Classical Values :: Ropes, journalists, terrorist DNA... <br>And Random Justice for all!

September 21, 2007

Ropes, journalists, terrorist DNA...
And Random Justice for all!

When I started writing this post yesterday, progressive bloggers were being scolded for not paying enough attention to a case known as the Jena 6. Considering that the case occupies much of the front page of the Philadelphia Inquirer (rallies were held in Philadelphia yesterday), I'm sure there's no longer any need to scold progressive bloggers for ignoring the case. However, I'm not sure about a system of blogger "accountability" for issues not written about, regardless of the political perspective of the blogger. How do you keep score, for example, on who wrote about Larry Craig while ignoring Norman Hsu or vice versa? There's no way to write about every issue, and right now I'm sure I am ignoring vital issues of concern to countless other bloggers.

My immediate reaction to the Jena 6 (which I read about earlier in the summer) was that the factual scenario is complicated (see the Wiki entry, Orin Kerr, and Radley Balko), with a ton of third hand information, much of it driven by emotion. Black kids (it is alleged) sit under "white" tree. White kids put nooses in tree. Fights erupt, in various places, not always at the school, and not always involving students. Members of both races are beaten. Blacks end up being charged as adults for attempted murder of a white kid who was beaten until he was unconscious, then recovered quickly.

Here's a typical account of some of it:

A few weeks after the nooses were discovered in September, an arsonist torched a wing of Jena High School. Race fights roiled the town for days, culminating in a schoolyard brawl that led the LaSalle Parish district attorney to charge six black teenagers with attempted murder for beating up a white teenager who suffered no life-threatening injuries.

Mychal Bell, the first of the six to be tried, is scheduled to be sentenced in September. He was convicted in July by an all-white jury on reduced charges of aggravated battery and conspiracy to commit it. Like his co-defendants -- Robert Bailey, Carwin Jones, Bryant Purvis, Theodore Shaw and Jesse Beard -- Bell had no prior criminal record.

He faces up to 22 years in prison, and civil rights advocates say the reduced charges were still excessive and did not fit the crime. "Can they really do this to me?" Bell asked recently, sitting in his jail cell looking frightened and numb.

Well, 22 years for beating someone up strikes me as insane. If this happened because he was black, it's certainly more egregious, and I think he's been through enough as it is. He has a criminal record, though, and what he did was not excused because some insensitive thugs put nooses on a tree. Sure, that was a provocation, but since when do two wrongs make a right?

The problem with this case is that I'm accustomed to seeing murderers walk free, kids who smack other kids on the ass facing felony charges, and people sentenced to life imprisonment for marijuana. You zero in on any of the individual cases, and each one is an outrage.

It all leads me to ask, what sort of justice is this? To look at particular incidents of racial injustice and declare the entire system racially unjust ignores the fact that there are innumerable criminals who don't receive the punishment they deserve. Many others rot for decades for things I don't believe should be a crime, while others are completely innocent of anything. I'm not prepared to take it on faith, though, that if they're black, it's necessarily racial injustice, because there are plenty of whites rotting away. Why would a drug dealer sentenced to 200 years for dealing crack be an example of racial injustice only if he was black? Why would a white drug dealer sentenced to 200 years for dealing crank be just a routine case in the "drug war"? How about a group of Hispanics facing over 1200 years for drug sales? Does the race of the man who was sentenced to 200 years for possession of child pornography matter? Does race matter in the case of a man facing 606 years for selling veterinary steriods?

Looking at the big picture, I'm more inclined to call this a system of random injustice than racial injustice. So many things are illegal now that it's almost like a gigantic prosecutorial dartboard.

I'm struck by one particularly truthful statement that the Jena District Attorney made:

I can make your life go away with the stroke of a pen.

The fact is, whether he's a racist asshole prick or just a regular asshole prick (like Mike Nifong) he can. Any DA can. To me, that's the real injustice.

Had he wanted to, he could have done the same thing to white students, Hispanic students, gay students, or just someone who looked cross-eyed at him. The reason is that everything is illegal.

Well almost everything. Apparantly, there's no law against hanging nooses in trees.

