The Jena Six

[lazarus]

http://jena6.vesana.com/articles/media/the-case-of-the-jena-six.html

Six black students at Jena High School in Central Louisiana were arrested last December after a school fight in which a white student was beaten and suffered a concussion and multiple bruises. The six black students were charged with attempted murder and conspiracy. They face up to 100 years in prison without parole. The fight took place amid mounting racial tension after a black student sat under a tree in the schoolyard where only white students sat. The next day three nooses were hanging from the tree. [includes rush transcript]

Jena is a small town nestled deep in the heart of Central Louisiana. Until recently, you may well have never heard of it. But this rural town of less than 4,000 people has become a focal point in the debate around issues of race and justice in this country.

Last December, six black students at Jena High School were arrested after a school fight in which a white student was beaten and suffered a concussion and multiple bruises. The six black students were charged with attempted second-degree murder and conspiracy. They face up to 100 years in prison without parole. The Jena Six, as they have come to be known, range in age from 15 to 17 years old.

Just over a week ago, an all-white jury took less than two days to convict 17 year-old Mychal Bell, the first of the Jena Six to go on trial. He was convicted of aggravated battery and conspiracy charges and now faces up to 22 years in prison.

Black residents say that race has always been an issue in Jena, which is 85 percent white, and that the charges against the Jena Six are no exception.

[Amelia]

From this little info it sounds like this young man did not have adequate legal counsel. The charges seem a bit harsh. Attempted murder? Conspiracy? Come on. I doubt most kids in high school go into a schoolground fight with murder in mind. I also question why he was charged as an adult and not a juvenile. Then there is the question of a jury of your peers. They couldn't find some black people for this trial? Jena sounds like a Twilight Zone town that forgot it is no longer the nineteenth century and the American dark ages.

[Neil D]

I agree, this is too harsh....

Reprimand the black students for fighting. School grounds should be a safe environment...Expel the students for the year would severe enough....IMO

[lazarus]

David Bowie thinks its harsh too!

"There is clearly a separate and unequal judicial process going on in the town of Jena," Bowie said. He donated $10,000.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070919/ap_en_ce/people_david_bowie

[Neil D]

Quote:

He was convicted of aggravated battery and conspiracy charges and now faces up to 22 years in prison.

Ok, the white kid got a concussion as well...but that is not worth 22 years of a black kid....

A year in juvi...You can persuade me to go for that....Expelling the black kids, definately....how long, depends upon the principal...Agravated assault on the white kid, yeah, but NOT 22 years...make it a year to think about it...Or better yet, a years worth of community time...but 22 years in prison...NO WAY!

[Amelia]

Quote:

The beating victim, Justin Barker, was knocked unconscious, his face badly swollen and bloodied, though he was able to attend a school function later that night.

He must not have been badly concussed.

Quote:

Bell, 16 at the time of the December attack, is the only one of the “Jena Six” to be tried so far. He was convicted on an aggravated second-degree battery count that could have sent him to prison for 15 years, but the conviction was overturned last week when a state appeals court said he should not have been tried as an adult.

At this time Mychal Bell is still in jail while prosecutors prepare an appeal. He has been unable to meet the $90,000 bond.

Quote:

District Attorney Reed Walters didn’t charge the white students accused of hanging the nooses because he could find no Louisiana law under which they could be charged.

To me this is a hate crime and worth more than just suspension. But apparently Louisiana doesn't have any "Hate crime" laws. Tsk

Quote:

District Attorney Reed Walters, who is prosecuting the case, said Wednesday that race had nothing to do with the charges.

Well I beg to differ

[Neil D]

Quote:

He must not have been badly concussed.

Yeah, while listening to NPR yesterday, someone reported that his injurys were not as bad as I had read. I also heard that from some of the towns people, that the national news had not reported all of the facts acrurately...

Assault and hate crimes....those kids are not the wisest of children....

[jasd]

QR frame:

Justice? for whom?

