Jena school case

[Ripper 0]

That if a black person thinks all is okay it must be.

 

Funny that the so called "white tree" that apparently everyone sat under, somehow prompted a black student if it was okay for him to sit under the tree.(Attorney Donald Washington said it was said in a joking manner) and the day after he sat under the tree, the nooses appeared.

 

But good thing it was only two, because if it was three....WHOOO then it would have been something.

 

And the thing that fucks up that ap report is the fact that there are indeed reports that there were three nooses so to state that there wasn't as fact isn't really responsible reporting.

 

Alternative School is not a suspension and they know that shit.

 

And this of course tosses out the entire part about the fight at the private party the weekend before, the gun incident at the gas station the day after that and the fact that the fight at the school took place shortly after that.

 

The same article features people saying that a 15 year jail sentence would be fair for these kids, because, you know, they could have killed him(which is the stupidest fucking argument in the world. So 15 years should be the sentence everytime a fight happens? Because, you know, you could have killed him).

 

Here is my thing. 3 days earlier a fight involving a group of whites against the smaller group of blacks, it led to no arrest(months later, on guy was charged with battery and given probation for breaking a bottle over one of the black kids head), then after that a gun is pulled on a group of blacks at a gas station by one of the males involved in the fight the night before(where they were charged with stealing his gun after taking it away from him). In all of this, the only charges brought up were the ones against the black students for, I guess not enjoying having a gun pulled on them, and a simple battery charge.

 

One day later, a fight at the highschool which leads to the vicious injuries of a couple of black eyes and a 2 hour stay at the hospital should be punishable by 10-25 years in prison? The the charge is being led by the same guy that threatened to "Take away your lives with the stroke of a pen" if they don't get over the innocent prank of hanging nooses from the "white tree".

 

Seroiusly, what the fuck are you people trying to argue against here? "well...it was a 6 on 1 fight."

 

They are trying to give these kids 10-20 years in prison? What the fuck is wrong with you people. This town is fucked up, and every argument trying to villanize these kids requires you to ignore ALL that other shit like having guns pulled on them, being jumped at parties, and having nooses hung from trees directed at them.

 

If this fight happened at your highschool, would those involved be facing 20 goddamned years? If this was a group of white kids that jumped another white kid, how many years in PRISON do you think it would lead to? Or of it was a group of black kids jumping another black kid?

 

In this town the precident was clearly set that a group of white kids jumping some black kids equals probation, so you can't even say "WHAT IF IT WAS THE OTHER WAY AROUND!!!! BLAH BLAH SHARPTON BLAH BLAH JACKSON BLAH BLAH HATE CRIME BLAH BLAH WHITES HAVE IT SO TOUGH".

 

This town as set the precident that pulling a gun on some unarmed people, having the gun wrestled from you, yet oddly you still suffer no physical damage means that obviously they were trying to attack you and it was self defense so charge the unarmed people with theft of property for taking the gun away from you.

 

Stop and really look at what you are arguing. Are you saying that everything is perfectly fine and fair about this case? Seriously, what are you arguing? That the sentences that the DA is going for is fair? That there is nothing wrong with this town? What? I am really curious, because the droves of people that seem so gungho in pointing out "but the black kids fought the white one" as to proof that seroius injustices are at work here are really confusing me. Enlighten me. What is right about this case?

[Jingus 0]

What's right about it? Nothing. Just trying to say, in a community THAT racist where the law is so clearly biased against black people to provide all those examples you cited, that a dark-skinned person deciding to physically attack a light-skinned one in front of witnesses clearly hasn't considered all the possible long-term consequences of their actions.

[Ripper 0]

Not thinking of the long term consequences is the nature of a highschool student.

 

Bascially you are saying that a "but" should be entered into this case because they behaved like a bunch of highschool kids.

 

there is no acceptable "but". This case is fucked up and should be pointed out as bullshit. I am just getting tired of the "yeah, its wrong, but...."

 

No. There is no but. The fact is the boys were arrested and charged with assault just like they should have and they would have gotten probation at worse, but instead, this one fuck is trying to put them away for 20 years. No buts, no should haves, that is what the outrage concerning this case is about. That these boys could be and are suggested to be in prison until their late 20's or 30's because of a fight in highschool that resulted in a getting released from the hospital in 2 hours and attending a party that night.

