Q&A Friday #74: The Jena Six Deserve To Be In Jail

Question: “What are your thoughts on the media feeding frenzy surrounding the ‘Jena 6’? Is this just more race-pimping by all of the usual suspects (Sharpton, Jackson, et. al) or is there something to their allegations of injustice?” — Good_Ol_Boy

Answer: Much — but, not all — of what you’ve heard about the Jena 6 is either flat out wrong or has been taken completely out of context by professional grievance mongers like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, who’re looking for a payday.

I was going to break this down in detail, but Jason Whitlock wrote a column on this topic today that was so good, I think it makes more sense just to heavily excerpt what he has to say,

Jesse Jackson compared Thursday’s rallies in Jena to the protests and marches that used to take place in cities like Selma, Ala., in the 1960s. Al Sharpton claimed Thursday’s peaceful demonstrations were to highlight racial inequities in the criminal justice system.

Jesse and Al, as they’re prone to do, served a kernel of truth stacked on a mountain of lies.

There are undeniable racial and economic inequities in our criminal justice system, and from afar the “Jena Six” rallies certainly looked and felt like the righteous protests of the 1960s.

But the reality is Thursday’s protests are just another sign that we remain deeply locked in denial about the path we need to travel today for true American liberation, equality and power in the new millennium.

…Reed Walters, the Jena district attorney, is being accused of racism because he didn’t show Bell compassion when the teenager was brought before the court for the third time on assault charges in a two-year span.

Where was our compassion long before Bell got into this kind of trouble?

That’s the question that needed to be asked in Jena and across the country on Thursday. But it wasn’t asked because everyone has been lied to about what really transpired in the small southern town.

There was no “schoolyard fight” as a result of nooses being hung on a whites-only tree.

Justin Barker, the white victim, was cold-cocked from behind, knocked unconscious and stomped by six black athletes. Barker, luckily, sustained no life-threatening injuries and was released from the hospital three hours after the attack.

A black U.S. attorney, Don Washington, investigated the “Jena Six” case and concluded that the attack on Barker had absolutely nothing to do with the noose-hanging incident three months before. The nooses and two off-campus incidents were tied to Barker’s assault by people wanting to gain sympathy for the “Jena Six” in reaction to Walters’ extreme charges of attempted murder.

Much has been written about Bell’s trial, the six-person all-white jury that convicted him of aggravated battery and conspiracy to commit aggravated battery and the clueless public defender who called no witnesses and offered no defense. It is rarely mentioned that no black people responded to the jury summonses and that Bell’s public defender was black.

…It’s rarely mentioned that Bell was already on probation for assault when he was accused of participating in Barker’s attack. And it’s never mentioned that white people in the “racist” town of Jena provided Bell support and protected his football career long before Jesse, Al, Bell’s father and all the others took a sincere interest in Mychal Bell.

When you cut though all the fluff, what it comes down to is that 6 people knocked Justin Barker unconscious from behind and then stomped him while he was laying there on the ground. Could that be attempted murder? Yes. Is it “second-degree aggravated battery,” which I believe is what these six guys are currently charged with? Most certainly. Do all six of the people behind that attack belong out of school and in a jail cell? Definitely.

What’s the argument even supposed to be against that? That some moron hung nooses in a tree at the school so, forever more, black students are allowed to assault anyone they want at that school without facing serious consequences? Quite frankly, that almost seems to be the angle that the race hustlers are taking on this, even though, as Whitlock mentions, the Jena Six assault had nothing to do with the nooses.

Let me also add one last thing: it’s the nature of liberals to be sympathetic to criminals, but as a conservative, my sympathy tends to be with the victims of the crimes. So, with that in mind, I think the mother of the victim deserves to be heard just like the apologists for the Jena 6,

“The victim’s mother says she, too, believes the charges are warranted and not based on race. Had the attackers not been pulled off her son, she said, he could have been killed.

“I wish to goodness it wouldn’t have happened,” Kelli Barker said. “And I hate it for them parents. I mean, I can only imagine, but I also have to think about my child and my family.”

I think she’s right.

PS: Jena is certainly wracked with racial tensions at the moment and that could be because it’s a racist town. It’s also possible that the grievance lobby and some easily offended people are trying to paint them with that brush for their own purposes. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time that’s happened. Without more information, there’s no way to say for certain.

Whatever the case may be, it’s not an excuse for a 6 on 1 attack, from behind, against someone. Nor is it an excuse for putting the boots to someone after he’s lying on the ground, unconscious.

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