In Which The Events Of the Jena 6 Make Meaning But What Meaning

Jena

by Alex Carnevale

The thing we call law is mainly a device for enforcing respect for custom, and the moral principles that it relies upon to give it dignity are often very dubious, and tend to change readily as the folkways change.

– h.l. mencken

On December 4th, 2006, this high school student in Jena, LA

was beaten up by a group of African-American students. They hurt him pretty bad. His hospital stay cost just over $5,000.

That day at the high school, most of the students knew something was going down.

“When I heard a black boy say something to Justin, I turned my head and I saw somebody hit Justin,” one student wrote in a statement. “He fell in between the gym door and the concrete barricade. I saw Robert Bailey kneel down and punch Justin in the head. … Then Carwin Jones kicked him in the head. … Theo Shaw tried to kick him so I pushed Theo Shaw down. I also saw Mychal Bell standing over him.”

The DA, Reed Walters, charged the boys involved in the attack with “charges of attempted second-degree murder and conspiracy to commit second-degree murder in connection with the fight.”

Like most racially-based incidents, you need to know the whole story to render judgment. It started with the nooses.

The Nooses:

white people’s tree

In September of that year, nooses were hung on a school tree that black students had been sitting under the day before. There is some dispute as to why the nooses were hung, but they were hung.

“Put It Down” – T-Pain feat. Ray, Teddy Pendarazoun & Teddy Verseti (mp3)

This piece by Craig Franklin, assistant editor of the Jena Times, basically defends the town of Jena and makes the whites of the town seem relatively innocuous.

An investigation by school officials, police, and an FBI agent revealed the true motivation behind the placing of two nooses in the tree the day after the assembly. According to the expulsion committee, the crudely constructed nooses were not aimed at black students. Instead, they were understood to be a prank by three white students aimed at their fellow white friends, members of the school rodeo team. (The students apparently got the idea from watching episodes of “Lonesome Dove.”) The committee further concluded that the three young teens had no knowledge that nooses symbolize the terrible legacy of the lynchings of countless blacks in American history. When informed of this history by school officials, they became visibly remorseful because they had many black friends.

Alan Bean responded:

There are actually three competing noose theories. The default position is well known: the nooses were hung in response to Kenneth Purvis’s question and the bold action of actually sitting under the tree.

Recently, Jena residents have suggested the nooses were aimed at supporters of Jena’s next football opponent–the Mustangs.

The Lonesome Dove theory was initially freestanding: the kids watched the Western on television and were so impressed with the hanging scene, they decided to hang a few nooses of their own. But no one could explain why they chose this particular tree, or why the nooses appeared the day after Kenneth’s question and the Principal’s answer.

Now we learn that the nooses were a poke at white members of the rodeo team. We are to believe that some white kids on the rodeo team were playfully suggesting that they were going to string up other white members of the team because . . .

You see the problem. What could possibly follow the “because”? Mr. Franklins’ desperation is painfully evident at this point. He’s doing the best with what he’s got–but what he ain’t got much. You can hardly blame the mainstream media (or any sensible person) for preferring the original explanation. It has the advantage of making sense.

Jena on a map

Finally, Franklin’s theory can’t explain why then-principal Scott Windham was so horrified by the noose incident that he recommended expulsion for the school year. If this was simply a white-on-white practical joke, Windham’s response can only be seen as a bizarre over-reaction.

The logical conclusion is that Windham was never exposed to the theory Mr. Franklin is selling. Is it just a coincidence that Mr. Windham was quickly shuffled to a less controversial position within the school administration. Perhaps, but the timing raises questions. The mainstream media, for better or worse, has given very little attention to this issue.

This piece does have the advantage of making an article like this one silly, but it doesn’t really tell us much more than we already know.

Nooses were placed on a tree, in school colors. Whether or not the students knew exactly the significance of what they were doing is of interest, but when it comes to evaluating what happened after the nooses were put on the tree, it’s not the only consideration.

“Those nooses meant the KKK, they meant ‘Niggers, we’re going to kill you, we’re going to hang you till you die,'” Casteptla Bailey, a mother of one of the students, told the London Observer.

