When a Southerner – well, really any American – begins a sentence with, “I’m not prejudiced, but . . .” you can be confident that the rest of the sentence will be an apology for racism. Around Jena, Louisiana, there are a lot of people uttering such sentences these days.
For the last few weeks, Jena has served as the epicenter of racial tension in the country, and it is with great regret that I acknowledge that Jena is most definitely kept within the state of Louisiana. For readers who have not heard this sorry tale, the Jena story began last fall when a black teenager at Jena High School sat under a tree. Apparently, at Jena High there is an oak tree in the schoolyard, and the shaded area under the oak tree is by school tradition a whites-only area. Astonishingly, the students even called the tree the “White Tree.” The teenager seems to have known this, because he asked the principal for permission to sit there before he attempted it. The principal said yes, and the student sat.
The next day there were three hangman’s nooses hanging from the White Tree.
The principal responded to this development by finding three students who put up the nooses and expelling them. Then the local school board stepped in, overruled the principal and reinstated the students with a brief suspension.
Over the ensuing weeks, tensions rose in the little school. The white students thought the nooses were nothing more than an innocent prank, but the blacks begged to differ. Various confrontations occurred both in and out of school. The District Attorney, J. Reed Walters, was asked by school officials to address the students to diffuse the enmity. Unfortunately, when he addressed the students, he made matters worse by telling them “with one stroke of my pen, I can make your life disappear.”
Matters culminated in December when a white male student was knocked down and repeatedly kicked in the head in a schoolyard fight. The attacked student received medical care at a local hospital and was discharged home the same day. Six black students were arrested in the beating. The District Attorney initially attempted to charge the students, now known as the Jena 6, with attempted murder, but since the victim walked out of the hospital and no deadly weapons were used (in one charge a pair of tennis shoes were called “deadly weapons”) , the charges were eventually reduced to aggravated assault and conspiracy to commit battery. All except for one of the Jena 6 are over 16 and thus being tried as adults.
It took time, but eventually a sustained internet campaign stoked outrage among civil rights groups across the country. Why weren’t the kids who hung the nooses charged with a crime? Because that is protected speech, the D.A. replied. Why were these six kids being tried for aggravated assault and conspiracy to commit assault, which is a felony charge and could result in a 20 year prison sentence, for what amounted to a schoolyard brawl? The D.A.’s answer was that there was an intention to seriously harm, and possibly to kill.
Conspiracy certainly seems like a trumped up charge. The school had been boiling with racial tension since the noose incident. The very least that can be said is that, given the background, some kind of fight was bound to happen. Perhaps it would be fairer if, as long as we are naming conspirators, we included the school faculty and local school board, who let this kind of anger hang in the air without effectively diffusing it.
Last week, as one of the Jena 6 was scheduled for sentencing, several national civil rights groups descended on the little town to make their displeasure known. Fifteen thousand showed up on Thursday, September 20. Jena citizens, to the extent that they went outdoors at all, were mostly seen muttering, “We are not racists,” and in the rest of Louisiana, the extending murmur was, “Another black eye for the state of Louisiana.”
As a Louisiana native, I wish there were a way to make this shiner look better. It is certainly true that the Jena 6 are not the only Americans currently being over-prosecuted because of their skin color. But there’s the rub: The reason the Jena 6 cases blew up is because the adults involved were so stupid. No one seemed a bit concerned that three nooses dangling from a White Tree might put the school in a bad light. No one wondered aloud if the nooses might represent deeper tensions that should be aggressively addressed at this allegedly integrated school. Kids will do stupid things, but when adults lack the judgment to set things right, the blame rightly shifts to parents and school officials.
Jena failed its students repeatedly in this shameful matter. Any school that allows its students to designate a “White Tree” in the yard and does nothing about it is simply asking for trouble. The White Tree nonsense had been going on for years, and someone should have noticed it and taken steps. The local school board was asking for it when they overruled the principal’s expulsion of the three students who first hung the nooses. This is a violation of a basic law in business: Never overrule a subordinate who knows more about the local situation than you do.
Last week 15,000 people tried to bring justice to Jena. Maybe they did, and maybe they didn’t. No doubt they put an enormous amount of pressure on the town and its government. Their pressure will probably force the local courts to eventually deliver a lighter sentence to each of the Jena 6, and this is a good thing. But when they came to town, most of the white people of Jena simply shut themselves in their houses and said nothing. The few who dared to show their faces did so only to deliver the “we are not racists” message. The town was clearly mortified by the turn of events. Is this a good thing? When was the last time you learned anything meaningful from abject humiliation?
