No thread for the *Jena Six* case? Well, not much media coverage either...

But good job me in coming up with an intriguing headline to draw people in - sigh.

"white tree?" wtf

Another piece here:

The following day, Bailey and two friends were walking to a grocery store and had a shotgun pulled on them. The man who drew the shotgun had no charges brought against him; however, Bailey was charged with theft for the shotgun that he wrestled away from the man.

Yeah, my brother, who pointed me to this case in the first place, mentioned that rather jaw-dropping detail

Just checking the calendar, hmmm... mine says 2007, not 1957. WTF indeed.

I'm so lucky that I've never really seen this kind of shit where I've grown up. This story really does make me want to cry.

I wonder what the conviction rates are, nationally, for assault or battery charges that are brought after school fights.

Some good info here:

http://friendsofjustice.wordpress.com/blog/

I simply can't believe we live in a world where this is... I'm shocked. :-(

"The nooses? I don't even know why they were there, what they were supposed to mean. There's pranks all the time, of one type or another, going on. And it just didn't seem to be racist to me."

Uh, what DID ya think?

I think what's especially striking is how so much of the community seems to be complicit in this - school officials, the DA, students (and probably their parents), etc.

My mind is boggling. How can people get away with this kind of shit?

I'm pretty sure there WAS a thread on this already, but fucked if I can find it by searching, regular or Google search.

Hard to believe this shit still goes on, regardless.

I lived in Louisiana from the time I was 10 until I was old enough to make my own decisions about where to live. Sadly, I find this story very easy to believe based on my personal experiences, although the town I lived in wasn't THIS bad. Until 1988 my high school didn't have a prom. The white kids had a private prom and the black kids had a separate private prom. During lunch we were only allowed to be in two small areas, one inside and one outside. The black kids would all stay on one side of the room or courtyard and the white kids would stay on the other side. Any white girl who went on a date with a black boy was called a slut. One of my sister's friends once said he had refused to eat a bowl of chili because it was prepared by a black person. We were in a suburb of Baton Rouge, and I know that my high school was actually pretty progressive compared to the schools in more rural areas. The whole culture in that area disguts me and I am still unhappy with my parents for choosing to stay there for so long and with a relative of mine for convincing them that that small town would be a great place to live.

wear black tomorrow in solidarity

yep, I will be doing so.

A white tree????????????? I mean, people make fun of my home state (New Jersey) incessantly-big hair, garbage,Bon Jovi etc.- but that would never happen here. A white tree???!!??

This case seems to be picking up publicity now - it was in the free paper this morning, although only because David Bowie donated 5k to their legal fund.

And you wonder why parts of the US have a bad reputation in the rest of the civilised world.

i thought harper lee kinda skewered this shit back in 1935 or whatever

i read about this in a double spread opinion in the irish times a couple of weeks ago, just couldn't believe it. what's the latest progress?

irony- i've just read 'to kill a mockingbird' for the first time.

Yeah, it is picking up:

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&q=jena+6&btnG=Search+News

David Bowie donated to the defense fund, apparently. (tries to think of inappropriate publicity/Arcade Fire joke)

"And you wonder why parts of the US have a bad reputation in the rest of the civilised world"

Go fuck yourself. Talk about tainting 300 million people with a broad brush you stupid fuck.

luckily the uncivilized world likes us just fine

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,,2170644,00.html

"Apart from the noose, this is an everyday story of modern America"

Yeah, that's a bit ridiculous

who is bill magill

"And you wonder why parts of the US have a bad reputation in the rest of the civilised world"

Go fuck yourself. Talk about tainting 300 million people with a broad brush you stupid fuck.

-- Bill Magill, Thursday, 20 September 2007 15:53 (Thursday, 20 September 2007 15:53) Bookmark Link

Actually "parts" would imply less than the whole wouldn't it? And you wonder why certain US citizens have a bad reputation in the rest of the world...

Actually, with the context he uses it's not so ridiculous

Go

oh hang on, I'm english!

Gary Younge's head is too large to fit through a noose.

The school system's the most guilty here, it could have all been dealt with that way if they'd known what they were doing.

I mean, the school should have immediately expelled the studends for the nooses to give the message that this sort of thing (intimidation) is not tolerated, and opened a very honest dialogue on the subject in the meantime. That would have sent the right message. If I were prinicpal of that school (ugh) I couldn't expel those students fast enough.

instead they just chopped down the tree

I only heard about this today.

