This Commonweal article by Joe Petit came as a great relief. Finally, somebody in America appears to understand the true significance of Jena. Throwing charges of racism at people like Jena prosecutor Reed Walters can be counterproductive, Pettit argues, because it deflects attention from the systemic nature of American injustice. Changing hearts isn’t enough; we need to change public policy. On the other hand, Pettit understands that you can’t change public policy without changing hearts and minds–particularly the hearts and minds of white people. Pettit’s black students ask him why white America is so unconcerned about the plight of poor black Americans. Jena raises the same question.
This penetrating column focuses on the nature of freedom. When we say, “Free the Jena 6!” what are we saying? To me, the phrase meant that justice would not be served until the Jena 6 were freed from the spiteful prosecution of Reed Walters and the overheated and grossly biased judicial context of LaSalle Parish. But many white observers have taken the phrase to mean that black offenders should not be held accountable.
The misunderstanding, Pettit suggests, is rooted in the underreporting of critically important events–primarily Reed Walters’ September threat to destroy the lives of those who continued to protest the school’s handling of the noose incident. This bizarre statement suggests that (a) Walters helped create the toxic atmosphere that led to a weekend of racial violence, and that (b) the prosecutor’s bias means he cannot fairly represent the interests of justice. Only when these facts are understood can we get a feel for the familiar cry, “Free the Jena 6”.
November 23, 2007 / Volume CXXXIV, Number 20
SHORT TAKE
Free at Last?
YES & NO
Joe Pettit
Late last year six black teenagers were charged-as adults-with attempted murder, for beating a white classmate in rural Jena, Louisiana. The beating followed a series of racially charged incidents, including the hanging of nooses from a tree on school property. Though the district attorney eventually reduced the excessive charge to battery, widespread outrage had already been aroused, and in August tens of thousands of civil-rights protestors descended on Jena, bringing with them intense national media coverage.
Large-scale civil-rights marches are uncommon these days, and the protests against the treatment of the “Jena 6,” as the young men came to be known, provided a glimpse of racial tensions that all too often get papered over. This revelation followed on the heels of a hotly contested Supreme Court decision narrowly overturning school integration plans in Seattle and Louisville. Taken together, the two events make it clear that Americans remain as divided as ever over how to think about the legacy of racism in the United States-and what to do about it.
As a white professor who teaches social ethics at a historically black university, I reflect on this question almost daily. The debate is unnecessarily confused. Everyone seems to be talking about freedom, yet few acknowledge that the word is being used in very different ways. The difference lies in how freedom relates to opportunity. On the one hand, freedom can mean the choices we make with the opportunities we are given. But it can also mean the amount of opportunity available to us. Being born into a community rich in opportunity-or one lacking in it-has profound implications for our freedom. Many white people think that the thirty-odd years since most legal discrimination was abolished, plus the decades of social-assistance programs, mean we can stop worrying about race. And many black people know that a disproportionately high number of African Americans remain mired in poverty, crime, and hopelessness.
The scriptures of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam contain another way to frame the two dimensions of freedom. Each religious tradition exhorts its adherents to live up to divine expectations of righteousness. God, speaking through the prophets, also expects that the poor and the vulnerable will be protected by a commitment to justice. In biblical times, whenever societies allowed this justice to fail, and the poor to remain isolated and ignored, they incurred the prophet’s wrath. But how would a prophet speak today about race and social justice in a way that would enable Americans to move beyond the current impasse?
First, despite the enduring legacy and the persistence of racism, it needs to be said that lobbing accusations of racism is not helpful. Indeed, such accusations can have the paradoxical effect of reducing the problem to the need for a change of heart, rather than the need for a change in public policy. Instead, we should focus on responsibility. Both the rich and the poor have responsibilities. Those who live in opportunity-rich communities, for example, often work to keep lower-cost housing out of their neighborhoods. They need to be reminded that “personal responsibility” should include not only taking care of one’s own family but also addressing injustice.
On a broader scale, we need to recognize that the very structure of our political system perpetuates the isolation of those who live in opportunity-poor neighborhoods, concentrating poverty and hopelessness in relatively few political districts, thereby further diminishing the political power of the residents. And the courts haven’t helped much of late. The Supreme Court ruling on public-school integration in Louisville and Seattle failed to help us understand how to reduce racial inequality. Chief Justice John Roberts’s attempt to minimize the scope, meaning, and implications of Brown v. Board of Education was, at best, naive. In fact, Brown was a judicial intervention designed to curtail the ability of federal, state, and local governments to perpetuate racial inequality by giving blacks an inferior education.
