Ryan ChartrandThe Jena Six issue took place in Louisiana, a southern state; black people there face a lot more issues with racism than minorities face here in California. I was shocked to read in Wednesday’s opinion section that students I go to school with actually believe the hanging of the nooses on the proclaimed “white tree” is, and I quote, “justified.”
Therefore I don’t think I got the clue that the author wanted, but I received a really huge clue on how ignorant some people can be. To say it was “justified” is as if to say, based on the Jena Six’s actions four months after the nooses were hung, it proves they deserved to have their lives threatened.
The black students of the Jena Six didn’t need to physically attack Justin Barker, especially since Martin Luther King Jr. tried to leave the black society with the ideologies to not fight back against racism with violence. Yet sometimes it gets hard to keep that much anger inside.
Imagine facing life on a daily basis as a constant minority and then looking into the eyes of someone – in this case, Barker – who at this moment is alone and therefore the minority. The Jena Six wanted so badly for Barker to feel all the pain that the black students face on that campus on a regular basis. Within one instant, it’s as if the Jena Six saw Barker as all the racists that they deal with everyday in Louisiana. They kicked him for every time they heard the “n” word, they punched him for all of the nooses hung on that tree and they knocked him down for the ridiculous notion that a “white tree” was even part of their campus.
What they did was wrong, but unfortunately they were unable to fight back against everyone who actually deserved to be punished. They couldn’t make the school board give harsher punishment to the white students that hung the nooses, they couldn’t stop the fact that there was a tree for only whites on their campus and therefore they couldn’t get rid of all the anger they had inside.
And what’s making me angry is the fact that people such as the person who wrote Wednesday’s article, are even questioning whether the nooses being hung on that tree was a racist act. It is unimaginably racist and immoral for white students participating in segregation and threatening acts to be merely suspended and then to send black participants to jail because of their aggression toward the incident.
A young black man asked the principal during an assembly if he can sit under the tree that was known around campus as being where the white students sat. The principal told him yes. After the question, numerous nooses were hung from that tree. Yet, this is to be seen as a joke? As a simple prank blown out of proportion?
How is there no need for anger from black people nationwide, and how is it to be seen as absolutely fine that the students who hung the nooses are walking around campus while the Jena Six face jail time?
The author referred to the Jena Six as punks and goons throughout her article and says Barker faced racism by being attacked by a group of black students. She even says, “Go home ‘Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson’ until you find someone who is a real victim of racial inequality.” The white student was facing racism? What? Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson should go home? Now, who’s being the goon?
Racism occurred and because of the incident, the Jena Six participated in a violent act, but without this violence the nation wouldn’t have realized that the civil rights movement still has a long way to go. Therefore I definitely got a clue; some people are in dire need of a reality check.
Sahara Bushue is a journalism senior and a guest columnist for the Mustang Daily.