It is hard to imagine any member of the African-American community of Jena not taking from this incident what Ms. Bailey did. The District Attorney later wrote of this incident in The New York Times:

I cannot overemphasize how abhorrent and stupid I find the placing of the nooses on the schoolyard tree in late August 2006. If those who committed that act considered it a prank, their sense of humor is seriously distorted. It was mean-spirited and deserves the condemnation of all decent people.

But it broke no law. I searched the Louisiana criminal code for a crime that I could prosecute. There is none.

They cut the tree down.

“It’s Not Over Yet” – Klaxons (mp3)

The Barn Party and the Convenience Store

On Friday, December 1, 2006, there was a private party, attended mostly by whites but with some blacks, at the Jena Fair Barn. Five black youths, including 16-year-old Robert Bailey, Jr., attempted to enter the party at about 11 p.m. According to U.S. Attorney Washington, they were told by a woman that no one was allowed inside without an invitation. The five youths persisted, stating that some friends were already in attendance at the party. A white male, who was not a student, then jumped in front of the woman and a fight ensued. After the fight broke up, the woman told both the white male and five black students to leave the party. Once outside, the black students were involved in another fight with a group of white males, who were not students. Police were called to investigate.

On Saturday, December 2, 2006, another incident involving Bailey occurred at the “Gotta Go” convenience store, outside Jena in unincorporated LaSalle Parish.

robert bailey, member of the jena 6, rolling in donations

A white student who had attended the Fair Barn party encountered Bailey and several friends. Reports from the involved parties are conflicting. Local police reported that the accounts of the white student and black students contradicted each other and formed a report based on testimony taken from eyewitnesses. The white student alleged that Bailey and his friends chased him, that he ran to get his gun, and that the students wrestled it away from him. According to the black students, as they left the convenience store, they were confronted by the white student with a shotgun. They stated they wrestled the gun away from him and fled the scene. After hearing from an uninvolved witness of unspecified race, the police charged Bailey and two others with three counts: theft of a firearm, second-degree robbery, and disturbing the peace. The white student who produced the weapon was not charged.

3. The Beating

Mychael Bell’s statement to police. From here.

Superintendent Breithaupt stated that the attack was no ordinary schoolyard fight. “It was a premeditated ambush and attack by six students against one,” Breithaupt said. “The victim attacked was beaten and kicked into a state of bloody unconsciousness.

McWhorter

John McWhorter wrote in the New York Sun:

At Jena High School, black students have traditionally gathered on certain bleachers, while white ones have gathered under a certain tree. At a school assembly last year, a black student jokingly asked whether he was allowed to sit under “the white tree.” He and his friends then did so. The next day there were three nooses hanging from that tree.

In the months after this, assorted black-white altercations culminated in six black teens beating up a white one who taunted them.

And then trying to leave five teenagers behind bars for thirty years for beating a guy up. That’s all it was — Justin Barker was out of the hospital after a few hours and attended an awards ceremony that very night.

I find it impossible to conceive of Mr. Walters trying to put away white kids for thirty years for beating up a black kid. When I say that racism still exists, I refer, after all due reflection, to people like Reed Walters.

[snip]

Marcher With Flag, Jena, Louisiana

To the extent that black men do commit a disproportionate number of violent crimes, this is largely connected to the War on Drugs, and I have argued in a previous column that we need to re-evaluate the criminalization of drug possession and sale, which has been no more successful than Prohibition.

But meanwhile, moves to put away black teens for mere misbehavior for long spells no one would even consider for white teens must be condemned, loudly. For the sake of black communities, and to chip away at the sense that the American establishment views black men as inherently reprehensible.

The Trial

The Chicago Tribune and other papers filed to have the papers relating to the trial released to the public.

They won that right in early November.

Craig Franklin bizarrely tries to defend one of the most damning parts of this case:

Myth 9: Mychal Bell’s All-White Jury. While it is true that Mychal Bell was convicted as an adult by an all-white jury in June (a conviction that was later overturned with his case sent to juvenile court), the jury selection process was completely legal and withstood an investigation by the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. Court officials insist that several black residents were summoned for jury duty, but did not appear.

