Justice Is Color Blind?
Hello all.
Sorry folks for my lengthy absence, I’ve been gravely ill. Not that anyone noticed I’m sure. After all, Lance Manly is only one man and he can’t change things for the better. Perhaps I’ll buy a 3 million dollar house in New Orleans and that might make up for somethings.
But I digress.
I’d like to take this time to talk about something that has recently caught my eye. My brown eye on a white face for the record. I think it important to note that I’m primarily of Caucasian ancestry, though I had a black great-grandmother as well as some other stuff in the primordial mix.
I’m talking about the “Jena 6″ in case you didn’t guess.
WTF? Is all this media attention for these 6 kids real? Are we forgetting that they committed a crime? Have we become so PC that a black man is never guilty anymore? I mean I have a strong hatred for the good ol’ boy philosophy and knowing that so many all-white juries acquitted these racist bastards pisses me off to no end.
And yet it seems that the lesson being taught now is; African-Americans have been screwed in the past so lets match all those non-guilty verdicts with some of our own. That anytime a black person is put before a judge he’s not presumed anything – just let him go. Isn’t that what all those juries in the 50’s did? That’s what the NAACP and the other Civil Rights Leaders fought for? Releasing criminals back on the street for the color of their skin?
I’m now going to submit an article detailing media whore Rev. Al Sharpton and his latest cause to get his face on the news. I shall do a running commentary on each paragraph, not only to show the hypocrisy of the situation, but the bias in the Liberal media which is trying to martyr the “Jena 6″ when they should be condemning them.
JENA, La. - Thousands of chanting demonstrators filled the streets of this little Louisiana town Thursday in support of six black teenagers initially charged with attempted murder in the beating of a white classmate.
The crowd broke into chants of “Free the Jena Six” as the Rev. Al Sharpton arrived at the local courthouse with family members of the jailed teens.
Can’t say I have any issues with these first 2 paragraphs. Initial information is simply stating facts.
Sharpton told the Associated Press that he and Reps. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, and William Jefferson, D-La., will press the House Judiciary Committee next week to summon the district attorney to explain his actions before Congress.
Well Al Sharpton has always offended me and everything he does and says annoys me. The gall of the good Reverend to think that he has the right, let alone power, to second guess a district attorney because he disagrees with the man’s decisions. If this was a case of 6 white kids beating up a black boy, Sharpton wouldn’t care. Or at the very least; Al would be down there to ensure that the “6″ would get the prison sentence he wanted.
This could be the beginning of a 21st century’s civil rights movement challenge disparities in the justice system, he said, and he said he planned a November march in Washington.
“What we need is federal intervention to protect people from Southern injustice,” Sharpton told the AP. “Our fathers in the 1960’s had to penetrate the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, we have to do the same thing.”
Give me a f**king break. Notice how states “This could be the beginning of a 21st century’s civil rights movement?” Al doesn’t say “This is a travesty of justice. I’m here to save those boys” No, he’s talking about making history to get his name in the books.
The six black teens were charged a few months after three white teens were accused of hanging nooses in a tree on their high school grounds. The white teens were suspended from school but weren’t prosecuted. Five of the black teens were initially charged with attempted murder. That charge was reduced to battery for all but one, who has yet to be arraigned; the sixth was charged as a juvenile.
Stating the facts of the case. Seems okay to me.
The beating victim, Justin Barker, was knocked unconscious, his face badly swollen and bloodied, though he was able to attend a school function later that night.
Wait a second!! Justin Barker was able to attend a school function later that night? I guess the beating he took doesn’t matter then. I’m sorry, but how does it matter that after getting a beating Mr. Barker still went to a school function?
President Bush, asked about the Jena case during a news conference, said he understood the emotions and the FBI was monitoring the situation.
“The events in Louisiana have saddened me,” the president said. “All of us in America want there to be, you know, fairness when it comes to justice.”
Well we know how much high regard I hold Bushie. He’s just being the neutral President saying what his PR people are telling him to say.
Thousands of demonstrators clad in black converged on the local courthouse and a nearby park Thursday morning to protest the disparity in the charged teenagers’ treatment. Thousands more marched along city streets in what at times took on the atmosphere of a giant festival — with people setting up tables of food and some dancing to the beat of a drum.
Don’t you love those protests that magically morph into a giant festival? Me too.
The Rev. Jesse Jackson spoke to one crowd. Dennis Courtland Hayes, interim president and CEO of the NAACP, was also there.
“People are saying, `That’s enough, and we’re not taking it any more,’” Hayes said.
Two things. First — So Jesse Jackson is down there too? I’m surprised Sharpton allowed it. Second — Someone tell Mr. Hayes that quoting “Network” is so unoriginal.
Martin Luther King III, son of the slain civil rights leader, described the scene as reminiscent of earlier civil rights struggles. He said punishment of some sort may be in order for the six defendants, but “the justice system isn’t applied the same to all crimes and all people.”
And that’s the meat of the issue huh? “the justice system isn’t applied to all crimes and all people.”
Well that’s what I’ve been saying! There is justice for two groups in America and I hate to tell you all, it ain’t black & white. It is in fact rich & poor. That’s how it always has been, that’s how it will always be. What we need to do is stop assuming that anyone who is black is innocent and accept that yes, African-Americans are a**holes too.
I’m no idiot folks, despite what my wife may think. I see that the social classes make things harder for those who are monetarily challenged. And that as long as there fewer opportunities for minorities in America more will turn to crime and flood our jails.
But that’s not what we’re discussing here. We are talking about teenagers acting like jerks and one group turning to violence to express their discomfort. Teenagers are young and foolish and always act without thinking. Rarely have I ever heard of a teenager doing the right thing at the right time thanks to intelligent contemplation.