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

Brilliantly stated.

[Jingus 0]

Not thinking of the long term consequences is the nature of a highschool student.

Getting into fights isn't the nature of your average student. Simple statistics show that. There were plenty of times in high school where I wanted to freakin' kill somebody, but I exercised my self-control and never once got in a fight. Sure, attacking someone who's calling you names is a natural emotional response, but if the Six (or the Three or Four who actually did it anyway) had never put their hands on the idiot, they'd never have given the good ol' boys an excuse to lock them away in the first place.

 

Of course, if this had never happened then the town wouldn't have received all the media attention it has and the current protests and such against the racism there might not have ever occured. That's just the weirdness of life.

 

Bascially you are saying that a "but" should be entered into this case because they behaved like a bunch of highschool kids.

 

there is no acceptable "but". This case is fucked up and should be pointed out as bullshit. I am just getting tired of the "yeah, its wrong, but...."

No man, nobody is trying to justify this. Nobody is saying that the sentences are deserved. Nobody is saying that anything about this isn't totally fucked up. We're just trying to point out that nobody in this case is completely innocent, that's it's not a black-&-white matter (pun kinda intended) in which it's just Oppressors vs. Victims and nothing else. It's not that simple, nothing in reality is.

[Ginger Snaps 0]

Tommy Farris, 27, an oil driller, and his wife, Nikki, 29, a registered nurse, concur - to a point. "Those boys should have expelled," says Nikki, who is white. "It was no innocent prank. I think those boys knew what they were starting by hanging those nooses from a tree."

 

Tommy, who is black, agrees. But free the Jena Six?

 

"That's not going to happen," he says, adding that he thinks the black teenagers are being given a fair chance to defend themselves against the charges.

 

What is the point that you're trying to make with this?

 

This:

 

We're just trying to point out that nobody in this case is completely innocent, that's it's not a black-&-white matter (pun kinda intended) in which it's just Oppressors vs. Victims and nothing else. It's not that simple, nothing in reality is.

 

A lot of things are getting reported as set-in-stone, undeniable truths, and that article pointed out that some of the things you've heard really aren't what happened. It's not such a cut and dry case. And it's not Mississippi Burning part 2.

[snuffbox 0]

No, it is pretty cut-and-dry. The racism is obvious & so is its defense. There is absolutely no reason to try to paint the idiocy here in anything even resembling a comfortable hue. Nobody should go to to prison for disorderly conduct, period.

[Jingus 0]

Personally I think if anyone beats up another human being for any reason other than obvious self-defense, they should see at least a little jail time. Just not a few decades' worth.

[snuffbox 0]

If anybody is saying that there should be no punishment then they are also wrong. The problem is the blatantly racist sentencing.

 

To paraphrase Hubert Humphrey (which I don't often do), it is time for america to grow the fuck up when it comes to civil rights/race. Yeah, the remarks being paraphrased here were said in 1948.

 

Sadly, I'm confidant we'll be reading similar stories in 2025 & there will still be people vaguely or outright defending it.

[Spaceman Spiff 0]

Jingus needs to stop posting in this thread. Don't make this your MikeSC/rape thread.

[EricMM 0]

We're just trying to point out that nobody in this case is completely innocent, that's it's not a black-&-white matter (pun kinda intended) in which it's just Oppressors vs. Victims and nothing else. It's not that simple, nothing in reality is.

A lot of things are getting reported as set-in-stone, undeniable truths, and that article pointed out that some of the things you've heard really aren't what happened. It's not such a cut and dry case. And it's not Mississippi Burning part 2.

It really really is cut and dry. You can't just say, "oh, these were not angels, they deserve to be punished here!" and leave it at that. I mean, I also agree that anyone saying, "Oh these kids were good kids blah blah blah" are being even more untruthful, but at the end of the day there is one big thing happening here, and it is clearly and lucidly unjust.

 

Thats it, thats it, that is. No one should give a shit, Jingus, whether or not four black kids beating up a white kid in this town was a "good" idea or not. The kid obviously wasn't that damaged or else he wouldn't have been going out that night. This is a clear case of white racists trying to teach uppity negros a hard lesson about their proper station, and other southern country fried bullshit that we don't fucking need to deal with these days.