“Louisiana Children's Code states if a child is over the age of 15 and commits one of a list of specific crimes, he or she must be charged as an adult. Attempted murder -- the charge Bell and the others originally faced -- is one of those crimes.”

Because of laziness on my part, the following is not exact, though it is nearly so: They (with the exception of Robert Bailey Jr. and Bryant Purvis) are no longer being charged with “attempted second-degree murder” and “conspiracy to commit murder”. (it’s been determined that juveniles cannot be charged with conspiracy in adult court) The remaining charges are..., “aggravated second-degree battery and ...”.

All the Jena Six were athletes with five of them playing Division-1 football. According to Bell’s father..., Bell was being romanced by such Universities as Ole Miss, Georgia Tech, Southern Miss, etc: that translates to one good-sized ‘fro-bro. These were not the Alfalfas, Spankys, Buckwheats, etc, of ‘our gang’.

These ‘boys’ beat one white victim (Justin Barker) unconscious. He was first attacked from behind with a weight-lifting bar, then, while the victim was on the ground unconscious – they proceeded to stomp and kick his head – until they were forcibly pulled off the victim.

Because he was a good football player, Bell “...was let out of juvi, before he served juvenile life for the other 4 violent felonies he had been adjudicated on in the 12 months leading up to the attack. Adjudicated in Louisiana Juvenile court means the same as convicted in adult court.”

The above abbreviation, in the book of Commonsensical Matters, – translates to “attempted murder!” – forget great bodily harm... though the victim, when taken to the hospital, was bleeding from his ears, eyes, nose, and mouth.

For those living in the airy-fairy disconnect of Limbaugh’s Rio Linda – the cervical vertebrae are rather vulnerable to stomping and kicking – especially for one who is lying unconscious upon the ground.

It is well known that spinal injuries may not manifest for years. Though Justin Barker attended a ‘ring ceremony’ at school – that, in itself, does not mitigate the seriousness of act for which its perpetrators should be held accountable.

Justice for the Jena Six? Tchah!

Justice? for the tree?

It was cut down.

Justice? for me?

...who has too often to listen to the constant grouse on major media.

[Neil D]

Mother Jones wades in-a liberal forum The question is what is this liberal press attempting to say....

Adolescents Play Pranks..."

Last November, someone set fire to the central wing of a high school in Jena, Louisiana. White? Black? who??? Then white students beat up a black student because he went to their party. Soon after that, a white adolescent pulled a shotgun on three black adolescents in a convenience store, and then four black students jumped a white student as he came out of the school gym. Following that incident, in which the student received minor injuries, Please note: MINOR injuries...how minor??? bruises or broken skin or broken bones? six black students were expelled and were charged with attempted second-degree murder. They face up to a hundred years in prison.

Conversely, the white boy who beat up the student at the party was charged with simple battery, and the boy who held three others at shotgunpoint was not charged with anything. However, his victims were charged with aggravated battery and theft after they grabbed the shotgun in self-defense. Is this fair, to be charged with a crime while defending oneself???

If this sounds like scenes from a 1950s newsreel, that's because Jena is stuck in time when it comes to the issue of racial equality. Enter Jena mayor Murphy McMillian, who says that "Race is not a major local issue. It's not a factor in the local people's lives."

No kidding--he said that. If he said that, what other factors is Mother Jones omiting?????

The latest incident at the high school involves some black students who attempted to sit on the "white side" of the school yard. There, they saw three nooses hanging from a tree. Enter school superindendent Roy Breithaupt, who says that "Adolescents play pranks. I don't think it was a threat against anybody."

Again, he really said that.

Quote:

While I can see pranks being made, I think that the seriousness of the pranks need to be address...Is this making the school a safe place to learn???? That is the real question here, me thinks...

The Jena community isn't alone in dismissing violence and threats against women, people of color, the disabled, and members of the LGBT community as "pranks" and "jokes." But this particular piece of denial is so over the top, it would probably shock most reasonable people. The local ACLU calls Jena a "racial powder keg."