Yeah me too.

xpost Did they?

yes they did, and way before the trials I believe.

no wait that's not right - it was just chopped down in August

they should have got the whole school involved in chopping down that tree, had a big ceremony

students could take turns swingin the axe

It would have been a nice gesture at the time but it's a bit late now

yeah about a year too late

"And you wonder why parts of the US have a bad reputation in the rest of the civilised world"

Go fuck yourself. Talk about tainting 300 million people with a broad brush you stupid fuck.

-- Bill Magill, Thursday, September 20, 2007 11:53 AM (23 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

Yeah, first of all as mentioned, parts.

Second of all, he's talking about PLACES, not PEOPLE. Yes, parts (geographically) of the US have a bad reputation in the civilised world as filthy racist shitholes. Does that mean every person there is a dickweed? No, but the people who aren't fuckers aren't stopping the people who are, so the fuckers make the PLACE bad. See?

I love how the Europeans, with their filthy, genocidal colonial legacy, acts the US corners the market on racism...where in the world ISN'T racist?

Antarctica

South Pole?

all white

ooh let's all be proud of how different we are from those other people

It was good to see Hip Hop in the building. No 50 and Kanye didn't show, but Mos Def was there. Bun B from UGK was there, Ice Cube was there, Salt-n-Pepa was there,

I had not heard this!!! very cool

http://www.democracynow.org/print.pl?sid=07/07/10/1413228

"Relatives of some of the jurors was some of the witnesses, too. One of the boys that testified for Barker was one of the boys that hung up the nooses at the high school."

"my understanding of how the fight took place is Barker was telling some of the boys earlier that morning, calling them nigger and telling them about the fight that happened the previous weekend now. So the majority of the creation of the fight was due to Justin Barker's racial remarks. But, see, we’ve got to go back now to understand, see, the DA created this whole racial atmosphere, where he didn't do nothing to the boys that hung up the nooses, so that gave the message to all the black kids, well, the white kids will do what they want to do and get away with it."

AMY GOODMAN: Did your son's court-appointed attorney call up any witnesses?

MARCUS JONES: No. He did not put up no kind of defense at all. He did not call one witness.

AMY GOODMAN: And can you talk about the fight before the final fight, the fight where a young black man was beaten at a party?

CASEPTLA BAILEY: That young black man was my son Robert Bailey. Him and some friends had gone to a party at the Jena Fair Barn. And to my understanding, it wasn’t an all-white party there. It was a few blacks that was already there in the party, and he asked to enter the party, if would it be OK for them to come in. And he said the lady responded as, “Sure, you know, as long as there be no fighting.”

So once he did enter the building, a gentleman asked him what was his name. He told him, “Robert Bailey” -- no, asked him, “Is your name Robert Bailey?” And my son said yes, and Justin Sloan hit him, as well as his sister Jessie Sloan. And from there, he was attacked by several white men in the Fair Barn.

AMY GOODMAN: And the incident where your son tried to get a gun from a man at a convenience store?

CASEPTLA BAILEY: Well, that incident happened on Saturday, December 2nd, the following day, where Robert and two of his friends, Theo Shaw and Ryan Simmons, were going to Gotta-Go Grocery. And once they got there, they say Matt Windham, who is a man, not a student at Jena High School, and Matt Windham -- I guess they had come upon each other, because Matt Windham was involved the previous night with the white gentlemen that beat my son the previous night at the Fair Barn, where -- rather attacked my son at the Fair Barn. So once they came upon each other, I guess it was on.

You know, Matt ran to his truck, from my understanding, pulled a shotgun, a sawed-off shotgun with a pistol grip, and my son wrestled with him to get the gun from him. And the other two gentlemen proceeded then to fight, and they took the gun from him and left the scene running. You know, I’m sure they were -- I know they were in fear of their lives. They were afraid that this man was going to shoot them, you know, especially in the back, running away from the scene. So they were scared. I’m sure Matt Windham was scared. You know, but he chose to run to the truck and pull the shotgun, not our children.

Students In Blackface Jena 6 Reenactment

NEW YORK (CNN) -- A rally Wednesday afternoon at Columbia University was held to protest the discovery of a noose on the office door of an African-American professor.

The noose was found Tuesday at Columbia's Teachers College, said Joe Levine, executive director for external affairs at Teachers College.

The New York Police Department is investigating the matter as a hate crime.

The apparent target, Madonna Constantine, 44, is a professor of psychology and education at Teachers College. She co-wrote the book "Addressing Racism: Facilitating Cultural Competence in Mental Health and Educational Settings."