[Vyce 0]

No, it is pretty cut-and-dry. The racism is obvious & so is its defense. There is absolutely no reason to try to paint the idiocy here in anything even resembling a comfortable hue. Nobody should go to to prison for disorderly conduct, period.

 

Are you kidding me? "Disorderly conduct"? Beating someone so badly you give them a concussion and send them to the hospital is FELONY assault, under pretty much any jurisdiction in the U.S.

 

People like you (and Ripper, and Eric) seem to be making too little of that. "Oh, he was released a couple hours later and went out for the evening." What, so it's okay, cause the kid wasn't as fucked up nearly as bad as he could have been? How wonderful.

 

Now personally? My feeling is the white kid got what he fucking deserved. If you're going to be pulling that sort of racist shit on people, you deserve a goddamn righteous ass-kicking. The problem is, we live in a society of laws, and even if they are NOT applied justly all of the time, you still have to abide by those laws, and that means that you have to deal with the consequences of your actions. Does that mean the kids involved here deserved 10-20 years? Hell no. But they engaged in behavior that was more than just "disorderly conduct".

 

It seems to me that is what Jingus is saying here, and some of you are being assholes about it towards him. I don't see where he's saying the white kid didn't EARN his beating, but at the same time, we (as a society) can't allow vigilante justice, no matter how fucking cool The Goddamn Batman may be. I don't recall Dr. King teaching us that it's okay to beat the shit out of your racist oppressors, not matter how justified or satisfying it may be.

 

I'd have charged the kids involved with felony assault, were I that prosecutor, and plead most of them down so that got probation / community service / etc. The other one, Bell, I'd probably have been harder on, because despite the attempts to sanctify him, it does seem as if he has a bit of a record, so something harder would have been warranted. Not 10-20 years, but something more serious.

 

Jingus needs to stop posting in this thread. Don't make this your MikeSC/rape thread.

 

Oh christ, fuck off with that shit. Jingus hasn't even said anything even REMOTELY that awful here. What's the worst Jingus has said here? "Gee, a bunch of black kids beating the shit out of a white kid in a racist town isn't too bright of an idea?" Oh my god, what an OUTRAGEOUS statement. How dare he apply principles of common sense to the discussion.

 

Don't try and shut him down because he happens to have a different point of view on this than you do, especially when he's come nowhere near defending the racist pricks who started this mess.

 

Edit: to reference the quote (from snuffbox) I was responding to.

[Ripper 0]

Are you kidding me? "Disorderly conduct"? Beating someone so badly you give them a concussion and send them to the hospital is FELONY assault, under pretty much any jurisdiction in the U.S.

 

People like you (and Ripper, and Eric) seem to be making too little of that. "Oh, he was released a couple hours later and went out for the evening." What, so it's okay, cause the kid wasn't as fucked up nearly as bad as he could have been? How wonderful.

 

No its not FELONY assault(look it up). At worse, its aggravated assault and that is what they were charged with since they used the deadly weapons of their tennis shoes.

 

Its assault and battery. Thats it. Thats what they were charged with until the DA (after the kid had been released from the hospital by the way) change the charges to aggravated assault (with the deadly weapon being the kids tennis shoes) and attempted murder.

 

 

And no, its not okay, but its a different fucking crime. You can't charge someone with first degree murder if he shot at a guy and missed. Thats kinda how life works. You get charged with what you did, not with what coulda happened.

 

The black kid that got hit with the bottle COULD have been seroiusly injured, COULD have been killed by the glass shards. The kid that pulled his gun on them at the gas station COULD have shot them and killed them. He COULD have hit a gas tank and blown up someone else. They didn't.

 

So once again, the crime at hand, which is a simple assault and battery charge has been pushed to aggravated second-degree battery and conspiracy which is bullshit.

 

 

AND once again, the reason I am on Jingus (i can't speak for anyone else here) is that no one is arguing that "Hey, the black kids are innocent." The ENTIRE point of the outrage, marches and demostrations is that the punishment is not proportionate with the crime committed and race seems to be the determining factor in making the punishments more severe, ESPECIALLY when you consider every other event leading up to this. Fuck the nooses(although any town that says hanging nooses after a black kid decides to sit under a tree is a innocent prank is off putting), I am talking about the fights and incidents that happend the 2-3 days before this one. The others where one race was the perpetrator and got one level of justice but those of a different race got a harder judgement on them.