Hmmmmm...I wonder what "he who must not be named" would say about the ACLU and the "racial powder keg' comment...?

[Dr. Shane]

Well, if the local government tried to prosecute the boys that hung the nooses from the tree that started the whole thing, I am sure the ACLU would jump in to defend these boys' right to free speech. That is just the kind of despicable case that they like on their resume.

I don't live in Jena. The racial tension can be very ugly and only involve 5% or 10% of the population.

What we see here is how violence escalates. The Jena six certainly appear guilty of conspiracy. It is doubtful the six of them just happened to find a white kid alone in the weight room when 85% of the town is white. However sending them to prison isn't likely to help the issue of racism in the town. Instead of becoming repentant for their sin, the black boys are likely to feel like they are victims themselves and other blacks in the town will see them as some kind of martyrs.

Regardless of what caused these black kids to attack the white kid, what was done was wrong and reprehensible. It further hurts the image of the black male in the US.

The black male is feared by whites, hispanics and asians alike. I admit that when I got on a subway in Atlanta and I was the only white guy in the subway and everyone else was black, I felt a little uneasy. The violent, forceful black male is a stereotype that is reinforced by Hollywood and rap musicians. Yet studies show that blacks attend church more often than whites do. Most black people are honest workers that love their children and benefit society. Yet the stereotype is reinforced when crimes like this are committed.

I don't like the entire prison system as most people that go in as soft criminals come out as hardened criminals. In this case, I would like to see the kids have to go through a anger management and racism program along with a lot of hours of community service with a suspended jail sentence that they would have to serve if convicted of the same charges within five years.

[Kountzer]

Growing up in a Southern Texas town, I was wary and fearful of white males as a boy when cars would swerve off the freeway and purposely drive close to where I was walking just to intimidate me. I was fearing of white people in general when someone I knew in school got his head bashed in with a cinder block. He didn't walk across the graduation stage 2 hours later. He ended up permanently brain damaged. The white teens that committed the crime never spent more than a couple of hours of jail. They got off with 2 or 3 years of probation. I was also fearful of whites, or at least wary, when the local radio station would announce a Klan rally was going to be held in a small town just miles down the road. I was wary of whites when I saw photos of a black man hanging from a tree, and a large crowd of whites, many dressed in their Sunday best clothes, gathered around, laughing and smiling as if they were at a big block party. I could go on and on...

DB

[Dr. Shane]

White racists have done terrible things to blacks, indians, hispanics, Jews and gays throughout the history of the US. There is no denying that. No doubt those terrible things have created stereotypes in the minds of these minorities about all whites. While circumstances have changed dramatically in the last 40 years, stereotypes die hard.

The white kids that started this whole thing in Jena should be punished but not by anti-hate laws. I don't believe anti-hate laws have not went in front of the Supreme Court yet and may well be found to be unconstitutional as they create a privileged, protected class which means not all citizens receive equal protection under the law. A black man that kills a white woman would receive a greater sentence than a black man that kills a black woman. Thus the white woman receives a greater protection under the law than does the black woman. Hate-crime laws require juries to get inside of a defendant's head to determine motive, which itself is a questionable process.

These white kids that started this mess could be charged with making terroristic threats as hanging the nooses from the tree were intended to be a threat to cause terror in the black students. Of course some off-color organization like the ACLU could defend the white students' right to free speech but free speech has limits. I cannot leave a note on an ex-girlfriend's car threatening to kill her and then claim free speech. That would be a terroristic threat.

Again, I think the answer is anger and race education classes combined with community service and suspended sentences. Sending any of these kids to prison is just going to make real criminals out of them. With the over-crowding of prisons, the kid receiving 22 years is not likely to serve half of that. So by the time he is 30 he will be out, angry and hardened. Somehow I don't think that is what anyone really wants.