Yet the dissent by Justice Stephen Breyer was not as “eloquent and unanswerable” as Justice John Paul Stevens seemed to believe. Breyer spent over half his sixty-eight-page opinion arguing that integration programs are permissible. But lots of unfortunate things are constitutionally permissible; and Breyer’s attempt to clarify why such programs might be desirable was unconvincing. He cited no instance of actual harm caused by the Seattle and Louisville school systems. (In fact, both systems offered an unsually wide choice of schools for all students, making them something of a racial Shangri-La compared with systems in which students are limited to the school district in which they reside.) Finally, although Breyer appealed to the “democratic” value of creating educational systems that reflect a “pluralistic society”-an argument that makes racial diversity a legitimate concern-he never explained how much diversity is enough. Nor did he help us understand the rather confusing claim by the Louisville school administration that schools where 85 percent of the students are white are racially acceptable, while schools where 51 percent of the students are black are unacceptable. What’s a self-respecting black student to make of that?
The Jena 6 protests were another missed opportunity to advance the discussion on racial inequality. The protests made clear that racism still drastically affects people’s lives, especially when it is bolstered by judicial and political power. But the demand to “Free the Jena 6” gave many outsiders the impression that protestors thought the six teens should not be held responsible for the attack on the white student. What casual observers could not see was the background of the incident: that groups of white students had previously attacked blacks with impunity; that the white district attorney in Jena had allegedly threatened black students at the school, warning them he could ruin their lives with the “stroke of a pen.” These facts were underreported, and so the message the wider public took away from “Free the Jena 6” was that demands for racial justice are at odds with the demands of personal responsibility.
A different slogan-say, “Equal Lives, Equal Justice”-could have focused more clearly on the problem of racial disparity in the criminal-justice system. But in the end, will anyone change his or her political convictions in order to defend criminals? Reducing racial inequality requires seeing the consequences of history and policy not on criminals, but on human beings. And while much can be accomplished through changes in public policy, what’s most lacking is what’s most needed: the sympathy and support of mainstream white America. This is what perplexes my students. While many of them are willing to accept that greater attention to personal responsibility is necessary in many poor black neighborhoods, they also wonder why so few white people feel a responsibility to eliminate the legacies of slavery and discrimination.
We hear it all the time: Americans are a believing people. But belief in God demands empathy and solidarity with those who suffer, even when this means supporting people who have made bad choices. Too many Americans have concluded that persistent racial inequality is not their problem. This denial of responsibility lies at the heart of our abiding racial problem.
Friends of Justice 
There are no Jena Six-related incidents in which “groups of white students” attacked black students with impunity.
The three white students who hung the nooses at Jena High School say they hung them to poke fun at friends who were members of the school rodeo team, an idea they say they got from the lynching scene in the movie Lonesome Dove. They say they were unaware that the nooses might be construed as racist symbols. Two separate investigations, one by the Justice Department and one by the Jena School District concluded that the three students are telling the truth. Nevertheless, the three students were punished with (1) a nine day suspension, during which time they attended an alternative school; (2) an additional two weeks of in-school suspension; (3) several Saturday detentions; (4) an order to attend a discipline court; and (5) a referral to a family counseling program.”
School superintendent Roy Breithaupt 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.” The fact that the noose-hanging incident was not an act of racial intimidation has been grossly underreported.
Following the Jena Six beating incident, the Justice Department reopened its investigation into the noose-hanging incident at Jena High School and determined there was no link between the nooses and the beating. U.S. Attorney Donald Washington told CNN that, “A lot of things happened between the noose hanging and the fight occurring, and we have arrived at the conclusion that the fight itself had no connection.” He added that none of the black students involved in the beating made “any mention of nooses, of trees, of the ‘N’ word or any other word of racial hate.” The fact that no connection exist between the noose-hanging incident and the Jena Six attack has been grossly underreported. The mainstream media obscures this fact by reporting that the Jean Six attack “followed” the noose-hanging incident. This is chronologically accurate but leaves the false impression that the noose hanging incident triggered the Jena Six attack.
The incidents that actually triggered the Jena Six attack involved white adults who were not students and black students, including members of the Jena Six. The first occurred at a private party at the Jena Fair Barn. Although blacks and well as whites were invited, trouble started when a group of black teenagers, including a member of the Jena Six, tried to crash the invitation-only party and refused to leave when one of the party’s hosts ask them to leave. A 22-year-old white male hit Robert Bailey, a member of the Jena Six. The white adult was arrested and pleaded guilty to a charge of battery. The fight had no connection to the noose-hanging incident. It was similar to violence that frequently occurs across the nations as uninvited teenagers attempt to crash parties.
