Civil Rights Criminal Justice Juvenile Justice Race & Class

The White Tree

the-white-tree.gif

Today, Americans from all over these United States
will march in Jena, Louisiana, because of a tree that has become a lightening rod.

If for some reason, you’ve missed the the controversy about the half-dozen black kids, known now as the Jena Six, here’s a fast rundown from a column by Trey Ellis.

The Jena 6 case began last fall when a new black student to the mostly white, rural Louisiana town of Jena sat under the “white tree,” so called because it was the place where the white kids at school congregated.

The next day three white boys on the rodeo team hung three nooses from the tree.

The white boys were only given an in-school suspension
, their act deemed no more than a “prank.”

The day after that several of the school’s black high school football stars organized a peaceful silent protest under the tree. The school freaked, called in the police and the next day Reed Walters, the local D.A., addressed the school. There, he is reported to have looked at the black kids in the audience, waved his pen in the air and said, “With a stroke of this pen, I can make your life disappear.”

The football season was a good one for Jena and for a few months there was relative quiet in the town. Then on November 30th, a wing of the high school was burned down. Whites thought it was blacks and the blacks assumed it was the whites.


Wayne Goodman of NPR, has a detailed description
of what happened after that:

The next night, 16-year-old Robert Bailey and a few black friends tried to enter a party attended mostly by whites. When Bailey got inside, he was attacked and beaten. The next day, tensions escalated at a local convenience store. Bailey exchanged words with a white student who had been at the party. The white boy ran back to his truck and pulled out a pistol grip shotgun. Bailey ran after him and wrestled him for the gun.

After some scuffling, Bailey and his friends took the gun away and brought it home. Bailey was eventually charged with theft of a firearm, second-degree robbery and disturbing the peace. The white student who pulled the weapon was not charged at all.

The following Monday, Dec.4, a white student named Justin Barker was loudly bragging to friends in the school hallway that Robert Bailey had been whipped by a white man on Friday night. When Barker walked into the courtyard, he was attacked by a group of black students. The first punch knocked Barker out and he was kicked several times in the head. But the injuries turned out to be superficial. Barker was examined by doctors and released; he went out to a social function later that evening.

Six black students were arrested and charged with aggravated assault. But District Attorney Reed Walters increased the charges to attempted second-degree murder.

Since that time, some charges have been reduced, last Friday, one boy’s adult conviction was successfully challenged on appeal, and there have been other legal developments in the individual cases. (Here’s a legal time line.)

I ‘ve been following the Jena case these past months but haven’t blogged about it because, to be honest, such cases of unequal treatment occur in both the juvenile and adult justice system all too often. When it comes to justice, we still have—as John Edwards puts it—two Americas, in part separated by race, in part—as the O. J. Simpson trial demonstrated to us more than a decade ago—by class.

But, in the end, the Jena incident has captured the imagination and the conscience of so many—me included—less because of the unjust treatment of the six young men, then because of a tree. I’ve quoted John Edwards above, so I’ll keep with the trend and quote him again, as yesterday’s statement cut to the heart of the matter:


When a ‘white tree’ stands outside a public school
, marking a place where white students sit but black students are not welcome, there is something so wrong that the right words are hard to find. When children have learned to intimidate each other with age-old, hateful symbols of racial terror, we are reminded that we cannot take progress for granted.

Fortunately, we also still have in this country
the desire for racial justice, understanding and tolerance….

Well, yes. And these are the two realities we must hold up today, one in each hand:

In one hand, the knowledge
that, in too many areas, racial and class divides still cripple us.

In the other hand, the knowledge that, as a nation,
we do have have better angels if we can only truly heed them:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal...”

Time, once again, to challenge ourselves to act as if the truth was really true.

20 Comments

  • Well I could write a few books on this subject. I will just tell a few personal stories which relate to this subject.

    I was watching the news with a couple of “rednecks”, we were watching a news story about swastikas painted on a Synagogue, when one “redneck” says “why are the Jews making a big deal about some stupid symbols painted on their church”. I felt like smacking him on the head and driving him over to the Simon Wiesenthal Museum of Tolerance. He then asks why do I care what happens to the “greedy Jews”. I have to use even more self control to not smack him, how do you educate an old fool? I tried to explain what images and memories a swastika would invoke in any Jewish person. But internally I know I can not educate an old fool.

