I read this morning about the Jena 6, a group of 6 black teenagers who are in a legal mess around the beating of a white student in Jena, LA. The attack, apparently, had it's roots in an incident last September when white students hung 3 hangman nooses in a tree.
In November, a group of white students attacked a black student at a party. The next day the black student spotted one of the white students and chased him at which point he pulled an unloaded shotgun on them that was taken from him by the black students.
The black students were charged for theft. None of the white students were charged in the attack or in the hangman nooses (which apparently isn't a crime of any kind of course God help you if you decide to use the N-word and you're white....in public at least, the best you can hope for is a platinum Klan membership and a private slap on the back from the boys and public berating from a self-righteous, confused public).
Mychal Bell, 17 was one of the 6 and was tried as an adult. That has been reversed. He has a previous criminal record, and that's one thing that would seem to frustrate the white citizens of the town.
In comes Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton claiming a double standard of justice.
I agree. And I think it's totally ironic that it's coming up just when our buddy OJ is back in the news.
Mychal Bell may very well be guilty in this case. But, sadly, that's beside the point. Our justice system is screwed up. It seems the reason that some black folks were fired up when OJ got off wasn't because he was innocent (he wasn't). It's because white America got a taste of how money gives an advantage in the justice system. OJ got a super defense team and won (despite mounds of evidence against him).
For years it's been the other way around. White folks have money. We commit crimes. We pay huge sums of money to defense teams and we win (even though we're guilty). (Oh and sometimes we didn't even need to have huge sums of money...just be white...isn't that nice? (See Emmett Till)
In this case, it may be that Mychal Bell and the rest of Jena 6 get off, even though they are guilty. And what bugs lots of folks is that black folks are only asking for the same treatment that white folks seem to get.
All I know is if I had to spend my entire life feeling scared when I heard police sirens (even when I'm innocent) or getting pulled over because of my skin color or just generally being looked down upon, I would have a hard time not being frustrated and even angry.
One thing's for sure, as much progress as we think has been made, let's face it, we are still a racist nation.
I would love it if we could have some kind of constructive dialog about this. Even if it's not illegal to put up hangman nooses, how can we not discuss that?
It sure feels like things haven't changed much. It's just every once in a while, we are reminded of it in public.