What to make of the Jena Six


The Jena Six represent a truly unfortunate aspect of our nation and it's legal system. After reading their story as portrayed in the book Floodlines by Jordan Flaherty, I searched around for other relavent documents to try to paint a comprehesive picture of the events. But no matter how many times I read this or that the picture wasn't an clearer. Only one thing is certain, this is the classic issue of he said she said on a different scale, they said we said.
What probably hit me hardest about this case are two quotes from the parents of the beating victim. In the book a quote from the mother and on www.thetowntalk.com 's article by Abbey Brown, quoting from the father, we get to see statements saying the trial isn't about race. It's about justice, right? This really highlights the biggest issue about cases like these, bigot's no longer wear their allegiences on their sleeves. No one is going to own up to their own racism when the spotlight is on.

So that brings us back to the they said, we said issue. The book gives us a quote from the prosecuting attorney addressing the student body and it is along the lines of, with one movement of my pen I can end your life, but states it was directed only at the black students in the context of them starting trouble. Other sources say the comment was more along the lines of with one swift momentment of my pen I can make your life miserable with the student body at large being addressed. This was in reference to the noose incident that greatly contributed to the racial tension that really unraveled this small city. Biggotry is hard thing to pin down, it is such a slimey thing today. And really, with the evidence we have the only conclusion I can come to is none, as far as racial discrimination is involved.  That was, until I compared to of the attorney's comments. In reference to the nooses he states that everyone was making a bigger deal of the issue and that it was a prank in bad taste, but only a light hearted prank. Then when a fight breaks out in a school, such an uncommon occurence for sure, he sues the boys for premeditated murder. However, when one of the boys was assaulted by several white males, only one of the attackers was put on trial and it was only for battery.
It is really hard for me to accept that issues like this still exist in our country. We are, for many aspects of life, the exemplar for the world. We are the melting pot, and yet, issues like this still  plague us. The boys who hung the nooses at the school's tree were never tried because as non-adults, they didn't qualify for laws regarding racial crime. The community asked for their act to be forgiven, a prank gone arwy proformed by children. Yet when those children get into a confrontation that leads to violence, it is attempted murder by adults, where is the equality.