I did a few stupid things as a kid myself. Never hung a noose or anything, but that isn’t a crime. That was a tacky, tasteless prank. Unless the culprits responsible burned down a black church or lynched themselves a black boy, the response of the Jena 6 was way out of proportion.
And Rev. Al Sharpton should shut the f**k up, go back to wherever he came from and leave civil right issues to those who actually care about them and not stroking their ego.
Now you may be asking yourself is Al right? I can’t say for sure, but I’m not about to accept this on face value. So what does the other side say? Here we go; from the same Associated Press article too.
District Attorney Reed Walters stressed on Wednesday that race had nothing to do with the charges in Jena.
Walters said he didn’t charge the white students accused of hanging the nooses because he could find no Louisiana law under which they could be charged. In the beating case, he said, four of the defendants were of adult age under Louisiana law and the only juvenile charged as an adult, Mychal Bell, had a prior criminal record.
Mychal Bell has a criminal record! He’s got a record and he’s an innocent boy who just didn’t know what he was doing?! Bulls**t!
“It is not and never has been about race,” Walters said. “It is about finding justice for an innocent victim and holding people accountable for their actions.”
Yes, thank you!! Someone with a little common sense and not being led around by his emotions.
Bell, 16 at the time of the December attack, is the only one of the “Jena Six” to be tried so far. He was convicted on an aggravated second-degree battery count that could have sent him to prison for 15 years, but the conviction was overturned last week when a state appeals court said he should not have been tried as an adult.
Thursday’s rally, heavily promoted on black Web sites, blogs, radio and publications, had been planned to coincide with Bell’s sentencing, but organizers decided to press ahead even after the conviction was thrown out. Bell remains jailed while prosecutors prepare an appeal. He has been unable to meet the $90,000 bond.
“We all have family members about the age of these guys. We said it could have been one of them. We wanted to try to do something,” said Angela Merrick, 36, who drove with three friends from Atlanta to protest the treatment of the teens.
Sharpton admonished the demonstrators to remain peaceful, and there were no reports of trouble as of midmorning. White residents in the predominantly white town of 3,000 have largely been reluctant to comment, saying privately that the town was being unfairly portrayed.
Any white person makes a comment and they are branded as members of the KKK. It’s a no-win scenario for them.
“I believe in people standing up for what’s right,” said resident Ricky Coleman, 46, who is white. “What bothers me is this town being labeled racist. I’m not racist.”
I repeat my previous statement. Trying to defend the noose incident and you’ll be ostracized. Defend the “Jena 6″ and you’re on the side of good.
A group of about a dozen white residents and black demonstrators engaged in an animated but not angry exchange during the march. Whites asked blacks if they were aware of Bell’s criminal record, blacks replied that Jena High School administrators mishandled the incidents.
Bell’s criminal record + Administrator’s handling of situation = Who cares? The fact that the school failed to face the growing tension between the students doesn’t get Bell and his friends off the hook.
Another white resident, Bill Williamson, 59, said he tried to convince visitors that the town was being treated unfairly and that Mychal Bell belonged in jail.
“I think we changed one man’s mind,” he said. “But most of these people don’t want to hear.”
No one ever does.
The demonstrators included large numbers of civil rights movement veterans and college students from across the region who weren’t alive in the 1960s.
Elizabeth Redding, 63, of Willinboro, N.J., said she marched at Selma when she was in her 20s.
“This is worse, because we didn’t get the job done,” she said as she walked up a hill leading to the park rally. “I never believed that this would be going on in 2007.”
America is still not color blind, but to claim that no progress has been made in the last 60 years is an insult.
Sharpton said Bell, whom he spoke with Wednesday, was heartened by the show of support.
“He doesn’t want anything done that would disparage his name — no violence, not even a negative word,” Sharpton said.
Someone needs to tell Mr. Bell that his assault on Justin Barker and his criminal record of battery and destruction of property has already disparaged his name.
For the record I got the information on Bell’s criminal past on a web-page which is so biased in portraying these 6 kids, especially Bell, as innocent victims despite beating another classmate senseless. Here’s the link and I shall let you decide for yourself the neutrality of the reporting. Be warned it is a website for the Communist Party, U.S.A.
The point of been trying to make in this blog is that crime is crime no matter who was caught doing it. The Jena 6 attacked a student and they deserve to be punished. This is not a tale of six black boys being railroaded, this about teenagers letting their emotions get the better of them and doing something stupid.
Some say “Innocent until proven guilty.” I say “All are guilty until proven otherwise.”
The Jena 6 are guilty.
I bid adieu,
your Origami reporter,
L.Manly
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One Response to “Justice Is Color Blind?”
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September 21st, 2007 at 8:18 pm
I see no winners in this mess. Not the Civil Rights “activists” who want to make a group of teenage punks the new Scottsboro Boys, not the school administration that turned a blind eye to weeks of racial harassment by white students that fueled this situation (and the nooses were only a part of it), not Al Sharpton, who again is grabbing on to the wrong end of the stick and ignoring REAL Black issues. And certainly not the so-called “Liberal” media (which has been pretty much in lock-step or at least fearfully cowering before the Bush administration).
Just heard a panel of journalists discussing this very story on NPR’s Talk of the Nation. Seems this story took on a life of its own on the blogisphere. Only weeks later did the mainstream media pick it up. So far from fanning the flames here, traditional media is just playing catch up — to a story that really doesn’t rate the coverage it’s getting.
Now if only OJ would take off in a white Bronco, it would all come full circle.