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Justice for the Jena 6: New York Times gives Reed Walters a soapbox

By Carmen D. on Thursday, September 27th, 2007, 10:38 am Comments

The New York Times and other news outlets of record refused to cover the story of nooses, unequal justice, unequal protection under the law and the beating of a high school student until these events sparked a protest so massive that they simply could not ignore it.

Now, the New York Times has given Jena district attorney Reed Walters a global platform to make his case without the slightest challenge. And while on this platform, Walters ignores some very important facts about this situation:

People are learning that the LaSalle Parish School Superintendent, Roy Breithaupt, called the noose hanging a childish prank and recommended the mildest of consequences–three days of in-school suspension.
People are learning that black students responded to Mr. Breithaupt’s announcement by staging a spontaneous lunch hour protest in the school square. Black students, led by a group of male athlestes, physically occupied the tree–claiming it as their own. (Thus far, no one in Jena has denied that the tree from which the nooses dangled provided shade for white shoulders only).

People are learning that high school officials responded to this legitimate and honorable protest by calling an emergency assembly in the school auditorium. Every police officer in town was asked to appear in full uniform. District Attorney, Reed Walters, looking cross and distracted, addressed the students.
Imagine a school auditorium in which the white students (in accordance with tradition) sit on one side of the aisle while the black students sit on the other side. Imagine the District Attorney directing his full attention to the black side of the room. Imagine Reed Walters zeroing in on the black male athletes who sparked the lunch hour protest. Now you’ve got a feel for the atmosphere.

Now, imagine Reed Walters waving a pen in the air with a dramatic flourish. “I can be your best friend or your worst enemy,” he tells the black students. The protests at the school have got to stop, he insists, and if they don’t, “With a stroke of my pen I can make your lives disappear.”

I am not repeating hearsay–Mr. Walters admitted to issuing this threat in the course of a mid-July hearing in the LaSalle Parish courtroom. He was angry with the black student protesters, he explained, because they were making a big fuss over nothing. He wanted the white and black students to “work things out on their own” without wasting his valuable time.

People are beginning to understand that Superintendent Roy Breithaupt could have foreclosed on months of outrage and protest simply by calling the noose incident a serious hate crime. That’s all the man had to do. He couldn’t do it.

People are beginning to understand that District Attorney Reed Walters could have defused the tense situation Mr. Breithaupt had created if he had told the student assembly that hate crimes would not be tolerated in LaSalle Parish. Had Walters waved his pen at the white side of the auditorium and issued a warning to the racist element within the student population, nothing would have remained for the kids to “work out on their own.”

But that’s just the problem: Mr. Breithaupt and Mr. Walters didn’t see the noose incident as a hate crime. They didn’t see the hate behind the nooses because they couldn’t. As representatives of Jena’s power people, these men had to see the nooses as a silly prank; there was no no practical alternative. Friends of Justice-July 17, 2007

So, never mind warning students who had staged a peaceful protest under the “white tree” that he could erase their lives with the stroke of a pen, (which he admitted to saying during his recusal hearing); never mind charging black kids with attempted robbery after they disarmed a white kid who held a shotgun on them; never mind that Barker is widely reported to have hurled the N-word regarding the black kid who was beaten by a group a white men several days before. In that white on black attack, only one of the assailants was charged, with a misdemeanor.

No. Forget all that.

It is reprehensible that Barker was beaten by multiple people. Full stop. There should be punishment but what kind, how much and for whom?

Keep in mind that although six are charged, eyewitness statements contradict one another about how many people were involved in the actual fight. Now that the six have excellent legal counsel, I trust that all of this will come out in court.

  • Ryan
    The Southern Poverty Law Center posted a response to Walters' op-ed:
    http://www.splcenter.org/news/item.jsp?aid=286
  • Hey, thanks for scrubbing the hyperlink - I posted that last comment in haste (was late for a doctor's appointment) and afterwards thought "damn, I don't want him getting a referral."

    Whether it's ego, insanity, or a combination of the two, there's no need to provide further nourishment.
  • Apparently we're 'bourgeois blacks' (LOLZ) - oh, and I'm 'bright, successful and well written'. He really is on another planet.

    "Well, Matt, we don't see much [racism against Blacks] here in California, and I don't hear about it outside the South. Maybe I am blind and deaf?"

    He said it, I didn't. Breathing sand, ostrich-style.

    (Oh, and I feel honoured and privileged to be placed in such esteemed pedigree as yourself and Richard Seymour aka Lenin, even if his intent was less than complimentary.)
  • Here is my comment to Robert Lindsay...I am so sure he will not have the guts to publish it:

    "It is unfortunate that you call the Jena 6 animals. Yes, that is racist.

    Also, it is unfortunate that Robert Bailey is rolling around in money meant to support his defense fund. It is unfortunate that new cars are being purchased with this money.

    But I have a whopping wake up call for you and your inane assumptions. I lived at Ground Zero on 9/11. I was evacuated from my home for four weeks. Red Cross and other government money POURED into our upper class neighborhood of Tribeca. You have no idea. Although my husband and I made a decision only to replace the electronics that had been ruined by dust, MOST of my neighbors, WEALTHY, WHITE neighbors, redecorated their entire apartments. We still have the couch that we had then. We even kept our bed (since replaced on our own dime). Who knows what we breathe in, but we believed that America's money was not to be taken lightly.

