Given how busy I’ve been these past few weeks, I haven’t had much time to focus on the case of the “Jena 6.” While it does seem that the District Attorney there was a little overzealous in prosecuting six black teens accused of assaulting a white peer, there’s no doubt these adolescents beat up their caucasian fellow.
Standing up for the “Jena 6” has become the latest cause célèbre for the left, with Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson heading down to Louisiana to lead a protest. It’s no wonder then that Human Rights Campaign president Joe Solmonese has weighed in on the story, joining Jesse in standing up against the unjust treatment of the black teens. Joe does seem more more interested in standing united with various left-wing leaders than in standing tall on gay issues.
In his remarks, Solmonese even faulted George W. Bush for failing as Governor of Texas to sign a hate-crimes bill. The alleged injustice here was not the absence of such legislation, but the presence of prosecutorial misconduct. But, I guess that’s irrelevant to Joe when he has a chance to join his fellow leftists in attacking Bush. (If anything, a hate crimes law might justify the prosecutor’s alleged excesses if he believed that the Jena 6 assaulted the white teen because of his race.)
Blogger Chris Crain, assaulted two years ago in Amsterdam because he’s gay, wonders why Solmonese picked “this case:”
Why pick a case of six bullies who beat, kicked and stomped a defenseless teen unconscious in a schoolyard — as the one for the GLBT movement to take a stand?
When Joe spoke . . . at a Washington, D.C., rally to “Free the Jena 6,” here was the head of the nation’s largest GLBT rights organizations standing at a podium comparing the senseless beating of Justin Butler at Jena High School to a hate crime. But he wasn’t comparing victims. Oh no. He was invoking the image of James Byrd no less to side with the six macho bullies who punched and kicked Justin unconscious on the ground.
I’m sorry but that just goes too far. Way too far.
I agree.
But, what’s going too far matter to Joe Solmonese when you have a chance to stand united with other activists of the left. Or, as Chris puts it, “It’s scratch-your-back and no doubt for some based on a genuinely felt bond among civil rights groups.”
Chris wonders why Solmonese devoted so much time to this issue while he and HRC remained silent about the “beating, stabbing and mutilating” of “Scotty Joe Weaver [of Bay Minette, Alabama] because he is gay.” Chris wonders why HRC was similarly silent about the upcoming trial in New York City for the “murder of African-American gay man Michael Sandy.
No wonder so many gay people wonder about HRC’s advocacy on behalf of our community. It seems more interested in being part of a broader leftist coalition than in focusing on the issues of particular concern to the gay community.
And rather than excerpt further from Chris’s powerful post, let me just encourage to read the whole thing!
Recognizing that gay issues likely would not register in importance with most voters were they considered on their own merits and advocated/argued by gays alone, gays have long attempted to link their cause with the civil rights activities and hard-won victories of racial minorities. By making moral withdrawals from this cultural ATM, gays have more visibility and cachet. So it’s not surprising that these incidental alliances are conveniently formed and reformed — and it’s not surprising that the title of the Human Rights Campaign is, thus, so generic.
Last I saw, Jena was in Louisiana. With that in mind, what the hell would a Texas thought crimes bill do for this case.
Furthermore, am I to understand from all this that black kids should be able to kick the shit out of a white kid and only get ISS?
It’s interesting how Crain so readily concedes so many of the Left’s (or Joe Solmonese’s) incorrect moral and/or factual premises – yet still believes and proves how they’re wrong to squander air time on this Jena thing.
On a different angle: Crain’s article carefully never states *who* it was who kicked Crain to the ground. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I do believe (or recall very vaguely) that it was young… Muslim… males.
The Jena 6 case is far, far, FAR outside the scope of HRC’s mission statement and I think it is inappropriate for them to weight in on the matter.
Conversely, while I do believe there is often a disparity along racial lines in regard to the dispersion of justice, I don’t believe the Jena 6 case is a strong example of that. For at the heart of the matter here is very simply an assault. And no matter the skin color of the victim or defendants, a violent assault must result in punishment.
I don’t believe the Jena 6 case is a strong example of that.
Why you racist bigot. Don’t you know that the Revs. Sharpton and Jacksonnnnn have declared it so? And therefore, it is.
Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong,
As I see it, if you kick a black man’s ass, it’s a hate crime. If you kick a white man’s ass, he deserved it.
This is surely the most shabbily reported story of the decade. And as facts become known, this is looking more and more like another Mumia case. It turns out there was no white tree, there was no connection between the nooses (which occurred months prior) and the assault, there was no shotgun incident, there was no fight that led to the assault.
