Flibbertigibbet

Civil Rights and the Jena 6

I really don't understand the protests from last week over the Jena 6. CNN kept saying that there was a civil rights march going on, but then they said it was in support of some hoodlums who beat some person within an inch of his life.

I am pretty sure that no part of our "rights" civil or otherwise entitle us to rousting a bunch of of friends and mauling hapless strangers.

So, I went and looked up on Wikipedia where we can always turn to complete, unbiased information on any topic:

The Jena Six refers to a group of six black teenagers who have been charged with the beating of a white teenager at Jena High School in Jena, Louisiana, on December 4, 2006. The beating followed a series of racially-charged incidents in the town. The six black students were initially charged with attempted second degree murder and conspiracy to commit attempted second degree murder.

The Jena Six case has sparked protests by those who believe that the arrests and the subsequent charges were excessive and racially discriminatory, alleging a lack of arrests and serious charges against white youths in Jena in earlier incidents in the town. U.S. Attorney Donald Washington—an African American and a Bush appointee — who led an investigation into events in the town, has concluded that there is no evidence of unfair prosecution.

Yes, it is relevant to this article to point out that a certain judge is both black and a Bush appointee. Nope, not bias there!

Anyway, the Wikipedia article, in spite of its additional information, does make clear the racial confusion going on in the town.

But what I understand from the article is that the protesters weren't there really in support of the Jena 6. They were protesting the alleged disproportionate charges against the Jena 6. From my very limited perspective on the matter, people don't seem to be protesting the idea that charges are brought against these characters.

This is certainly not the most apparent or egregious example of rights violation I've ever heard of.

If the charges are disproportionate, you challenge them in court. There are mechanisms for this sort of thing.

The argument is that the court system is biased against the defendants based on their race.

Even if we accept that the people in that area and the people in those particular courts are biased against the defendants, it doesn't follow that our entire legal system is racist. There are mechanisms for appeal. There are mechanisms for getting the case reviewed.

I am not inclined to go to the primary sources and review this case. But I don't see why no one has gone and done that, but taken out all of the references to race, just to see if the charges make sense.

What I am irritated about is the civil rights protest and, more than that, the idiotic attitudes about race that seem so popular. It's as if as an individual, I am expected to choose between the white supremacist racists or the non-white supremacist racists on the other side.

Ideas about race in the US are idiotic and I do think it is because of this whole multiculturalism thing that is so popular. As if the color of a person's skin gives them some particular insight into... well, anything. It's like that episode of Seinfeld where Elaine is dating a man that she thinks is black and he thinks she's Spanish, and they're both really thrilled about being in an interracial relationship, but it turns out that they're both regular, old white people.

Ok. I'm done with that. I do want to ask this: why are Spanish people considered non-white? I thought that was a country... a western European country, too. I know they were occupied by the Moors (See? It's not like they've never done it themselves.) and all that, but still. "Spanish" isn't a good adjective for a particular ethnicity.