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#1 |
War Child
Join Date: Nov 2006
Posts: 716
Local Time: 02:05 PM
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** The first 12 posts below were split off from the 'West Virginia Torture Horror' thread after a separate Jena 6 thread was created. The 13th post (Varitek's) was originally the first post of this thread. ~y. **
__________________The article you posted shows obvious bias in their favor. I can't find the original stories now, but it went something like this. There was a group of white kids who hung out under a tree at school and the black kids asked the principal if they could hang out there and were told yes. The next day they hung out there and the white kids did nothing, but the day after, nooses appeared in the tree. The black kids took it as a threat and when no one found out who did it, they suspected this one white guy did it, and six black kids attacked him, beat him and repeatedly kicked him. He had multiple body and head injuries and blood clots in his eyes and ears. The black kids were charged- I originally heard it was hate crimes- and then all this broke out about defending them. I know it was a terrible thing for the white guy to hang nooses in the tree, but by ganging up and attacking him, the jena 6 put themselves in the same category as a lynch mob. Regardless of the circumstances, it's not okay for six people to beat one person senseless any more than it was okay for six whites to hurt that black girl, and it was not okay for those five cops to gang up on Rodney King. But the Jena 6 are not innocent victims. They maliciously wounded a dude and while the punishment should fit the crime they should pay for it and not be held as martyrs. |
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#2 |
Blue Crack Addict
Join Date: Mar 2007
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okay, the issue with the Jena 6 is that they were charged with CONSPIRACY and ATTEMPTED MURDER for an EFFING SCHOOLFIGHT. This has nothing to do with guilt or whether or not it is okay for them to do that. It has to do with how the (in)justice system shits all over minorities. These 6 boys get life in prison for ATTEMPTED MURDER for a SCHOOL FIGHT and these 6 in WV are charged with felonies. The inequality here is the gravity of the charges being brought forth. If it were 6 black people beating the shit out of, raping, and torturing a white girl, you better believe they'd be facing something like Attempted Murder or worse charges.
__________________nobody is making martyrs out of them, and they never denied getting into the fight. also i hadn't heard about clots in the eyes. the official report is that he suffered a concussion and multiple bruises. |
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#3 |
Blue Crack Distributor
Join Date: Dec 2002
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Wasn't there something in the Jena 6 case about one of the white students doing something violent to one of the black students, and was charged with something more minor, and yet the black student was charged with attempted murder?
I may be misremembering, but I thought that was part of the story as well. |
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#4 |
Blue Crack Addict
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you're probably right. he isn't serving time. and i wonder why he was not charged with conspiracy and the jena 6 were.
there were 3 white students that were accused of being responsible for the nooses. the superintendent dismissed it as "a prank" and the students were suspended for 3 days and then came back. oh and lets not forget about the protest that the black students initiated a few days after the nooses were hung. ALL they did was sit under a tree. that's it. and the school decided to call in the police and the district attorney. remember what the DA said to those KIDS who were just SITTING under a tree? "I can end your lives with the stroke of a pen" again, this has nothing to do with whether or not the 6 got into a fight and beat the white student. it is about how unfair this justice system is here in this country and how racism is still alive and well, and carried out by law. |
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#5 |
Blue Crack Distributor
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That's what the big stink was about, I thought. I thought I read that the violence perpetrated by the black student was in retaliation of what was done to them by the white student. All, of course, in response to the nooses. Violence is violence and should not occur at all, but why would one be charged with attempted murder for a schoolyard fight, and the other isn't?
