BlogHer - Bloggers Organize for Justice in Jena - Comments

JENA SIX

Howard — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 16:03:27 -0500

The case is not complicated though everyone is trying to make it complicated.

There is no murder victim.
There is nobody crippled.
There is no one in intensive care.
There was no rape.

The White kids who provoked with racism have been dealt with inside the school system.

There is no crime for which the kind of sentences that have been suggested could or should be applied.

THIS IS A JUDICIAL LYNCHING...PLAIN AND SIMPLE !!

The real Jena

Peace — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 23:30:35 -0500

I am from Jena. So what do you want to know about it? You can walk up and down the streets and almost always everyone is nice and courteous, regardless of race, income level, religion or any other difference. The media is making it sound like we are a mixed bag of racist pigs and that we hate each other. This is not true. We have a problem in Jena just like other towns and cities. We have a few jerks that look for a reason to hate because they think they are better than someone else. Sure, some use race as an excuse, others use the fact they have money and others use
religion and the list could go on forever. The point is this, come see for yourselves. You will be pleasantly surprised to see whites and blacks living together in harmony like they do so many other places in America. We do have some problems with a few that are racists, and that can't be denied, but the numbers are not what is being pushed by the media. In saying all of that, I agree with the fact that the Jena six have been treated too harshly. They should have never been charged with attempted second degree murder. Assaut and battery, yes, of course. A school fight should not ends the lives of these kids. I have met the one that is being held on such a high bond many times. He is always polite, and very soft spoken and pleasant. I can say the same of the boy that was beaten. It is hard to know where the truth lies, but I feel it lies somewhere between the two different stories that is being told. Both sides have pumped up their stories, for God's sake they are children, that is what they do usually, right? I pray for peace and equality for all. I am deeply saddened by these events and hope this problem doesn't continue to escalate. I pray someone doesn't have to die before people decide to wake up and realize racism is wrong and there is a price to be paid if one latches onto this evil monster. To think, none of this would probably happened if the three trouble making boys that hung the nooses had been dealt with justly. I feel Jena has suffered enough because of a few jerks. God help us, we are going to need it.

New Ways to Over Come Racism

SueSquier — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 09:16:25 -0500

In my book titled "People Aren't Black, People Are Human" I have designed new ways to fight racism. I do motivation speeches to inspire positive change in our young people's minds. My talks are not the same old boring racism speechs. My talks are thought provoking and will give our people new ways to over come racism. I'd love to get some feedback on my blog at suesquier.wordpress.com or at my website www.peoplearntblack.com
Thanks Susan Squier

I probably would not have wanted to do it

Nordette — Fri, 25 May 2007 22:50:31 -0500

If you had asked me, I probably would not have wanted to do it because I find these types of pieces take a lot out of me. :-) For some reason in the last few years I've had communications with middle-aged to older white males who seem to genuinely want to understand and do better regarding confronting racism. At the same time I see in them anger about being asked to change anything beyond what's already changed and a total resistance to accepting aspects of reality about what African-Americans have had to endure and continue to endure.

It seems (there's that word again, "seems") that what they really want is absolution, for black people to say "Okay, you've done enough or you're now sharing enough of your privileges. Everything's okay now." I don't know if their feelings are a normal response to guilt or is it a sign that some people simply can't sympathize or empathize with an injured party if they themselves benefited from that person's suffering.

I get to a point, as I'm sure you do as well sometimes, like Lisa, where I just say "getting a headache."

While I agree that we don't know the details of what actually happened, I'm sure you know from reading my works that I lean toward something's rotten in Denmark, in this case Jena, La. That the schoolyard's divided says it all.

"Love is liquid. Brew and be drunkards!" ~~Nordette And here's a link to the blog.

