It All Started with a Tree
The well-publicized Jena story started on September 1, 2006, when a black high school student in Jena, Louisiana asked an administrator if he could sit underneath a tree in the courtyard where traditionally only white students sat. The administrator told him that he could sit wherever he wanted. The next day there were nooses hanging in the tree. No action was taken as the nooses were written off as a prank and not a threat aimed at the students who had dared to sit under the tree the day before. When black students protested, the local district attorney threatened that he could take their life away with a “stroke of my pen.”
After a series of alarming altercations where authorities time after failed to do the right thing, a black youth named Mychall Bell punched Justin Barker, a white youth who had taunted him with racial slur. Several of his friends joined the fray. They would become the Jena 6. Barker,who hit his head on the pavement went to the hospital, but was released that day and even went to a school function that night. The six black students were for some reason charged with attempted murder. It took a national outcry to reduce the charges to conspiracy and battery.
The impact of this case, especially from a Humanist perspective is summed up brilliantly by Bell’s Lawyer, Louis Scott:
Immediately after the facts were explained, I can remember thinking, Wow, this is a 1957 case that jumped into 2007. This is my second reaction, that the tree symbolized America. And the question was, Can all Americans share the shade of the system that we operate under? But the next thing that happened was the most frightening thing of all: They cut the tree down. I was hoping that didn’t symbolize the attitude of America, that before we allow some Americans to share the same rights, the same privileges and the same responsibilities, we’ll just get rid of the whole thing. It seemed to me that that was the message to be conveyed. If Americans allowed this to occur, that would be the first step toward unraveling the civil rights gains of the last fifty years.
Scott may not be a Humanist, but his question resonates: Can we all share the American system? Are we so frightened that we have to tear the things we love apart or break them down rather than let people who are different from us share even the tiniest piece?
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Once again the issues seem to be clouded by sensationalism. Has anyone reported on incidents in the same school involving white students beating up black students either singly or in gangs? What was their punishment? In order for everyone to share the American system, it has to be fair to begin with. If rich celebrities typically receive lower sentences for their illegal behaviour than their “normal” income counterparts, is the system fair to begin with? If a good independent candidate comes along but doesn’t have the money that the “two party system” has to run a campaign, is the system fair? Is the system fair when the last two elections would imply that all but a handfull of states are already decided and spending your money in those states will win the election? Is the system fair when the re-districting is done by the party in power who decides the size and shape of the district? Is the system fair when the banking industry creates mortgage products designed to financially enslave people who are gullible enough to believe they can afford those products? What about Faith Based Initiatives? Has the Muslim community been able to get any of that money? The JENA 6 are victims of a system that is permeated with unfairness. The American Dream is still reachable but it needs a little help in the fairness department.
While I agree that the system is in need of some fairness I don’t know that the sensationlism of this case will hurt the cause of getting some fairness brought to the cause.
Considering that hang man’s nooses in tree’s got basically no punishment. When a white former student a white man waved his gun in a confrontation with black students at a convenience store when the black students wrestled the gun from the man they were charged with robbing the guys gun.
I think something was going wrong. Are the Jena 6 completely innocent? I don’t think so. Were any of them guilty of attempted murder? Probably no more so than any other fight that happens on any other high school campus.
But how do we as Humanists turn this around or even start to turn it into something different? Calling for fairness is a good point but how do we implement fairness? Who is the current presidential candidate for fairness? How do I make my vote and my voice work for fairness? I know I sound frustrated but frankly I am. Where are are champions? Who do we go to when we get the message?
It’s the putrid stink of racism, not all of which has a pale face, that continues to degrade American society. Humanists and anyone who gives a damn about the betterment of the humanist condition should denounce all of its sick forms, including its retributive forms.
A 6-on-1 attack resulting in hospitalization is no small thing. Criminal charges in lieu of suspension from school or some other in-house response is further inflammatory. And physical violence in response to a verbal attack is entirely out of proportion, even more so than use of a hated racial symbol in a malignant gesture of childish playground territoriality, which is awful in its own demented right.
We either exert rationality and connectedness to conquer the habit of runaway xenophobic emotions, or we continue to fight ourselves into exhaustion, feeding our stupider responses thereby. Humanists can push the rationality since it’s a cognitive refinement we uphold anyway. But assertive indignation and no pretense of tolerance for persistent racialist idiocy should also be a part of it.
We may be descended from primates, but we don’t have to cling to primate-thinking, as though we have no higher understanding. It’s pretty much an either-or choice. Either we outgrow our foolishness, or suffer the degrading consequences.
Typo: that’s “the human condition”, not “humanist condition”.
Got a bit riled up.