Assuming his facts are RIGHT about the prosecution of the black kids, then I might agree.
I just wonder, though, if six white kids had done the same thing, and the charges of attempted second degree murder had been dropped...
Richard Pryor said it best,
"It made my heart ache, you know, to see all these beautiful black men in the joint. The warriors should be out there helping the masses. I felt that way, I was real naive. Six weeks I was up there and I talked to the brothers. I talked to 'em, and ... thank God we got penitentiaries! I asked one, 'Why did you kill everybody in the house?' He says, 'They was home.'
One of our great Freeper “informants”, CajunConservative, gave us (in post # 30 of this thread) the following link.
http://www.thejenatimes.net/home_page_graphics/home.html
In that link, toward the bottom, is a COMPLETE timeline of the “Jena” story.
It changes my view of McWhorter’s opinion, because the time line more totally and accurate describes the totality of the context in which recent events need to be viewed.
It seems to me, in that time line, that current events in Jena have in fact been “jinned up”.
The only point I would have advocated earlier and more forceful action locally was for the principle to have sooner (immediately) had a joint parent student assembly to discuss the “noose” incident, and to have given harsher punishment to the “pranksters” for the potential (social environment) harm that such a “mere prank” can have, in their community. He may have pre-empted some measure of local support that those “jinning up” the situation were able to get, providing more “racial balance” in defense of the initial response. Does that defend current events. No, not at all. But, local officials there I would guess need to be pro-active in (not waiting to) undermining those who seek to use a situation to advance a political agenda.