Glad for your comments, Nordette

Kim Pearson — Fri, 25 May 2007 16:14:11 -0500

When I first read this story, I actually thought about asking whether you wanted to cover it, because I knew you were from Louisiana. We're actually quoting from the same essays by Thompson. As you say, it's difficult to sort out all of the details from a distance. I do think, and you seem to agree, that there is something troubling about the way Thompson frame the matter, if I understand what he's saying correctly. (Which is why I kept saying, "He seems to...") I'm sure we haven't heard the end of this matter.

BlogHer Contributing Editor|Professor Kim|Contributing Writer, Online Journalism Review

I've communicated with Eddie Thompson in the past

Nordette — Fri, 25 May 2007 15:06:15 -0500

I apologize for posting this long response, Kim, on your post. I could've posted it completely on my own blog and linked back, but I decided why not have it here where people will read your post and other opinions as well.

When I saw what this post was about, I immediately thought of Eddie Thompson because I know him through another website. I remembered that he lives in Jena, La., and I think I read a while ago that he had been working to bring about "racial reconciliation" in that community through his church, I think. I dropped by that website, at which I'm not as active lately, to see what he'd written about this latest situation. Here's part of what he had to say in an article he's posted in response to The Tribune piece.

Let me dispel a few rumors and innuendoes that have festered into questionable facts. First, the media keeps repeating what some of the distraught parents of the six black students keep erroneously insisting: â€œthat nothing happened to those white kids who hung the nooses.â€ These students being minors, administrators canâ€™t comment on the facts. I have learned that those white students were first suspended and then sent to an alternative school off-campus. They underwent psychological evaluations before being re-admitted to Jena High School and even then were separated from the student body at first. The victim of the December beating was not one of these students. The attack was not retribution for the nooses, as some have speculated. There have been no riots, fights, or other violent demonstrations or racial clashes in the streets of our town. In eight months, just those incidents listed above. In fact, local clergy and other elements of our townâ€™s leadership have attempted to come together in unity to bring racial healing and progress to our community. In the last eight months, more has been attempted to unite the races in Jena than at any other time since the schools were integrated.

The charges against the Jena Six drive this story. Attorneys and leaders of national race-based organizations have hi-jacked any local efforts to overcome racial tensions. If the charges made by Reed Walters, our local District Attorney, are supported by the evidence, these young men should suffer the consequences of their actions. If the evidence does not support these charges, they should be dropped or reduced.

I personally believe that the local school board system, law enforcement agencies, and courts are responsible for the racial progress that has been made in our community in the course of my lifetime. What remain are the heart and the spirit of individuals who live here. Local ministers, parents, and business owners must step up to the table and begin to teach our children the Golden Rule, which is color blind. The day of questionable pejorative phrases and bigoted generalities is over in America. We must respect one another; and we must respect the law. When the cameras are gone and this trial is behind us, Jena will resume its progress towards spiritual unity between the races. (The Battle Against Racism In Jena Hi-jacked )

What I find in certain types of white males in the south who say they want to work to help fight racism is that they recognize its existence, but seem to think that the appearance of people getting along is enough. If they can have more African-Americans show up at their churches or put one on the city council, then that's enough progress for them, and much of what they do, though they don't realize it, is ask African-Americans to accept invitations to participate more in "the white" community strictly on terms of "the white community." Notice I said "invitation." Sometimes they don't even seem to get that the "white community" is the established community and participation should not be by invitation only.

You see this attitude all the time when some white people get angry because someone like Jesse Jackson or some other "black" leader speaks up about racial injustice. They have the attitude that "No one called him. How dare he speak and interfere!" It's like they believe someone in white society must give black leaders, actually black people, permission to share their views. And they themselves, used to being in power whether they realize it or not, feel that they are being attacked if anyone challenges how they or "the good ole boys" do business as usual.

I'm reluctant to blast someone like Eddie Thompson because at least he's making an attempt to address racial issues in a town where possibly a good percentage of the white community and probably some of the black community as well would say "let 'em sleep," and I agree with him that racism is a spiritual matter in many ways. However, I recognize that not all people believe in God or embrace spiritual paths and so society needs other ways to cope with racism, and I also believe we must address racism beyond the individual's mindset.

