The Jena Six
Published 10 months, 2 weeks ago in World Gone Mad, People Are DumbHoly crap… This makes me sick to my stomach:
‘Stealth racism’ stalks deep South
It all began at Jena High School last summer when a black student, Kenneth Purvis, asked the school’s principal whether he was permitted to sit under the shade of the school courtyard tree, a place traditionally reserved for white students only. He was told he could sit where he liked.
The following morning, when the students arrived at school, they found three nooses dangling from the tree.
More at While Seated.
Fucking fantastic to hear the legacies of the likes of David Duke are alive and well in Louisiana, eh? Makes me wonder what’s going on in Mississippi and Alabama that we don’t hear about.
The Jena Six
Published 10 months, 2 weeks ago in World Gone Mad, People Are DumbHoly crap… This makes me sick to my stomach:
‘Stealth racism’ stalks deep South
It all began at Jena High School last summer when a black student, Kenneth Purvis, asked the school’s principal whether he was permitted to sit under the shade of the school courtyard tree, a place traditionally reserved for white students only. He was told he could sit where he liked.
The following morning, when the students arrived at school, they found three nooses dangling from the tree.
More at While Seated.
Fucking fantastic to hear the legacies of the likes of David Duke are alive and well in Louisiana, eh? Makes me wonder what’s going on in Mississippi and Alabama that we don’t hear about.
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i get really prickly when people start talking about racism in the south. because i think there is just as much racism in the north, midwest, west, etc. but these discussions are usually couched in such a way as to end up as classist. from my own experiences as a hillbilly, i find that white, (sub)urban, middle class americans always insist that racism looks like someone else. it’s like they have a checklist of behaviors (usually behaviors they assign to low class, rural or small town whites) that are What Racism Looks Like, and because they don’t do any of those things, they are Good Whiteys who are absolutely Not Racist. and that means that they generally won’t engage in any real self-examination. and if you happen to point out something racist they’ve said or done, they’ll start squealing something like “i dated a black girl once, i’ve never called anyone a racial slur, i’m not racist!”
I think I disagree with your general thesis.
Yes, there’s racism everywhere, but the particular attitude that surprising numbers of Southern white folks still hold towards their black neighbors is particularly ugly and astounding. It is *not* the same classism or even the same xenophobia you see in other parts of the country. It’s too cultural and (especially in this case) too overt.
And I’m not generalizing here. I’m not saying ALL the whites in LA, MS, and AL still wish they were slave owners. Just that there are enough folks who act like it that are in positions of power and influence that it leaves me completely gobsmacked.
We’re talking about a District Attorney gathering up black high school children and telling them that they should stop being so uppity or else he would “end their lives with a stroke of a pen” and then following up on that threat for Christ’s sake.
Also, let me point out that it’s 2007 and the black kids in this school only now thought to ask if they could possibly sit under the tree considered by all to be “whites only”… I mean… Holy nutburgers! Maybe this is me playing naive, but I’m just left agog by the whole story.
The question, I have is if six white student did this to a black student? I believe this would be called a hate crime?
Did you read the article? There’s some question as to whether the right kids are going to trial, even.
i have had a gut full of slavery already. we didn’t have slaves nor did my great-great grandparents. i’m not responsible and the majority of the blacks in Jena don’t have a clue about slavery or Africa for that matter. why can’t people accept what really happened at Jena High School? the victim wasn’t at this store, where the alleged whites on blacks took place, the victim had nothing to do with the hanging of the nooses. many eye witnesses, including teachers, testified of seeing the “six” involved. years from now we will get the truth. right now none of the six has the guts to stand up and be accounted for their actions. that is what is sad, they all deny it. i’m thankful that this group didn’t pick my children to attack.