Even given the little information we were told, there was only one physical assault. All of the other “crimes” weren’t even in the same category. The Jena 6 belong in prison. Period.
The Village Voice: “In a speech at Harvard Law School in February, [Jesse] Jackson spoke out against same-sex marriage and rejected comparisons between the civil rights and gay rights movements.”
My reading of the situation in Jena stems at least partially from the horror members of the African American community felt at seeing those nooses. That’s understandable, lynching is one of our nations most horrific crimes and something whose spector should stur anger and protest.
But what about the real, actual lynching of gay men that happens today? Why spend so much energy defending a group of kids who beat someone up and absolutely none defending the gay victims of murder?
I honestly think one of the reasons gay marriage has roughly 0% support in America is people don’t understand what the overall effect of treating gay men and women as second class citizens has. People don’t hear about Michael Sandy and Scotty Joe Weaver. I hadn’t heard about them and I’m an avid news junky.
I think people honestly believe gay people are greedy for wanting marriage rights when they have it so good. It’s a disgusting sentiment, but I think it’s out there.
Good point, and perhaps it is the African-American activists – by this I mean Sharpton, Jackson, etc. – who should be showing solidarity with gays, when gays are subjected to the noose.
Somewhat related: Tammy Bruce denounces the race “Gestapo.”.
According to the testimony of one African-American teacher at the school “black and white students were playing with them, pulling on them, jump-swinging from them, and putting their heads through them.” There’s been a lot of inaccurate media hype on Jena. Mainly because the media are run by fossils from the baby boom era trying to relive the sixties.
Look
Jim Crow is not ancient history. It’s a recent episode of our country and from the link VtheK provided, obviously still haunts us.
This case should serve at as a wake up call that racism is alive and well and must be confronted when found.
Here are some quotes from that Ace of Spades article:
The boys who hung the nooses “probably should have been expelled,” Fowler says, and the murder charges brought against the black teenagers were “too harsh, too severe.”
“when whites and blacks tangled several times before the Jena Six episode, why did authorities charge the whites with misdemeanors — or not at all — while charging blacks with felonies?”
“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.”
I think its much more complicated than simply hype. Further don’t blame this on northern “agitators.” Blame the people of Jenna.
Trackbacked by The Thunder Run – Web Reconnaissance for 09/27/2007
A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day…so check back often.
Race fetishism leads to absurd results, such as a ten year old being investigated for hate crimes after being beaten by an adult.
#11
Problem is, gillie, the more we learn about this story, the more bullshit comes to light which muddies the water. Slapping the “racist” label on the entire town is even worse. Furthermore, hell yeah you can blame “norhern agitators” (Sharpton, Jackson etc.) when they’re the ones heaping on the bullshit.
Can somebody remind the HRC of it’s chartered agenda??
Instead of doing something useful like opposing DADT or getting ENDA passed, they was time, money and prestige on those 6 thugs from Jena, LA.?? In my home state there would be no question that most if nort all of them would have been tried as adults…even a 15-yo can be tried here with aggrevating circumstances. And the Jena Six’s star posterboy was 17 with two previous assualts to his credit.
And what’s this that the HRC and their fellow-travelers are willing to loss ENDA over the transgendered? What tools……
I’d think that the Jena six were motivated by racial hate, wouldn’t you?
#16
The thing is that they don’t believe they’re capable of racial hate.
Even liberal stalwarts like Juan Williams can be viciously smeared if they step a little bit off the plantation.
#17 Worse, they think their hate is a good thing, and they’re -right-.
Look at the outers for the same kind of thought. “I’m destroying your life, for your own good.”
“I’m kicking you to death… for JUSTICE!”
As of 3 days ago, I was an HRC Federal Club member. When I emailed HRC to ask why they were in Jena, HRC’s Susan Lamb said it was because of the huge disparity of justice and also because the NAACP supports gay marriage so they wanted to help pay them back for that. Here’s just one example that there was never any disparity in Jena… just red-hot, blind support for savage hoodlums. Guess they missed this one. And there are so many more examples. HRC didn’t do their homework. Shame on them and Donna Page.
(CBS) LOS ANGELES The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office plans to try a 17-year-old Harvard-Westlake School student as an adult in the highly publicized beating of a female classmate.
Prosecutors Wednesday charged Rupert Tumin Ditsworth of Beverly Hills with attempted murder and assault with a deadly weapon for allegedly beating Elizabeth Barcay, 18, with a claw hammer, the Los Angeles Times reported.