And that's what's getting the lion's share of the attention. This reaction I found at Yahoo is quite typical:

What white Southerners still fail to realize is their complicity in some of the most vicious and effective terrorism the world has ever seen. Lynchings were only the most visible and brutal embodiments of a system to terrorize the black minority. A noose is a symbol the way a swastika is a symbol. A noose hanging from a tree in that context is an almost unimaginably vicious act. Those white teens, instead of being ashamed of their terrorist ancestry, reveled in the evil. The adults who are charged with the education of all the students deemed it merely a prank.

Does that mean if I move to the South, I share "complicity"? For things done by brutal hysterical mobs of ignorant Southern peasants before I was born? I'm not following the logic. I realize that it is considered "racism" in some quarters to question the premises of what is clearly a blood libel, but that's part of the problem here.

By declaring the kids guilty of having a "terrorist ancestry" they're implying that the image of the noose is a cultural trait, passed on from generation to generation. Might as well declare that it's part of their "cultural DNA." If people are bigots by birth, then all reason is lost, and frankly I'm seeing less and less reason being applied to this case. What's next? A movement making the tying of certain knots a criminal offense? (It's already a fireable offense, regardless of intent.)

This case is being taken over by media-driven hysteria, and I'm already at the end of my, um, rope, even though this is the first post I've written about it. I still can't claim to know what all the facts are, but I think it's pretty clear that the narrative is taking over. As a group, blacks are judicially lynched for attempting to defend themselves against white terrorism, while white terrorists walk.

If you disagree with the narrative and you're white, it's because you have terrorist DNA.

You should be ashamed to the core.

MORE: Speaking of the facts (as if such things mattered) via Glenn Reynolds, the Kansas City Star's Jason Whitlock points out that the nooses did not trigger the attack:

There was no "schoolyard fight" as a result of nooses being hung on a whites-only tree.

Justin Barker, the white victim, was cold-cocked from behind, knocked unconscious and stomped by six black athletes. Barker, luckily, sustained no life-threatening injuries and was released from the hospital three hours after the attack.

A black U.S. attorney, Don Washington, investigated the "Jena Six" case and concluded that the attack on Barker had absolutely nothing to do with the noose-hanging incident three months before. The nooses and two off-campus incidents were tied to Barker's assault by people wanting to gain sympathy for the "Jena Six" in reaction to Walters' extreme charges of attempted murder.

There's a lot more, and I guess it surprise no one that what does not fit the narrative is not part of the news that's "fit to print." As Mr. Whitlock says:

You won't hear about any of that because it doesn't fit the picture we want to paint of Jena, this case, America and ourselves.

UPDATE: Radley Balko (whom I thank for coming) left a comment below which I think belongs here:

The "racist DNA" stuff is garbage.

But this is one case where the narrative probably fits.

I wonder if Whitlock has ever been to that part of Louisiana.

I have. I spent five days investigating down there this past June. Race is pervasive--suffocating, even--in some of these small towns in the South. The town I visited is still basically segregated. Black people are scared to death of the local police. The Klan is still active. When people heard a journalist was in town, black women came to me with photos, hospital reports, and witness statements of relatives and boyfriends who'd been beaten by local police.

As for U.S. Attorney Washington, he's a very conservative Republican. I'm working on another case where his office turned a blind eye to the actions of some local racist sheriff's deputies, then wrongly prosecuted and convicted a 57-year-old grandmother of being the biggest crack kingpin in Louisiana.

She was later released from prison, and the charges against her were dropped--with prejudice.

My point: That Washington is black doesn't mean he isn't wrong.

Finally, this is the same state that gave David Duke 671,000 votes for governor in 1991, and nearly pushed him to a runoff election for Congress in 1999.

I'm as dubious of false racism claims as anyone else. But in my experience, in this area of the country they carry the ring of truth.

Balko knows more about the facts of this case than I do, so I have to defer to him on the details.

UPDATE: My thanks Glenn Reynolds for the link -- and especially for quoting what I said about a "gigantic prosecutorial dartboard." (Coming from a law professor, that is a real honor.)

Welcome all.

posted by Eric on 09.21.07 at 08:12 AM

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Comments

Bell was at the time on probation for assault. This incident was assault #3 for Bell.

