Posted on 09/27/2007 4:01:28 PM PDT by forty_years
Six black teens beat up a white kid in Jena, Louisiana, and Al Sharpton hails it as "the start of the 21st century civil rights movement." The white teen who was assaulted had nothing to do with the hoo-ha. Some 18,000 "protesters" swarmed Jena demanding that the black teens, the so-called "Jena 6," be released from custody -- for beating up an innocent bystander. This is not justice. This is no civil rights movement. This is the culture of victimization, avoiding its own problems and projecting them on others. How did it all get started?
...The "Jena 6" story began in August 2006 when a black student sat beneath a tree where white students usually sit outside Jena, Louisiana's high school. The next day, nooses were hung from the tree. Some of the white students called it a prank. Then in December, six black students beat up a white student during a schoolyard brawl. That led to criminal charges against the six. ...
I can certainly understand why nooses would upset people. They are a very ugly symbol of what happened to black people during part of our nation's history. But many of us have worked to change that history and build a present and future of freedom and equality.
Martin Luther King Jr. did not teach vigilantism. Do these "protesters" even know what MLK stood for? To compare the Jena 6 to heroes like Rosa Parks verges on blasphemy.
The protesters demand that criminals who beat up a bystander be set free without punishment. This is a demand for preferential treatment -- a playing of the race card, nothing more. I don't trust the rabble-rousing of Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, but I do trust Donald Washington, U.S. attorney for the Western District of Louisiana:
...There is no link between the nooses hung by white students outside a Louisiana high school and the alleged beating of a white student by black teens ...The events occurred three months apart last year in Jena, Louisiana.
"A lot of things happened between the noose hanging and the fight occurring, and we have arrived at the conclusion that the fight itself had no connection," he said. ...
Here's what has happened on the legal front regarding the white and black students in Jena:
...Many said they are angry the six black students, dubbed the "Jena 6," are being treated more harshly than the white students who hung the nooses. The white students were suspended from school but did not face criminal charges. The protesters argue they should have been charged with a hate crime. The black students face charges of aggravated second-degree battery and conspiracy in the schoolyard beating. ...
Whether we like it or not, hanging nooses seems to fall into the category of free speech. After all, Columbia University just courteously welcomed Iranian President Ahmadinejad, even though he's called the Holocaust a "myth" and advocated that Israel be "wiped off the map." Ahmadinejad's government sponsors terrorism and routinely tortures and executes its own people. How would these "protesters" react if some high-profile politician demanded that Africa be wiped off the map, or that the Rwanda genocide be censored from history books?
If the white kids with nooses did violate a hate crime, then they should be prosecuted. I won't protest. If the Jena 6 criminals are released because of special interest pressure, then that would be a miscarriage of justice. It would be a slap in the face to all who worked so hard in America's true civil rights movement.
The energies of African Americans would be better spent in addressing their own problems: rampant internecine violence, a popularized "gangsta" culture, and too much uninformed political correctness. Black America -- all of America -- should be listening to the voices of people like Oprah, Bill Cosby, and Juan Williams:
...Williams is the author of a number of books, the most recent of which is "Enough: The Phony Leader, Dead-End Movements, and Culture of Failure That Are Undermining Black America--and What We Can Do About It." In the book, Williams makes the case that while there is still racism, it is way past time for black Americans to open their eyes to the "culture of failure" that exists within their community. ...
See related:
That white kid needs to be strung up for hurting those black kids’ knuckles. A hate crime if I ever saw one!
What would Martin Luther King do?
I was listening to the africanhyphenamerican talker AM 1200 WCHB Detroit this morning. They have a host on late morning named Warren Valentine who is apparently syndicated and was broadcasting from the Congressional Black (africanhyphenamerican) caucus convention today. He had the tom toms all warmed up calling for a economic boycott on November 2 to protest the Jena situation. According to him, ahyphenas spend $2 million dollars a day in America. If that’s true, its a drop in the economic bucket, but perhaps those aren’t underground economy dollars. Several callers pointed out that people would just spend the money on 11/3. Sounds like a gas station boycott.
