'If anything, the people demanding that we "free the Jena 6" have
more in common with racists like Bull Connor -- who believed that people
of
his race should be able to do anything they pleased to people of another
race just by virtue of their skin color -- than they do with real civil
rights heroes like Martin Luther King or Rosa Parks.'
What They Don't Want You To Know About The Jena 6 Case
By John Hawkins
Friday, September 28, 2007
Only in today's political climate, where so much of the "civil
rights
movement" is comprised of bottom-feeding race hustlers and shameless
liberals who deliberately exploit racial tensions for their own political
benefit -- could anyone demean the real civil rights movement that
occurred
during the sixties by comparing the struggles those brave people faced --
to
what has been happening in Jena, Louisiana.
That may not be the impression most people have gotten at first
glance, but that's because many of the facts about this story have been
distorted to such a point that they have little to do with what actually
happened.
Cars drive past a welcome sign along Highway 84 in Jena, Louisiana
September 20, 2007. Tens of thousands of black Americans descended on a
small town in central Louisiana on Thursday to protest what they say is
injustice against six black teen-agers charged over a high school fight.
Protesters arrived in buses and cars from cities as far away and apart as
New York, Atlanta, Los Angeles and New Orleans for a rally in support of
the
"Jena 6." The case has become a symbol for many blacks of a wider struggle
against racism and perceived discrimination against black males by the
criminal justice system.
Let's start with what has been called the "white tree" and the
nooses
that you've heard so much about. Long story short, there was a tree at the
school in Jena that white kids usually sat under. Note that I did say
"usually." Despite what you may have heard previously, students of all
races
sat under the tree sometimes.
Regardless, a black student asked at an assembly if he could sit
under
the tree in question. The principal correctly told him that black students
could "sit wherever they wanted." The day after that student and his
friends
sat at the tree, two nooses were hung.
Local pastor Eddie Thompson then does a good job of explaining what
happened next to the students responsible for hanging the nooses,
"The actions of the three white students who hung the nooses
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 State 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."
Why weren't they charged with a crime? Simple: because what they did
may have been hateful, racist, and moronic, but as prosecutor Reed Walters
has noted, it wasn't illegal.
I searched the Louisiana criminal code for a crime that I could
prosecute. There is none.
Similarly, the United States attorney for the Western District of
Louisiana, who is African-American, found no federal law against what was
done.
A district attorney cannot take people to trial for acts not covered
in the statutes. Imagine the trampling of individual rights that would
occur
if prosecutors were allowed to pursue every person whose behavior they
disapproved of.
After this event occurred, racial tensions unsurprisingly ratcheted
up
several notches at the high school. A building was burned down. Fights
broke
out. Prosecutor Reed Walters went to the school and told the entire
student
body that, "I can end your life with the stroke of a pen," as part of an
effort to stop the violence.
Still, there were another couple of much discussed incidents that
occurred outside of school. Here's the Washington Post round-up of what
happened,
In the weeks that followed, the fighting continued. In one scuffle,
Robert Bailey, one of the 6 teenagers now facing trial, said a white man
broke a beer bottle over his head after jumping him at a party, but there
was no immediate investigation. Months later, Justin Sloan, who is white,
was charged with simple battery and given probation for that attack.
Bailey was involved in a second incident when he and friends spotted
one of his attackers at a gas station. As Bailey and his friends
approached,
they said, the white teenager ran to his truck and brandished an unloaded
shotgun at them. Bailey helped wrest the weapon away, refused to give it
back and was charged with stealing the gun.
Days later came the school fight that led to the prosecutions.
Sheriff
Carl Smith said the crimes justified the charges.
As you can see, the white man who hit Robert Bailey with a beer
bottle
was charged with battery and the second altercation was much more
ambiguous
than supporters of the Jena 6 would have you believe. Was the white
teenager
a thug looking to threaten Bailey and his friends or someone who grabbed
his
unloaded shotgun because he was genuinely frightened by seeing a group of
people he thought, perhaps with some justification, were intent upon doing
him harm?
In either case, there are other scrapes that members of the Jena 6
got
into that haven't been widely discussed, likely because they paint a very
different, very unflattering picture of the people involved. Once again,
here's local pastor Eddie Thompson,
The "Jena 6" have repeatedly been held up as heroes by much of the
race-based community and called "innocent students" by the national media.