In addition the "white tree" stuff happened 3 months before the assault (I see you added that). Most every one agrees there was no connection except for the level of punishment. (3 days school suspension for the kid(s) who put up the nooses).

I'd say assault should be more severely punished than putting nooses in a tree. Twenty two years, however, is just crazy.

BTW on the rest of your points I'm in total agreement. Also the Whitlock piece is a gem.

===

There is all too much of this "narrative" crap going on. As you point out Nifong rode it to election victory followed by jail time.

M. Simon · September 21, 2007 12:31 PM

followed by jail time.

One day of jail time.

The sum of all incarcerations for all American prosecutors ever guilty of criminal misconduct now stands at one day.

So we can't say "none" anymore.

Just so.

guy on internet · September 21, 2007 01:13 PM

The "racist DNA" stuff is garbage.

But this is one case where the narrative probably fits.

I wonder if Whitlock has ever been to that part of Louisiana.

I have. I spent five days investigating down there this past June. Race is pervasive--suffocating, even--in some of these small towns in the South. The town I visited is still basically segregated. Black people are scared to death of the local police. The Klan is still active. When people heard a journalist was in town, black women came to me with photos, hospital reports, and witness statements of relatives and boyfriends who'd been beaten by local police.

As for U.S. Attorney Washington, he's a very conservative Republican. I'm working on another case where his office turned a blind eye to the actions of some local racist sheriff's deputies, then wrongly prosecuted and convicted a 57-year-old grandmother of being the biggest crack kingpin in Louisiana.

She was later released from prison, and the charges against her were dropped--with prejudice.

My point: That Washington is black doesn't mean he isn't wrong.

Finally, this is the same state that gave David Duke 671,000 votes for governor in 1991, and nearly pushed him to a runoff election for Congress in 1999.

I'm as dubious of false racism claims as anyone else. But in my experience, in this area of the country they carry the ring of truth.

Radley Balko · September 21, 2007 02:08 PM

"..what sort of justice is this?" you ask.
Well, it may not be just, but it sure is legal.
We haven't had a justice system in some time. But we do have a legal system.
DOJ needs to be changed to DOL. Department of Legalities.
Afterall, justice no longer has anything to do with it.

Jim · September 21, 2007 04:09 PM

Radley, David Duke has been gone from La. for a while. Thank God. He's been in prison and the last I heard he was out of the country.

La. has its racial problems like other places but Mychal Bell is no angel. I agree that the DA really screwed this one up and hopefully the legal system can fix that.

As for there being too many laws that are too easy to break. That's absolutely true. It's tough for any young person to stay away from a LEO with a chip on his shoulder.

roux · September 21, 2007 04:30 PM

Jerry Pournelle has a useful term for this: anarcho-tyranny. There are so many laws / regulations on the books that no one can go thru life without being in violation of at least one a day, yet enforcement is so capricious that it feels like there is no settled law at all.

We're supposed to be a government of laws, not men. We haven't been for at least 40 years. Just wait until they get hate crimes laws on the books.

SDN · September 21, 2007 04:33 PM

The WaPo account says Bell had no criminal record. You say he does. I believe you're right, but this should be cleared up. I've seen conflicting accounts elsewhere, too.

Craig · September 21, 2007 04:36 PM

People don't seem to get along too well down there and this doesn't help.

What gets me is that none of the noise and demonstrations have anything to do with what most people would consider the desired outcome - racial harmony and even the elimination of any "race consciousness."

We should remember that there remains a "clash of civilizations" in the South between the African-American slave culture and whites. The worst is long past but some look for every opportunity to flame the embers.

BTW, the DA reduced charges almost immediately or so I've heard, probably on official reports of the white boy's condition.

Whitehall · September 21, 2007 04:48 PM

Radley,

Five days spent in Louisiana doesn't make you or anyone else an expert in race relations there. It doesn't even make you the know all about this case.

My point: Just because you're Radley Balko, Crusading Libertarian, and you've done a little investigating, doesn't mean your right.