    This has nothing to do with race or class. Just a sudden influx of unlimited cash. Remember the 9/11 firemen's widows blowing through millions in a year or two???? Your ignorance is astonishing.
    You may not think yourself a racist, but wishing doesn't make is so.

    And are you kidding by claiming that dating women of color proves you are not a racist? Two words: Strom Thurmond."
    Carmen D. | Homepage | 09.27.07 - 11:29 pm | #
  • Yeah, I feel really, really dirty. I might find some Sam Cooke on YouTube to cleanse my mental palette.

    ;-) (BTW excellent post as always.)
  • Mattbastard, I found much of it vile as well. I do not believe that this man is a journalist, but given the cacophony of bile that is only rising...I want my readers to see his post for themselves. I have a policy of not letting links to "hate" sites get through. This one masquerades as real, moderate thought. I am so glad you confronted the falsehoods, I decided to just move past it. FYI, The picture of Bailey is real as is Barker's interview with American Nazi Party, as is the purchase of new cars. Each action slips into stereotype. And in each case it simply has no bearing on the racist practices of a small town DA and its law enforcement officers. I will not read his site past the post linked here. ugh.
  • (also, my last comment had several links embedded, to say nothing of much quoted bigotry, so, depending on your settings, it may have gotten caught in your spam filter/moderation queue.
  • Carmen, that link you let through is truly, utterly vile:

    "The mothers of two of the Jena Six, Bailey and Bell, have already bought brand new luxury cars - one bought a BMW and another bought a Jaguar - and are tooling around town in them showing off.

    Bailey's mother is the head of the local NAACP. Bailey, one of the Jena Six, had pictures of himself shot while rolling around in $100 bills. The pictures were posted on his MySpace page but have since been taken down. A video of the pictures can be found on this blog here.

    I am not sure that it was intelligent thing to burn through all that money as soon as it came in. But that is what this type of underclass Black usually does with any amount of money they get their hands on - it burns a hole in their pocket.

    The behavior of hoodrats Bailey and Bell and their mothers shows the poor judgment and lack of character that has come to characterize the US Black underclass. Of course, the Lunatic Left cheers on this horrible bad behavior and demonizes anyone who raises their voice.

    At schools where there are large numbers of Blacks, it is a well-known dirty secret that many of the Black boys predatorily prey on White, Hispanic and especially Asian boys, although the Hispanics are starting to really fight back now.

    They do this for the simple reason that they consider Whites, Hispanics and especially Asians to be weaker, so, in their animal mindset, the Blacks prey on them. Furthermore, many of these Black boys disrupt classes, yell, shout, refuse to stay seated, pee in the hallway or in class, destroy school property, throw books across the room, on and on.

    How do I know this? I taught in these schools for years, and I saw it with my own eyes.

    [...]

    As it stands, a non-White sending their child to a heavily-Black school is probably committing an act of child abuse. (emph. in original)    "

    And on and on till the breaka breaka dawn.

    Robert Lindsay claims to be an "independent left journalist", yet he seems to be convinced that racism (against Blacks) only exists south of the Mason-Dixon Line--certainly not in Orange County, CA (snerk):

    "Foreigners may wonder just how much of a problem this sort of White racism is in the US. Truth is, in much of the country, White racism against Blacks is quite a minor affair. In fact, if you are Black, talented, bright and have some kind of degree, corporations and governments will fall all over themselves to hire you.

    In my town in California, every day I see young Hispanics, Blacks and Whites hanging out together, right here in my apartment complex. Go out into town, and you see Blacks, Hispanics and Whites socializing, shopping, buying gas, drinking in bars, doing this or that. Everything seems to be on the up and up.

    If anyone is harboring any kind of anti-Black racism, they must be hiding it well. Perhaps they are secretly harboring some anti-Black thoughts. Who knows?

    I rarely hear anyone making any anti-Black remarks, and never hear overtly racist anti-Black comments in public. If a White person makes an anti-Black remark, other Whites will often act embarrassed or uncomfortable. Someone may even speak up against him.

    Now the South is an entirely different matter. There the fires of White racism continue to burn quite brightly, if they have died down a bit from decades past. It's a whole other world down there. But even there, in many places, you won't notice it. Blacks and Whites tend to self-segregate and often don't see each other all that much.    "

    Considering one of Lindsay's 'sources' re: the Jena rumours is Jared Taylor, I am very, very skeptical (if not outright scornful) of his 'credentials' and, consequently, the validity of his 'rumours'. Linsday certainly makes no secret of the axe he's grinding (both against POCs AND against the South. Racist + classist = one sick fuck.) And those aren't the only posts in which he indulges in every possible slanderous stereotype you can imagine with regards to POCs. Be prepared to shower after going through his archives *shudders*

    Truly the personification of contradictory cognitive dissonance.
  • So, dsf a rumor is why this young man (who according to appellate court, should have been tried as a juvenile,) should spend almost 10 months in jail? Maybe you're right...but we don't know that. I would suggest that grabbing onto rumors makes people who are resistant to seeing injustice in this case feel a little better about clinging to unjust applications of justice based on the color of a persons skin.

    In your original comment submission, you must have FORGOTTEN to add the part about this being a rumor. I was trained as a journalist...rumors don't do much for me. However, I think the post you linked to is worthwhile that's why I've allowed it when I usually do not allow such links.
  • Tom, it is a bitter pill. What a perfect description. No spoonfulls of sugar here, either.
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