    One thing I have learned is that when it comes to an issue like racial sensitivity a person who has never experienced this first hand often can not understand what the big deal is with a noose on a tree or a swastika. And then there are others, for what ever reason are so rigid and closed minded they will never allow themselves to hear another opinion or open their mind just a little.(one of your regular readers comes to mind)

    Having O.J. back in the news brings back so many memories of how race played a big part of the trail. The whites could not understand why are “the blacks celebrating that O.J. was acquitted” and that a white woman and man was killed and he was free. The O.J. trail was another lesson on justice and race in America which escaped many people.

  • Kids, and people in general, migrate to people who are like themselves. My son has black friends in school, but the blacks congregate together in the lunch room at the “black tables.” No one officially names the trees and tables, but their boundaries are understood.

    In that line of thought, Reginald Denny discovered the unlabeled racial boundary lines during the 1992 L.a. riots, when he was pulled from his truck, beaten unconcious, and…well, see how Stan Chambers describes what he saw from the news helicopter.

    We had begun to get reports of scattered violence shortly after we had watched on television the barbaric video tape of motorists being ripped out of their cars, hammered, pounded and chased by rock-throwing men on the ground. The image of a man, later identified as Reginald Denny, being pulled from his truck by thugs, still burned in my mind. My memory was seared by the vivid imprint of the motionless, beaten man lying on the ground, being kicked and brutalized. I was still filled with rage at the sight of one of the assailants picking up a large piece of cinder-block and throwing it at his apparently lifeless body, smashing him in the head. Then, after the savage beating, the attacker appeared to do a dance, raise his hands towards the helicopter overhead and flashed a gang sign. Then, to my utter disbelief, another person on the street reached into the pocket of the fallen driver and stole his wallet.

    Maybe some people, including law officers and local D.A.’s overreact, but there are lifetime experiences, such as above, that make them do that, just as there are lifetime experiences that make blacks support O.J.’s innocence and that draw Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton to Jena, LA.

    No one’s wrong, one side is wrong, everyone’s wrong…it’s a matter of perspective. But, I would rather our courts sort it out than let mobs do it on the streets or journalists draw conclusions without all of the facts.

  • My comment got cut off.

    I was having a conversation about O.J. with a friend of mine had he says “isn’t it still ironic that whites still worry more about O.J. than the 60 people killed in the L.A. riots or that the conditions in South Central L.A. are still the same. A black man still can’t get a job.” Ironic indeed my good friend.

  • Ironic, my foot. I can’t tell you how many housing projects and schools in predominately black areas have been restored over and over only to be destroyed each time. We could spend half a billion dollars in South Central L.A. and there would be no sign of where that money was spent within just a few years.

    The problem isn’t caring by those on the outside but by the values, conduct, and caring by those on the inside. Nothing changes until they want to change.

  • But, I would rather our courts sort it out than let mobs do it on the streets or journalists draw conclusions without all of the facts.
    ************
    If I were rich and white like Phil Spector that’s what I would be saying.

  • LAR, I can’t stand rap and I’m not going to insult my ears by listening to some rapper explain to me something that happened fifteen years ago and for which I know full well what happened. It’s not like I don’t have first-hand knowledge of civil unrest. Quit making excuses for people so that they can learn to be responsible for themselves.

  • Ironic, my foot. I can’t tell you how many housing projects and schools in predominately black areas have been restored over and over only to be destroyed each time.
    ***************
    If it were me and I put the same people into the housing projets over and over and it failed it would tell me to try a different approach. bye, time to go to work.

  • I imagine those nooses were just commemorating the historical significance and nobility of southern culture.

    Those who have insisted that racial problems are behind us must be shocked, shocked, shocked.

  • Mavis, all the side show is exactly that and is not a defense of a gang of attackers against an innocent person. Slavery, lynchings, black crime, and Tawana Brawley will not be introduced into the trial, nor will the races of the people involved be at issue.

    The bottom line is this: Did those six people attack and injure the one alleged victim and, if so, was there any legal justification for what they did, such as self-defense. I would say that the answers are “yes” and “no” in that order.

    That’s it. It’s that simple. The town doesn’t need Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, or hundredes of journalists to determine the facts of the case.

    You people need to go back to defending cop-killer Mumia Abu Jamal, who is a bigger hero to the left.