Jim · September 21, 2007 05:09 PM

Five days spent in Louisiana doesn't make you or anyone else an expert in race relations there. It doesn't even make you the know all about this case...Just because you're Radley Balko, Crusading Libertarian, and you've done a little investigating, doesn't mean your [sic] right.

I didn't claim that it did. But it does I have more information, and can therefore make a more informed opinion, than someone who's never been to the area.

Radley Balko · September 21, 2007 05:41 PM

This case has been amazing for how hard it is to find actual facts and context. In Detroit, it is being played on the news as if Al Sharpton were writing the script. (Although that is always possible in Detroit, I think it's probably just pandering.) Part of this may be due to the natural insularity of isolated, low-population areas.

If Radley went to my home county (where enormous amounts of dope are grown and there's a meth lab bust about every other week [and this in a county of only about 15,000]) he'd find out very little in 5 days except that locals don't like or talk much to outsiders.

I read enormous amounts of Ridley's work and bless him for doing it so I don't have to dig all that stuff myself (I use it when teaching Civil Liberties and Civil Rights), but in a local area, sometimes the guy who is apparently getting railroaded is just a really bad local guy. The racial thing makes it much harder to tell in this instance absent more facts than I've been able to find so far.

At any rate, it never hurts to hold the authority's feet to the fire. If we don't hold them to the highest standards, who will?

Also, I'd like to point out that the complaints from the Left and the race-baiters are funny in that they so frequently encourage exactly this sort of behavior against their foes.

JorgXMcKie · September 21, 2007 05:42 PM

Let's see . . .

An accusation of rape committed by students of one color results in 'outrage', protests and invocation of 'the narrative' on behalf of the alleged victim . . .

. . . while charges against students of another color following an actual beating result in 'outrage', protests and invocation of 'the narrative' on behalf of the accused.

Repressive tolerance, I guess.

Vinny Vidivici · September 21, 2007 06:27 PM

If a six on one beatdown including putting the boots to the unconcious victim is a "school yard fight" then I assume hanging nooses from a tree is a "harmless prank".

SIV · September 21, 2007 06:30 PM

And the Yahoo post Eric cited is part of a depressing trend -- that is, declaring something a 'symbol' which justifies a violent response.

We saw it with apologists for the lethal faux-outrage over the Motoons, who claimed, preposterously, that irreverent ridicule and criticism were the 'equivalent' of the N-word.

Violence is excused by our cultural mandarins provided you belong one politically-fashionable group or another -- 'rebels' who behead Indonesian schoolgirls, 'abused' or psychotic women who murder their children or husbands, or or anyone else in an approved victim class who can claim to have been provoked by some real or perceived grievance or insult.

This brings us closer to equality before the eyes of the law?

Vinny Vidivici · September 21, 2007 07:19 PM

With the law books filled with a great assortment of crimes, a prosecutor stands a fair chance of finding at least a technical violation of some act on the part of almost anyone. In such a case, it is not a question of discovering the commission of a crime and then looking for the man who has committed it, it is a question of picking the man and then searching the law books, or putting investigators to work, to pin some offense on him.

Robert H. Jackson · September 21, 2007 07:38 PM

Radley,

But it does I have more information?

The general tone of your first post betrays you. You clearly think you are an expert on all this. Don't bother with the false humility bit.

If you do have more information, by all means, please share it with us. At this point, all you have done is make some naked assertions, backed up with your claim of having done some investigating. Even Dan Rather gives us that much.

Jim · September 21, 2007 07:49 PM

Re: Balko's "THOSE people" down theerrrr...

When Balko shrieks of the existence of SEGREGATED TOWNS down there, does he mean like Harlem in Manhattan and the lilly white upper east side? Is that the type of shocking, amazing time warp Balko was referring to? Maybe he meant like South side of chicago and Lincoln Park? Maybe LA Watts and Bel Air?

Yep, it's like another world down thereerrrr

Dimwit.

ken · September 21, 2007 10:01 PM

Oh pleeze, let me just add one more to nail this coffin shut.

