More on the Jena 6
When I wrote about the Jena 6 before, I took the most biased site I could find (one specifically dedicated to defending the sextet) and assumed everything they said was true[a]. I still found their arguments unconvincing, and concluded that the Jena Six should be punished.
Now, the Christian Science Monitor has an article by Craig Franklin, who lives in Jena, exposes some of the Media Myths About the Jena 6. Here’s a sample:
Myth 2: Nooses a Signal to Black Students. An investigation by school officials, police, and an FBI agent revealed the true motivation behind the placing of two nooses in the tree the day after the assembly. According to the expulsion committee, the crudely constructed nooses were not aimed at black students. Instead, they were understood to be a prank by three white students aimed at their fellow white friends, members of the school rodeo team. (The students apparently got the idea from watching episodes of “Lonesome Dove.”) The committee further concluded that the three young teens had no knowledge that nooses symbolize the terrible legacy of the lynchings of countless blacks in American history.
While it seems absurd on the face of things that these students didn’t know what these nooses symbolized, that may actually lend credence to the committee’s findings. After all, the committee (presumably made up of officials from the school district) is essentially finding that the district’s American History teachers have utterly failed to do their jobs, and it would have been much easier just to throw the book at the students.
Read the whole thing. Even if you don’t believe all of Franklin’s points, it’s worth noting that there is more to the story than most people seem to know.
( þ NRO’s The Corner )
- Well, except in the case of the “stroke of a pen” threat by the DA, where I found the reaction to be so over-the-top as to be unbelieveable, and went looking for corroboration [↩]