The 21st Century Civil Rights Movement?

[MacCoise]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,2174042,00.html

Interesting case certainly.

Overreaction or justified call to remobilise the movement?


The events that culminated in yesterday's pre-dawn gridlock began under that tree in August last year when a black pupil, having first gained permission from the headmaster, dared to stand under it. The next day three nooses were found hanging from its branches. The incident brought to the surface tensions long present in Jena, a town with an 86% white population and a history of segregation. In Louisiana, a state where 335 black people were lynched between 1882 and 1968, even the number 3 bares the inevitable grim echo of the KKK. Yet the largely white school board chose merely to suspend the perpetrators from school for three days.

Frank Hennigan, a white man who lives about 50 miles from Jena, was less reticent. "This is all being overblown. We are being made out to be rednecked racists and that's not true. The Klan has been dissolved for years."

Mr Hennigan said the nooses from the tree was "just a prank" that happened every year.

Asked about the apparently harsh legal treatment he replied: "They are just trying to get these kinds of people off the streets so everybody who minds their own business can go on their happy little ways."

[MacCoise]

Actually maybe we should get our own house in order first.......

http://www.u.tv/newsroom/indepth.asp?id=84933&pt=n

[Thac0man]

Actually maybe we should get our own house in order first.......

http://www.u.tv/newsroom/indepth.asp?id=84933&pt=n

I agree.

[Arminius]

FFS. Al Sharpton is involved. 'Nuff said.
"The incident was followed by fights between blacks and whites, and in December a white student, Justin Barker, was knocked unconscious on school grounds. According to court testimony, his face was swollen and bloodied, but he was able to attend a school function that night.

Six black teens were arrested. Five were originally charged with attempted second-degree murder — charges that have since been reduced for four of them. The sixth was booked as a juvenile on sealed charges."

[stannis]

It's a bad story but possibly blown out of proportion.

Where were the protests and denunciations when this (http://www.carolinajournal.com/exclu...e.html?id=2869) happened, though? A black professor called Kamau Kambon called for the 'extermination' of all whites. Does racism only go one way?

[PAUL MEYER]

I think that as a rule of thumb any cause that Al Sharpton takes up is almost certainly a load of cobblers. The man is a disgrace, a loud-mouthed rabble-rousing chancer of the first order. Ditto that clown Jesse Jackson, another obvious phoney. What black people in the US have done to deserve the attentions of this pair I really don't know!

[lostexpectation]

did I hear the the DA has included a charge of assault with deadly weapon,namely they're tennis shoes?? come on trumped up charges, okay so the jena 6 shouldn't have beat the guy up but maybe thats what ya should do to people threatening people with nooses.

clearly the DA is racist, for intiataly charging them with attempted murder for a school yard fight.
i hope they go on trial but the DA gets sacked.

its not 21st century that tree was the dreggs of the 20c, and the school went and cut it down rather then change with the times.

[HiberniaGirl]

I think that as a rule of thumb any cause that Al Sharpton takes up is almost certainly a load of cobblers. The man is a disgrace, a loud-mouthed rabble-rousing chancer of the first order. Ditto that clown Jesse Jackson, another obvious phoney.

You said it!

Here's what one guy (a white minister from Jena) claims about the incidents. Lord knows who (if anybody) is telling the truth:

- The actions of the three white students who hung the nooses (on a tree at the high school) demonstrate prejudice and bigotry. However, they were not just given "two days suspension" as reported by national news agencies. After first being expelled, then upon appeal, being allowed to re-enter the school system, they were sent to an alternative school, off-campus, for an extended period of time. They underwent investigations by Federal and Sate authorities. They were given psychological evaluations. Even when they were eventually allowed back on campus they were not allowed to be a part of the general population for weeks.

- There was no "fight" on December 4, 2006 at Jena High School, as the national media continues to characterize the event in question. Six students attacked a single student who was immediately knocked unconscious. According to sworn testimony, they stomped him, as he lay "lifeless" upon the ground.

- Justin Barker, the white student attacked, was not the first white student targeted by these black students. Others had been informed they were going to be beaten, but stayed away from school and out of sight until they felt safe.

- The fight on December 4 was unrelated to the noose incident, or any other incident that occurred earlier in Jena that week. The media keeps reporting otherwise. There are three different boys named "Justin" involved in three different events that the media have morphed into the "Justin" who was attacked on December 4:

A. A juvenile named Justin, whose name was not released to the media, was one of the boys who hung nooses from the trees in September.

B. Three months later, Justin Sloan, not a student at Jena High, fought with one of the black students, Robert Baily, at the fair barn when a couple of black students tried to enter a private party. The next evening, at "Gotta Go" store, Justin Sloan and Robert Baily confronted one another in the parking lot. There were two other black students with Baily. As they ran towards Sloan, Sloan rushed to his truck to get a shotgun, which the black boys wrestled from him and fled.

C. On December 4, six black students at Jena High School attacked Justin Barker, who is neither of the previously mentioned young men.

There's more here...
http://isteve.blogspot.com/2007/09/jena.html

...and here...
http://www.authorsden.com/visit/viewart ... 6&id=32967

[HiberniaGirl]

Actually maybe we should get our own house in order first.......

http://www.u.tv/newsroom/indepth.asp?id=84933&pt=n

Reprehensible.