It is really sad that black leaders like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton couldn't have somehow gotten down to Jena after the nooses were hung from the tree and before the black students lashed out. If that would have happened, the white students that hung the nooses may well have been punished and the black students wouldn't have felt the need to escalate the violence any further. Perhaps no one told them about it. It certainly was a missed opportunity that has now turned to tragedy.

[John317]

It goes both ways, and the only way to stop it is to refuse to antagonize anyone of a different race by calling names or by taking other actions that can be interpreted in a negative way. Show Christ's love to everyone, no matter what they say or do to you. It's the only way to stop the cycle of hate and violence.

[John317]

I understand that one of the Jena Six has had three arrests before for assault, and only a short time before this incident.

Does anyone know if this is true?

Ok, after writing this, I found this on one of the posts on this thread, that helps answer my question, thanks to JASD:

"Because he was a good football player, Bell '...was let out of juvi, before he served juvenile life for the other 4 violent felonies he had been adjudicated on in the 12 months leading up to the attack. Adjudicated in Louisiana Juvenile court means the same as convicted in adult court.'"

[Kountzer]

'Jena 6' is just the flavor of the moment. Crimes, heinious crimes are being committed everyday. All of them don't capture the national, and international spotlight. All of them are not committed by black males. No one black shot up those students at columbine, Co. Jeffrey Dahmer was not black, neither was Wayne Gacy. The student that shot up VA Tech was Asian. I have just as much reason to be scarred of y'all.

As for Hispanics being afraid of black males, Shane you haven't cornered the market on hispanics. I have lived and worked with mexicans and other hispanics everyday, for most of my life. Went to school with them, the whole nine. You can go to any traditionally black neighborhood in Houston, and there are hispanics living in the same area. As the saying goes 'drinking the same wine, committing the same crime', so to speak. If they are scarred, as you say, it sure hasn't slowed them down from moving next door.

same thing with asians. They leave in their corollas and camry's and lexus', in the evening. The next morning they are back at their inner city convenience stores selling wine, 40 oz. beer, horse hair, rolling papers, and anything else that will turn a buck. They're scarred alright, all the way to the bank.

DB

[Amelia]

Quote:

The white kids that started this whole thing in Jena should be punished but not by anti-hate laws.

Why not? Hanging nooses from a tree or anything is a hate crime. The white boys certainly should have received more than just suspension from school! Getting away with such is how young white boys grow up to be "good ol'boys", greasing each others palms and getting away with "murder".

During the rally a pickup truck driven by young white males moved trough the people in front of the city hall. Hanging off the tailgate were nooses. Police followed and the youths were detained, but so far I can't find out if they were charged or just detained and released. But it made the national news for all to see the stupidity and hate of the young white males of Jena.

If you want to know more about hate crimes in your state and the growing problem of hate and our youth go to...

Main: http://www.partnersagainsthate.org/

An innovative collaboration of the Anti-Defamation League, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Education Fund, and the Center for the Prevention of Hate Violence, Partners Against Hate features online and offline resources and support in the fight against youth-initiated hate violence.

Partners Against Hate was created to help prevent, deter, and reduce juvenile hate-related behavior. The program blends outreach, public education, and training to help all sectors of the community.

Choose a state

http://www.partnersagainsthate.org/hate_response_database/laws.html

Addressing Youthful Hate Crime is an Imperative

33% of all known hate crime offenders are under 18

31% of all violent crime offenders and 46% of the property offenders are under 18.

29% of all hate crime offenders are 18-24.

30% of all victims of bias-motivated aggravated assaults and 34% of the victims of simple assault are under 18.

An alarming and disproportionately high percentage of both the victims of hate violence and the perpetrators are young people under 18 years of age.

