I understand what you're saying too. I suppose I'm extremely sensitive to this type of article because as a journalism major at an HBCU, the term "responsible reporting" took on a whole new meaning. As a reporter, I felt the factual responsibility of getting things correct, along with the social responsibility of being a black reporter.

I could go on all day about racial disparities in the news (and the newsroom) and the fact that the very few black reporters tend to fall into one of three categories: those who just report on the what the agenda-setters have declared "news," those who attempt to maintain a social conciousness while reporting, and those like this author and, say, Stanley Crouch, who write these columns which aren't addressing what I consider to be the real issues while receiving high praise from those who don't have the interests of African Americans at heart.

Parachute posting?

Sorry I don't understand the language of the intertrons.

I didn't really have anything else to say. I think for you to call the guy an Uncle Tome is pretty much ridiculous.

That's fair - it's just a different (and possibly deeper?) view of the intent of the criticism.

I agree completely - and I think Rev. Sharpton's presence turns off some parts of the target audience, which is incredibly unfortunate. But yeah, I definitely didn't mean to imply that being anti-Sharpton = anti-black, but instead the opposite.

I meant more that the link is much much longer and more convoluted (in a causation sense, especially) than the link between both a father and mother figure in the house and lower incidence of criminal or detrimental behavior, but this point is well-taken.

The U.S. is the world leader in families without fathers. From 1960 to 1990, the number of children living only with their mother jumped from 5,100,000 to 15,600,000. Just 27% of American kids live with their biological mother and father.


http://findarticles.com/p/articles/m...wp=body_middle

Your opinion of my opinion is fine with me.

Like I said, I'm somewhat more sensitive to these matters than others may be. I've been steeped in journalism and the power of newsprint since I was a child. I believe an op-ed is rarely what it appears to be on the surface.

Thanks for clarifying. And yes, Sharpton turns off people of all races, I'm sure. Many African Americans with higher education find him quite ludicrous. The one time I met him in person, I was pretty unimpressed. He's made his name by making his name, if you get what I'm saying.

True. But the reasons behind fathers not being in the household are more complicated than him "just not being there." If he isn't at home, where is he? Why?

Anyway, thanks for the thoughtful response.

Ditto. Today, I remember 2 things about meeting him: 1) He was fun to watch. 2) His hair was fly. That's it.:rolleyes:


I agree (for the most part) with Sugar. While I wouldn't say his tone was necessarily "attacking," it was definitely more than "critical." Also, I don't want to call it "anti-black," but seeing as how the whole country has taken up a "for us or against us" mentality(not just GC members), there's not a whole lot else you could call it(though I'm sure I could list some if I had the time to think about it right now). I appreciate his opinion and his stepping up to provide a fresh look at factors that have remained buried, but it didn't come off as looking at a particular stance to uncover new truths. IMO, skating past all the racial issues negates a lot of the reason people were out there protesting, though I'm not sure he meant it to do so. By that, I mean that I felt like he was writing as though the fact that the public did not know the whole story gave him the right to make out the situation to be more like it was thousands of misguided people supporting a boy who didn't deserve it and would never have gotten into trouble if a, b, and c had been in place. That's not true. Firstly, just because the public may not be aware of those details, does not mean these details were any less true. Secondly, I agree that the community should aim to be a more preventive community than one that tries to remedy a problem after it's gotten out of control. However, did the other 5 boys have absent fathers? What about the person who pulled a shot-gun on those teens or the kids who hung the nooses or the ones who hit the boy over the head with a bottle? I don't think all of those wrong-doers came from broken homes. Furthermore, did any of them have prior criminal records? Having a loving set of parents and a clean record does not guarantee that kids won't do things they shouldn't. I felt that, while the article helped me understand where Mychal's problems may have started, bringing up his absent father and past record unnecessarily took away from the heart of the argument (the unfairness of the charges and the fact that he's still in jail) without providing anything that really needed to be thought about. It was a good read and I'm glad to have seen it because it adds to the bigger picture, but the author conveyed himself (to me) in the way that he meant(if he did, in fact, have the best of intentions when writing it).

wheer was the fathers of the teen boys who was driving with the nooses on the trucks trying to incite a riot and what are they or are they not teaching them about people of other ethnicities?

This is from Reed Walters. Some may find it interesting:

THE case of the so-called Jena Six has fired the imaginations of thousands, notably young African-Americans who, according to many of their comments, believe they will be in the vanguard of a new civil rights movement. Whether America needs a new civil rights movement I leave to social activists, politicians and the people who must give life to such a cause.

I am a small-town lawyer and prosecutor. For 16 years, it has been my job as the district attorney to review each criminal case brought to me by the police department or the sheriff, match the facts to any applicable laws and seek justice for those who have been harmed. The work is often rewarding, but not always.

I do not question the sincerity or motivation of the 10,000 or more protesters who descended on Jena last week, after riding hundreds of miles on buses. But long before reaching our town of 3,000 people, they had decided that a miscarriage of justice was taking place here. Their anger at me was summed up by a woman who said, “If you can figure out how to make a schoolyard fight into an attempted murder charge, I’m sure you can figure out how to make stringing nooses into a hate crime.”

That could be a compelling statement to someone trying to motivate listeners on a radio show, but as I am a lawyer obligated to enforce the laws of my state, it does not work for me.