Where I and Eddie Thompson disagree, probably, is that I also see racism as an institutional and cultural problem that still exists and impacts people's individual lives, safety, and livelihoods. It's not some demon attacking individuals only to torment their thoughts without influencing their deeds. While on an individual level racism may be a spiritual and psychological problem, on a community level racism is a real institutional and cultural problem.

People in power who've practiced racism or winked at and benefited from racism are also the people who influence culture, education, and institutions like the criminal justice system. I don't understand how people can acknowledge racism exists but then believe racism does not influence the entire culture and its institutions, that it's not in practice still.

Society at large, which is not "the Christian Church," no matter how much some Christians seem to think it is, needs to take practical steps to mitigate racial injustice. It's the practical steps that trip up most people. When we start to look at practical steps we need to take that can bring about fairness, it's then that we really face the deeds done that made the system so unfair.

It's then that people have to admit their ancestors have done evil deeds and that they may have as well, if not directly, then they may have benefited from evil deeds. Most people don't want to do anything that would strip them or their kind of special benefits even if you can prove to them they came to these benefits unfairly or that their benefits harm the whole. Most people are concerned with themselves and their own welfare first.

Undoubtedly, it would be harder for the Jena District Attorney to give the six black teenagers the same slap on the wrist he gave the white teenager who beat up the black student because the Jena DA knows it's the white community that butters his bread. It's this same understanding of who butters your bread that probably influenced the Jena Schools Superintendent.

One would think that the school principal would know the students at the high school better than the superintendent and whether the story about the nooses being a football game prank rang true, and so it would seem that if the principal believes the students should be expelled, then that opinion would not be easily overridden. Furthermore, one would think the "community" would question the override because these same people who believe they know their community so-well seem to think that those closest to a situation always understand it better. I mean, isn't this the logic they use for determining that those who don't live in Jena have no valid opinion about or nor should have influence in Jena?

They don't seem to consider that perhaps the high school principal knows the students involved in the incident at the high school better than the superintendent who is not at the high school. I suppose they'd say that the superintendent is more objective than the principal. If that's so, then I hope they see that this same type of thinking applies to people outside Jena. Sometimes you need objective "outsiders." Without objective outsiders, the south might still happily practice segregation, and I know some whites in the south still wish they did.

I remember Eddie Thompson's article about the aftermath of Katrina, "Race Rats Emerge From Katrina's Shadows." I think that people like "Pastor Eddie" have been so indoctrinated by their cultures and the institutions that have favored white males in particular that it gets to a point that they cannot see that institutional and cultural biases must also be addressed and addressed at a faster pace than what's okay with them. They don't see that what they're revealing is that they have more sympathy for those who have lived better lives at the expense of another group's oppression than they do for those who've been oppressed.

In other words, they seem to think it's okay for the oppressed to endure a few more decades of oppression because they're used to it while those who've lived comfortably benefiting from oppression should be spared the discomfort of changing quickly. They don't want to rock the boat with vigor. They want to let the boat sway gently with the natural waves. If the boat rots before the oppressed get to touch the rudder or direct the oars, then so be it. Time's run out and there's nothing to be done about that. They, the benefactors of injustice, don't control time.

They also tend to rate progress from the lowest possible point. "Oh, well, we've made a lot of progress. It may be that a black man gets a harsher sentence than a white man but think about how it used to be. It wasn't that long ago that we would've lynched the black man. Give us some credit!"

If you've made so much progress, then why are your youth dividing a schoolyard down racial lines and are so committed to this division that a fight breaks out when it's challenged? How can this go on unless you have a community that perpetuates and condones racist practices?

I wish that men like Eddie Thompson who profess godly beliefs would raise the bar higher for progress, but usually they can't even see that those in authority may be acting in bad conscience/faith. Blanket trust of authority, a belief that those in authority will do the right thing, is more common among those who've benefited from the system rather than been oppressed by the system.