Spot on about the state of affairs in the black community. I know that there are conservative blacks out there. We just aren’t hearing those voices. I thought many of the same things when this story broke. The entitlement mentality and fifty years of special privileges being bestowed on blacks has come home to roost.
I guess winning the golden ticket in life wasn’t all the LBJ cracked it up to be.
I thought that was Tawana Brawley.
Knuckles he77.. You should see all the blood he left on their shoes! Dang unconscious people laying there all bleedin and such. The unconscious deserve to have their faces stomped.
From what I have read from various sources, There was some overreaction to the crime by the prosecutors. How much or little depends on whose side you are on. Maybe the kid in jail should be out. I don’t know I am not there, but maybe.
There are legal issues STILL being sorted out by THE LOCAL OFFICIALS!
Then come the race baiters. From what I heard, $harpton ‘wants the charges dropped’. ALL charges against the “Jene 6”. That is going too far. How much or little depends on whose side you are on.
But drop ALL charges against 6 kids who beat the snot out of a white kid? NO.
“schoolyard fight”
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.
The victim in this crime, who has been all but forgotten amid the focus on the defendants, was a young man named Justin Barker, who was not involved in the nooses incident three months earlier.
According to all the credible evidence I am aware of, after lunch, he walked to his next class. As he passed through the gymnasium door to the outside, he was blindsided and knocked unconscious by a vicious blow to the head thrown by Mychal Bell.
While lying on the ground unaware of what was happening to him, he was brutally kicked by at least six people.
Imagine you were walking down a city street, and someone leapt from behind a tree and hit you so hard that you fell to the sidewalk unconscious.
Would you later describe that as a fight?
By REED WALTERS
Published: September 26, 2007
Where was Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson when,
The DukeLacrosse4 were baselessly accused by a drug addicted black whore,
Emily was killed by three black, Oh I forgot it was not a white attack,
The young white couple were hacked to death, wait for Al, don’t hold your breath,
Who’s the black Klan, Al, Jesse, and Louis, they’s the man.
Al wants the prosecutor to treat white kids harshly because Al alleges that he treats black kids harshly.
Al has totally ignored all crimes against white people by black people. Al only cares about black on black crime.
So why should Al, a black Klan leader be recognized as anything but a walking hate crime.
I’m posting some of the eyewitness documents that have been posted:
http://www.evangelicaloutpost.com/archives/003979.html
JH - Jena 6 Incident 10, Jena 6 Incident 10b
“Yesterday 12-4-06 I was walking up the stairs beside the lunchroom and a huge group of black boys were coming down there and they all started saying hit him Bailey they was
talking to Robert Bailey. JL, the boy that was walking with me told me after they had left that one of the boys reared back at me and started to swing at me behind my back.
After that was over with me and JL walked to the gym and waited for the bell to ring to go to class when it rang JL left and I was walking with TT and then Jesse Beard, Robert Bailey, Bryant Purvis, Kenneth Purvis, DH, Theo Shaw, and DJ come over to twere I was and started saying they was gonna jump me and beat me ass. I told them that I wasn’t scared of them that I would fight them one at a time then they walked off after me and TT got to the door every black boy that said they was going to jump me was jumping Justin Barker.
TT and me tried to get out the door to help him but we couldn’t then after that I went to class but on my way to class they was chasing me but after I got to class Kenneth
Purvis, Bryant Purvis, and DH were all saying … I was next so I told Mrs. Russell that I was going to the bathroom but I went home instead.”
“Bryant Purvis, Robert Bailey, Theo Shaw, and Jesse Beard was jumping Justin Barker. They was kicking him and stomping on him but he was knocked out before they started kicking and stomping him.”