  • Woody,

    It’s obvious you relish in making non-sensical statements and linking them together to purportedly make some kind of logical claim. Tell me of one housing project which money has been thrown at and the (you didn’t say it but implied it) Blacks or Latinos living there just trashed it again.

    The point is people like you like to go around making comments without any substantiation and use them as the foundation to your biased arguments. You don’t even get the point that justice is not being handed out fairly when you have a D.A. publicly warning (threatening is a better word) Black students that he can bury them, then, when a White student runs to get a shotgun following an argument with a Black student, and the Black student takes away the gun in self-defense, the same D.A. charges the Black student with robbery and fails to charge the White student with assault with a deadly weapon.

    It is in that context that the filing of attempted murder charges are being criticized. The D.A. obviously is using his position to target Blacks for prosecution while giving White kids a pass for their criminal behavior. That’s discrimination based on race, not behavior. Jim Crow is still around, he just tries to act more sophisticated and uses people like you to be apologists for him.

    Someone is wrong, and your statement that everyone is wrong is just pure, unadulterated b.s.

    Hopefully, reasonable people will prevail and the kids who beat up the White boy for taunting them will be punished in a manner proportionate to their crime. The charges against the Black young man who took the gun away from the White guy should be dropped, and the guy who pulled out the gun should be charged with a.d.w.

    Then the whole community needs to get together and talk this out so that folks can get learn how insidious little symbols like a “White tree” and nooses can be, and that everyone has a responsibility to contribute to better race relations. Deep seated and long held beliefs are going to have to be challenged.

    Can you look at yourself and see how you try to justify your own biases?

  • Jorge: Tell me of one housing project which money has been thrown at and the (you didn’t say it but implied it) Blacks or Latinos living there just trashed it again.

    I don’t imply things. I come out and say them. If I don’t, then don’t substitute thoughts in there for me.

    As far as public housing being trashed, the first one that comes to mind is the White House when the Clinton’s moved out.

    Don’t be ridiculous about wanting just one public housing unit that was trashed and torn down. I’m personally familiar with this happening in Birmingham, Atlanta, and St. Louis. I’ve seen the projects built, trashed, remodeled, trashed, rebuilt for amounts that exceed luxury housing, trashed again, then torn down. This goes on all over the country.

    Jorge: “Can you look at yourself and see how you try to justify your own biases?”

    Nope. You’re trying to move the blame to me, and that’s not going to work. No justification is needed for wanting justice. There are criminal charges justifiably made against six youths who beat another one. Why do the biases of others try to justify the beating and give support to the accused just because the accused are black?

    If you or others have another beef, don’t connect it with these charges for which there appears to be no legal defense.

    Did you show outrage when Reginald Denny was dragged from his truck and beaten?

    A man named Antoine Miller opened the truck door, giving others the chance to pull Denny out. Another man, Henry Keith Watson, then held Denny’s head down with his foot. Denny, who had done nothing to provoke the violence, was kicked in the stomach. A man who had led a liquor store break-in earlier that day hurled a five-pound piece of medical equipment at Denny’s head and hit him three times with a claw hammer. A man named Damian Monroe Williams then threw a slab of concrete at Denny’s head and knocked him unconscious. Williams then did a victory dance over Denny. He then flashed gang signs at news helicopters, which were televising the events live, and pointed and laughed at Denny. A man named Anthony Brown then spat on Denny and left with Williams. Several bystanders took pictures of Denny but did not attempt to help him.

    After the beating, various men threw beer bottles at the unconscious Denny. Gary Williams, a drug addict who frequented the area, approached Denny and rifled through his pockets. Lance Parker, a process server for a law firm, stopped near the body and attempted to shoot the gas tank of Denny’s truck but missed.

    Upon arrival at the hospital, Denny suffered a seizure. Paramedics who attended to Denny said he came very close to death. His skull was fractured in 91 places and pushed into the brain. His left eye was so badly dislocated that it would have fallen into his sinus cavity had the surgeons not replaced the crushed bone with a piece of plastic. A permanent crater remains in his head despite efforts to correct it.

    How did the trials come out?

    The jury arrived at a verdict of not guilty for all charges except a felony count of mayhem for Williams, and one misdemeanor assault charge for both Williams and Watson on October 18. Watson was then given credit for time served and was released.

    Is that your black justice?