2003 FBI Hate Crime Statistics Act (HCSA) Data and Analysis

*this is volunteer state by state reporting of "known" hate crimes from police agencies, complied by the FBI.

http://www.partnersagainsthate.org/law_enforcement/2003_fbi_facts.html

-Racial bias again represented the largest percentage of bias-motivated incidents (51.3%), followed by Religion Bias (17.9%), Sexual Orientation Bias (16.5%), Ethnicity Bias (13.7%), and Disability Bias (0.4%).

-Anti-black bias was the most prevalent racial motivation, with 2,548 incidents. (34% of all hate crimes)

-Of the 6,934 identified hate crime offenders, the majority were white (4,317, or 62.3%); 1,286 (18.5%) were black, 61 (0.9%) were American Indian or Alaskan Native, 93 (1.3%) were Asian or Pacific Islander, 741 (10.7%) were of unknown race, and the remaining 436 (6.3%) were of other races or multiple races.

-The five states with the highest numbers of hate crime were: California (1,472 incidents, 19.7% of total reported incidents), New York (602, 8%), New Jersey (594, 7.9%), Michigan (427, 5.7%), and Massachusetts (403, 5.4%). These five states comprise 46.7% of all incidents reported in the United States.

Can anyone tell me why white people think they are so superior to everyone else?

[Dr. Shane]

My point was that while these white kids should be punished, the means to punish them should not be hate crime laws. I just heard an Adventist preacher preach this morning on why we should oppose hate crime legislation. According to him, pastors in the Scandinavian countries are being put in jail for preaching against homosexuality there. Hate crime legislation creates a mind police that tries to judge motive. That is not a good thing.

It is simple. Terroristic threats are illegal. It doesn't matter what the motive is behind them. Why should a black kid threatening to kill a white kid be punished more than a man threatening to kill his ex-wife? That is exactly what hate crime legislation does.

Hate crime legislation has the capacity to stop Adventists from preaching that the papacy is the mark of the beast. No Adventist should favor that kind of mind control.

The hispanic male is not intimidated by the black male when they are all hanging with their buddies. However a typical hispanic male, like a typical white male, getting on a subway with all black people, will feel a level of intimidation and insecurity. That doesn't mean it is right or logical. It simply because of a stereotype that exists and is reinforced. Of course there are some people that are not intimidated by anyone, but they are the exceptions rather than the rule.

I will give an example. If a story is being told about a big muscular bouncer that threw a guy out of a bar because he was causing trouble, race doesn't usually get mentioned unless the bouncer was black. I hear such stories and if it was a big white guy or a big latino guy I never hear the guy's race mentioned. But if it was a big black guy it is mentioned to reinforce how scary the guy was. Is this wrong? Of course it it. It is racism and many people don't even realize it.

Statistics do not show that black men are any more prone to violence at all. Men, of course, are more prone to violence than women are but black men are not more prone to violence than men of other ethnic groups. At least those are the statistics I am familiar with.

[Amelia]

Commentary: 'Prevalent evil' of racism requires our response

From NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.ORG>

Date Fri, 21 Sep 2007

A UMNS Commentary By Erin Hawkins*

Staff members of the United Methodist Commission on Religion and Race join other United Methodists and people of faith in calling for equal justice and healing from the racial crisis in Jena, La., where six African-American teenagers face charges for allegedly beating a white youth at school. And yet, we know that both justice and healing will be hard to come by.

As tens of thousands of protesters marched on Sept. 20 in Jena and elsewhere around the nation, we were encouraged by the outpouring of public response. Many wore black to signify the racial injustices black people too often suffer in communities, courtrooms and correctional institutions across this land. Their protests, some have said, could spark a new, 21st century, media-savvy, civil rights movement to challenge widespread unfairness in the U.S. judicial system.

There have been several alarming racial incidents and inequities reported in this local controversy, born of years of separation and enmity between black and white students. About a year ago, a black student asked to sit under a tree on campus where only whites usually gathered. The next morning three white students had hung nooses from the tree, sending a message that recalled the painful history of lynching, when black people were hung from trees, mutilated and set afire to humiliate and intimidate the black community. The three boys received three days of in-school suspension for committing what one administrator called "an adolescent prank."

