News and Editorials

The “Jena Six” and Equal Justice

October 19, 2007

I like to paraphrase one of my favorite columnists, Leonard Pitts, who said: To my Black friends, it can’t always be about race; and to my white friends it can’t never be about race, either! The “Jena Six” case is definitely about race – yet it’s also about justice.

Let’s get this out of the way first: There is no way to justify hunting down an innocent party to beat up for your frustrations. That’s criminal assault. Beating up people, when not in clear self-defense, ought to be taken very seriously and should not escape prosecution.

But it’s not necessarily “attempted murder,” as was charged against the Jena 6 defendants. Therein lies the question of equal justice. There’s a long, sad history of unequal justice when applied to the Black-White interface in the South, and unfortunately, the facts in the Jena case tend to support its continued existence.

The case was not without provocation, either.

Perhaps most Americans don’t think of a noose as a symbol of hate, nor as a direct threat. To African-Americans it certainly is and with very good reason. The noose, symbolizing the threat of lynching, was used for 150 years to intimidate them, because it was employed very often to commit murder. If you don’t personally “get it”, rest assured that the racists do, and that’s exactly what they were doing when they hung a noose from the tree on campus that kicked off this nasty episode. These days that’s classified as a hate crime.

If the noose had been waved at a live kid by another kid, and especially if the physical moves had been threatening, then he would have been justified in using violence to protect himself. Assault by others later isn’t in that category, but it’s not automatically attempted murder. Had the little mob wanted to kill their victim, they could have easily done it. They apparently didn’t try to go that far, thank God!

For justice to be served, and served equitably, two things need to happen:

1. The kids who beat up that other kid need to face the music on an appropriate charge of assault, not attempted murder. And
2. The Jena community and its local system of justice need to prosecute the provocateurs who hung the noose from the tree to intimidate the Black kids on a charge such as a hate crime.

Both groups deserve more than a slap on the wrist.

The Jena community, and this country, got a little slap in the face. Racism still exists and it’s always a dangerous proposition. Let’s do something about it before the violence escalates.

Bart A. Charlow, President
Silicon Valley Conference for Community and Justice