personal thoughts on the Jena 6

[yellow_crane]

"That Monday at school, a white student, who had been a vocal supporter of the students who hung the nooses, taunted the black student who was beaten up at the off-campus party and allegedly called several black students "nigger..."

That doesn't excuse beating the snot out of a kid who is unconscious. And conflating the issue dilutes the law.

You seem caught up on the single kid beaten by six negroes.

I admit the image is terrifying.

Think we will see the day when it happens to us, randomly and without reason?

It has been happening to the Blacks all along.

If "who started it" matters, we'll lose that one too.

[Michael Tee]

<<Ranting the theory that this was some "unspoken school policy" and as a result, the blacks in question "snapped" defies all aspects of common sense. >>

I never said this was "unspoken school policy," but that the black students might have felt that it was.  As a matter of fact, about three posts back, I was careful to emphasize that this might have been perceived or felt to be school policy by the black students.  Here's what I said then:

<<Nobody missed it.  What YOU [Ami] missed was the significance of the felt need to ask.>>

I thought that made it pretty clear that I was not talking about actual school policy, which would have required a real need to ask, but only about a perceived school policy, which would have produced a "felt" rather than a real or actual need to ask.

Unfortunately I wasn't as clear in my later posts.  However, this one (the last but one before sirs' insane ranting) I said this:

<<Sounds pretty far-fetched to me.  I think they just figured the tree might have been whites-only and they didn't want to transgress school policy.  Then when they HAD the permission and the nooses and other harassment and taunting began to occur, they snapped.>>

I think it's pretty clear from that that we are not talking about actual school policy.  We are still talking about perceived or felt policy, not actual policy.  However, some of our conservative friends apparently suffer severe handicaps in reading for comprehension, and I guess had I been even clearer, it might have prevented sirs' outburst.

<<But trying to claim, (with of course the tact of "It's the south" as the supposed smoking gun) that this is school policy for blacks to have to ask permission to stand some specific place, is beyond moronc. >>

Well, sure it is.  But what's even MORE moronic is misrepresenting what I said in the way that you did.  It is pretty fucking stupid, and anyone reading what I posted, anyone that is with a modicum of cognitive brain-power, would have realized that I said no such thing.

[Amianthus]

I thought that made it pretty clear that I was not talking about actual school policy, which would have required a real need to ask, but only about a perceived school policy, which would have produced a "felt" rather than a real or actual need to ask.

According to testimony, that question (about sitting under the tree) was asked in "jocular" fashion.

[Henny]

"That Monday at school, a white student, who had been a vocal supporter of the students who hung the nooses, taunted the black student who was beaten up at the off-campus party and allegedly called several black students "nigger..."

That doesn't excuse beating the snot out of a kid who is unconscious. And conflating the issue dilutes the law.

I think the build-up of racial tension helps to explain it. No, it doesn't excuse it, but the boys shouldn't have been charged with attempted murder either.

[BT]

I think the build-up of racial tension helps to explain it. No, it doesn't excuse it, but the boys shouldn't have been charged with attempted murder either.

Why not? There was a very real possibility the kid could have died.

One kick to the temple and the outcome could have been very different.

[yellow_crane]

I thought that made it pretty clear that I was not talking about actual school policy, which would have required a real need to ask, but only about a perceived school policy, which would have produced a "felt" rather than a real or actual need to ask.

According to testimony, that question (about sitting under the tree) was asked in "jocular" fashion.

"Jocular" has long been fashionable in Dixie.

In very fact, Dixie's highest preference for their ninnies is that they be "jocular."

What went so horribly wrong?

[Michael Tee]

<<According to testimony, that question (about sitting under the tree) was asked in "jocular" fashion.>>

Well, I didn't see that, but it obviously takes away one argument that racism is endemic in Jena.  Still leaving the other arguments (the selective prosecution examples, the nooses on the tree and the pickup truck.)

Crane - - if the alleged victims of racism are joking about it to the principal, and especially if the core idea of the the joke is the supposedly segregated tree, itself a truly absurd idea, then it does take away from my original idea that the request to the principal indicates a serious problem of racism in the mind of some of the black students.  Again, not to deny the other objective indicia of real racism and real problems.

[Michael Tee]

<<Strange country we live in.

<<Apparently it is ok for a gang of six to kick the snot out of a  boy because six months earlier someone hung a noose on a tree.

<<Or it is ok to kick the shit out of a guy who is unconscious motionless on the ground because the sheriff or the DA may or may not have some baggage.>>

I don't know where you make this stuff up from.  NOBODY figures it's OK to beat a kid unconscious.  You persist, on the one hand, in totally  misrepresenting the liberal (i.e., anti-racist) side of this issue and OTOH of minimizing the undeniable evidence of selective prosecution and systemic racial bias in the Sheriff's and D.A.'s offices.

<<And apparently it is ok to let these guys off because some white boy hired a lawyer and plea bargained down to a lesser crime.>>

Ask domer about that.  Probably happens every fucking day in every criminal court in the U.S. and Canada.  Maybe you'd prefer to pay the higher taxes necessary to pay for all the additional trials and appeals that would result if plea bargaining were banned, or for the facilities to house all the extra convicts for all those extra years.  Think about it - - more court-houses, more D.A.'s, more clerks and investigators, more judges, more court reporters, more secretaries and receptionists, more gasoline to transport them back and forth , more prisons, more guards, more insurance, more public defenders . . .   the list goes on, my friend.  You, who are so concerned with the cost of Canada's "free" health care, maybe ought to take a little more interest in the cost of banning or limiting plea bargains in your own country.

[BT]

This is my bottom line.

Try the boys for the crime they committed.

If so motivated, try the community in a separate trial.

Do not combine them. That would be an injustice.

[Henny]

I think the build-up of racial tension helps to explain it. No, it doesn't excuse it, but the boys shouldn't have been charged with attempted murder either.

Why not? There was a very real possibility the kid could have died.

One kick to the temple and the outcome could have been very different.

Could have been, but obviously wasn't the case.

"He was taken to the hospital, but was released and was well enough to go to a social event that evening."

[BT]

And if it happens to your son, you would be willing to write it off as boys will be boys?


BTW why isn't this a hate crime?

Race certainly was a factor.

[Henny]

And if it happens to your son, you would be willing to write it off as boys will be boys?


BTW why isn't this a hate crime?

Race certainly was a factor.

I don't care which way you frame it, the boy was egging it on by calling the other boys "niggers." And I hope to teach my son well enough that he would never be involved in a situation like this to begin with.

That said, the boys should still be punished for the fight, and if such a thing happened to my son, of course I would be upset and angry. But attempted murder is taking it too far.

[BT]

And should this be classified as a hate crime?

[Henny]

And should this be classified as a hate crime?

Probably it should be. But I think that the actions on both sides (including previous fights and incidents) were all hate based crimes - it's kind of a wash.

[Amianthus]

the boy was egging it on by calling the other boys "niggers."

Source?

I haven't read that at all.