When black students protested, the annoyed white district attorney reportedly warned them, "I can take away your lives with a stroke of my pen." A series of violent incidents followed months later: arson that severely damaged the school; an attack on a black student who tried to attend an all-white party; a confrontation between a white man who brandished a shotgun and several black students who took his weapon and were later arrested and charged with theft; and finally the assault on a white student who reportedly taunted his attackers and suffered a concussion, but was treated and released from the hospital a few hours later. His alleged attackers are the six black youths now facing trials for aggravated assault and conspiracy.

The phenomenal attention and response to this crisis in a tiny sawmill town of less than 3,000 people, 350 of them African American, proves many activists are heeding Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s admonition that, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." Perhaps they are mindful, too, of Jesus' call to visit and demand justice for even "the least of these," including those who are in prison.

We know that racism is still a prevalent evil in communities, schools, workplaces, institutions and yes, even churches, throughout the United States. Its often conspiratorial perversions are usually subtle, even hidden. But when they are as flagrant as the injustice faced by these black students in Jena, we are compelled to respond en masse in nonviolent protest, information-sharing, coalition-building, public and private lobbying, petitions, letter-writing, voter registration, and continuous use of the most potent response to evil there is: individual and collective prayer that invokes our God to give us that which we too often fail to give each other: justice and mercy.

We know that everyone who violated laws and harmed others in these incidents should face justice, but it should be equal justice that punishes violence and intimidation with equal severity. Those who dismiss the hanging of nooses as a mere prank or don't understand the still lingering horror and pain of that heinous symbol help perpetuate the insensitivity and lack of compassion that often fuels schisms between races and ethnic groups.

We are encouraged that Louisiana Area Bishop William Hutchinson has met with religious leaders in Jena, and that the Rev. Lyndle Bullard, pastor of predominantly white Nolley Memorial United Methodist Church there, is reportedly involved in efforts to bring compassion and healing to the divisive situation. We're also appreciative that the Rev. Darlene Moore, pastor of Camphor United Methodist Church in Baton Rouge, took Louisiana State University students with her to the Jena rally.

It is important that young people of all races are paying attention and responding to this controversy. Many of them have experienced racism, violence, threats and unfair punishment from authorities. Some can relate to what has happened to their peers in Jena. Some fear it could happen to them.

I grieve for the white youth who was beaten unconscious and probably scarred emotionally by that incident. I grieve no less for the blind racial hatred he and others suffer from and the expression of that hatred which may have provoked the attack on him. I grieve also for those black young men - and so many others like them - whose outbursts of anger and hatred are roiled by the constant racism they must endure and whose fragile lives now hang upon the unbalanced scales of a flawed judicial system like so many nooses hanging from a fruitless tree.

As the marchers return to their homes, campuses, jobs and communities, we as a church must remain concerned and watchful of what happens from here on, not only in Jena but across this hurting nation. We must be watchful and prayerful that God will look upon our conflict-ridden lives and relationships with grace and will call us to engage in more concerted, faithful actions like those of the Sept. 20 protests, so that together we might witness the miracles of justice, peace and healing we so desperately seek.

*Hawkins is the top staff executive of the United Methodist Commission on Religion and Race.

[Kountzer]

The hispanic male is not intimidated by the black male when they are all hanging with their buddies. However a typical hispanic male, like a typical white male, getting on a subway with all black people, will feel a level of intimidation and insecurity. That doesn't mean it is right or logical. It simply because of a stereotype that exists and is reinforced. Of course there are some people that are not intimidated by anyone, but they are the exceptions rather than the rule.

First of all, you are no expert on what hispanics do, or think. You're just an internet expert. IOWs, you're just on here blowing hot air, pretending like you know what you're talking about. I live next to hispanics, I work with them, I ride the bus with them. Nobody is intimidated.

