You may have heard of the Jena Six, but if you don’t follow the news closely perhaps you haven’t. Jena Six refers to the controversial conviction of six black students who beat up a white student in December of last year. Since the event was made public, thousands of activists have flocked to Jena, Louisiana, to protest the crimes and punishments imposed on the black perpetrators and the white victim—or is it the white perpetrators and the black victims?
The six black students were charged with crimes ranging from assault with a deadly weapon to second-degree murder and faced up to 100 years in prison each. Fair? Most think not. First of all, one of the attackers, Mychael Bell, is only seventeen and yet was tried as an adult. Another boy was accused of assault with a dangerous weapon when the “dangerous weapon” was his own tennis shoe. Bell was tried before an all-white jury with no witnesses, and given a jail time up to 22 years. The rest face similar sentences. Do I think the Jena Six are innocent? No. They did beat up a kid six to one, and there is no excuse for that, previous racist actions aside. Do I think the Jena Six deserve twenty-plus years in prison? It’s worth noting that the victim went to a special function the same night of the incident after being released from the hospital.
Another little piece to the story: at a school meeting a few months before the fight, a black student asked if blacks were finally allowed to sit under the “white” tree in the middle of campus. This comment brought a laugh from the crowd and a brief reproving from the administration. The next day, three nooses were found hanging from the tree.
The students responsible received three days of in-school suspension rather than the principal’s suggested expulsion. Many defenders of Jena Six argue that the white students responsible for the nooses should have received a much harsher punishment for their hate crime, as the Jena Six not only got expelled for their crime, but put in jail without bail. The town administration argues that there is a major difference between an offensive prank and a physical assault, and that the hanging of nooses had not broken any definite state law for which the perpetrators could be punished. That may be true, but hanging nooses seems to me to be a little more than just a “prank”. Does that mean the town administration is being racist by justifying the acts of the white students? Perhaps.
But the problem of racism does not only lie within the actions, decisions, and relationships of blacks and whites in Jena. The biggest problem I find is the visible line of segregation I see in America’s reaction. There was a demonstration in Jena on September 20, and an estimated 15,000 protesters from all over the country and even other parts of the world showed up to voice their support for the Jena Six and encourage the reawakening of the Civil Rights movement. But one question: Where were all the white people? Out of the pictures of the crowd of 15,000, it’s almost impossible to find a light-skinned protestor among them.
Jena Six has been the main topic of conversation in black community centers, in black barbershops, and in black parishes. Blacks feel as though this is their issue, one strong enough to bring back the passion of the Civil Rights movement. It is a topic for the entire black community to rally around, and therefore the white population is generally bypassed. You ask the average white person, and he or she very likely has no idea what Jena Six even refers to. Is it because white people aren’t interested, or that they agree with the sentences imposed on the Jena Six? Jesse Jackson seemed to think so, as he accused Barack Obama of “acting white” for not taking a stronger stance on the issue. Although that may be true in some cases, overall I disagree. Being about as white as one can get (I bet you can guess what color I was wearing when someone once exclaimed to me, “Brett, your stomach matches the color of your shirt!”), I think the majority of white people are interested, or would be interested if they were let in on what’s going on. But somehow there’s a line of segregation that prevents any common passion from uniting the two groups. Perhaps white people feel ashamed of their race’s involvement in the argument, shying away from the issue so as not to be mistakenly associated with the “wrong” side. Some may interpret their discomfort as one that students studying a history book feel, where a thin but impenetrable wall separates them from their subjects.
I’m not saying it is the white people’s fault any more than I’m blaming the black population. As Barack Obama countered Jackson’s accusation: “Outrage over an injustice isn’t a matter of black and white. It’s a matter of right and wrong.”