DR - Jena 6 Incident 11
“Me and LE walked out of the gym and turned around when we heard Mychal Bell yell. Then Justin Barker walked out of the door way and Mychal Bell hit him. Justin fell and they started kicking him. I saw Theo Shaw, Carwin Jones, Mychal Bell, Robert ?, and someone they call Bug around him and many others. Then me and JH pulled KR (Justin’s girlfriend) away and were asked to go to class.”
LE - Jena 6 Incident 12
“Justin Barker walked out of the boys Jim and a bunch of black boy were gathered around the ground and the black boys started kickin him. The boy that through the first lick was Mike Bell and the ones that were kicking him was Theo Shaw & Carwin Jones & Robert Bailey. It was a big crowd of them and Barker had done nothing to the boys.”
LJ- Jena 6 Incident 13
“Me and JO was walking out of the gym when all of a sudden a tall black boy came running from the side and jumped Justin Barker and slammed his head on the concrete beam that people sometimes sit on. Theo Shaw and a group of other blacks were all standing there waiting on Justin and after he was knocked out cold on the ground Carwin Jones and Robert Bailey started kicking his head for no reason at all.
Me & JO looked over and there was blood pouring out of his ears and his hands were shaking because he was knocked out cold. Mrs. Sharp made us go to class.”
“Me and JH and Justin and KR were walking out of the gym. Me and JH were in front of them. It was a lot of black people standing in front of the gym and me and JH walked out by them. When I heard one of them black boys say that there’s that white mother f***er that was running his mouth. Then I turned around and I seen somebody hit him but I don’t know who hit him. Then he fell in between the concrete barrier by the gym door.And I seen Carwin Jones and Robert Bailey hitting him and kicking him. It was so many black boys standing around him I really couldn’t tell who else was hitting him. All I knew was that all of us …… before they hurt him worse. I know I got Carwin Jones and Robert off because I knocked them two off and I landed on them two.
And when them two ran off, another black boy name RB stepped across him and stepped on his face and he smarted off something. And I pushed him away and then some boy grabbed me and then all the coaches were there. And we went to the office.”
They’re English are so bad its’ hard to understand what they be meanin
Coach JM – Jena 6 Incident 02“While sitting in the Field house during lunch, CA came running in the football office to tell the coaches that there was a fight outside. I was the only coach in the main part of the office, so I went to help the duty teachers. I came out of the field house and saw a large group of students standing around the gym door. I pushed my way through the crowd and saw ES throw RB away from the middle of the group.
I grabbed ES and asked him what was going on and he said coach they just jumped on him. At that point I saw Justin Barker lying on the ground face down not moving. I started toward him and saw coach Lewis tending to him. I started asking the crowd what happened and someone kneeling beside Justin looked up and said Robert Bailey and Carwin Jones did it.
I went found Robert Bailey and Carwin Jones in the wing building and questioned them. They denied having any part in it. I told them to come with me to the office and we’ll let Mr. Burgess sort it out.”
Anonymous – Jena 6 Incident 03
“On Saturday, December 9th, a student of Jena High School who wishes to remain anonymous, reported to me what she witnessed at JHS during the fight on Monday December 4th. She stated Justin Barker walked out of the door of the boy’s gym and Mychal Bell punched him in the face. Justin fell immediately to the ground and other students began kicking Justin.
She also reported to me while on the ground Jesse Beard was standing on Justin’s head while Robert Bailey and RB kicked him.”
I agree! The English teacher needs to be fired. These are high school students who should be able to write better than this. This is the transcript of the written statements.
No offense, but it makes ya want to cue the banjo music.
None taken. I don’t talk like that. My mother was a school teacher and we were not allowed to say the word ain’t. It was a pet peeve of hers.
It really is tempting to do a spell check and grammar check but I’m just copying it and pasting it so that you all get the same dramatic effect.
I could tell that those are transcripts. It is appalling, even though I grew up in Mississippi, I had good English Teachers & I also tried not to sound like a Red Neck.
Now I live in Covington north of NOLA.
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