Carolinian

Issue date: 10/2/07 Section: Opinions

Last week in class, someone brought up a very important point: The Jena 6 case is not being given the attention a situation this dire merits. Due to our collective reluctance to discuss it and admit to the problems that lead up to it, the discourse and action needed for change and education will never take place.

For those who may not be aware of the Jena 6 case, I'll give a bit of a synopsis. At Jena High School in Jena, La. - where the student population is about 80 percent white and has a long standing history of racial tension - a group of white kids claimed a tree in the courtyard as the "white tree." A black kid sat under the tree anyway and a few days later nooses were hung from the branches of that tree. Instead of being seen as a hate crime, this act was called an "adolescent prank" and brushed off with a kids-will-be-kids type of sentiment by the school's administration. They also said they were too busy to deal with the situation. When a group of outraged black students tried to take the issue to the school board, they were denied. Even though racial tensions still ran high at Jena High and fights broke out between black and white students, the school board was convinced that the noose incident had blown over and that there was no longer any problem.

This started in September of 2006. By December, things had progressed to a point where six black students, who have been dubbed by the media as the "Jena 6," attacked a white student, Justin Barker, who has been accused of prompting the fight by saying racially motivated insults to one of them. As a result Barker was very badly beaten and the Jena 6 was charged with attempted second-degree murder.

The most famous case of the six is that of Mychal Bell who, even though he was a juvenile at the time, was tried as an adult. Enough time had passed for it to be quite obvious that the attack on Justin Barker was not directly influenced by the nooses or else the fight would have taken place in September as well. Even if these two instances are not directly connected, they are connected in that they are two serious racially-motivated instances taking place at the same school with a history of racial tension in a city and state with a social and legal history of racist oppression. Now it's September 2007 and there are groups forming who are calling for justice for the Jena 6. The problem is, for some, justice is releasing them and dropping all the charges.

Continued...

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