Well, and the big stink of sheer disbelief to hear the townspeople shrug off the nooses as not a big deal and a harmless prank. Anyway. |
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#6 | |||
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Join Date: Aug 2004
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Quote:
The school knew exactly who the three (white) students who hung the nooses were, but no charges were filed against them (despite the fact that that did qualify for federal hate crime charges). Following several days of heightened tensions, including both white-on-black and black-on-white student scuffles, the school convened an assembly featuring the local DA, whose idea of soothing tensions was to tell the students that if they didn't stop "fussing" about this "innocent prank" then "I can end your lives with the stroke of a pen." The school board refused to hear any further complaints from black students and their families. A couple months later, one of the Jena 6 defendants (Robert Bailey) and some black friends tried to attend a mostly-white, private student party; they were turned away and a nonstudent white partygoer jumped Bailey outside, instigating a fight (the white man was eventually charged with misdemeanor battery and sentenced to probation). The actual "Jena 6 incident" occurred a few days later, when Bailey and five friends knocked down and kicked around a white student who had been loudly gloating in the hallway about Bailey getting beaten at that party. The student received a minor concussion and facial bruises, and went on to attend a school event that evening--so he clearly was not seriously injured (he did indeed have a blood clot in one eye, which is a common and nonserious side effect of concussion). I haven't read or heard anything about the Jena 6 ever being charged with a "hate crime," and I can't imagine how they could be--the precipitating factor was clearly Bailey's anger at the white student's gloating about his getting beaten up. They were, however, initially charged with attempted second-degree murder, which was finally reduced last June, before the first of them went to trial, to aggravated second-degree battery (under LA law "perpetration of cruelty to juveniles" resulting in death, intentionally or not, can count as second-degree murder, and the DA applied that reasoning, even though the LA definition of "cruelty to juveniles" was clearly inappropriate for the situation and the application of "attempted" to that definition questionable at best). However, aggravated second-degree battery is still a felony carrying a penalty of up to 15 years in prison (+ up to 7.5. years for conspiracy to commit it, in this case), since it involves a "deadly weapon" (as mentioned earlier, here the DA used the novel argument that the boys' tennis shoes qualified as "deadly weapons"). So what should have been, at most, a second-degree misdemeanor battery charge carrying a maximum penalty of 5 years in prison (and in practice, few serve time for that charge) ballooned into charges that could have meant 50 years, and still may mean more than 20. Quote:
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I can't agree with you about "not relevant in this day and age," though...there are still plenty of places in the Deep South where everyone knows at least somebody whose great-uncle or other such fairly close relative was lynched, and within many black grandparents' memories, the Klan retained great local power to threaten and bully African-Americans into political silence. Racial relations in so many small Southern towns are still saturated in the aftermath of all that, and while probably no one thought literal violent intent was signaled by the nooses, shit like that still sends a profoundly disturbing message that 'You are only welcome here so long as we tolerate it, so know your place and best not push your luck n-----'. If the Jena school board had taken that more seriously, expelled those white students as the principal orginally recommended, perhaps had them charged and sentenced to community service, met with the black students and parents when they wanted to talk last September, and definitely not blown it off as a harmless "prank," then quite likely the next several months would have unfolded very differently. |
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#7 |
Refugee
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: The city of blinding lights and amazing coffee - Melbourne.
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thanks yolland - i understand a lot more. I was going on what butterscotch had said, but as usual there are more then one shade to the truth!
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#8 | |||
Rock n' Roll Doggie
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#9 |
Blue Crack Addict
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thanks for clarifying yolland.
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#10 |
Blue Crack Distributor
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Ditto that. I'm glad to know I wasn't quite misremembering the chain of events.
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#11 | |
War Child
Join Date: Nov 2006
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#12 |
Blue Crack Addict
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Attempted murder is harsh. To me, it sounds more like aggravated assault, which isn't all that much better in our jurisdiction (liable for up to 14 years imprisonment).
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#13 |
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^ In Louisiana, battery (they subsume assault under battery, defining it as the threat of force, not the act) is only "aggravated" if committed with a deadly weapon--the boys' shoes in this case, according to the DA. Otherwise, it's a misdemeanor punishable by up to 6 months in prison (simple battery), or 5 years if second-degree ("when the offender intentionally inflicts serious bodily injury") as was, controversially, argued in this case.
