Jena 6 makes it into the mainstream media


Photo via flickr’s very talented macskata. This photo is so haunting and beautiful — and its scary how timeless it is.

The rallies in support of the Jena 6 have finally drawn nationwide attention to this tiny little Louisiana town where racism still thrives. (As an ironic aside, Jena’s Wikipedia entry lists a segregationist Democrat as its sole famous resident.) Check out Yahoo’s Full Coverage page on it.

Call me biased if you want, but like I said in my previous post, this whole situation seems pretty cut and dried. Both sets of kids did wrong, but the white kids got a slap on the hand, while the black kids got attempted murder charges (yeah, yeah, the charges were reduced, but I still can’t believe that silly DA charged those boys with attempted murder for a SCHOOL FIGHT).

I’ve also seen comments (like in the Flickr page for the photo) that there were victims on the white side too. Yeah, that’s true. But Pursuing Holiness points out that Justin Barker had a black eye. A black eye. Dude. Justin Barker went to the hospital with a black eye. That jury should be ashamed of themselves for convicting for a black eye. And the DA? J. Walter Reed? He cracks me up because he keeps insisting that everyone is so focused on the Jena 6, yet they’ve lost sight of the victim. Yes, the victim who got a black eye and got beat up in front of everyone at school. The poor guy. Maybe he should stop bragging about white guys who “whip” black guys?

I’m sure that this is amazing and a little bit unbelievable to everyone in Los Angeles that this case has gone as far as it has. If that noose thing had happened anywhere here, you can bet it would be a Do Not Pass Go situation.

Let’s all hope that this causes the residents of Jena to take a good hard look at themselves and how they treat people. Although, adversity is not always conducive to self-improvement, but, here’s hoping.