Another important aspect of this situation that I believe people who've never lived in the American south should consider is that some southern whites don't ever get the opportunity to deal with racism in the abstract the way someone in Iowa might or a white person might who's never lived around anything other than other white people. Evidence of racism is not in a history book for southern whites or on TV. It's Daddy, Grandma, or Cousin Jeb sitting at the Sunday dinner table with them.

It's hard to see your loved ones as spiritually and mentally ugly even when you know in your heart that's what they are indeed when it comes to how they treat or think about those of other races and those outside your group. It's even more difficult to confront them directly and disturb their lives. Eddie Thompson updated a piece at his AuthorsDen pages in February and what he says makes my point of how much more personal racism issues are for southern whites and how those who've benefited from institutionalized injustice usually tend to trust authority:

After briefly considering permanently removing this article from Authors Den due to actions by some that would hurt the efforts of the local ministers in Jena, Louisiana, to bring healing to our community, I have decided to keep the article here and add this explanation: I believe that racism, bigotry, and hatred exist in our community just as it does in villages, towns, and cities all across the United States, North and South. I reject the notion that our local law enforcement, governmental, and educational institutions perpetuate these fruits of wickedness. In fact, I believe those institutions in Jena have lead the way in correcting the imbalances caused by racism concerning equal rights for all. Opportunities exist for all people of all races in our community under the law. Personally, I have not found the local courts to be biased in judgment nor the school system to prevent advancement from anyone based on race. However, you cannot change the heart of anyone through legislation; education alone will not undo bigotry or hatred instilled from birth. Unless we deal with the spirit of our people, we will never learn the grace and mercy of God towards those less fortunate in life nor the power of forgiveness towards those who have wronged us. The ministers in our town have bravely decided to step forward and address the spiritual aspect of the issue of bigotry and hatred. I invite other communities to join together in faith and fight these enemies of our soul as well. ("The Battle Against Racism in Jena," by Eddie Thompson

I think that Eddie Thompson, unlike many politicians, believes what he says and is acting according to his conscience and what he honestly believes to be true. I suspect that if a statistician went into Jena's court system records and showed that blacks get harsher sentences than whites for the same crime, he'd say the report was flawed. After all, he seems to buy the story that the white teens hanging nooses in the trees is only about a football game.

For me, however, an African-American female who grew up in Louisiana and came of age in the late sixties and early seventies, the reality is that if you've never been at the bottom of the system, it's harder for you to believe the system is unjust. I don't think Eddie Thompson can see life, as much as he'd like to, from the perspective of African-Americans who find themselves at the bottom of the system or who've at one point experienced being at the bottom personally. Furthermore, because he sees himself as someone finally addressing issues his ancestors ignored, he feels any criticism from those outside Jena is unwarranted. It's sort of like being the person who finally decides to clean a filthy house. You really don't welcome someone else who didn't clock any hours cleaning the house to come through doing a white glove test telling you what a poor job you've done.

Since I'm not there, I don't know if Eddie Thompson's take on what happened is accurate. It's possible that according to the stories the teens tell the fights between black and white students seem unrelated. They could've first said the fights were about a pissing match for all we know. However, knowing what I do about institutionalized racism, how humans perpetuate cultural practices, and human psychology and sociology, I doubt these incidents are actually unrelated. When a man hits his wife and says he did it because she burned the biscuits, in his mind that's true and the incident on the surface did involve something about burned biscuits, but when you find out that this man comes from a family where he watched his father beat his mother, then you know that his wife burning the biscuits, his decision to hit his wife, and his growing up in environment where it was okay to beat women are all intertwined.

Neither do I know if those of us outside Jena know what's actually accurate for this particular case as far as details go and personal, human rivalries. If you know that Jena has a history of racism but you don't live in Jena, you'll be more likely to see any incident involving blacks and whites fighting as racial first, human second. Nevertheless, I personally believe that the people in that small community are too close to their own demons to see what's actually going on and the biases practiced.