ETA: As far as the separate conspiracy charge, I'm not sure how that would affect sentencing with non-aggravated battery. In the case of the present charge (aggravated second-degree battery) it can add up to 7.5 years, at least to judge from the stated maximum sentences. That is half the maximum for aggravated second-degree battery, so perhaps that's the guideline? |
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#14 | |
Blue Crack Addict
Join Date: Oct 2005
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The Jena 6: Jim Crow lives
I haven't been on FYM/Interference lately but I checked back a few pages and didn't see a thread on the Jena 6. Some background, taken from a facebook group:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2401078105 Quote:
(Edit: this is it, please check out http://www.colorofchange.org/jena/ ) This really enrages me, boggles my mind that in this day and age this is still happening - but then I'm sheltered by living in the North East coast liberal urban areas. Tomorrow, Sept 20, college students and others will be wearing black in support of the Jena 6. Although I normally don't like symbolic gestures that aren't backed by more substantial action, I'm going to do this. Apparently upwards of 1 million college students will be participating. |
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#15 |
Blue Crack Addict
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I need to read more about this, apparently there will be a show about it tonight on CNN. Nooses are not "pranks", what is wrong with some people?
I can take away your lives with a stroke of my pen That is chilling-how can a DA be allowed to get away with that? |
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#16 |
Blue Crack Addict
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there is a bit of discussion going on in the WV torture thread. but i think this issue deserves its own. i too am surprised the DA wasn't charged with anything. i'm rather suspicious that he threatens the lives of the group of black students, and then the 6 boys get charged.
i can't believe that kid has been in jail for 10 months now. it is a damn shame. |
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#17 |
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While I have nothing kind to say about the DA in this case, I don't see where there would be grounds for charging him with a crime--he was summoned to address an all-school assembly following several days of interracial fights subsequent to the noose incident, during which the police had been called to the school several times. Whether or not he looked directly at the black students while delivering his "stroke of a pen" remarks and as such could be said to have implicitly aimed his remarks at them is not provable (some students felt that was the case, some didn't) and it is not true, as some earlier news stories and blogs reported, that he came to address black students only following a sit-in beneath the "white tree" (the school has no record of such an event, and school officials have stated they recall nothing of the sort; there were enough student "eyewitnesses" to conclude it likely did happen, but probably it was something small and non-official in nature). I do find it odd that the school chose to summon a DA rather than, say, the mayor to address the assembly, and his idea of how to soothe tensions was idiotic regardless of who his remarks were or weren't implicitly addressed to, but I can't imagine what the grounds for criminal charges would be. The actual "Jena 6 incident" was three months and numerous other in-school scuffles later.
Also, while I'm sympathetic emotionally to the argument that "Prior to this attack...school fights resulted in a 3-day suspension and NOT attempted murder charges," legally that's probably irrelevant--it's not the school pursuing these charges; it's the prosecution and their clients, the white student and his parents, and while the charges in question are outrageously harsh, they're certainly within their rights to pursue charges as far as it goes. That the case should have been tried elsewhere is a reasonable argument, and yes, Mychal Bell's first public defender (who was black) was a joke--reportedly he was angry at Bell for not having accepted a plea bargain once the charges were reduced to aggravated second-degree battery, and so "punished" him by sitting there like a log in court. (Bell, whose conviction was overturned last week on grounds that he was improperly tried as an adult, now has a new defense team; however, the possibility that he could be retried for the same charges as a juvenile remains, as do the aggravated second-degree battery charges against the other five.) |
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#18 | |
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I'm sure there will be lots of news stories about the march by the end of the day tomorrow, but anyhow here's a preview.
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#19 | |
Blue Crack Addict
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#20 | |
Blue Crack Addict
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(Not that you're not reasonable, lol, I just mean that you could equally as reasonably come to the opposite conclusion.) |
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