The crowd came, and the crowd left, and now the whites and blacks are left staring at each other in the aftermath. The blacks are a little emboldened, knowing they have friends elsewhere who might — might — come back if something else develops. The whites feel offended, singled out, and more willing than ever to dig in and defend their old ways the way an alcoholic will defend his every action and never admit his weakness. Confronting an alcoholic never works, unless the alcoholic is on the verge of admitting his problem anyway.
Look at the White Tree. Actually you can’t, because it has been chopped down and cut into firewood. But this proves the point. The citizens of Jena chopped down the White Tree not because they wanted to end what it symbolized, but because they didn’t want strangers from out of town coming by to look at it. This is about as useful a reaction as a group of New Yorkers responding to 9/11 by dismantling a 747. Anyone with sense can see that it was not the tree that needed uprooting.
Another person who deserves a fair share of the blame for the outcome in Jena is Governor Kathleen Blanco. Blanco should have never allowed the situation in Jena to progress as far as it has. While the temperature in Jena steadily rose, she remained silent, issuing only a cowardly public statement on August 30 in which she said she “as a mother . . . condemn[s] racism in any form” but excuses her inaction by arguing that the executive and judicial processes are separate and she has no jurisdiction in the matter. I cannot imagine a weaker and more pathetic statement. She has a responsibility to protect the reputation of her state and to ensure civil peace. The Jena situation has been ongoing for a year, and she could have stepped in months ago. She should have brought all involved parties into a closed-door meeting and explained to them that this matter will be settled out of court or heads would roll. While it is true that she cannot directly interfere with justice proceedings, the behavior of the town in tolerating the White Tree for so long was clearly negligent and she had every right as governor to hold them accountable for this. A forceful statement on her part early on could have averted much anguish. But she did nothing.
Then there is the Jena school system. One wonders how much learning goes on in a school that has a White Tree in its yard. If everyone was so offended by the nooses, why wasn’t anyone asking how much learning was going on in this racially charged environment? If the senior class in Jena were packing its bags for Stanford and Columbia, I doubt the three nooses (if they had been hung at all) would have produced the same results. Yes, people would have taken offense; but kids with bright futures find more productive ways to settle problems than schoolyard fights.
As a parent, I can see that it is not possible for me to personally ensure that every child in the school system is well educated. But I can demand it for my own children, and hope that the things I insist my children get in school spill over onto the child in the adjoining desk. If enough parents demand that their kids learn, the schools will work. If not enough do, we get schools with White Trees.
Somehow, among all of last week’s protesters, no one seems to have thought of that. That is why the Jena whites are right about one thing — the well-dressed big city people who fancy themselves so enlightened are no closer to getting a handle on racism than the country folk are.
For the last few weeks, Jena has served as the epicenter of racial tension in the country, and it is with great regret that I acknowledge that Jena is most definitely kept within the state of Louisiana. For readers who have not heard this sorry tale, the Jena story began last fall when a black teenager at Jena High School sat under a tree. Apparently, at Jena High there is an oak tree in the schoolyard, and the shaded area under the oak tree is by school tradition a whites-only area. Astonishingly, the students even called the tree the “White Tree.” The teenager seems to have known this, because he asked the principal for permission to sit there before he attempted it. The principal said yes, and the student sat.
The next day there were three hangman’s nooses hanging from the White Tree.
The principal responded to this development by finding three students who put up the nooses and expelling them. Then the local school board stepped in, overruled the principal and reinstated the students with a brief suspension.
Over the ensuing weeks, tensions rose in the little school. The white students thought the nooses were nothing more than an innocent prank, but the blacks begged to differ. Various confrontations occurred both in and out of school. The District Attorney, J. Reed Walters, was asked by school officials to address the students to diffuse the enmity. Unfortunately, when he addressed the students, he made matters worse by telling them “with one stroke of my pen, I can make your life disappear.”
Matters culminated in December when a white male student was knocked down and repeatedly kicked in the head in a schoolyard fight. The attacked student received medical care at a local hospital and was discharged home the same day. Six black students were arrested in the beating. The District Attorney initially attempted to charge the students, now known as the Jena 6, with attempted murder, but since the victim walked out of the hospital and no deadly weapons were used (in one charge a pair of tennis shoes were called “deadly weapons”) , the charges were eventually reduced to aggravated assault and conspiracy to commit battery. All except for one of the Jena 6 are over 16 and thus being tried as adults.
It took time, but eventually a sustained internet campaign stoked outrage among civil rights groups across the country. Why weren’t the kids who hung the nooses charged with a crime? Because that is protected speech, the D.A. replied. Why were these six kids being tried for aggravated assault and conspiracy to commit assault, which is a felony charge and could result in a 20 year prison sentence, for what amounted to a schoolyard brawl? The D.A.’s answer was that there was an intention to seriously harm, and possibly to kill.
