I've been following the Jena 6 case on CNN for awhile now and it makes me angry every time I hear about it or see it on TV.
In September of 2006, several black students at Jena High School located in Jena, Louisiana, sat under an oak tree dubbed the "white tree" after asking permission from the vice principal. The next day students arrived at school to find three nooses hanging from the tree. The school principal was informed of the incident and recommended expulsion for those students responsible.
A school district committee, however, overruled the recommendation and instead suspended three white students. They dismissed the incident as a prank. On Nov. 30, 2006, Jena High School's main academic building was torched. The arson was blamed on increasing racial tensions at the high school although the crime still remains unsolved today.
In Dec. 2006, a 17 black student named Robert Bailey was beaten with a bottle by a twenty two year-old white male Justin Sloan while attending a private party. Sloan was charged with simple battery and was given probation.
During another instance in December, a white high school student pulled a gun on black students in a convenience store parking lot.
Three black students wrestled the gun away from him.
On December 4, 2006, six black students now dubbed as the Jena 6 attacked Justin Barker, a white student at Jena High School.
He was sent to the hospital to be treated for injuries and was later released that day. Parents of the Jena 6 say that Barker had provoked his attack by using racial epithets. Barker's parents maintain he did nothing wrong.
The Jena 6 were arrested later that month and charged with attempted second-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder.
Three of the six, however,later had their charges reduced to aggravated second-degree battery.
The last of the Jena 6, Mychal Bell, was recently released on Sept. 27 after a judge set his bail to $45,000. Bell's case had just recently been moved to juvenile court after he'd been sitting in prison for nine months on a $90,000 bond.
Just eight days before Bell's release, District Attorney Reed Walters had stated that the Jena 6 case was not actually about race, but instead about fighting for justice.
If you ask me, it's about both.
I, along with many students whom I've spoken to, know that the three nooses hanging from the tree was not a simple prank. That is what I call a hate crime. Of course, in Louisiana it didn't qualify as a federal hate crime, but nonetheless it was one. This is where the issue of racism comes in.
The Jena 6, the black students who were arrested, should not have responded with violence.
That was visibly the wrong way to go and yes, justice should be served, but fairly.
The Jena 6 should not be the only ones getting punished for their deeds. The white students who hung the nooses got away with something they should not have. Justin Sloan, the white male who attacked black student Robert Bailey with a bottle, should have received a more severe punishment. He was a legal adult unlike the Jena 6 who were all still teens. They face possible years in prison; Sloan got probation.
And what about the white student who pulled a gun on black students?
What kind of punishment did he get?
Apparently none.
This case has shined light once again on something that has never fully disappeared.
Racism is a never ending cycle of hate that,sadly,we cannot break away from. Children learn from their parents how to behave and if the parents are ignorant racists, then the children will most likely become ignorant racists as well. It continues through generations and is almost impossible to change. That is why racism will never cease.
It's a shame that the U.S. as a nation has not matured enough to learn to work together and not hate others based on skin color.
You'd think we'd learn from our past mistakes.
We haven't.
Honestly, I don't think we ever will.
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