Jena 6 revisited: passions cool, injustices multiply
Aziz P
Several people in the last thread and via (thoughtful) email pointed me in the direction of more information regarding the Jena 6, which have served to substantially cool my earlier anger about the issue. The most relevant item is this opinion piece by sports columnist Jason Whitlock (whom as everyone noted, irrelevantly, is also African-American). What is notable is that Whitlock takes a very Cosby-esque turn of analysis:
The fact that we waited to love Mychal Bell until after he’d thrown away a Division I football scholarship and nine months of his life is just as heinous as the grossly excessive attempted-murder charges that originally landed him in jail.
Reed Walters, the Jena district attorney, is being accused of racism because he didn’t show Bell compassion when the teenager was brought before the court for the third time on assault charges in a two-year span.
Where was our compassion long before Bell got into this kind of trouble? [...] Here is another undeniable, statistical fact: The best way for a black (or white) father to ensure that his son doesn’t fall victim to a racist prosecutor is by participating in his son’s life on a daily basis.
That fact needed to be shared Thursday in Jena. The constant preaching of that message would short-circuit more potential "Jena Six" cases than attributing random acts of six-on-one violence to three-month-old nooses.
And I am in no way excusing the nooses. The responsible kids should’ve been expelled. A few years after I’d graduated, a similar incident happened at my high school involving our best football player, a future NFL tight end. He was expelled.
The Jena school board foolishly overruled its principal and suspended the kids for three days.
But the kids responsible for Barker’s beating deserve to be punished. The prosecutor needed to be challenged on his excessive charges. And we as black folks need to question ourselves about why too many of us can only get energized to help our young people once they’re in harm’s way.
That's a subtle, but critical point that I think gets lost in the larger drama of racial tension.
As for the original context and accusation of racism, it's worth noting that Whitlock concurs that while the six assailants should be punished, the charges against Bell were grossly excessive. But the bottom line remains: The best way for a black (or white) father to ensure that his son doesn’t fall victim to a racist prosecutor is by participating in his son’s life on a daily basis.
Related Posts (on one page):
- Jena 6 revisited: passions cool, injustices multiply
- Jena 6: persecution, not prosecution
One small nit: I don't think Jason Whitlock thinks it's irrelevant that he is an African-American.
Yours,
Wince
Stop conencting the noose incident to the six-on-one beating because there isn't one. It only exists in the minds racists looking for a reason to get other racists off the hook for commiting a crime.
Being a father has nothing to do with genetics - what happened one night does not entitle you to the moniker. Racing your son to the ER at 2:30am with stomach pain so bad it wakes the kid up, however, does - as I just did this morning (Kid okay BTW). Turning the football game off to help your son with his math homework does. And singing the stupid "LOLCats" song ("Dance... I'm a kitty cat. And I meow meow meow and I meow meow meow...) with your kid in the grocery store does.
More importantly a father passes along his biases - something that I'm extremely careful to do. For example, I grew up knowing African-Americans as every nasty racist epithet you can imagine - and a few my dad must have made up on his own. I'm passing along my bias NOT to treat Africa-Americans that way.
I also grew up hating gays, as everyone that I knew did at that time. I'm making it clear to the Kid that being gay doesn't disqualify you from being a valued member of the human race.
Fathers have critical roles in their sons' lives, and one of their duties is to make sure that their sons grow up without the BS and racist and sexist cr@p that they suffered through.
But watch TV for long enough, and you'll see that fathers are always peripheral, usually wrong, and often the object of ridicule.
I thought it was relevant because your first post made it as a polarized white vs. black issue, including assertion that nooses were hung by white kids only and emphasizing the fact that Bell jury was all white.
I thought it was relevant to point out that not all black people see it that way.
See? If we'd only had email way back when, nobody would've gone off the deep end and wound up lynching people because they'd believed trumped-up BS.
Bravo, Aziz.
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.