More on the Jena 6

Joe Carter, over at The Evangelical Outpost, has posted a list of primary documents dealing with the whole Jena 6 situation, i.e., various witness statements and court documents. Here's the link. This is very helpful. Both Joe and I agree that the MSM reporters are not doing their jobs. However, Joe posted a pretty opinionated piece earlier in the week. Read it here. One of my big concerns is that when we "white folk" look like we are unwilling to admit the presence of racism, we lose credibility. We have to take claims of racism seriously. On the other hand, we need AA leaders to realize that not every accusation of racism is legitimate. Let's not react with emotion; let's get the facts and put them together. Joe's post helps us do that, but he is pretty much only addressing the issue of the guilt of one of the black guys; Joe has not put together a "narrative of events," including how many of these recent events are directly linked. We're still waiting for that.

The Jena 6

The Jena 6

I'm a bit sick of people spouting off on this issue without full knowledge of the facts. Racism is too sensitive an issue to use heated language when it is perhaps not necessary. From what I've heard, these are the facts: 1) there is a "Whites Only Tree" in Jena (what is up with that? Hello?); 2) some black guys purposely sat under it (I would too, if the "Whites Only" thing is serious); 3) some white kids hung nooses from the tree in response (not a very funny gesture, in my opinion), and did get in trouble for it, but not very severe trouble; 4) some black kids beat some white kid to within an inch of his life and got in serious trouble.

Understandably, some people are getting pretty worked up about this, but reactions based on insufficient information are not helpful. In an ideal world, our MSM reporters would get the information right and inform the public. Unfortunately, I think most reporters have an agenda and hear/see/report what fits with that agenda.

I wonder: are all these events linked? Was there some other reason the white kid was beaten? What really happened to the white kids? Was there an attempt to deal justly with all these various situations? Were blacks and whites involved at every level of decision making about consequences/legal issues? There may very well be some bad racial stuff going on here, but we need to be very careful not to inflame things when that is not called for.