Actual, For Real, No-Shit Good News

Mychal Bell is no longer looking at 20+ years in Angola.

Looking up

His aggravated battery charge was thrown out of court. 

This is excellent news.  Bell is one of the "Jena Six," a group of African-American students in tiny Jena, Louisiana, who got in a fight with some white kids after some shit that even I was surprised to hear about.  Jena, by the way, is in cracker Louisiana, not Cajun Louisiana.  Earlier in the school year, a few black kids sat under a tree whose shade had traditionally only been enjoyed by white kids.  Sounds silly, right?  Wrong.  This shit is dead serious.  Informal segregation over the pettiest shit is still very common all over the US, not just down South.  However, the response by some of the white kids was fucking shocking.  The next day, three nooses were hanging from the tree.

Fucking nooses.

That is an un-fucking-mistakable message in a place where, in living memory, lynching was common.

The kids who hung the nooses were suspended for a few days. 

Some days later, in what may be an unrelated incident (and if a frog had wings he wouldn't hit his ass every time he hopped), these six children were indicted--originally for attempted murder--for beating up a white child at school.  Bell was tried and convicted of aggravated battery.  By an all-white jury.  Really.  He could've gotten 22 1/2 years in prison.

This is only a thumbnail sketch.  If you don't know all about what happened in Jena, read up on it.  The Group News Blog, for one, has been on this story since the beginning.

Charges against two of the other six boys have also been reduced.  This stems from a technicality, but shit.  A win is a win, right?  The other three boys' charges need to be changed, but this is a very, very good start.  I thought that, when you got in a fight at school, you got a few days' suspension.  They shouldn't even face juvie charges for this shit.

Comments

[pansypoo]

sometimes protest works.
thank goodness.

[joejoejoe]

Great news.

OT: Scout, there is a video contest being run by Lonely Planet where you win a trip to New Orleans to film your dream 24 hours in NOLA. I thought you would be a great candidate to win.

http://lonelyplanet.tv/campaign.aspx%5c?pid1=119&pid2=119&pid3=106&tag=nolacomp

[joejoejoe]

Oops. I'm sorry Jude. I thought this was Scout's post as she is usually on the Louisiana beat.

[Jude]

That's alright, Joejoejoe.

I'm doing a half-assed fill-in for the irreplaceable Scout this week.

She'll be back soon, I'm sure, and she'll be very happy to hear about this. I assume.

[Marty]

...and a white guy I know got beat up here in Beloit, WI, suffering permanent brain damage. His attackers were black. No charges. No national outrage. In the same neighborhood, a white family was attacked by a large group of black folks. On the families' own property. On Christmas. Grandma thrown from her own porch. It made the local paper. No charges. No national outrage.

The outrage? That I dare bring it up. Obviously racist.

[Jude]

I am ashamed of myself.

I can only bring out a D-list troll? I thought I could do better than that.

[Ivyfree]

Just to be aware. A lot of school districts are going to the "call police and turn the matter over to them" mode with fights on campus. The idea is that studemts in high school may not be aware that fighting is wrong- despite every effort to teach appropriate conflict resolution- but they sure as hell are old enough to understand that it's illegal.

I'm all for it, BTW. Teachers shouldn't have to deal with it.

Really glad the charges were tossed out, though. This IS juvie stuff. Although the white kids should be charged with some kind of harassment/hate thing- putting up nooses is not a benign statement of opinion.

[Chris]

Marty,

Wisconsin has one of the most disproportionately black prison populations of any of the 50 states. By population ratio, blacks are 13 times as likely as whites to be incarcerated in Wisconsin. The failure to prosecute the individuals in the cases you cited above had absolutely nothing to do with Wisconsin being unwilling to prosecute black people.

I have been a straight white male my whole life. It's worked out pretty well for me so far. I used to play that whole "poor me, the oppressed whitey" card, but I knew in my heart I had no right to complain. It's not political correctness that compels me to acknowledge how great I have it in this country, but rather a matter of integrity, character and honesty.

Also, I have found consistently that the only white guys who are constantly complaining about "reverse racism" are themselves usually pretty damn racist.

[VJB]

The NYTimes neither in the print edition today nor online http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/15/us/15jena2.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
referenced any background on this story. That was more than slipshod, but simply wrong. I had followed this story when it first arose, but it was your post that brought back the connection. It simply wasn't a frontpage item up here in CT. Thanks.

[Jim]

I think snopes has the best post on Jena.

http://www.snopes.com/politics/crime/jena6.asp

What seems to be the most important and ignored fact is that Bell had 4 prior violent crime convictions. This was his 5th violent crime. Call me crazy but I'd much rather have a moron hang a noose on my tree than have someone violently assault me 5 times. There are no good guys in this story, and I refuse to support Bell.

[Marty]

Chris, I'm glad you got over that "poor me" syndrome. My Swiss grandfather (and namesake) traveled the US during the great depression, trying to find work and some crumbs. He was horrified to find "lynching postcards" at small stores in the south.

He never ventured south again.

His stories instilled in me a deep distaste for the vile redneck. The Lynyrd Skynyrd fans. I've argued against the reverse racism ethic as long and hard as you. Perhaps longer, since I've never seen myself as victim, and have long admired how blacks transformed a vicious word long used as a weapon against them into their own weapon and armor. I've laughed as acquaintances complained that "blacks could say the word and we can only say "N".

"Brilliant!" I say, and fitting.

My only point is this: Imagine an entire neighborhood of whites attacking a black family anywhere in this country. Imagine the media coverage.

Yes,I know about the New York riots during the civil war. I know about the depravity of white folks. Believe it or not, depravity is color blind. Liberal outrage is not.

And this "troll' hates the GOP as much or more than the rest of you combined. But I got eyes.

Yes they are blue. (I know, I know)

So, your insinuation of my latent racism I sweat not in the least. Come on up and I'll show you the streets to walk at night. Straight white boy.

[anonymousryan]

I don’t care if someone shouts racial slurs at you, spits at you, etc., you don’t have the right to knock them unconscious and then continue to stomp and kick them. I’m not familiar with Louisiana law, but if the white kid had insulted them and someone punched him from behind that might have been somewhat defensible under the “fighting words” Supreme Court ruling. But to continue to attack him when he’s passed out on the ground is clearly aggravated assault and battery and possibly, due to the fact that it was six against one, attempted murder.

The fact that the victim wasn’t seriously injured or hospitalized for an extended period doesn’t mean that the attack wasn’t serious. If I shoot someone and only manage to graze them, it doesn’t mean I didn’t attempt to murder them. Likewise, if you stomp on someone’s unconscious body and they aren’t hospitalized all night it doesn’t meant that you didn’t act without blatant disregard for their life.

To say, "They shouldn't even face juvie charges for this shit" is so irresponsible and idiotic I find it indefensible.

Yes, the students who hung the nooses should have been expelled. Yes, the school system and justice system should have done more to prevent and punish white kids from acting aggressively towards black kids. But no, they did not have the right to attack a kid and stomp on his unconscious body. Their acts are a disgrace to the 1960s civil rights movement and all the people who endured far worse but managed to rise above and overcome the oppression and racism.

[10leggedshadow]

Jude,
I hate to break it to ya, but these days in our zero tolerance society fighting in (high) school will get you suspended and at least a disorderly conduct charge. If you hit someone and they don't hit back then you're charged with assault.