The second altercation, which occurred outside a Jena convenience store, stemmed from the fight at the private party. It involved a 21-year-old white male, who had attended the private party, Robert Bailey and two other black teenagers. The white male told police the black teenagers confronted him as he was about to enter the store and followed him to his vehicle in the parking lot. He said he pulled an unloaded shotgun from the back seat to defend himself and that the three black students wrestled the shotgun away from him and beat him up. He said the black students “ran off” with the shotgun. Witnesses, including store employees, who called police, supported the white male’s version of the event. The black teens were arrested and charged with aggravated robbery. (In a similar incident, a black Jena preacher who is one of the leading Jena Six supporters pulled a gun on a white male, following an argument, who approached him in what he say was a threatening manner as he sat in his car outside a Jena restaurant. The two filed conflicting police statements, but neither pressed charges.)
In press reports and blog sites, the white adults become “white students” or “white youths.” The purpose of this misrepresentation is to leave the impression that a virtual ‘race war” had broken out on the campus of Jena High School. The Justice Department reported that race relations at Jena High School quickly return to normal following the noose-hanging incident. The school reported that a white girl and a black girl got into a scuffle and that a black student hit a white student in the back of the head as he walked down the hallway, but said neither incident was racially motivated. Neither incident was reported to police.
The Jena Six attack on Justin Barker at Jena High happened a few days after the fight at the private party and the shotgun incidence at the convenience store. Witnesses said the Jena Six were angry at Barker because they heard he had been talking to other students about the fight at the private party. Most mainstream media reports omit the fight at the private party and the shotgun incident at the convenience store that led directly to the Jena Six attack. Acknowledging that the fight at the private part rather than the noose-hanging incident triggered the Jena Six attack would destroy the “story.”
.A common but false assertion made in connection with the Jena High School beating is that the Jena Six are being over-charged simply because they are black. However, in a 2005 case similar to the Jena Six beating, five white South Carolina teenagers who beat up a black teenager were charged and convicted of “second-degree lynching and assault and battery of a high and aggravated nature.” (There was no actual lynching involved. Second-degree lynching is defined by South Carolina law as any act of violence on another person by a mob when death does not occur. A mob is considered two or more people whose purpose and intent is committing an act of violence on another person.) Like the Jena Six, the white teenagers kicked the victim, 16-year-old Isaiah Clyburn, as he lay on the ground. The attack left the black youth “on the roadside bruised and bloodied from the attack.” The white teenagers received the following sentences: One, who prosecutors said was the person most responsible for the attack, was sentenced to 18 years suspended to six years and 400 hours of public service. Two were sentenced to 15 years suspended to three years and 300 hours of public service. And one was sentenced to 15 years suspended to 30 months and 300 hours of community service. A sixth co-defendant, Amy Woody, 17, was also charged with 2nd-degree lynching even though she did not take part in the beating.
Blair:
You are certainly right that the Fair Barn assault and the Gotta Go incident formed the immediate background to the assault on Barker. Eyewitness accounts suggest that white students were teasing Robert Bailey for having his “butt kicked” at the Fair Barn. You fail to understand that the assault on Bailey at the dance didn’t come out of nowhere. He and the kid who hit him had been involved in prior altercations that began immediately after public officials validated Jena’s de facto policy of schoolyard segregation by calling the noose hanging a prank. Reed Walters “stroke of my pen” comment suggested strongly that (a) Roy Breithaupt was right to call the nooses a prank and that (b) anyone protesting this decision would be subject to prosecution. The white kids behind the noose incident (a circle much larger than the three kids actually implicated) took Walters’ announcement, quite rightly, as a victory for their side. The white-black violence began immediately after that announcement. It went underground, partly because no one wanted to get suspended from the football team; but the fire at the school rekindled the animus between the two groups, actually kicking things up a notch or two. This explains why Robert Bailey was sucker punched at the Fair Barn. This was not the sort of thing that would normally have happened.
While it is true that some (Al Sharpton for example) have suggested that the Jena 6 were overcharged because they were black, this has never been my argument, nor is it the argument presented in the article above. Everything hinges on Reed Walters’ little speech. People get Jena wrong because the prosecutor’s words have been either ignored (by the media) or woefully misconstrued (by local apologists). These deficiencies will be remedied if these cases go to trial.
The “white kid” who hit Bailey was a 22-year-old adult who probably graduated form high school while Bailey was still in junior high. I doubt that Jena High School has a “de facto policy” of schoolyard segregation. The tendency for students to self-segregate by race, with some crossovers, is in evidence even on elite college campuses that pride themselves on racial diversity.
If the white kids are telling the truth when they say they hung the nooses to poke fun at their friends on the school rodeo team, it was, indeed, a prank. The three say they were unaware that nooses can be construed as a racial threat. Perhaps the school could have defused the situation by calling an assembly to explain the symbology of the noose and give the three students a chance to explain and aplogize for their actions. However, the Justice Department investigation determined there was no link between the noose-hanging incident and the Jena Six attack.