    Jorge: Then the whole community needs to get together and talk this out…and that everyone has a responsibility to contribute to better race relations. Deep seated and long held beliefs are going to have to be challenged.

    So, tell me, Jorge, what did you do and how did the “talking this out” work after the Denny attack? I hold to absolutes in right and wrong, no matter which side is at fault. Anyone who justifies wrong based upon another wrong deserves no support.

    Now, back to the Jena 6…should the charges against them be dropped despite the laws and the facts, just because a lot of people say so?

  • Let’s see Woodster. A guy threatens you with a shotgun. You subdue him and take away his toy. You get charged with theft (the shotgun). He isn’t charged with anything. Hey! Sounds fair to me!

  • rlc, why try this in the blogs and on the streets? Let the court do its job–except that you know that the students are guilty and you want to apply pressure to the D.A. and the court with threats so that the beaters are not held responsible for their actions. Yeah, that’ll teach ’em a great life lesson. Still feeling sorry for Patty Hearst and the SLA?

  • Did you show outrage when Reginald Denny was dragged from his truck and beaten?

    Let me ask you, did you show outrage when the cops beat me like a pinata. Did you show outrage when my trial was move to Simi-Valley aka cop suburbia. Did you show outrage when all them cops were acquitted.

    Another important fact you are missing is that the cops have to be held to a much higher code of conduct than a bunch of crips street thugs.

    The video of them cops beating me and the radio call transcripts were 100% proof of who beat me. The video of trucker Denny was from above and the crips thugs said it was not them who did it, the thugs did not radio into headquarters to make a 100% identification of them.

    Denny should have hit the gas pedal, like I did when the cops were on my ass. Now can we all just get along?

  • Rodney, I see that you do not believe in the justice system despite the fact that it worked for you.

    Rather than having sympathy for someone who was attacked six to one or another man dragged from his truck and nearly killed, you think those attacks are just fine because of what happened to the real Rodney.

    That’s one thing that drives me nuts about liberals…they try to justify crimes by blaming society, etc. and not the individuals–no real sense of right and wrong.

    Oh, and you should have learned your lesson not to try to outrun the cops.

  • I am amazed by folks repeating either misinformation, or outright lies, about the Jena 6 incident.

    Here is a true and objective story of what happened:

    http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1024/p09s01-coop.html

    Media myths about the Jena 6
    A local journalist tells the story you haven’t heard.
    By Craig Franklin

    Jena, La.

    By now, almost everyone in America has heard of Jena, La., because they’ve all heard the story of the “Jena 6.” White students hanging nooses barely punished, a schoolyard fight, excessive punishment for the six black attackers, racist local officials, public outrage and protests – the outside media made sure everyone knew the basics.

    There’s just one problem: The media got most of the basics wrong. In fact, I have never before witnessed such a disgrace in professional journalism. Myths replaced facts, and journalists abdicated their solemn duty to investigate every claim because they were seduced by a powerfully appealing but false narrative of racial injustice.

    I should know. I live in Jena. My wife has taught at Jena High School for many years. And most important, I am probably the only reporter who has covered these events from the very beginning.

    The reason the Jena cases have been propelled into the world spotlight is two-fold: First, because local officials did not speak publicly early on about the true events of the past year, the media simply formed their stories based on one-side’s statements – the Jena 6. Second, the media were downright lazy in their efforts to find the truth. Often, they simply reported what they’d read on blogs, which expressed only one side of the issue.

    The real story of Jena and the Jena 6 is quite different from what the national media presented. It’s time to set the record straight.

    Myth 1: The Whites-Only Tree. There has never been a “whites-only” tree at Jena High School. Students of all races sat underneath this tree. When a student asked during an assembly at the start of school last year if anyone could sit under the tree, it evoked laughter from everyone present – blacks and whites. As reported by students in the assembly, the question was asked to make a joke and to drag out the assembly and avoid class.

