Posted 09/25/2007 @ 1:02pm
Laura Flanders
"Jena is America," says Alan Bean, speaking of the Louisiana town where six black students are looking at decades in jail for a schoolyard brawl while white kids are facing nothing for hanging up nooses. Jena is America in the sense that the unequal justice there is not unique. There are "Jena Sixes" behind bars in every state. But it isn't America in the sense that the country as a whole has had no trouble at all ignoring Jena.
I hope it's not too late...
It's late but it's not too late, for all of America to act. In fact, truly massive public attention is needed right now as a white backlash builds in Louisiana. While Air America and National Public Radio move on, David Duke and his radio listeners are all over the Jena story. Last week, the former Ku Klux Klan leader announced his support for Jena's white residents (who voted overwhelmingly for him when he ran for Louisiana governor in 1991.) Since the civil rights demonstrators left, Jena familes are alone against the white supremacists who have started appearing. Over the weekend, a neo-Nazi Web site posted the names, addresses and phone numbers of some of the six black teenagers and their families and urged followers to find them and "drag them out of the house." A white driver was arrested in a nearby town, driving a pick up with nooses tied to the back fender. White extremist web sites and blogs are exploding and it's not just Klansmen and neo-Nazis posting hateful things.
It's late but it's not too late to answer: Is Jena America?
LAURA FLANDERS is the host of RadioNation and the author of Blue Grit: True Democrats Take Back Politics from the Politicians.
(Click on the link below to read the entire article)
No comments:
Post a Comment