 

That is the WHOLE debate. Saying that "Yeah, okay, this is messed up, BUT they did break the law so they aren't as innocent." and pretending this is a big ballyhoo over nothing because of the fight is ridiculous.

 

Its like if a white guy shop lifts out of macy's on Friday and has no record and is given probation and on Saturday morning a black guy shoplifts the same item from the same macy's, has no record and is given 5 years in prison. No one involved is innocent in the slightest, but there is a problem with the "justice" being handed out there.

 

 

 

 

[snuffbox 0]

Heh, Vyce.

[PUT THAT DICK IN MY MOUTH! 0]

What's the worst Jingus has said here? "Gee, a bunch of black kids beating the shit out of a white kid in a racist town isn't too bright of an idea?" Oh my god, what an OUTRAGEOUS statement. How dare he apply principles of common sense to the discussion.

 

But what point does bringing this up serve other than to weakly deflect some of the blame on to the people who are ultimately the victims in all of this. What you're essentially saying is, "Well, there's obviously some pretty horrible racism at work here, but if those black kids had just used some COMMON SENSE this whole mess could have been avoided!"

[Jingus 0]

And how is that wrong? It wouldn't change anything about the racism or the double standard at work in the town, and the kids might've been arrested on some different charge a week later, but they wouldn't have been arrested for that particular incident if they'd never kicked dude's ass.

 

Ripper, nobody's saying the extra tacked-on charges are legit, or that trying them as adults was a good idea, or that sneakers are deadly weapons, or that the sentencing was anything but bullshit. I'm just saying it's inaccurate to say that the black guys who did the beating are 100% innocent victims who did nothing to cause any of this.

[Edwin MacPhisto 0]

I'm just saying it's inaccurate to say that the black guys who did the beating are 100% innocent victims who did nothing to cause any of this.

You haven't yet realized that's an absolute straw man argument, despite Ripper laying it out for you about 9 times?

 

What they are completely and 100% "innocent" of is attempted murder, or being railroaded like they are, which is the part you don't seem to be getting or acknowledging. Your whole "that's just how it is" shtick is weird, meaningless, and depressing.

[Guest Gym Class Fallout]

Less effort wasted on fuckin' Jingus, more sending me Go! Team.

[Jingus 0]

What they are completely and 100% "innocent" of is attempted murder, or being railroaded like they are, which is the part you don't seem to be getting or acknowledging.

So, the couple dozen times I've said that the particular charges they were stuck with were unfair and that the sentences were ludicrously harsh, how does that not count as "acknowledging" the problem? In every fuckin' post I've made in this thread I've agreed that these kids were fucked over by the authorities in a big way.

 

And where have I said "oh well, just the way it is, can't be changed" or anything similar? In fact, I've repeatedly said the direct opposite, that things in this town clearly need to change.

[Vyce 0]

Are you kidding me? "Disorderly conduct"? Beating someone so badly you give them a concussion and send them to the hospital is FELONY assault, under pretty much any jurisdiction in the U.S.

 

People like you (and Ripper, and Eric) seem to be making too little of that. "Oh, he was released a couple hours later and went out for the evening." What, so it's okay, cause the kid wasn't as fucked up nearly as bad as he could have been? How wonderful.

 

No its not FELONY assault(look it up). At worse, its aggravated assault and that is what they were charged with since they used the deadly weapons of their tennis shoes.

 

Its assault and battery. Thats it. Thats what they were charged with until the DA (after the kid had been released from the hospital by the way) change the charges to aggravated assault (with the deadly weapon being the kids tennis shoes) and attempted murder.

 

First off, LOL at you, telling me - a LAWYER - to look up which crimes are or are not felonies. Secondly, you chastised me, while saying what happened was, 'at worst', aggravated assault - that IS, btw, a felony.

 

I will concede a point in your favor, though, I did err by failing to mention that it was assault AND battery, not simply just assault. And we are in agreement that the charge of attempted murder isn't appropriate, or even remotely viable given the facts of the case.