    Myth 2: Nooses a Signal to Black Students. An investigation by school officials, police, and an FBI agent revealed the true motivation behind the placing of two nooses in the tree the day after the assembly. According to the expulsion committee, the crudely constructed nooses were not aimed at black students. Instead, they were understood to be a prank by three white students aimed at their fellow white friends, members of the school rodeo team. (The students apparently got the idea from watching episodes of “Lonesome Dove.”) The committee further concluded that the three young teens had no knowledge that nooses symbolize the terrible legacy of the lynchings of countless blacks in American history. When informed of this history by school officials, they became visibly remorseful because they had many black friends. Another myth concerns their punishment, which was not a three-day suspension, but rather nine days at an alternative facility followed by two weeks of in-school suspension, Saturday detentions, attendance at Discipline Court, and evaluation by licensed mental-health professionals. The students who hung the nooses have not publicly come forward to give their version of events.

    Myth 3: Nooses Were a Hate Crime. Although many believe the three white students should have been prosecuted for a hate crime for hanging the nooses, the incident did not meet the legal criteria for a federal hate crime. It also did not meet the standard for Louisiana’s hate-crime statute, and though widely condemned by all officials, there was no crime to charge the youths with.

    Myth 4: DA’s Threat to Black Students. When District Attorney Reed Walters spoke to Jena High students at an assembly in September, he did not tell black students that he could make their life miserable with “the stroke of a pen.” Instead, according to Walters, “two or three girls, white girls, were chit-chatting on their cellphones or playing with their cellphones right in the middle of my dissertation. I got a little irritated at them and said, ‘Pay attention to me. I am right now having to deal with an aggravated rape case where I’ve got to decide whether the death penalty applies or not.’ I said, ‘Look, I can be your best friend or your worst enemy. With the stroke of a pen I can make your life miserable so I want you to call me before you do something stupid.'”

    Mr. Walters had been called to the assembly by police, who had been at the school earlier that day dealing with some students who were causing disturbances. Teachers and students have confirmed Walters’s version of events.

    Myth 5: The Fair Barn Party Incident. On Dec. 1, 2006, a private party – not an all-white party as reported – was held at the local community center called the Fair Barn. Robert Bailey Jr., soon to be one of the Jena 6, came to the party with others seeking admittance.

    When they were denied entrance by the renter of the facility, a white male named Justin Sloan (not a Jena High student) at the party attacked Bailey and hit him in the face with his fist. This is reported in witness statements to police, including the victim, Robert Bailey, Jr.

    Months later, Bailey contended he was hit in the head with a beer bottle and required stitches. No medical records show this ever occurred. Mr. Sloan was prosecuted for simple battery, which according to Louisiana law, is the proper charge for hitting someone with a fist.

    Myth 6: The “Gotta-Go” Grocery Incident. On Dec. 2, 2006, Bailey and two other black Jena High students were involved in an altercation at this local convenience store, stemming from the incident that occurred the night before. The three were accused by police of jumping a white man as he entered the store and stealing a shotgun from him. The two parties gave conflicting statements to police. However, two unrelated eye witnesses of the event gave statements that corresponded with that of the white male.

    Myth 7: The Schoolyard Fight. The event on Dec. 4, 2006 was consistently labeled a “schoolyard fight.” But witnesses described something much more horrific. Several black students, including those now known as the Jena 6, barricaded an exit to the school’s gym as they lay in wait for Justin Barker to exit. (It remains unclear why Mr. Barker was specifically targeted.)

    When Barker tried to leave through another exit, court testimony indicates, he was hit from behind by Mychal Bell. Multiple witnesses confirmed that Barker was immediately knocked unconscious and lay on the floor defenseless as several other black students joined together to kick and stomp him, with most of the blows striking his head. Police speculate that the motivation for the attack was related to the racially charged fights that had occurred during the previous weekend.

    Myth 8: The Attack Is Linked to the Nooses. Nowhere in any of the evidence, including statements by witnesses and defendants, is there any reference to the noose incident that occurred three months prior. This was confirmed by the United States attorney for the Western District of Louisiana, Donald Washington, on numerous occasions.

    Myth 9: Mychal Bell’s All-White Jury. While it is true that Mychal Bell was convicted as an adult by an all-white jury in June (a conviction that was later overturned with his case sent to juvenile court), the jury selection process was completely legal and withstood an investigation by the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. Court officials insist that several black residents were summoned for jury duty, but did not appear.

    Myth 10: Jena 6 as Model Youth. While some members were simply caught up in the moment, others had criminal records. Bell had at least four prior violent-crime arrests before the December attack, and was on probation during most of this year.