It odd that you find Reed Walters’ warning objectionable. Had the Jena Six heeded the warning, they would not be facing charges. Here in my hometown, a high school kid lies in a coma from a gang beating. He volunteered to accept the beating, which occurred in a high school stairwell, as the price of permission to switch to another gang. The police have arrested several students in connection with the beating. If they are lucky, the beaten student will emerge from his coma and they will face only charges of aggravated battery. Shouldn’t we be doing more to warn teenagers that their actions can have legal consequences?
Blair: I appreciate your sincerity and your civility, but the “rodeo team prank” explanation for the noose incident isn’t for grownups. Jena’s schoolyard segregation goes far beyond informal self-segregation, otherwise the white kids wouldn’t have been so threatened. You are right, however, that to justify Reed Walters you have to agree that the noose incident was an innocent prank. Unfortunately, for grownups willing to face the facts, that just means that Walters’ actions cannot be justified.
Alan
“many white observers have taken the phrase to mean that black offenders should not be held accountable.”
Many black observers have also “taken the phrase to mean that black offenders should not be held accountable.”
That is true. They tell me it is because the criminal justice system is badly broken they have lost all confidence in it. I understand the frustration, but we’ve got to live with the system we’ve got. All we can ask is that the system should operate according to its own rules. I believe that is happening now.
This penetrating column focuses on the nature of freedom. When we say, “Free the Jena 6!” what are we saying? To me, the phrase meant that justice would not be served until the Jena 6 were freed from the spiteful prosecution of Reed Walters and the overheated and grossly biased judicial context of LaSalle Parish. But many white observers have taken the phrase to mean that black offenders should not be held accountable.
I am thinking that Alan Bean wrote the above. From this paragraph, and the whole commentary it was taken from, suggests that he believes that Black folks do in fact want justice in this whole affair. But, what most Blacks call justice, and what most Whites know justice to be, are very different from each other. Maybe even diametrically opposed to each other. Because, what I posted below shows that the Blacks who are involved in crafting and drafting national laws are in favour of pardoning the young Black boys involved, the so-called Jena 6.
There is obvious bias and prejudice involved in the ACBC’s decision to try and influence the Governor of the State of Louisiana. Let us all hope that Goernor Blanco is not so easily whipped. This would set a dangerous precedence. Already, with so much national legislation specifically protecting Blacks at the exclusion of all other races, a majority of Blacks have this sense of privilege and superiority over all others. Now, they will begin to think they are above the law?
Black Caucus Seeks Pardon for Jena 6
Published: 12/21/07, 7:45 AM EDT
NEW ORLEANS (AP) – Members of the Congressional Black Caucus called on Gov. Kathleen Blanco to pardon Mychal Bell and five other teenagers known as the “Jena 6.”
Texas Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee said in a letter to Blanco this week that Bell and the other teens have paid their debt to society and should be immediately pardoned.
“They and their families have suffered enough, as has the State of Louisiana and the town of Jena,” the letter reads.
Fourteen other members of the caucus joined Lee in urging Blanco to support releasing Bell, who was sentenced to 18 months in a juvenile facility on Dec. 3 for his role in an assault last year on Justin Barker, a white student at Jena High School.
An e-mailed request for comment from Blanco was not immediately returned.
Bell pleaded guilty to a juvenile charge of second-degree battery in return for a deal that gave him credit for the 10 months he had already served. Without the deal, the 17-year-old faced being placed in a juvenile facility until his 21st birthday.
Although he has only about eight months left to serve in the case, Bell is serving a separate 18-month sentence for previous juvenile charges unrelated to the Barker dispute. He has about 16 months left on that sentence, which runs concurrently with the sentence in the Barker case.
The charges against Bell and the others sparked a huge civil-rights demonstration in Jena in September. The activists said prosecutors treated blacks more harshly than whites.
Three months before the attack on Barker, three other white teens were accused of hanging nooses from a tree at the high school. The three were suspended from school but were never criminally charged.
LaSalle Parish District Attorney Reed Walters, in an e-mailed statement Thursday, said the attack on Barker was not just a schoolyard fight “but rather an unprovoked, unforeseen assault on a young man who had nothing to do with the hanging of the nooses.”
Charges against Robert Bailey Jr., 18; Carwin Jones, 19; Theo Shaw, 18 and Bryant Purvis, 18 have been reduced from attempted murder to aggravated second-degree battery.
Source:
http://www.att.net/s/editorial.dll?pnum=1&bfromind=7406&eeid=5595757&_sitecat=1522&dcatid=0&eetype=article&render=y&ac=-2&ck=&ch=ne&rg=blsadstrgt&_lid=332&_lnm=tg+ne+topnews&ck=