 

However, get angry all you want, but what happened WAS on the level of a criminal felony. It wasn't misdemeanor assault & battery. If I push you, and you fall down, that's basically misdemeanor battery if you want to press charges for it. Kicking someone's ass and giving them a concussion? Once you're dealing with a level of injury requiring hospitalization or medical care, now you ARE dealing with a felony assault & battery charge - or, shall we call it, aggravated assault.

 

See, this is my problem with this, and why I mentioned that I feel that you, and a couple others, are making too light of the one kid's injuries. If your argument stopped at "Attempted murder? That's bullshit." You'd be 100% right. But you have to go the extra mile and go "Well, hell, he really didn't get THAT bad of an ass-kicking......" It was a felony. And no matter if you feel like it was justified - which I actually DO feel, that cocksucker had it coming to him - you can't just excuse that behavior for anything less than what it was.

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

Popick Pt. 2: Electric Boogaloo

[Ripper 0]

The I am ________ thing never really works. Mostly because people seldom work in fields where anything is undebateable. Especially law(and science...and economics). The arguement was about what the charges should have been and you being a lawyer honestly doesn't validate your opinion...its still just an opinon.

 

And as I was saying in my first post, if it was a felony they would have been charged with aggravated assault. You are the one that was capitalizing FELONY assault as though that is what the charge would have been. It wouldn't have. Aggravated assault would be the charge.

 

And I am arguing they wouldn't have been charged with felony assault most other places since they usually only break that out when a weapon is involved or there is more malicious intent. There isn't anything here to say that these boys were trying to inflict more serious physical damage to the boy outside of kicking his ass. Unless someone is saying their intent was to disfigure, maim or kill the boy which I don't think anyone clear thinking individual could say.

 

And once again, we are talking about the same police force that DID charge the kids with assault and battery, and DID issue the same charge when the black kid had a bottle broken over his head(which is actually aggravated assault).

 

No, they WOULD have been charged with what they were charged with. They would have been charged with that anywhere. The charges were UPed when it was discovered the injuries were NOT serious. So I honestly don't see how you could even suggest that the charges they got had anything to do with the boys injuries honestly. The DA had to trump up their tennis shoes as deadly weapon so he could keep the aggravated assault charges and attempted murder. Even you have said that was bullshit.

 

So share with me, what exactly makes this aggravated assault in your eyes, because I don't see how any one would come to that.

 

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

No sooner did tens of thousands of African-American demonstrators depart the racially tense town of Jena, La., last week after protesting perceived injustices than white supremacists flooded in behind them.

 

First a neo-Nazi Web site posted the names, addresses and phone numbers of some of the six black teenagers and their families at the center of the Jena 6 case and urged followers to find them and "drag them out of the house," prompting an investigation by the FBI.

 

Then the leader of a white supremacist group in Mississippi published interviews that he conducted with the mayor of Jena and the white teenager who was attacked and beaten, allegedly by the six black youths. In those interviews, the mayor, Murphy McMillin, praised efforts by pro-white groups to organize counterdemonstrations; the teenager, Justin Barker, urged white readers to "realize what is going on, speak up and speak their mind."

 

Chicago Tribune

[snuffbox 0]

"Black people shouldn't speak out if they don't want the neo-Nazis to show up!"

[PUT THAT DICK IN MY MOUTH! 0]

Black people need to realize that protesting racism only serves to make the racists angrier and more racist. It's just common sense.

[Jingus 0]

Um, yeah, protesting racism would piss off racists, what about that isn't true?

[Guest Gym Class Fallout]

The torture never stops.

 

Jingus, why do you post more at TSM than at The Pit? It is, after all, "your" board.

[snuffbox 0]

I think that's the first time I've actually seen somebody so stupid they followed right along with their own mocking.

 

Now all we need now is Vyce to come in here to say that Jingus is right, they're not being racist, and Czech & I are making out or something.

[Guest]

Disgusting. Not what Jingus said, but what actually happened.

[Jingus 0]

I think that's the first time I've actually seen somebody so stupid they followed right along with their own mocking.

So you're too stupid to realize that I was mocking back?

 

Jingus, why do you post more at TSM than at The Pit? It is, after all, "your" board.

I don't post more here, it's the other way around. I post on about half a dozen different boards pretty regularly.