Conspiracy certainly seems like a trumped up charge. The school had been boiling with racial tension since the noose incident. The very least that can be said is that, given the background, some kind of fight was bound to happen. Perhaps it would be fairer if, as long as we are naming conspirators, we included the school faculty and local school board, who let this kind of anger hang in the air without effectively diffusing it.
Last week, as one of the Jena 6 was scheduled for sentencing, several national civil rights groups descended on the little town to make their displeasure known. Fifteen thousand showed up on Thursday, September 20. Jena citizens, to the extent that they went outdoors at all, were mostly seen muttering, “We are not racists,” and in the rest of Louisiana, the extending murmur was, “Another black eye for the state of Louisiana.”
As a Louisiana native, I wish there were a way to make this shiner look better. It is certainly true that the Jena 6 are not the only Americans currently being over-prosecuted because of their skin color. But there’s the rub: The reason the Jena 6 cases blew up is because the adults involved were so stupid. No one seemed a bit concerned that three nooses dangling from a White Tree might put the school in a bad light. No one wondered aloud if the nooses might represent deeper tensions that should be aggressively addressed at this allegedly integrated school. Kids will do stupid things, but when adults lack the judgment to set things right, the blame rightly shifts to parents and school officials.
Jena failed its students repeatedly in this shameful matter. Any school that allows its students to designate a “White Tree” in the yard and does nothing about it is simply asking for trouble. The White Tree nonsense had been going on for years, and someone should have noticed it and taken steps. The local school board was asking for it when they overruled the principal’s expulsion of the three students who first hung the nooses. This is a violation of a basic law in business: Never overrule a subordinate who knows more about the local situation than you do.
Last week 15,000 people tried to bring justice to Jena. Maybe they did, and maybe they didn’t. No doubt they put an enormous amount of pressure on the town and its government. Their pressure will probably force the local courts to eventually deliver a lighter sentence to each of the Jena 6, and this is a good thing. But when they came to town, most of the white people of Jena simply shut themselves in their houses and said nothing. The few who dared to show their faces did so only to deliver the “we are not racists” message. The town was clearly mortified by the turn of events. Is this a good thing? When was the last time you learned anything meaningful from abject humiliation?
The crowd came, and the crowd left, and now the whites and blacks are left staring at each other in the aftermath. The blacks are a little emboldened, knowing they have friends elsewhere who might — might — come back if something else develops. The whites feel offended, singled out, and more willing than ever to dig in and defend their old ways the way an alcoholic will defend his every action and never admit his weakness. Confronting an alcoholic never works, unless the alcoholic is on the verge of admitting his problem anyway.
Look at the White Tree. Actually you can’t, because it has been chopped down and cut into firewood. But this proves the point. The citizens of Jena chopped down the White Tree not because they wanted to end what it symbolized, but because they didn’t want strangers from out of town coming by to look at it. This is about as useful a reaction as a group of New Yorkers responding to 9/11 by dismantling a 747. Anyone with sense can see that it was not the tree that needed uprooting.
Another person who deserves a fair share of the blame for the outcome in Jena is Governor Kathleen Blanco. Blanco should have never allowed the situation in Jena to progress as far as it has. While the temperature in Jena steadily rose, she remained silent, issuing only a cowardly public statement on August 30 in which she said she “as a mother . . . condemn[s] racism in any form” but excuses her inaction by arguing that the executive and judicial processes are separate and she has no jurisdiction in the matter. I cannot imagine a weaker and more pathetic statement. She has a responsibility to protect the reputation of her state and to ensure civil peace. The Jena situation has been ongoing for a year, and she could have stepped in months ago. She should have brought all involved parties into a closed-door meeting and explained to them that this matter will be settled out of court or heads would roll. While it is true that she cannot directly interfere with justice proceedings, the behavior of the town in tolerating the White Tree for so long was clearly negligent and she had every right as governor to hold them accountable for this. A forceful statement on her part early on could have averted much anguish. But she did nothing.
Then there is the Jena school system. One wonders how much learning goes on in a school that has a White Tree in its yard. If everyone was so offended by the nooses, why wasn’t anyone asking how much learning was going on in this racially charged environment? If the senior class in Jena were packing its bags for Stanford and Columbia, I doubt the three nooses (if they had been hung at all) would have produced the same results. Yes, people would have taken offense; but kids with bright futures find more productive ways to settle problems than schoolyard fights.
As a parent, I can see that it is not possible for me to personally ensure that every child in the school system is well educated. But I can demand it for my own children, and hope that the things I insist my children get in school spill over onto the child in the adjoining desk. If enough parents demand that their kids learn, the schools will work. If not enough do, we get schools with White Trees.
Somehow, among all of last week’s protesters, no one seems to have thought of that. That is why the Jena whites are right about one thing — the well-dressed big city people who fancy themselves so enlightened are no closer to getting a handle on racism than the country folk are.