I've alluded to the similarities between racial problems and the psychology behind domestic violence in this post, but I did so earlier also in a poem called "You Know Why He Beat You." Eddie Thompson is one of the people who left a comment on the poem when it was posted at AuthorsDen, and he was one of the few people who picked up, I think, that I was talking about more than just a man beating up a woman. I think that was when Eddie Thompson first came to my attention. He's a man influenced not only by his culture but also by his beliefs about what the Bible teaches. He is what he is.

I don't think it's a coincidence that when communities have racial problems, and Eddie Thompson acknowledges Jena has a problem with racism, that those in the community who benefit from the systemic injustice resist "outsiders" the same way abusive spouses freak out when the abused spouse seeks help from someone outside the home. If the person being abused attempts to get help or simply attracts help from anyone outside "the family," the abuser screams, "How dare you bring in an outsider!"

The abusers always push solving the problem without the help of anyone on the outside. They don't want their own faulty thinking and abusive behaviors that brought the family to crisis examined, and they claim outsiders can't understand what's basically a human condition, not one unique to their family.

All that said, I hope the Jena community will work its problems out. It's not like we outside Jena can cast stones. Racism is an American plague.

"Love is liquid. Brew and be drunkards!" ~~Nordette And here's a link to the blog.

Hate speech is hate speech

Lisa Stone — Fri, 25 May 2007 11:55:17 -0500

...whether it's verbal or an icon such as this noose.
Didn't we just have this conversation?

Sure, it's these students' right to speak and act on their beliefs, racist or no. That's America, that's what the First Amendment guarantees.

But this is public school where people of all races attend to learn. What kind of learning or learning community is possible in this kind of environment, where the message itself isn't even directly addressed or acknowledged by its leaders?

Getting a headache...

Lisa Stone
BlogHer Co-founder
Surfette

Agreed

Kim Pearson — Fri, 25 May 2007 11:35:53 -0500

You're welcome, Lisa, and thanks. What's especially difficult here is how deeply ingrained the racial attitudes seem to be. The nooses are an "adolescent prank." The preacher who acknowledges racism as a problem seems to be saying that it's mostly a matter or insensitivity by some older whites and hypersensitivity by some blacks. I have a hard time forming a cohererent response....

BlogHer Contributing Editor|Professor Kim|Contributing Writer, Online Journalism Review

Horrified - I wouldn't want my children at this school

Lisa Stone — Fri, 25 May 2007 10:45:53 -0500

...no matter what their race. I want my children taught by people who are willing to face the community's real issues -- from the classroom to what kids are absorbing at home. And it sounds to me like race is a central issue here.

Thanks for the post Kim - I need to go read it and research before I can comment further.

Best ~ L

Lisa Stone
BlogHer Co-founder
Surfette

Bloggers Organize for Justice in Jena

Kim Pearson — Fri, 25 May 2007 10:12:00 -0500

I was going to spend a quiet morning focused on my research, and then this had to go and hit my inbox:

"JENA, United States (AFP) - The racial demons of the Old South have resurfaced in a rural Louisiana town where black students who tried to sit on the white side of the school yard were met by three hangmen's nooses dangling from a tree.

"The students and their parents were outraged by the stark reminder of the mob lynchings which had terrorized Southern US blacks until just a few decades ago.

"Months of inter-racial violence followed the decision by a white school superintendent to over-rule the principal's recommendation to expel three white students found to have hung the nooses.

"The community became even more divided after a white prosecutor imposed significantly harsher charges on the black youths caught up in the violence...."

As DMX used to say, "Y'all gon' make me lose my mind/up in here/up in here." But DMX was talking about a party, and what's going on in Jena is anything but. There are definitely some people "acting the fool, though," and that has prompted a growing growing protest movement, both in the blogosphere and real life.

