The Fuck Is Going on in Jena?

For most of this week, I've been thinking about this Jena 6 situation down in Louisiana. I've been trying to think of some way to comment on what's going on down there, to muster the anger that I know many black people are feeling inside, and explode it onto my keyboard so the world will feel what I feel.

And you know what? I can't do it. I just don't feel the anger this time. Surprising considering how little it takes to set me off for most things. You'd think that blatant racism in 2007 would be a cake walk. But it isn't. And I can't figure out why.

I read some articles about the timeline and I felt anger boil up inside me. I did. But when it came time to write, it just wouldn't come out. It's not that I don't feel outrage for what's happening down there. I guess I'm just not the least bit surprised that they still do it. Even though I have white friends, I'm never surprised by the lengths that the white establishment will go to exclude black people from the idea of a stress-free life.

This entire thing probably could have been avoided had the school superintendent just nipped this in the bud and expelled the three kids that hung the nooses from the "white tree." Or if they had charged the kid who was pointing the shotgun at black people with a crime of some sort, like illegal pointing of a shotgun at people. Or maybe if the cops in Jena hadn't arrested the black kids who took said shotgun away from the homicidal racist that was pointing it at people. Any of those would have gone a long way towards diffusing any racial tension. But to blow off the concerns of the black populace of Jena by referring to the nooses as "youthful prank..."

...you're lucky that black folks didn't burn your fucking town down.

To any white people who might ever read this: There is nothing funny about 400 years of slavery. There is nothing funny about our struggle to be treated like men and women. There is nothing funny about lynching. There is nothing funny about discrimination. There is nothing funny about Klan rallies, or racism, or blackface, or any of that. And everything that black folks have gone through in this country and the evil, hateful feelings that have been directed at us, and the charges of being a lazy race, or the demands of us to "go back to Africa," all of that can be summed up by one symbol.

The goddamn noose.

How about you go tell the family of Emmitt Till that it was a "youthful prank?" How about all of those black families that have lost a loved one because a bunch of white folks just randomly decided to go chase down and string up a black person just because he was black that it was a "youthful prank?" It's not like it's something that was going on a thousand years ago. This was something that was happening in some of our lifetimes. I personally have been chased through my own neighborhood by white people in a pickup truck, calling me "nigger", and that happened in 1995. I don't know what their intentions were, but I know there are a lot of oak trees in that neighborhood. Don't fuckin' tell me it was a "youthful prank." Toilet papering is a youthful prank. You don't hang a noose from a tree unless you're trying to send a message, and we all know what that message is.

I want to know what the black people of Jena were expected to do. Were they supposed to just take it and pretend it never happened? Let's say that they were and they did. So what do they do when the shotgun incident happened? The black men that took away the shotgun were arrested and the white human being, and I use that term loosely, wasn't even charged. Then, what about the black kid who was beaten up at the white party the night before the shotgun incident? None of the white people involved in any of those incidents were punished severely. So what happened next? A white kid gets fucked up by six black kids because he was talking shit and saying that everything that had happened prior to this historic beatdown was justified. No, you fuckin' cracker...getting your head stomped on, that was justified. And the beating couldn't have been that bad, because the white kid went out that night.

Even still, it's a wonder it didn't happen sooner. The black population of Jena had been taking and taking and taking, but when some of them decide to retaliate, they're not only wrong, but they're brought up on trumped-up charges of second degree assault, with bond set in the hundreds of thousands for each boy. But when you feel like you're backed into a corner, what are you supposed to do?

The black people at this school didn't have any back up. There was no one supporting them. No cops were there to say, "Hey, we're gonna get all this straightened out." No reassuring pats on the back. The cops weren't on black folks' side. The school superintendent wasn't on black folks' side. The district attorney of Jena wasn't on the black folks' side. In fact, he showed his true colors when he told the black kids at the high school that if they didn't stop raising so much sand about the hilarious noose prank, that he "can be your best friend or your worst enemy. I can take away your lives with a stroke of my pen.”

And he's in the process of doing just that to one Mychal Bell, one of the kids who was involved in beating up the cracker. He's facing 22 years in prison for charges of aggravated battery and conspiracy to commit aggravated battery. Charges like that for beating up a kid who went out that night? It couldn't have been that bad. But he was up against a racist system and an all-white jury, each of them being somehow connected to the "victim" or someone else involved in the case. Then, they claim that the jury pool was selected at random.

Lemme go change clothes real quick, because the ones I'm wearing right now must make me look like I just walked out of the cotton fields.

Funny...I wasn't angry as I started writing, but I'm pissed right now. But let me be clear: I don't hate white people. I just hate THESE white people. And I really don't know what I can do to help, other than talk shit in my blog, which is not much. But I did come across a petition to try to get the governor of Louisiana to intervene, but his name is "Blanco," so I don't know how much good that will do. It can be found at: http://colorofchange.org/jena/

There is also information there for those who would be able to make the trip to Jena on September 20 to publicly stand with the families and to anyone who wishes to donate to the legal defense fund for the Jena 6.

Mychal Bell can be sent letters at this address:

Mychal Bell
Inmate, A-Dorm
LaSalle Correctional Center
15976 Highway 165
Olla, LA 71465-4801

We're supposed to be past all this in 2007, but I get the feeling that it's just beginning. Again.

TM