Balko lives in Alexandria VA. Hey, Didley, er Radley, when was the last time you wandered over into Anacoastia. Segregation!! I'm shocked. Shocked at thooosee people up there.

ken · September 21, 2007 10:11 PM

Those of you berating Mr. Balko would do well to follow his personal blog at www.theagitator.com, where he has done wonderful work in exposing the injustices done by the police, most notably in the Cory Maye case. Radley Balko is a seeker of the truth, and he is not going to go on record with anything but the truth as he has seen it. It doesn't make him 100% accurate, but it does elevate him above your pathetic slander.

John-David Filing · September 21, 2007 11:25 PM

Vinny Vidivici:

Viewing your net name lifted my spirits. I picture you striding the streets of South Philly, toga-clad, in Ciceronian high dudgeon.

Roy Malloy · September 22, 2007 12:33 AM

At ClassicalValues, Eric wrote: "So many things are illegal now that it's almost like a gigantic prosecutorial dartboard."

In "Atlas Shrugged", Ayn Rand wrote: "'There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. When there aren't enough criminals, one MAKES them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. ... Create a nation of law-breakers, and then you cash in on the guilt.'"

50 years ago!

Ken Mitchell · September 22, 2007 01:22 AM

I have been looking into the noose bit. It probably had nothing to do with racism. It appears to have been about a football rivalry.

The theme of the rivalry was "hang 'em high".

The tree was well known as a place where pranks were played. The two nooses were painted in school colors. They were up only for a little while.

Given what the kids probably thought they were doing I'd say a 3 day suspension was excessive.

I have also heard that inter-racial dating is not uncommon in the school.

A whole bunch of things are being conflated that have approximately zero to do with each other.

As I said in my first comment: the reporting is being screwed up by the narrative.

M. Simon · September 23, 2007 03:20 AM

A little insensitive joke:

The right of black men to beat white men unconscious when aggrieved is an inalienable right.

It needs to be protected.

The courts and Congress will do nothing. It is up to the people to force their hand.

=====

BTW I put a lot of this down to the drug war which is targeting blacks. From my researches it appears that blacks are less likely to use drugs than whites.

Any way this targeting is causing resentment. Which while being a true force can be expressed irrationally.

===

However, you also see a lot of black communities calling for the harsh enforcement of the drug laws.

===

All this caused by the erroneous idea that "drugs cause addiction".

Interesting that the Great Balko (who usually gets it) has not made the obvious connection.

Earth quakes are often the result of deep faults.

M. Simon · September 23, 2007 03:37 AM

We have events. We have the meaning of events.

Althouse has some good comments.

Author's Den

The Big Top Comes to Jena

M. Simon · September 23, 2007 04:31 AM

The square at Jena High School has been known for the center of school spirit and/or pranks for many years. I've seen everything from "funerals" of opponent football teams to the tree and surrounding area covered with toilet tissue. Jena High School is known for themed activities surrounding football games. This particular week, JHS was playing a team in which the mascot is Cowboys! Hence, the nooses in the tree..."hang'em high!" Not for one moment did the thought of racism cross my mind or the majority of the others. It was football season. We were playing the cowboys. The kids, girls and boys, wore boots to school and had a western themed pep rally! Nooses = cowboys and horse theives in my world. Maybe I've watched too much Gunsmoke, but racism was not even a thought. Due to the reaction of ADULTS in the black community, not the kids at the school, the boys were suspended. The entire punishment for those boys was never published because of the confidentiality of the issue. However, the boys were suspended. They and their families were required to go to counseling. The boys had hours of community service. The boys and their families continue to receive threatening phone calls, but yet no one has addressed that issue.

In the wee hours of a Thursday morning, arsonists set fire to Jena High School. The main building burned. Blacks and whites, alike, wiped tears as their Alma Mater was for the most part gone! Nothing has been proven to be related to the noose incident or any other racially motivated activities.

Town Talk

M. Simon · September 23, 2007 04:54 AM

BTW there is at least some sentiment in Jena that the 6 were protected because they were star athletes. Sports privilege is real in this case.

They were made above the law until the law could no longer be ignored. But you know can't go with that one. It is a white narrative.

So let us talk fact. The crime rate of blacks for violent crime is something like 6X that of whites.

M. Simon · September 23, 2007 05:08 AM