 Sadly, this story is true. It’s happening now, here in
America. That this level of racism still exists in our country is heinous and
disgusting. It’s happening to children, which breaks my heart all the more. When
racism is allowed, we all are complicit if we don’t speak out.
Jena, Louisiana is a small town of 3000 people, more or
less. It’s also the county seat, or parish seat as it’s known in LA. 12% of the
population, or 310 individuals are African American in Jena.
Jena is the site of the
infamous Juvenile Correctional Center for Youth that was forced to close its
doors in 2000, only two years after opening, due to widespread brutality and
racism including the choking of juveniles by guards after the youth met with a
lawyer. The U.S. Department of Justice sued the private prison amid
complaints that guards paid inmates to fight each other and laughed when teens
tried to commit suicide.
Now that you have a mental vision of the city of Jena..let
me tell you about the Jena Six. Some of you might be familiar with it, some not.
I have to admit I wasn’t until a blogger by the name of Angry Black Bitch wrote
about it
here. Her post was more about the racism she endured as a child, but her
life story led into the story of the Jena Six quite well I think. No one is
saying the Jena Six are without guilt. No one is saying the Jena Six shouldn’t
be held accountable for their actions. Actions that culminated after a whole
series of racist bullshit by the white majority students at the local high
school and off campus attacks.
What I am saying is…the charges of attempted murder are
total bullshit. The six children..and they are children under the age of 18,
should not of been charged with attempted murder. The adults in this real life
drama should be held accountable for allowing this to escalate. Lets back up a
bit and start at the beginning shall we?
 A shade tree in the middle of the campus was ‘reserved’ for
the white students at lunch. One day, in 2006, a black student asked if he could
sit there, to which the school administrator replied he could sit anywhere he
chose.
The next day three nooses were hanging from the tree. Three
white students were identified as putting the nooses up in the tree. The school
principal recommended expulsion for them. This is where it starts to get dicey….
The white superintendent said, "Adolescents play
pranks," the superintendent told the Chicago Tribune, "I don't think it
was a threat against anybody," and gave them a three-day suspension instead.
This should have been dealt with as a hate crime in my humble opinion. Some
folks might say otherwise, but I am telling this story. The black students
protested the weak-ass discipline handed out to the three white students, by
sitting under the ‘white tree’. That day the white District Attorney came to
Jena High School for an impromptu assembly, with back-up law enforcement. It has
been reported that the DA threatened the silent black students who were sitting
under the tree, saying if they did not stop making a fuss about the
"innocent prank...I can be your best friend or your worst enemy. I can take away
your lives with a stroke of my pen." The school was then put on lockdown
for the remaining week.
It escalated from there..a black student was beaten
off-campus shortly afterward. The next day the same black student that was
beaten, wrestled a shotgun away from the same individual that had beaten him the
night before. He took the shotgun to the police department and told them of both
incidents.
Click Here For More . . .
 The black students were arrested for stealing the gun.
The white individual was not charged for either beating the kid the night
before or brandishing the weapon in public at the black kids.
The following Monday a white student, by the name of
Barker, was taunting a group of black students. They beat his ass, but evidently
he wasn’t beaten so bad that he had to cancel attending the social function he
went to that same evening.
The rest of the timeline is courtesy of
JenaSix.org:
Six black students were arrested for beating Barker, and
charged with attempted second-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder.
These charges hold a possible sentence of twenty to one hundred years in prison.
They were all immediately expelled from school.
17-year-old Robert Bailey Junior -bail was set at $138,000
17-year-old Theo Shaw - bail was set at $130,000
18-year-old Carwin Jones - bail was set at $100,000
17-year-old Bryant Purvis - bail was set at $70,000
16 year old Mychal Bell - bail was set at $90,000 (a
sophomore in high school, was charged as an adult)
There remains another unidentified minor.
Now, the punishment meted out to the white folks involved
in this real-life drama:
The white student who was beaten at the convenience store
was later arrested for bringing a hunting rifle loaded with 13 bullets onto a
high school campus. He was released on $5000 bond. The white man who beat up a
black youth at an off-campus party was arrested and charged only with battery,
even though he was an adult that attacked a child under the age of 18.
As for the white students that started everything by
hanging up the three nooses in the tree…they were never charged with anything.
A CommonDreams.org piece on this is aptly entitled:
Injustice in Jena: The 'White Tree', A White Judge, White Jury, and White
Prosecutor Calling White Witnesses Leads To Conviction of Black Youth.
I want to leave you with a quote from the CommonDreams
write-up by one of the white residents of Jena when asked about the JenaSix and
the racial strife that came about after students chose to hang nooses in the
‘white tree’ after a black child had the audacity to sit under that tree:
"We don't have
many problems with our blacks."
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