I cannot overemphasize how abhorrent and stupid I find the placing of the nooses on the schoolyard tree in late August 2006. If those who committed that act considered it a prank, their sense of humor is seriously distorted. It was mean-spirited and deserves the condemnation of all decent people.

But it broke no law. I searched the Louisiana criminal code for a crime that I could prosecute. There is none.

Similarly, the United States attorney for the Western District of Louisiana, who is African-American, found no federal law against what was done.

A district attorney cannot take people to trial for acts not covered in the statutes. Imagine the trampling of individual rights that would occur if prosecutors were allowed to pursue every person whose behavior they disapproved of.

The “hate crime” the protesters wish me to prosecute does not exist as a stand-alone offense in Louisiana law. It’s not that our Legislature has turned a blind eye to crimes motivated by race or other personal characteristics, but it has addressed the problem in a way that does not cover what happened in Jena. The hate crime statute is used to enhance the sentences of defendants found guilty of specific crimes, like murder or rape, who chose their victims based on race, religion, sexual orientation or other factors.

Last week, a reporter asked me whether, if I had it to do over, I would do anything differently. I didn’t think of it at the time, but the answer is yes. I would have done a better job of explaining that the offenses of Dec. 4, 2006, did not stem from a “schoolyard fight” as it has been commonly described in the news media and by critics.

Conjure the image of schoolboys fighting: they exchange words, clench fists, throw punches, wrestle in the dirt until classmates or teachers pull them apart. Of course that would not be aggravated second-degree battery, which is what the attackers are now charged with. (Five of the defendants were originally charged with attempted second-degree murder.) But that’s not what happened at Jena High School.

The victim in this crime, who has been all but forgotten amid the focus on the defendants, was a young man named Justin Barker, who was not involved in the nooses incident three months earlier. According to all the credible evidence I am aware of, after lunch, he walked to his next class. As he passed through the gymnasium door to the outside, he was blindsided and knocked unconscious by a vicious blow to the head thrown by Mychal Bell. While lying on the ground unaware of what was happening to him, he was brutally kicked by at least six people.

Imagine you were walking down a city street, and someone leapt from behind a tree and hit you so hard that you fell to the sidewalk unconscious. Would you later describe that as a fight?

Only the intervention of an uninvolved student protected Mr. Barker from severe injury or death. There was serious bodily harm inflicted with a dangerous weapon — the definition of aggravated second-degree battery. Mr. Bell’s conviction on that charge as an adult has been overturned, but I considered adult status appropriate because of his role as the instigator of the attack, the seriousness of the charge and his prior criminal record.

I can understand the emotions generated by the juxtaposition of the noose incident with the attack on Mr. Barker and the outcomes for the perpetrators of each. In the final analysis, though, I am bound to enforce the laws of Louisiana as they exist today, not as they might in someone’s vision of a perfect world.

That is what I have done. And that is what I must continue to do.

Reed Walters is the district attorney of LaSalle Parish.

-Rudey

Exactly. Unless every child and/or adult who was acting a fool grew up with only their mother, the point is insignificant--just informative and mildly thought-provoking.

FYI
 

Michael Bell is free at last (until his trial): http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070928/...re_us/jena_six

Ok...Mr. Walters.... so young Mr. Barker was just innocently walking along....

"Dohdedohdedohdedooooh......" and all of a sudden 6 teens from out of nowhere just randomly attacked him for no reason and he was completely innocent...

So ...I guess this version has nothing to do with him catchin an @sswhupping

The following Monday, Dec.4, a white student named Justin Barker was loudly bragging to friends in the school hallway that Robert Bailey had been whipped by a white man on Friday night. When Barker walked into the courtyard, he was attacked by a group of black students. The first punch knocked Barker out and he was kicked several times in the head. But the injuries turned out to be superficial. Barker was examined by doctors and released; he went out to a social function later that evening.

courtesy of http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...oryId=12353776

Still does not condone what happened, but let's not act like Barker wasn't an instigator.


Yes one may hve the freedom of speech but there are reprecusions (right or wrong) for exercising that freedom.


**mumbling* if that first punch knocked him out...the boy musta had a glass jaw....heh

Don't you love how Al was leading the boy to the podium, as if he actually did something? :rolleyes:

I think the case of injustice against the defendants can be made without minimizing the injuries sustained by the victim. I hate to see what should be a case of (racially motivated) overreaction on the part of the d.a. turned into a defense of violence. I really think that trying to argue that the victim was not really hurt, or that he was "asking for it" , weakens the appeal to logic that simply showing the inequality of treatment the 6 defendents received can do on its own.
No matter what the victim said, he should not have been attacked. Having been attacked, his attackers should be held accountable for their illegal actions. However, they are entitled to the same due process as any other citizen,no matter the color of their skin. The protest should center on that - not on whether or not the victim deserved his attack.
This should be bigger than this one incident. If we are going to look at the bigger picture, we need to be concerned that defendents without money (many of whom are minorities) are getting an entirely different justice than those with money and that justice is not yet color blind.
Fair minded people will see that. No need to play "blame the victim".

Wait, what? You're totally inconsistent here - did he instigate it, or did his actions somehow cause/deserve the beating?

Holy crap - this doesn't disprove Rudey's point at all, dude.


Oh, so he did 'deserve' it? I thought the actions didn't "condone" (sic) this?

Yep, definitely the kid's fault for getting dropped by six kids - what a big pussy.

Daemon, honestly, you have to read this post with the 'objectivity' you beg of everyone else - it's pretty unbelievable, and pretty shitty.