Sunday, September 23, 2007
Jena Six Revisited
The best coverage of the Jena Six story I have read so far is on ESPN.com. Why on a sports network? Mychal Bell was a star football player for the high school's team and was being scouted by LSU among other teams. He is still in jail, even though an appellate court has thrown out the charge; nor has Bell been permitted release on bail.
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4 comments:
Another good write-up, this one on Fox Sports, can be found here.
I strongly disagree with your assessment of the Fox Sports write-up. First, it is almost three weeks old. Second, the story starts with a jumble of non sequitur statements about the immaturity and lawlessness of professional athletes. Finally, whatever the author is proving is 'driven home' with a series of "No one mentions..." statements, that actually, people HAVE been mentioning. Implying that Bell's defense was adequate because the court appointed lawyer was Black? Come on! I cannot believe that FOX Sports actually paid this guy to write such a misinformed assessment of the situation.
Racism is rarely black and white. It's a disgusting mess. Rhetorical questions and antagonistic posturing is not the way to present this issue. Fox loses another few points from me.
Let's try another article, then. Locals Dispute Growing Story of Jena 6.
You are correct, racism is very rarely black and white. Articles such as the ESPN.com write-up, however, are trying to make it so clear cut, often at the expense of the full truth.
Much has been made about the percieved threat that blacks feel from whites regarding noose-hangings lately.
What do you make of these following facts? This comes from "The History of Lynching In The United States", a class at The University of Massachusetts.
http://www.umass.edu/complit/aclanet/ACLAText/USLynch.html
"There are "2805 [documented] victims of lynch mobs killed between 1882 and 1930 in ten southern states. Although mobs murdered almost 300 white men and women, the vast majority - almost 2,500 - of lynch victims were African-American."
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I certainly think that any kind of violence is evil and that racist lynchings are particularly awful.
I do find it intersting that according to the US Government, at
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/press/bvvcpr.htm
and
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/abstract/bvvc.htm
that at least 8,000 black people were murdered in 2005 alone, and that 93% of the murderers of these black people were black people themselves.
In light of the recent "Jena 6" situation, and the threat that black people have claimed to feel from whites because of it, what do you think about the fact that more black people were murdered by other black people (7,440 people, which is 93% of 8,000) in one year alone, 2005, than were murdered by all the white lynch mobs during the 48 years of 1882 through 1930 combined (about 2,500 people)?
This means that, in only one year, blacks killed almost 3 times the number of blacks than were killed by all the white lynch mobs during the 48 "peak-lynching years" combined!
Therefore, it stands to reason that the real, most dangerous threat to black people these days is not from racist white people or lynchings, but from black people themselves.
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http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/press/bvvcpr.htm
"Black Americans accounted for 13 percent of the U.S.
population in 2005 ...but were the victims of 49 percent of all homicides. Among single victim-single offender homicides, about 93 percent of black victims were murdered by black offenders."
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/abstract/bvvc.htm
"Blacks were victims of an estimated 805,000 nonfatal violent crimes and of about 8,000 homicides in 2005."
PLEASE KEEP IN MIND that 93% of those 8,000 black people killed in 2005 were killed BY OTHER BLACKS.
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OK, since we have examined black-on-black murder, now let's examine interracial murder:
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/tables/ovrelracetab.htm
Total Homicides by Racial Composition of Victims and Offenders
Year - Black on White - White on Black
1996 864 342
1997 760 269
1998 661 293
1999 648 223
2000 640 228
2001 628 220
2002 644 255
2003 673 269
2004 646 284
2005 692 254
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Average: 686 261
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Using the inter-racial murder stats above, blacks are at least SIXTEEN TIMES MORE LIKELY to kill whites than whites are to kill blacks
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