    Myth 11: Jena Is One of the Most Racist Towns in America. Actually, Jena is a wonderful place to live for both whites and blacks. The media’s distortion and outright lies concerning the case have given this rural Louisiana town a label it doesn’t deserve.

    Myth 12: Two Levels of Justice. Outside protesters were convinced that the prosecution of the Jena 6 was proof of a racially biased system of justice. But the US Justice Department’s investigation found no evidence to support such a claim. In fact, the percentage of blacks and whites prosecuted matches the parish’s population statistics.

    These are just 12 of many myths that are portrayed as fact in the media concerning the Jena cases. (A more thorough review of all events can be found at http://www.thejenatimes.net – click on Chronological Order of Events.)

    As with the Duke Lacrosse case, the truth about Jena will eventually be known. But the town of Jena isn’t expecting any apologies from the media. They will probably never admit their error and have already moved on to the next “big” story. Meanwhile in Jena, residents are getting back to their regular routines, where friends are friends regardless of race. Just as it has been all along.

    • Craig Franklin is assistant editor of The Jena Times.

  • The ‘Jena 6’ Fraud

    ‘Civil rights’ for the 21st century.

    by Jared Taylor

    E veryone in America has now heard of Jena, Louisiana. Its racism is said to be so shocking that on September 20 Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton had to lead a massive “civil rights” march through the sleepy town of 3,000 to drag it into the modern era. Young blacks from all around the country took part, many comparing the demonstration to events in Selma or Birmingham half a century ago.

    In fact, the “racism” blacks are denouncing is imaginary. The national media have been almost criminally negligent in describing a few harmless events in Jena as if Jim Crow had suddenly risen from the dead. They have painted an entirely ordinary town in false colors, and show no signs of apologizing or even publishing corrections.

    Here is the story as the big media saw it: At Jena High School there was a shade tree under which only whites were allowed to sit. When a black student asked if blacks could sit there too, whites hung nooses on the tree to scare them away. The whites were caught, but got only a slap on the wrist. Blacks were understandably annoyed, and rising tensions led to a black/white school-yard fight. Unlike the lenient treatment the white noose-hangers got, six blacks in the fight were charged with attempted murder. This glaring case of double-standard justice has rallied support for the “Jena 6” from around the world, and prompted demands that the criminal charges be dropped immediately.

    What actually happened? Craig Franklin is a reporter with the Jena Times who has covered events from the beginning. He confirms that there was no “whites-only” tree. The tree in question was planted in 1986, and only recently grew tall enough to give shade. The school put picnic tables under it, and anyone who wanted, sat at them.

    The question about whether blacks could sit under the tree came during a back-to-school assembly for boys on Aug. 30, 2006, to go over the dress code and other routine matters. When a black student asked about the tree, he laughed, and the whole room laughed. Everyone knew that although students sometimes self-segregate, no place on campus was off-limits to anyone. Mr. Franklin of the Jena Times has learned that the boys asked a number of joke questions, partly to keep the assembly going as long as possible, so they would not have to go back to regular classes.

    It is true that early the next morning two nooses made of back nylon rope were found hanging from the tree. The school took them down immediately, and hardly any of the students saw them. School authorities quickly found the three white members of the rodeo team who hung them. Mr. Franklin says they were not even proper nooses, but crudely tied loops. Why did the boys put them there? They had recently seen the “Lonesome Dove” television series, in which Texas Rangers string up several rustlers. None of the rustlers was black. The nooses on the tree were an innocent prank, directed at white friends.

    Mr. Franklin learned in September 2007 from their parents that the boys did not even know nooses had racial significance. To members of the rodeo team, nooses were about cowboys and rustlers. “They didn’t have a clue what nooses mean to blacks,” he says, and were “totally flabbergasted” to learn that they can be seen as symbols of lynching.

    Adults understood, however, and realized blacks would be upset. As the school superintendent Roy Breithaupt later explained: “Even though we’d determined their true motivation had nothing to do with racial hate, we had to acknowledge that to the black community it would be perceived in that manner. Therefore, severe action was taken regarding the students and the hanging of the nooses.”

    “Severe” is right. The boys were made to attend an off-campus disciplinary school for nine days, and then served two weeks of in-school suspension and several Saturday detentions. They were put through a school discipline court, required to pass psychological evaluation to determine they were not threats to anyone, and referred for monitoring to a family crisis intervention program. The police, the FBI, and federal prosecutors all grilled them. Everyone concluded that the nooses were a prank that had nothing to do with blacks or the question asked in the assembly about sitting under the tree. Difficult as it may be for some to believe, their appearance on the tree the day after the question was a coincidence.