First, some more details, courtesy of Sylvia at AfroSpear, quoting Howard Witt from the Chicago Tribune :

According to Mr. Wittâ€™s article the following events have occurred since the initial action by the black students last September:

* The next day three nooses were hanging from the tree

* Once three white students were identified as having hung the nooses on the tree, the school superintendent suspended them for only three days. (The principal had suggested expulsion). The superintendent felt the nooses represented a â€œyouthful stunt.â€

* Fights broke out at the high school between black and white students.

* Unknown arsonists set fire to the central wing of the school (November)

* A white youth beat up a black student who showed up at an all-white party

* another young white man pulled a shotgun on three black students at a convenience store

* A group of black students at the high school allegedly jumped a white student on his way out of the gym, knocked him unconscious and kicked him after he hit the floor (December)

* LaSalle Parish district attorney, Reed Walters, opted to charge six black students with attempted second-degree murder and other offenses (for their involvement in the above incident)

NOTE: The white youth who beat the black student at the party was charged only with simple battery, while the white man who pulled the shotgun at the convenience store wasnâ€™t charged with any crime at all.

This is the same Howard Witt who brought national attention to the story of Shaquanda Cotton, another case in which racial disparities in punishment sparked protest and controversy.

With regard to Jena, Sylvia argues:

In this story, we see the refusal to grapple with the severity of racial animus, symbolic representations of that animus, and the legacy of mutual mistrust and hatred left today from failing to grapple with the unreleased tension. Entangled in these sentiments is miscarriage of justice, patterns of retaliatory violence and intimidation, and a pervasive sense of futility that amidst so much action and emotion, nothing substantial was felt or expressed except the stinging pain of old and gangrenous wounds.

According to news reports, the mayor of Jena, Murphy McMillan, insists this is not about race:

"Race is not a major local issue. "It's not a factor in the local people's lives."

Eddie Thompson, a white Pentecostal preacher quoted in the Witt article, says racism is part of the problem, but casts the issue in a way that, arguably, minimizes violence against the black community:

Here in the piney woods of central Louisiana, where some gentle, old, Christian, white women still call graying black men â€œboyâ€ and some angry, young, Christian, black teens attack pizza delivery trucks that would dare enter their neighborhood, racism and bigotry are such a part of life that most of the citizens do not even recognize it. Cross Highway 127 just south of Jena and you enter two different worlds, separated by class and race. If we as Christians face powers, principalities, and rulers of darkness in high places it is certain that part of the spiritual wickedness arrayed against the citizens of LaSalle Parish is hatred born of racism.

In fact, Thompson accuses "carpetbaggers" who "[s]tring together the worse incidents over the last eight months through a prism of racism" of inflaming racial tensions.

Elle, Ph.D., who says she grew up about 100 miles from Jena, says, among other things:

"Pastor Thompson reminds me of the southern Senators during debates on the civil rights bills of the mid-20th century--he is incensed that, rather than letting the community heal itself, "Attorneys and leaders of national race-based organizations have hi-jacked any local efforts to overcome racial tensions." And though he acknowledges the racism in Jena, he believes, "the racism found here in America is subtle compared to what is going on around the world." Picture this American's jaw dropping to the floor. His invoking of meddling carpetbaggers and noble locals who shall overcome is not surprising."

Sylvia and Elle point to much more information on the impending trial (which has been continued until June 25) and the various protests, articles and controversy that the case has engendered. Sylvia also has contact information for local organizations that are looking for donations and other expressions of support. Ilyka at Pandagon urges readers to get involved, and offers additional sources for ongoing coverage of the case.

Ilyka also sees a larger ideological issue:

Conservatives decry hate crime legislation because the events at Jena High School are their vision of a desirable future. Decent people view those events as ideally confined to a horrible, sickening past, to be remembered but certainly never longed for. We the decent have to help put a stop to this injustice. If you think thatâ€™s unfair, the way we decent people are always having to clean up messes made by the habitually indecent (and I donâ€™t mean â€œindecentâ€ in the fun way), ask yourself: Is it only a little unfair, or charged-with-attempted-murder unfair? Hey! Suddenly life looks a little better, huh? Great! So get to work.