:O

actually fuck it, emoticons don't really do that justice

wow

Fukn Disgusting.

Between this and the recent Long Island incident we're going to need a Rolling Noose Atrocity Thread 2007.

when I worked with employment discrimination lawyers, I was made aware of a terrifying amount of race discrimination cases in which nooses were left in black employees' lockers, etc. that was 2001-2003.

the one they let go is back in jail O_o

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-6990532,00.html

:(

http://bgdboom.blogspot.com/2007/10/jena-6-update-ballin.html

goddamnit

A reporter talks.

makes you wonder why "the real story" hasn't been heard

Myth 11: Jena Is One of the Most Racist Towns in America. Actually, Jena is a wonderful place to live for both whites and blacks.

glad to have that cleared up

hard hitting evidence

also those weren't nooses, they were LASSOS

That reporter is clearly a liar.

eagle-eyed

it was nice of him to reveal that the entire story has been fabricated so promptly

i look forward to his upcoming 'hey guys wait i just remembered i was hanging out with oj simpson the night his wife got killed... would that be interesting to anybody?' revelation in 2009

That "reporter" has every reason to lie, fabricate and mislead. After all, his wife is a teacher at that high school.

Once Al Sharpton releases his report, then we can all decide what REALLY happened in Jena.

ahh the old lonesome dove prank!

keep fighting that vicious pro-black media dandy don weiner

i have incontrovertible evidence the media is controlled by a pro-black cartel

Why does he consistently accept that another person's testimony is proof of lies in another testimony (without facts, it just calls both into question, and debunks shit e.g. he thinks that stating that the nooses were meant as a joke to white students debunks the general view - why believe them and not the 'jena 6'?). He proposes that there is no 'white's only tree, and presents exact zero evidence for this - "When a student asked during an assembly at the start of school last year if anyone could sit under the tree, it evoked laughter from everyone present – blacks and whites." could be used in either circumstances. Isn't this a pretty strange question anyway?)

But most of all, why am I not surprised that Don has swooped into a thread to show that the white kids are innocent and the black kids are liars.

yes! exactly!

dandy

And it's the Christian Science Monitor...

christian science monitor is a good paper, which makes me surprised they'd run some baseless shit like this

Desperate times call for desperate measures I guess.

CSM often runs stories on little to no evidence - George Galloway's employment by Hussain, for example.

guys, youve never played pranks on your schools RODEO TEAM before???

I once played a prank on my school tightrope walking team by leaving a burning cross on the school lawn, but I had no knowledge that burning crosses symbolize the terrible legacy of racism in American history, so no harm, no foul. (Plus, when they told me about racism I became visibly remorseful.)

hahaha if there's one thing that today's teens can't get enough of, it's lonesome dove...

the so-called incident in jasper texas where they dragged that guy behind the truck was actually just a joke inspired by father dowling mysteries

If it was good enough for Sister Stevie...

Those myth dissections would be a lot more believable if they were decently written and not full of total WTF moments:

The three were accused by police of jumping a white man as he entered the store and stealing a shotgun from him.

I mean, yeah! Dude was just walking into a store, minding his own business, holding a shotgun, and these three jump him! That sounds way more believable than the original story!

the lasso one is so WTF it makes me wonder if this dude is straight-up lying or actually crazy enough to believe that it was a rodeo team prank

i regret not withholding judgement on the csm piece to wait for louis jagger to post his complete agreement with it and then spend the next 100 posts furiously backpedaling

there was one of those 'fight the power!' pro-oink pieces that idolator linked to where the dudes also made some post about how this piece was making them rethink the whole ordeal

a real perceptive bunch on the whole

"wait--no one told me that jena was a good place to live for both blacks and whites!!!"

New Fear song ahoy: "Jena's All Right if You Like Simmering Racial Tension and Constant Altercations, Some Involving Shotguns"

The three were accused by police of jumping a white man as he entered the store and stealing a shotgun from him

only in jena, la can the heroic disarmament of a white armed robber by three black teens be spun into an assault by the latter

i dont know why whites and blacks alike wouldn't want to live in a town with constant interracial firearm struggles & ass-whoopings

The Duke Lacrosse reference at the end tells you exactly where he's coming from - white persecution complex.

Surely especially inflamed cause he's had a buncha noisy nonwhites raisin hell in his town for the last month or so.

sm-fuckin-h

http://news8austin.com/content/top_stories/default.asp?ArID=199810

as much at the inevitable sensationalization this is gonna get as anything else. not hard to figure out how this happens, but goddamn.