The Jena Six

MasterFramer wrote:

Great another genius chimes in :rolleyes:

CorporateWhore wrote:

The black students choose to have those graduations.

LaSalle Parish school board member Billy "Bulldog" Fowler reveals the school
district conducted an internal investigation about the Jena Six but the
school board was not allowed to review it before they voted to uphold the
expulsion of the six. The school board¹s lawyer was none other than the
prosecuting district attorney, Reed Walters. Asked if he felt that Walters
had a conflict of interest that night, Fowler replied, ³Well, I¹m assuming
that Mr. Walters knows the law.

During a recent trip to Jena, Democracy Now! interviewed Billy ³Bulldog²
Fowler, a member of the La Salle Parish School Board. Fowler, 68, moved to
Jena in 1940. He says Jena is being unfairly painted as racist. He feels the
hanging nooses were blown out of proportion, that in the high school setting
it was more of a prank: ³This is the Deep South, and [older] black people
know the meaning of a noose. Let me tell you something‹young people don¹t.

Former Assistant School Superintendent Cleveland Riser says local district
attorney Reed Walters should have recused himself from the Jena Six case
because he also serves as the attorney for the local school board. When the
school board was asked to review the expulsion of the six students, Walters
prevented them from reviewing an internal school district investigation.

MakingWaves wrote:

I just don't get the big deal being made about this.

The white kids were idiots for hanging the nooses on the tree and should have gotten in more trouble. I would say they could have been charged with harrassment or something.
But then this kid is beaten up months after the incident. You can't be in a group of people and beat the shit out of someone and then say you don't deserve to be arrested because you are black and the kid you beat up is white.
But maybe I am looking at this wrong. Is the uproar over the severity of the charges being brought against the one boy still in jail or just the fact that he was arrested?

MakingWaves wrote:

Ok, that makes more sense.

I honestly hadn't paid much attention to it.
I would say they have a legitimate arguement because I would be willing to bet if some white kids had beaten up a black kid there would have been an uproar from the black community but I couldn't see the white kids being charged as adults and all of that.

JACQUIE SOOHEN: A few days after the nooses were hung, the entire black student body staged an impromptu demonstration, crowding underneath the tree during lunch hour. Justin Purvis, the student who first asked to sit underneath the tree, described how the protest came about.

JUSTIN PURVIS: It was like, the first beginning, in the courtyard, they said, “Y’all want to go stand under the tree?” We said, “Yeah.” They said, “If you go, I’ll go. If you go, I’ll go.” One person went, the next person went, everybody else just went.

JACQUIE SOOHEN: The school responded to the protest by calling police and the district attorney. At an assembly the same day, the District Attorney Reed Walters, accompanied by armed policeman, addressed the students. Substitute teacher Michelle Rogers, one of the few black teachers at the school, was there. She recalls the DA's words to the assembled high schoolers.

MICHELLE ROGERS: The kids didn't say anything. They were listening. The kids were quiet. And so, District Attorney Reed Walters, you know, proceeded to tell those kids that “I could end your lives with the stroke of a pen.” And the kids were just -- it was like in awe that the district -- you know, Reed Walters would tell these kids that. He held a pen in his hand and told those kids that, “See this pen in my hand? I can end your lives with the stroke of a pen.”

JACQUIE SOOHEN: A series of incidents followed throughout the fall. In October, a black student was beaten for entering a private all-white party. Later that month, a white student pulled a gun on a group of black students at a gas station, claiming self-defense. The black students wrestled the gun away and reported the incident to police. They were charged with assault and robbery of the gun. No charges were ever filed against the white students in either incident. Then, in late November, someone tried to burn down the high school, creating even more tension.

Four days later, a white student was allegedly attacked in a school fight. The victim was taken to hospital and released shortly with a concussion. He attended a school function that evening. Six black students were charged with attempted second-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder, on charges that leave them facing between twenty and one hundred years in jail. The defendants, ranging in age from fifteen to seventeen, had their bonds set at between $70,000 and $138,000. The attack was written up in the local paper as fact, and DA Reed Walters published a statement in which he said, "When you are convicted, I will seek the maximum penalty allowed by law."