    It does appear that the nooses raised racial tensions at the school, but only because the local press reported them as symbols of lynching. On September 6, 2006, a few days after the nooses went up, there was a nasty argument between a black girl and a white girl, and a white boy went to the emergency room for stitches after he was hit in the head from behind. These were exceptional events for Jena High School, where race relations are normally good, and police were assigned to the school on September 7. The next day, there was a report that someone had brought a gun to school. Students were kept in classes for three hours while police searched students and school grounds. All they found were a large number of cell phones, which are forbidden in school by state law.

    Given these signs of tension, why didn’t the school set the record straight about the nooses? The facts came to light during an investigation that could have led to expulsion, and state law requires that such proceedings be secret. “We were bound by law to keep the results of the investigation confidential,” explained Superintendent Breithaupt many months later. “That’s the reason we simply could not talk about it publicly.” Also, Jena had not yet become a world-wide news story, so there seemed to be no need to breach confidentiality.

    In light of what happened later, it is important to note that from September 9 through the end of November—nearly three months—the nooses faded from memory and there were no racial incidents reported either at the high school or in the city or Jena. In the first days of December, however, there were two off-campus fistfights between several black Jena High School students and white townspeople. No one was seriously injured, and a federal investigation later found that the police response was entirely appropriate.

    The crucial event took place back at the high school on December 4, 2006—long after the nooses went up. A black football star named Mychal Bell walked up to a white student named Justin Barker and punched him to the ground from behind. Some eight to ten boys—all black—then started kicking him. Witness statements taken later used phrases like “stomped him badly,” “stepped on his face,” “knocked out cold on the ground,” and “slammed his head on the concrete beam.” According to court documents, Mr. Barker was probably unconscious before he hit the ground, where his attackers stomped his “lifeless” body. The Jena Times calls it “one of the most violent attacks in Jena High School’s history.”

    When Assistant Principal Gawan Burgess got to the scene, he thought the boy was dead. He was bleeding from ears and nose and showed no sign of life. An ambulance took Mr. Barker to the hospital, where he was in the emergency room for about 2-1/2 hours and ran up a bill of $5,467. A brain scan showed no anomalies, and he was released.

    As LaSalle Parish District Attorney Reed Walters has explained many times, this was not a “school-yard fight.” It was a cold-blooded assault, and he charged six of the attackers with attempted murder. Their supporters claim this was a “racist” overreaction to a “playground fight,” especially in light of the mild treatment—generally reported as “three days of in-school suspension”—said to have been given the “racist” whites who hung the nooses. Supporters of the black attackers have tried to discredit the charge of attempted murder by pointing out that Mr. Barker attended a school function the evening after the beating. It was Jena high’s annual class ring ceremony where, as a junior, he was to get a ring. “I waited 11 years to go to it,” he has since explained. “I wasn’t going to let that get in my way.” Mr. Barker had a swollen face and was in considerable pain. He left the ceremony early, as soon as he got his ring. He says he was blind in one eye for three weeks, and was still suffering from headaches six months after the beating.

    Why did the black students beat Mr. Barker? At the trial of his main attacker, Mychal Bell, he said he had no idea. Blacks said Mr. Barker had taunted one of them with having his “ass whipped” at one of the off-campus fights a few days before. A student testified at the trial that just before Mr. Bell attacked Mr. Barker she heard a black say, “There’s that white mother f***er that was running his mouth.”

    It should be underlined that Mr. Barker was not one of the three whites who hung the nooses, and that at the time of his attack no one said it had anything to do with them. It was only later that “Jena 6” supporters tried to excuse the beating by tying it to the four-months-old nooses episode.

    The victim, Mr. Barker, does not appear to be a choirboy. Just a few days before the end of the academic year—long after the attack—he was expelled from school after a hunting rifle was found in his car on school grounds. Students are strictly forbidden to bring weapons to school.

