The Jena 6

I can't judge Dr. Phil's show YET.  I do believe we will see much more on Monday in the way of empathy.  I do not condone the hanging of the nooses and the kids should have received some form of punishment.  However, I do not agree with you about the violence that took place.  Beating a kid until he's unconscious and STILL kicking him is just plain wrong.  AND, six against one beating a person until he's unconscious and still beating after that is COWARDLY! 

I do not live in that town therefore, I cannot say what's going on.  I will be most interested to see how this turns out.  Violence will not solve anything.  This town needs to heal and come together.  The young men need to face each other with a mediator (also the one's who hung the nooses) and get the anger under control.  Until the anger problem is solved nothing good can come to what happened in that town!

Shirley

From the article by Marin:

"Until we view this social calamity in its entirety - by also acknowledging the central role of unstable relations among the sexes and within poor families, by placing a far higher priority on moral and social reform within troubled black communities, and by greatly expanding social services for infants and children - it will persist."

How do we achieve this?  It's not an easy fix.

Shirley

I absolutely agree withyou, Felicia......and I totally canot even begin to imagine the craziness of a 'whites only' tree; luckily, in UK where I am, there have never been any segregation issues of  this nature.Things are not perfect here, but I'm sure we would not ever see situations like this.

Yes, a noose hanging from a tree in a southern state (or anywhere else) is very like a swastika daubed in order to taunt/ threaten a Jewish person. It is obvious what it represents.

Shame on the US for allowing this to happen inthe 21st century.

Sam

Erica's quote:

"The kids are unfortunately a product of their environment and hopefully someone gets in there and helps stop the backwoods mentality going on."

Absolutely!

There should have NEVER been a tree only for whites to sit under!

The nooses were reprehensible!  Again, the kids need to be educated as to the connotation of hanging these nooses! 

The kids who hung the nooses should have been openly punished!'

Violence will not solve anything!  I'm hoping for a peaceful resolution of this horrible ordeal.  I'm also hoping that the there will be some sort of apology from the authorities for not handling this better.

What is it going to take for all races to live peacefully together?  I'm afraid racism and prejudice will never end. 

Felicia, the noose incident is reprehensible, actually so is an "all white tree" and yes the doers should be punished. And any kids that retaliated should be punished. That's all I am saying ... Everyone should be punished to the degree of their crime. Two wrongs or 4 wrongs never make a right.

Mychal Bell deserves punishment, too. He and all the others should be punished. And if the nooses were not a crime in that state, then they should make racial taunts a crime. 

Yesterday I was going to post that these kids need to get together WITH a mediator.  Well, Dr. Phil is going to do just that.  I believe the Bishop is going to meet with all seven.  Justin said he would be in agreement to do this.

I have no idea who jumped who.  Hopefully, if this meeting happens, it will be found out exactly what happened.

I was also going to post in my previous post that this town needs healing.  They do NOT need a bunch of people coming into that town (strangers) and causing more trouble.  If that town is segregated it's time to try to bring blacks and whites together.  Not all people are going to like everyone be it black or white.  It will take work from ALL citizens there.

Again, violence is not the answer.  No one had the right to jump Justing and beat the crap out of him.  And if indeed six young men jumped him that's cowardly.  What chance did he have?

I'm hoping for a peaceful resolution.  This crap just opens old wounds.

Shirley

Amy, I totally agree. Mediation with Justin and the Jena 6 needs to go much, much further than what Dr. Phill is proposing. Having them group hug won't do squat to help heal the underlying problem. THEY obviously aren't the only ones that need mediation. Parents, school officials and teachers, students of all ages - all of them need to be involved, as Jena seems to have lots of tension and problems that will get a whole lot worse before they get better if nothing more meaningful is done.



But I need to address one more thing: the "group of people" who went to Jena two weeks ago (30,000-40,000 in all by most accounts) went with the sole purpose of holding a protest (the right to peaceably assemble is guarenteed in the first amendment, btw) in hopes of drawing attention to this situation. Keep in mind that the Freedom Rides and sit-ins of the 60s - where large numbers of people also came from all over the country to draw attention to/change the racial inequities that were an everyday reality for Black folks throughout the "Jim Crow" south - did the same thing - and succeeded. Marches and boycotts (think Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott) were the jump-off points for getting racist laws removed from the books. Remember, the Jena situation went down in December of 2006. Most people not directly involved didn't hear about it until September or so of 2007 and I really believe the adult attempted murder charges against Mychal Bell would NEVER have been even reviewed by the LA state supreme court (and eventually overturned) had it not been for the public outcry/media attention this received lately.



Sometimes it takes a bunch of people showing up peacably en masse to force change - even in the land of the free and the home of the brave.

How do you begin to heal when attitudes and pre-disposed notions run so deep? I have no idea - and although I applaud Dr. Phil's efforts (at least he's trying), I think it's way too little.



