The Jena 6

Introduction

It sometimes seems that as we move further forward into the 21st Century, the more we sometimes travel backwards. Racism is one of those words that should really be banished to a dictionary of things that used to happen. Sadly it hasn't.

Sometimes incidents happen in the world that just beggar belief and highlight gross injustices and show public officials abusing their power for no other reason than to teach people a lesson. When race is brought into it, this makes things even more despicable.

There's a little town called Jena in the United States that quietly but insistently became a hotbed of racial tension in 2006. It started in a school and it started over the right of black students to sit under a tree. This tree was a place where white students congregated to sit and chat, but one day in August 2006 a black student dared to ask if he could sit under the tree. Despite school officials confirming that he could sit wherever he liked, there was an immediate reaction by some white male students who placed nooses in the tree. The school officials dismissed this as a joke, but understandably the black students failed to see the funny side. Thus began a series of tit for tat incidents.


Then on 4th December 2006, things took a dramatic turn. A white student was involved in a fight with some black youths and taken to hospital with a black eye and minor concussion. Despite being discharged less than an hour after arrival, the local District Attorney decided to not only charge all six students with attempted murder but also chose to seek the maximum sentence; 100 years per offender. DA Reed Walters is unrepentant, despite uproar from the local black community and despite some national condemnation for his actions. In fact, in you research this case just cursorily you find that just about everyone in power who could do something has stood to one side and allowed this outrage to happen.

The 6 defendants in this case are:

Robert Bailey
Mychal Bell
Jesse Ray Beard
Bryant Purvis
Carwin Jones
Theodore Shaw

Audio

2.0 Stereo soundtrack but sadly no subtitles.

Overall

It's a depressing feeling, but I suspect that it'll be a long, long time before racism becomes a thing of the past. People will always find reasons to hate or dislike other people, and although that would be understandable if there was a characteristic or behaviour that had some rationale behind it, too many people (and one is too many) still find the colour of one's skin as reason enough to hate; although in this 21st Century you can add religion quite heavily into that same mix.

The Jena 6 incident is one of those depressing stories where you just despair about the attitudes of not only people but also public officials and institutions who are supposed to be diverse, fair, trustworthy and show respect for all. The Louisiana state motto is Union, Justice, Confidence but for the life of me I just cannot understand how anyone can believe that both justice is served and confidence can be held in that justice system where a school fight can turn into attempted murder with the protagonists (and no one appears to be stating that they didn't do it) looking at spending all of their natural life behind bars.


This documentary is not the most detailed there will ever be on this subject, purely due to both length and that it isn't a retrospective; rather a brief commentary on events as they unfold. Clearly, as with all incidents/stories/events, you never get to really examine the views of all sides but I don't believe for one moment that this is whole episode has been turned in a racial slur on the white DA (and by default the wider community at large) by the local black community. This does just come across as an abuse of power in a clear black and white situation. It also shows some of the skewed reasoning when some of local white community are interviewed (and you never see the colour of the cameraman) and they state in a calm, reasoned way that they believe that this crime needs to be punished without it even entering their heads that the punishment is out of all proportion to the original offence, and this is nowhere near the same kind of argument that can be levied at the difference between manslaughter and murder.


There are no answers here, no resolution. The aim of this mini documentary simply seems to be: this is what has happened in this little corner of the world, follow the story, research it and find out more for yourself, then make up your own mind. Personally I feel angry that this can be allowed to happen in one of the countries that holds itself up as a beacon of democracy, truth and justice for all.

Thought provoking, albeit in a rather disturbing way…