RainDog wrote:

Actually, that did happen in Jena. At a party after the noose incident, a group of white kids harassed a few black kids and later assaulted one of them - allegedly with a beer bottle. Only one white kid was charged, and he was given probation. The day after that party, another altercation occured in a store parking lot where a white kid pulled a gun on a black kid. One of the black kids friends wrestled the gun away and refused to return it. The black kid was charged with theft.

It's not that the Jena Six didn't commit a crime. They did. The problem is with the "justice" that's being dealt out.

evenflow wrote:

The problem I have with this whole situation is the way the media and the race pimps (Sharpton, Jackson, Q-X) has turned this into a completely different situation than what it really is, and the amount of gossip and false accusations are just staggering.

First and foremost- all everyone keeps talking about is the noose's hung in the tree, and how this is a retaliation against that. Justin Barker, the white kid who was attacked by the "Jena 6" had absolutely nothing to do with that incident. He was not one of the students responsible for the nooses nor was he suspended with the kids that did actually hang them. The D.A. admits to trying to tie these two incidents together when first prosecuting the 6, in hopes that it might lead to a less severe sentencing, but everyone involved admitted that Barker had nothing to do with the hanging nooses or any other racial incident before this.

The facts are, that he was caught in an area that the black kids claimed was theirs (kinda like the white kids tree). He was punched in the back of the head as he was walking out of the gym and was knocked out from it. While lying there unconscious he was repeatedly stomped on by 4 teens while a fifth kept lookout to make sure no one was coming. When a teacher, with the help of some students attempted to break up the fight, the oh so innocent, only looking for justice "Jena 6" tried to hold them up, so they could continue stomping this poor kid.

He was hospitalized, and contrary to a previous post, was not let out of the hospital that night so he could attend a party, but as his medical records show, was hospitalized for a couple of days with serious and life threatening head trauma.

So lets bring up the kid that the media has accused of pulling out a shotgun on some innocent black teens. Again, this has nothing at all to do with the Jena 6, because none of the people involved in the gun incident are the one's involved in the "schoolyard tussle" as Sharpton has named it. The police report (verified by the store clerk and 2 witnesses) states that as the white teenager, who was alone, got out of his car to enter the store, he was approached by a group of 5 to 6 black men ranging in ages from 16 to 22. They surrounded him as one asked him if he could borrow some money. Now I don't care who you are, and what color the people are who surround you, if you're cornered by a group of people, and one asks you for money, you know as well as I do, the second you pull out your wallet, it's going to get taken. The white kid panicked and ran to his car. The black kids were beating on the window and the hood of his car, yelling for him to come out. Another white guy (not a teenager, but was reported as being 24), who just happened to pull up at the store saw what was happening, pulled a hunting rifle from his truck and told the black kids to leave him alone and get out of there. This story really sounds racial to me, just with a different twist than the media is portraying. The reason the guy who pulled the gun wasn't prosecuted was because in America we have a right to self-defense, and even though the guy with the gun wasn't the one getting attacked, he was preventing someone who was severely outnumbered from possible robbery and physical harm. Boy this guy should rot in jail, huh?

And the reality is, no one took a gun away from anyone, and the black kid who asked to borrow some money was arrested on charges of attempted theft (of the white kids money) and public intimidation, and disturbing the peace. That’s the counts he was arrested with, but they were all reduced to a misdemeanor charge of disturbing the public. Do some research, it’s all there, police reports and all.

The truth is, just as the DA announced, is that this case had nothing at all to do with race or color, until Sharpton and Jackson got involved. This is not to say that there are not racial tensions in Jena Louisiana, but this particular case has nothing what so ever to do with them.

The loser in all of this – Justin Barker. The poor kid gets jumped and beaten within an inch of his life, and now thanks to Sharpton and Jackson, not only is he a national symbol of racism and hate, but the very guys who did do something that could be considered racial are made out to be heroes.

This media driven world is seriously sick and twisted, and is sending the whole country into the crapper.



Time to flush I guess…

evenflow wrote:

He was hospitalized, and contrary to a previous post, was not let out of the hospital that night so he could attend a party, but as his medical records show, was hospitalized for a couple of days with serious and life threatening head trauma.

Vedderlution_Baby! wrote:

Where'd you get all of this?