The national spotlight is falling on Jena, a rural Louisiana town. Six black teenagers are being charged with attacking a white teenager after a racial provocation. According to the AP:
The six teens were charged shortly after the local prosecutor declined to charge three white teens who hung nooses in a tree on their high school grounds. Five of the black teens were initially charged with attempted murder, but that charge was reduced to battery for all but one, who has yet to be arraigned; the sixth was charged as a juvenile.The kid who was badly beaten suffered a swollen face and lost conciousness. He was did attend a "school function" that same night, indicating that his injuries were not necessarily permananent.
Based on what little I know of the case, the initial charges of "attempted murder" seemed extreme, which is why they were lowered so quickly. But more important questions are coming up. Protestors are raising an issue about the selective application of "justice."
The controversy is an interesting one. Thousands of people from all over the region came to the city to protest the disparate treatment of a justice system long rife with inquality. They are outraged the noose hanging was not punished and demand leniancy due to what is a clear provocation.
Many White people look at this situation and see a vicious attack that needs to be punished. They will doubt that historical violations justify a vicious attack by many on one.
Black people will see this in light of hundreds of years of continuous mistreatment and injustice -- and the nooses as one significant symbol of the legal system's long historical collusion with the forces of racism.
This view is only exacerbated by the still unresolved demand for justice -- for reparations from slavery (coerced, unpaid labor), segregation, and the history of lynching and violence in which local and state governments legalized or tolerated (lynchings were rarely punished). The six teenagers may or may not articulate this view, but any people who suffered such crimes would internalize it and live it out.
In short, the whites who want to see these 6 teenagers punished have the if-an-alien-landed view, devoid of any historical placement or any crucial context. That is fine for perpetuating ignorance and societal imblance, but it contributes nothing to the legacy of understanding needed to right the wrongs of the past.
In my moral universe, I cannot see this beating as justifiable. Yes, words and symbols can be painful reminders of the past -- and I would classify a noose hanging as a free speech act -- though one that should mitigate the punishment of the teens (and I would include their young age as another factor). Just as most school fights go unenforced criminally (usually just school suspensions), this one should too. The students who hit the boy should be punished, and the boys who hung the nooses should be shamed by the school and their peers.
More importantly, problems like this call for the long overdue step of a major racial reconciliation by the federal, state and local governments. They should issue offical apologies to African-Americans, and offer communal and individual reparations. This may not be complete justice, but it could mark a new era in race relations. And don't let the Oprah's, 50 Cent's, LeBron's, and Condoleeza's of the country fool you: the historical crimes this country was founded on are still unaccounted for.
4 comments:
how would/could/should the us account for those crimes?
Reparations are useless for reasons people far smarter than yourself have already explored at length.
Your analysis of the Jena situation is largely very good, with one critical failing -- you identify a dividing line based on skin color, between black and white, as the primary line on the moral question here.
Historically, this hasn't been the case. Those on the vanguard of civil rights movements have always been a diverse group, such as those who founded the NAACP.
There is no reason a white person would default to viewing the completely lopsided punishments meted out in Jena as just. The vast majority of people of all colors would condemn what happened there.
In his article "Of 'White Trees', Black Boys and Jena, Louisiana," Mumia Abu Jamal raises some very good points about the legal process Jena 6 received:
"The public defender never challenged the all-white jury pool, put on no evidence, and didn't call a single defense witness. The law of aggravated assault requires the use of a deadly weapon. What was the weapon? Tennis shoes."
To read more go to:
http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=15116190&blogID=309546136&Mytoken=3CBCAE2D-D66A-4DEE-904A6C71A95E187A53938137
He even opens up the article with a reference to "Jenin"
This issue went from being underpublicized to being force fed to us, the only relief we have is from OJ's recent mishap. Surprisingly, Jesse Jackson and AL Sharpton haven't gone to proclaim that the charges against OJ are "racially motivated" and that being an underpriveledged black in America breeds a hatred for those who collected his memorabilia? It may stand up, but only if it was preached like a true Baptist sermon.
The initial charges against the 6 were out of line, that much is obvious, but many protests are calling for a full pardon of the 6...all I can say is "huh?" These charges aren't bogus, like the initial ones, and the national protests to further, or purify Civil Rights are really doing more harm than good. The movement has moved far away from the days of MLK and into the dark days, where promoting white guilt seems to be the cause.
And as for missing the "crucial context" of the issue, how many young blacks or whites even have the knowledge to successfully identify the context? The younger generation is polluted with a new black mentaility that attempts to strike fear into whites (the hypocritical stance on the N-word being the defining tool), promote violence and drugs, and degrade women. So, how can the younger generations have any sympathy for the slavery-bitten African-Americans? They can't, because there is no real lingering hangover from slavery, except that self-loathing which resides in the minds of far too many blacks.
Reparations should never and will never be the answer to the problems that blacks believe they face. Although, blacks do collect their fair share already, we call them "welfare checks." People can go on and on about how the vast majority of our prisons are filled with blacks, and how that's because a racist judge and jury injustly put each and every one behind bars, or that reparations will solve all the problems, well, that along with an apology. If, in fact, either of those things would end the misplaced enmity that is popular amongst blacks today, then I would be the first to support it, but the reality is that nothing that any white person, nothing that any Government, and nothing that any tax dollar can do will help. It's up to them to stop crying racist every time a black is criminally charged. I'd like to thank OJ again for distracting us from yet another situation where blacks wrongfully rally in the name of racial injustice...wait...why is this so familiar? Oh, that's right, the Simpson Trial proved that an innocent black man was seemingly condemned, but blacks everywhere were exalted when the civilly just verdict pronounced him innocent, now I remember...oh, but then he wrote a book about it. Nevermind.
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