A week or so ago, I listened to a snippet on the Dennis Miller show in which he had some white dude from Jena, LA say that race relations were just peachy in his little ole town. This character had the temerity to suggest that the media had made a mountain out of a molehill.
Uhh. Did somebody burn down the high school or not?
Anyway, that's not the question. This guy said that the white teenagers whose beatdown brought the charges against the black teenagers DID NOT HAPPEN UNTIL 3 MONTHS AFTER THE NOOSES WERE HUNG IN THE 'WHITE TREE'. That's huge. I think. He went on to insist that the whole noose thing was a great big misunderstanding and was not directed at the black students at all, instead it was a practical joke directed against the Rodeo Club. Huh? What?
Could somebody straighten me out on these rather incredible revelations? Cuz Jena's just way out in the weeds and I don't much care, but if it doesn't really fit my narrative of ordinary racial bullshit in Sherwood Forest, perhaps it doesn't fit other narratives either. The truth is stranger than fiction. Perhaps it's too strange for our politics.
A thoughtful reader says the lead dog of the Jena 6 (and the commentator said there were more like 14 in the beatdown, but only six were selected for prosecution) will be tried in open court. So all of this may come out in the wash.
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