Some of these students have reputations in Jena for intimidating and
sometimes beating other students. They have vandalized and destroyed both
school property and community property. Some of the Jena 6 have been
involved in crimes not only in LaSalle Parish but also in surrounding
parishes. For the most part, coaches and other adults have prevented them
from being held accountable for the reign of terror they have presided
over
in Jena. Despite intervention by adults wanting to give them chances due
to
their athletic potential, most of the Jena 6 have extensive juvenile
records. Yet their parents keep insisting that their children have never
been in trouble before. These boys did not receive prejudicial treatment
but
received preferential treatment until things got out of hand.
This brings us to the savage beating of Justin Barker which has been
falsely described as a mere "schoolyard scuffle."
In reality, the brutal assault began when one of the Jena 6 struck
Barker from behind, knocking him unconscious. As Barker lay on the ground,
the 6 of them kicked and stomped him until they were pulled off of his
prone
body. One of the eyewitnesses even said that they "slammed (Barker's) head
on the concrete beam."
It's also worth noting that according to Eddie Thompson, "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."
So, we're not talking about victims of circumstance here, we're
talking about thugs who would be a danger to other students in the school
if
they had not been arrested.
Moreover, although Barker's injuries have been portrayed as slight
because he left the hospital the same night of the beating, he had $14,000
in medical bills, blood clots in his eye, and left the hospital even
though
he was "advised to remain hospitalized."
The trial of the Jena 6 has been treated as some sort of miscarriage
of justice merely because they faced an all-white jury, but there are a
lot
of key details that have been overlooked by many people discussing the
story.
For example, "A black U.S. attorney, Don Washington, investigated
the
"Jena 6" case and concluded that the attack on Barker had absolutely
nothing
to do with the noose-hanging incident three months before. The nooses and
two off-campus incidents were tied to Barker's assault by people wanting
to
gain sympathy for the "Jena 6" in reaction to Walters' extreme charges of
attempted murder.
Much has been written about Bell's trial, the 6-person all-white
jury
that convicted him of aggravated battery and conspiracy to commit
aggravated
battery, and the clueless public defender who called no witnesses and
offered no defense. It is rarely mentioned that no black people responded
to
the jury summonses and that Bell's public defender was black."
Moreover, once you know all the background of this story, the
prosecutor's initial decision to charge Mychal Bell as an adult and try
him
for murder charges makes sense. As Reed Walters wrote Wednesday in the New
York Times,
"Conjure the image of schoolboys fighting: they exchange words,
clench
fists, throw punches, wrestle in the dirt until classmates or teachers
pull
them apart. Of course that would not be aggravated second-degree battery,
which is what the attackers are now charged with. (Five of the defendants
were originally charged with attempted second-degree murder.) But that's
not
what happened at Jena High School.
...Only the intervention of an uninvolved student protected Mr.
Barker
from severe injury or death. There was serious bodily harm inflicted with
a
dangerous weapon - the definition of aggravated second-degree battery. Mr.
Bell's conviction on that charge as an adult has been overturned, but I
considered adult status appropriate because of his role as the instigator
of
the attack, the seriousness of the charge and his prior criminal record."
So, putting it all in context, this situation has nothing in common
whatsoever with the great and righteous civil rights struggle in America's
past. Back then, we had courageous Americans standing up to make sure that
black Americans could sit where they wanted to on a bus or at a lunch
counter, drink from whatever water fountain they chose, and to make sure
that their children could go to the same schools as whites.
What's being stood up for here? The right of black thugs to beat
white
kids with impunity while Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton raise a few bucks
off
of it? Let's be honest here: if 6 white thugs in Jena had knocked a black
student unconscious and kept stomping him afterwards until they were
pulled
off and the prosecutor decided to let them walk, the very same people
defending the Jena 6 today would be crying racism and marching in the
streets because the white students WEREN'T BEING CHARGED with attempted
murder.
That's why calling this a "civil rights issue" is a gross insult to
the American heroes who risked their lives fighting for equality back in
the
sixties. If anything, the people demanding that we "free the Jena 6" have
more in common with racists like Bull Connor -- who believed that people
of
his race should be able to do anything they pleased to people of another
race just by virtue of their skin color -- than they do with real civil
rights heroes like Martin Luther King or Rosa Parks.
http://www.townhall.com/Columnists/JohnHawkins/2007/09/28/what_they_don%e2%80%99t_want_you_to_know_about_the_jena_6_case?page=full&comments=true
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