This town has MAJOR problems. That it took a freaking riot at the school (over nooses[!] hanging from "Whites Only" tree[!!] after a group of Black kids TALKED about sitting under it) to make folks realize they are separated and segregated as all get out sounds like fiction or something from 1957, not 2007. How do attitudes like this still exist in this day and age? Isn't this exactly what my parents and others marched and protested against?



The truth is that the folks involved in this incident ALREADY have chips on their shoulders. Some of the six are saying they were wrongly accused and never laid a hand on Justin. Others are openly wondering if the same incident had happened to a Black teen, would the DA have come down so hard? Who knows - but that the question has to even be asked scares the crap out of me.



IMHO, unless the lawmakers, town and school officials and parents are involved in this sit-down with Dr. Phill and Bishop Jakes, I don't think it will even be a very effective start to the healing process at all.

As a southern woman I'm ashamed to see and hear of the way white cops and lawyers are treating black citizens in that town in this day and age.  If the CNN report I saw last week is in any way correct about the history of the treatment of this city's black teens over the past few years with the way they have been charged they need a lot more than talking to bring justice to this town.

The charge that stands out the most comes from when a white teen went to the black side of town's gas station, felt "uncomfortable", returned to his truck, got his shot gun and went back into the station with it.  The shotgun was taken from him by a couple of black teens who were charged by the cops with a laundry

list of complaints,including assalt and battery,  ending with THEFT OF A SHOTGUN!  The black teens were unarmed.

Now, I was going to stay out of this conversation, and I will from now on, but I just had to insert this comment. 

This town is a mess and their justice system is way off base, has been and until the justice system is equal under the law, they will never have peace.  Nor should they.

We sent our three daughters to private school not to keep them segregated, but for a better education.  In my opinion, in a public school setting there was not enough descipline, respect toward the teachers, etc, etc, etc, etc.  We are not rich by any means.  It took a LOT of sacrificing.

My daughter who is now an attorney went to a predominately black  school.  I believe the law school was about 50/50.  She was in her thirties.  One of her best friends was a male black man.  They are still friends.

Before that she worked for the domestic violence shelter as a court advocate helping women of all colors, economic backgrounds and loved it.

My oldest marched with gays in Washington.  She has gay friends.  Her ministers are gay.

As many know my daughter and SIL are now travelling through African.  They've been gone two years this January.  They have talked about adopting an African child.

So, please don't think that every parent who sends their child to a private school does it so they do not have to go to school with black children.  There are white kids out there that are mean as hell.  In most private schools they do not put up with descipline problems.  They get kicked out if they cannot adhere to the rules.

As far as churches go, many black folks worship differently than white folks.  So, there may be a "culture" problem with that.  There may not be a right or wrong answer to that.  There are some denominations that have become more charismatic.  Even white people do not want to worship in those churches.  Old habits die hard, so to speak.

In a perfect world we would ALL get along.  I'm afraid we're not going to see that "world."

Shirley

Hey, Rocktobermom.  I'm sorry.  I didn't mean to "fire" back.  I just want people to know that not all who send their children to schools outside the public school system is predjudiced.  Well, I guess we are when, IMO, the schools are like a battleground. LOL

The first nine years my girls went to a Christian school.  We changed them to another school because of a conflict that I felt was not resolved.  Long story and is not that important.  Ya just don't tick of a mom!

Paulette, have you been following this issue at all? Did you know that a Black kid was jumped a day or two before by a group of White kids at a party and nobody was charged with anything? A few days before that, two Black kids were charged with assault and battery for disarming a White lunatic who threatened them with a gun? The DA said then that boys will be boys. But when a White kid gets jumped, the six Black kids accused get charged as adults for attempted murder.



Seems to me that one kid against a group should be treated the same across the board, but that hasn't been the case in Jena, a town that has a not so great record on disparity between the races when it comes to crime and punishment. This all started with a "White's Only" tree in a PUBLIC school yard. What kind of craziness is that?



No one is saying that violence is an acceptable way of solving a problem, but the problem is how differently things were handled when the victim was White and when another was Black.

I said the thing about the such a thing being allowed to happen in the US, Paulette. Sam was just agreeing with me...



I hate to call you out, but working with low-income folks and/or having folks of color in your family tree does not a racially enlightened person make. And let's not get this thing twisted, either: being poor and being Black are NOT the same thing. Not all poor people are Black and not all Black people are poor. The Jena situation is more about RACIAL inequities than class ones, imo...



There are so many inconsistencies with how this situation was handled that it is ridiculous. If the folks on the receiving end of such uneven justice were female, Jewish or gay, folks would be up in arms that people were treated that badly - and so blatently. So, because one of the teens accused had a record (for what, we don't know), he should rot? Does that actually make any sense at all?



Personally, I don't see folks "pushing their color lifestyles and whatever down everyone's throats to try to force acceptance." That's not what this is about. I don't think it's unreasonable or circus-like at all for people to complain about an injustice. I thought that's what the heck a democracy is all about.



And since Mychal Bell had been incarcerated since December 5 of last year and was just released last week, I don't see how he could have possibly committed any crimes AFTER the incident with Justin, Roctobermom.