches of his life?
Moron.
I'm going to go yell fire in a crowded theatre now.
Hey, if we're going to start limiting offensive speech, I'll bet a lot of people will chime in. It's going to be a looooooong list: burning flags, crucifixes in urine, elephant dung madonnas, anything by Madonna... Where do we stop?
Hence demonstrating that you completely misunderstand the "fire in a crowded theatre" exemption. There's a difference between "this will panic people, and they'll trample each other while trying to escape" and "this will make some people angry".
Oh, for the days when the ACLU defended the free speech rights of the Nazis... They understood: free speech has to include offensive speech, or it's not free.
OTOH, if you will back breaking laws in response to speech you don't like - as in this case - I think thats a dandy precedent for, say, shooting abortionists or gay rights advocates.
What's that? You didn't mean it that way? Then you're supporting separate laws for ethnic groups.
In other words, racism.
Aziz doesn't trust the Bush Administration, to the point where he does verge on BDS at times. I'll grant you that one.
But aside from being -- gasp! -- a doctrinaire liberal, Aziz is none of the things you accuse him of being. Unless you have examples to the contrary, you owe him an apology.
Of course we all lose our tempers now and then. Dean freely admits to being imperfect in this regard, which is why regulars to this establishment will generally be cut more slack than people who we don't know very well.
Still: behave like an adult, or go find somewhere else to play. Thanks.