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white student assaulted... why are people protesting? What am I missing here?

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/stor ... d=12353776

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20218937/site/newsweek/

I had not heard this story (apparently I live in a cave). Wow.

Now that this story is snowballing in attention...inconsistencies are starting to appear to make the story more racially charged and to basically piss more people off. This is going by the articles that have occured since this became a national news event as compared to the articles that have come since this actually happened LAST year...regardless.

Timeline:
1) Black student asks admin (jokingly) if black kids can sit under the tree.
2) 3 White students hang noose from tree. Get suspended and is not considered a hate crime, but a prank and with no priors or affiliations to hate group...the hate crime claim is rejected....also because NO CRIME WAS COMMITTED...even though hanging a noose is wrong and worthy of punishment.
3) Bailey (Black) tries to get into party, a white (nonstudent) man gets into a fight with him at the door. Fight ensues outside with black students and white non-students.
4) Black student and white non-student get into argument some time later at convenience store and begins to escalate to a fight, white man runs to car to get shotgun. Students fight over it, black student (and black students) get it away from him and refuse to give it back. One brings it home, gun theft charges ensue.
5) Barker (white student) makes comments about Bailey getting into the fight at the party. The "Jena 6" beat him unconscious. Barker goes to hospital, gets released that night and attends ring ceremony (meaning he walked up, got a ring and sat back down). Barker leaves early due to pain.
6) Jena 6 arrested and initially charged with attempted murder. Bail is set around the ballpark of $100k-ish for each student. Only one student is still in jail. He has priors convictions of violent crimes.
7) For Bell's trial, the jury selected was indeed all white, however only 30% of the jury pool showed up, none of which were black. Public defender is black. Bell's punishment is harsher since he was convicted of 4 previous violent crimes. Charges of attempted murder dropped in light of charges of second degree battery.
The other 5 are charged with second degree battery.

My analysis:
A) 6 students beating 1 student (regardless of race) and physically unprovoked is worthy of expulsion and some felonies. A school yard fight is John and Mark fighting over Sally. Not John and his 5 friends jumping Mark. If 6 white students jumped a black student at school that would be automatically be assumed racism in this society.
B) I've read tons of articles since this happened (a year ago) that people not from Jena are blowing this out of proportion and there are no "racial divides" there. Until now, because Al Sharpton is really awesome at pissing everyone off.
C) 2nd Degree Battery in Louisiana is defined as:

Second degree battery is a battery committed without the consent of the victim when the offender intentionally inflicts serious bodily injury.

For purposes of this article, serious bodily injury means bodily injury which involves unconsciousness, extreme physical pain or protracted and obvious disfigurement, or protracted loss or impairment of the function of a bodily member, organ, or mental faculty, or a substantial risk of death.

So yeah um...that's pretty much what happened.

D) There are prior convictions in the angels known as "The Jena 6". Why should they "be freed!" as the protesters are chanting. VIOLENCE IS NOT OK IN OUR SCHOOLS. And saying the boys "did nothing wrong" or "were standing up for black america" is perhaps the biggest load of crap ever. Im pretty sure if 6 white kids beat up a black kid and said "we did it do defend our rights as white americans" they'd be stuck in a cell (rightfully)for a long time.

wow I didn't know the back story on this, I guess west texas reports the news differently than the rest of the world...

black people protesting for right to beat up white kids, more at 6
(jk)

I had no idea the back story of the jury or the shotgun fight. I just wanted to know does anyone have a different perspective on this? I understand the entire jury was white, I understand that you want to make a statement about racial injustice in sentencing, but free them? They assaulted someone. Is there any question to that?

Am I missing something here?

No matter what people think, racism is still prevalent in the south as i witnessed myself in Alabama. Racism didnt go away with the civil rights movement it just went undercover which is a lot more scary.

Someone pulls a shotgun...nothing

Someone gets jumped... attempted murder charges...


When i was in high school i was jumped at the mall by a few guys... cops werent even interested in hearing my case. Its easy to say that these kids who jumped this white boy should get charges but remember that the deep south is a whole different world. They should get in trouble but to even at one moment give them attempted murder charges is unreasonable.

The DA changed the charges of 2nd Degree Attempted Murder to 2nd Degree Assault (a far less severe crime) without even a plea bargain.

Those protesters should be saying "thanks!" instead of "a crime is being committed!"

Beta wrote:4) Black student and white student get into argument some time later, white student runs to car to get shotgun. Students fight over it, black student (and black students) get it away from him and refuse to give it back. One brings it home, gun theft charges ensue.

I don't know if it is against the law or not for a high school student to have a shotgun, but if it was my kid, he would be in some serious trouble.

Not condoning the others acts that may or may not have been committed but seriously. I hope there is a law that says high school kids cannot have shotguns and this kid (white or black) gets the book thrown in his face. He is lucky that thing didn't go off and he kill someone or he himself get killed.

How about this little caveat. Instead of running to his car to get a shotgun, run to his car and leave. Whatever happened to walking away from a fight and having the pride to be the bigger man (person whatever).

Go to Wikipedia and consult the footnotes...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jena_six

mulax06 wrote:I don't know if it is against the law or not for a high school student to have a shotgun, but if it was my kid, he would be in some serious trouble.

Timeline amended, white man with gun was non-student.

Good URL for information on events:
http://www.thetowntalk.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2007707310322

Beta wrote:

mulax06 wrote:I don't know if it is against the law or not for a high school student to have a shotgun, but if it was my kid, he would be in some serious trouble.

Timeline amended, white man with gun was non-student.

Good URL for information on events:
http://www.thetowntalk.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2007707310322

Good to know. Thanks for clearing that up and the URL.

Sounds like a pretty hopeless place to grow up, the county has a 52% unemployment rate.

Also, more news today on cnn about two people arrested for driving their pick up around with a noose tied on the back.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/09/21/car.nooses/index.html

Here is the police report, where the juvenile passenger brags about his KKK tattoo.

http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/2007/images/09/2 ... report.pdf

Wow, sounds like the DA made things worse while speaking to the students.

Walters was unhappy with the request because he was busy preparing for a case and, upon arrival, felt that the students were not paying proper attention to him. Walters is alleged to have threatened the protesters if they didn't stop fussing over an "innocent prank". He then went on to warn the students that he could be their friend or their worst enemy, and stated that "[w]ith one stroke of my pen, I can make your life disappear. Walters and school board member Billy Fowler, also present, deny that the comments were specifically directed at black students.

NPR also has a good summary of events.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/stor ... d=12353776

Sometimes, I wonder if it's really 2007.

Brain drain runs rampant in rural areas.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain_drain

A brain drain or human capital flight is an emigration of trained and talented individuals ("human capital") to other nations or jurisdictions, due to conflicts, lack of opportunity, health hazards where they are living or other reasons. It parallels the term "capital flight" which refers to financial capital that is no longer invested in the country where its owner lived and earned it. Investment in higher education is lost when a trained individual leaves and does not return.

The big problem is the situation was not addressed before it got out of hand. I think a lot of the African Americans protesting are upset that certain events are being prosecuted and others are being ignored.