Second, hispanics are commiting just as many crimes as anybody else, some of them anyway. Some of them sell drugs, they work as coyotes, they enslave other hispanics, they commit drug murders, steal cars, commit dwi's, with no insurance, then run across the border. One even recently killed a police officer. He shot him with a gun during a routine stop. I need to be wary of them.

Third: "news flash". Quite a few hispanics are black themselves.

[lazarus]

The hispanic male is not intimidated by the black male when they are all hanging with their buddies. However a typical hispanic male, like a typical white male, getting on a subway with all black people, will feel a level of intimidation and insecurity.

I seem to ask this kind of question alot. Shane where do get these notions from? Point me to a website, book, article, tv prog please.

[lazarus]

It is well known that spinal injuries may not manifest for years. Though Justin Barker attended a ‘ring ceremony’ at school – that, in itself, does not mitigate the seriousness of act for which its perpetrators should be held accountable.

Justice for the Jena Six? Tchah!

Justice? for the tree?

It was cut down.

Justice? for me?

...who has too often to listen to the constant grouse on major media.

Of course you convenietly ignore what went on before the beating. I wonder why? Those events are key to the appeal for justice.

[Neil D]

Quote:

I seem to ask this kind of question alot. Shane where do get these notions from? Point me to a website, book, article, tv prog please.

Um, [Ahem] "Life experiences" are the standard, don'tcha know???And since everyone has them, that is what everyone knows...right? :S

[Dr. Shane]

Quote:

I seem to ask this kind of question alot. Shane where do get these notions from?

If one must ask and I must tell... I had to attend an anger management course as part of a deal to get some frivolous assault charges against a police officer that I had been arrested for dismissed. My lawyer assured me he could get the charges dropped without me attending the classes but it would take more time and... more lawyer fees. The ordeal had already drug out nearly a year and a half at that time and since none of it would be reflected on my record, it seemed like a good deal.

I was the only white guy in the class, the rest were hispanic males. Not because of racial injustice but because 87% of the population here is hispanic. There was a lot of in depth discussion in the classes about anger, intimidation, provocation, racism and other such issues as one would expect to be discussed in such settings. Having been in AA for almost 20 years at that time, I was already familiar with the basic concepts to the point that one of the counselors asked me if I had been through the course already. Most of the anger, resentment, intimidation and provacation issues are dealt with in AA on a regular basis. I learned a lot about racism in my college racial minorities class and, of course, being married to a racial minority and living in the hispanic culture for so many years.

Do I consider myself an expert? Not at all. My expertise is in small business, specifically in commercial construction. My experience on many subjects is limited but I share what I have heard and experienced with others. I will say that grew up in a semi-white community - there were some asians in our neighborhood. Yet I have heard more racial remarks and jokes made about blacks within the hispanic community than I ever heard in the white community growing up.

I recall Jesse Jackson once reflecting on the state of black stereotypes by saying it was a sad state when he heard footsteps behind him at night and was relieved to look back and see a white man. If we are honest, most of us can admit we hold stereotypes and admitting it doesn't mean we are saying it is right.

[Dr. Shane]

One might note how using another member's name tends to steer a thread away from the topic and onto another member. Simply review the explanation I provided above and how "me" centered it is. Not a lot about "The Jena Six" in that post.

[lazarus]

One might note how using another member's name tends to steer a thread away from the topic and onto another member.

Well, I asked you to provide some sources for you assertions. You made a statement about hispanics, and whites as if it were an established fact. It is necessary and more interesting when we bring our own experience into any discussion but when we extrapolate from that experience and draw overarching conclusions we run into difficulty. In addition, the lessons that could have been drawn from the experience become lost.

Its was not the use of the name that steered the conversation. I think you give to much power to that practice.

When we present our thoughts and conclusions as widely accepted or established facts folks will want an explanation as to why.

When no clear explanation is forthcoming then the issue becomes the personality of the one who makes the assertions not the topic.