It is astonishing that there our places in our country in which “justice” is dispensed in this fashion.

“Instrumentals (1974)” – Arthur Russell (mp3)

The Fall Out

Richard Thomas Ford, a reactionary if there ever was one, in Slate:

When more than 10,000 people converged on the small town of Jena, La., last Friday, the Rev. Al Sharpton called their march the beginning of the 21^st-century civil rights movement. He may be right. And that’s just what’s worrisome. The marchers gathered to protest criminal charges brought against six African-American high-school students, the “Jena 6.” But the racial problems facing this town—and many others—are more complex than simple prejudice, and finding solutions will necessarily require more nuance than a mass protest can offer. The mismatch between the complex and layered racial tensions in Jena and the one-issue rallying cry of “Free the Jena 6” suggest that the tactics of last century’s civil rights movement may be an anachronism for today’s racial conflicts.

The Jena 6 were accused of beating and kicking a white classmate until he lost consciousness. The district attorney charged the six assailants with attempted murder—an absurdly severe charge under the circumstances—and then later, perhaps under pressure, reduced the charges to aggravated battery. The district attorney also improperly tried one student, Mychal Bell, as an adult and obtained a conviction for aggravated battery and conspiracy, which was duly vacated on appeal. It’s plausible that this prosecutorial overzealousness was inspired by racial prejudice, but even privileged white people can fall victim to overzealous prosecutors—ask the Duke lacrosse team. So, how did a case of prosecutorial overreaching, which is tragically all too common, turn into a civil rights violation?

In every race incident, the victims are just not victimy-enough for those who would disagree with them. Hence most of the people criticizing the supporters of the Jena 6 tend to accuse them of not exactly being white knights. The very terminology suggests they never had a chance at this designation.

wfb, 1965

William F. Buckley does his usual tiptoe, while not exactly disagreeing with the protestors:

As Ms. Phillips reported: “Jena’s small black community was watching to see what charges would be brought against the white student with the gun. But there were none. Instead, the three black students were the ones accused — among the charges, aggravated second-degree battery, assault, disturbing the peace and theft of the weapon. Nearly a year later, those cases have yet to go to trial.”

Then on Monday, Dec. 4, came the incident that led to Jena’s unwelcome notoriety. A group of black students badly beat a single white student, Justin Barker, sending him to the hospital unconscious. One witness told CNN: “He was making racial slurs, and they had enough of it. And they took action.” Another witness said, “A lot of the blacks, if not all, that was standing started kicking him and pushing him down. When he got knocked out, they still kicked him just as hard.”

One thanks the good Lord for the football games, and for the church services every Sunday.

Since racist incitement has existed, those who condone the racist justice system have looking for ways to mitigate the meaning of the grossest of punishments, as if supporting someone who was wrongly accused wasn’t righteousness in its very nature.

The conservative press was all too quick to jump all over the holes.

In contrast, The Nation mainly ignored this story.

More of Richard Thompson Ford in Slate:

The 21^st century’s civil rights movement will need more sympathetic poster children than the Jena 6. These young men weren’t exactly engaged in peaceful civil disobedience when they ran afoul of the law. The injustice here is not that they are being prosecuted for their crime—it is that the many other wrongs that preceded the assault have been inadequately addressed. When you think about it, the logic that underlies the demand to free the Jena 6 comes down to this: These six young men were justified in kicking their lone victim senseless because other people who shared his race committed offenses against other black students. This sort of racial vendetta is diametrically opposed to the message of social justice and cross-racial understanding that underlies the civil rights movement of the last century.

There is “beware of making the best the enemy of the good,” and then there is just outright stupidity. It has been the particular proclivity of whites since Africans came to this country to say, “If only they asked for justice in a better way.”

The way of doing, of course, has never been the important thing. The unfairly prosecuted members of the Jena 6 weren’t saints, but they didn’t have to be. Because they chose to fight back in a way unpalatable to most does not take away that they were rightly angry about what was going on, and that what happened to them because of an all-white jury was a monstrous injustice. Saying to black people, “you need a better symbol” is about as racist as it gets.

Alex Carnevale is the editor of This Recording.