    Blacks were outraged when District Attorney Walters decided to try the first defendant, Mychal Bell, as an adult, but he had reason to. Mr. Bell, who was 16 at the time of the attack, had been on probation since he committed battery on Christmas Day, 2005. Since then, in a period of less than a year, he was found guilty under the juvenile system of three other crimes—two violent assaults and one property crime—and this was even before he attacked Mr. Barker. Bail was set at $90,000, a figure his family could not meet. His father, who is now being portrayed as a deeply caring parent, had been living in Texas for years, and resurfaced only after the boy was charged.

    Just before the trial last summer, District Attorney Walters reduced charges to aggravated second-degree battery and conspiracy. On June 28, 2007, after deliberating for less than three hours, a jury of five women and one man found Mr. Bell guilty. He was to be sentenced on Sept. 20. Much has been made of the fact that all the jurors were white, but none of the blacks summoned for jury duty that day showed up (plenty of whites dodged jury duty, too). The jury pool was all white, so the jury was all white.

    The guilty verdict made Mr. Bell a hero to blacks. He and the other five defendants were soon being touted around the world as classic victims of bigoted, Southern white justice.

    On August 5, Al Sharpton came to town with his usual message: “You cannot have some boys assault and charged with nothing, some boys hanging nooses and finish the school year, and other boys charged with attempted murder and conspiracy. That’s two levels of justice, and two levels of justice is an injustice.”

    Jesse Jackson showed up on Sept. 10, demanding that the conviction for Mr. Bell be thrown out, and that the charges for the remaining attackers be reduced to misdemeanors. If not, he threatened, there would be a “major demonstration” spurred by the “national and international outrage,” with as many as 40,000 people likely to descend on Jena. “The DA and the judge can go a long way to relieve this tension,” he warned.

    Perhaps the judge was listening. On Sept. 14, 28th Judicial District Court Judge J.P. Mauffray Jr. vacated Mr. Bell’s adult conviction, and ordered him retried in juvenile court. As an adult, the longest sentence could have been 22-1/2 years; in juvenile court, Mr. Bell will face a maximum of 15 years. District Attorney Walters did not give in. He intends to try all the defendants on felony charges.

    On Sept. 20, Jena got its demonstration, with the usual bombast about racism and unequal justice. Perhaps as many as 15,000 people—almost all black—were bused in from as far away as Dallas, Nashville, St. Louis, Chicago, and Philadelphia. Blacks all across the country are lauding the “Jena 6” as the great civil rights victims of our era.

    The New York Times tells us Jena is “a high profile arena in the debate on racial bias in the judicial system.” The London Observer wrote that Jena shows “how lightly sleep the demons of racial prejudice in America’s deep south.” The word went out around the world, and British pop star David Bowie gave $10,000 to the NAACP’s “Jena 6 Legal Defense Fund.”

    Four hundred thousand dollars reportedly rolled in before lawyers took the case pro bono. Some of the money then ended up on the Internet, where one of the “Jena 6,” Robert Bailey, posted photos of himself and another defendant draped in $100 bills. The word in Jena—and no one is denying it—is that, thanks to the “defense fund,” Robert Bailey’s mother is now driving a BMW, and Mychal Bell’s mother has moved up to a Jaguar.

    Politicians are burnishing their anti-racist credentials. Senator Hillary Clinton told the NAACP: “This case reminds us that the scales of justice are seriously out of balance when it comes to charging, sentencing, and punishing African Americans.” Senator Chris Dodd said that Jena proves we still have “de facto segregation,” and urged Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco to overturn any convictions that may result. In September, Congressman John Conyers said he would hold congressional hearings on “the miscarriages of justice that have occurred in Jena, Louisiana,” and the Congressional Black Caucus calls events in Jena “an unbelievable example” of “separate and unequal justice.”

    The media are almost entirely to blame for this hideous cavorting. All too ready to assume the worst of whites, all too happy to encourage blacks to scream “racism,” they have, in effect, driven them to demand freedom for thugs who knocked a boy down and stomped him as he lay unconscious. The charges of “racism” that are supposed to justify the attack have now been shown to be just as groundless as the lies with which Tawana Brawley helped Al Sharpton find his true calling.

    What are the chances the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, and the rest of the world media will correct their stories? Water is more likely to flow uphill. The media have sunk their teeth into what they thought was a juicy story about small-town, Southern racism and there is no pulling back. The “Jena 6” have joined the “Little Rock 9” and the “Scottsboro Boys” as iconic victims of Southern white racism. The whole thing is a contemptible fraud.

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