I Dream of Jena With the Light Brown Noose

This morning the local news includes a protest by various folks in favor of the "Jena 6", the latest cause celebre of the civil rights activists. I hadn't even heard of the Jena 6 until short time ago when I saw an announcement on the Facebook Orange County network advertising a protest to be held today. That name popped up again yesterday when Jesse Jackson accused Barack Obama of "acting like he's white" because he hadn't joined the aggrieved chorus.

A little research reveals that unlike what the protesters will tell you, the civil rights situation in this country has probably never been better. Why do I say that? If the only grievance Jesse Jackson et al can come with is the defense of six black thugs who attacked and beat a kid because he was white, things can't be all that bad.

What motivated the beating? According to some reports I saw there was what was known as the "white tree" at Jena High School in Jena, LA under which white students would gather. Black students usually sat elsewhere. The report indicated that a freshman black student asked the school's prinicipal if he could sit under that tree and was told he could sit anywhere he wanted. That, of course, was the correct answer.

The next day three nooses were seen hanging from the "white" tree. Racist? You bet. Wrong? Absolutely. However, nobody was physically assaulted and that's important to remember. Also, according to Louisiana authorities, no crime was committed because it's not against the law to hang a noose from a tree. What the school did about it, I don't know but certainly there should have been some strong action taken by administrators.

Following the noose incident, six black kids, some of whom were adults under Louisiana law, attacked and beat into unconsciousness one of the white students who had been more vocal than others. The attackers were charged with attempted murder among other things. In the view of the civil rights marchers the attackers were overcharged and were basically justified in their attack. The comment I heard frequently from the marchers were that this was simply a "schoolyard fight".

Nonsense. Six on one does not constitute a schoolyard fight. It's a vicious assault and nothing less, and to hold marches around the county to support these thugs simply points out that the civil rights activists have completely run out of things to bitch about so they have to create a grievance where none really exists.

The kids that hung those nooses in the tree were clearly wrong to do so, but that doesn't justify an assault in which a person could have been killed. The marchers need to take a hard look at what they're supporting...and then go home.

(Sorry about that post title, but when the mind wanders, it's not always easy to get it back. )