The mockingbird's song isn't heard in Jena, LA

[Squigglenob]

Read full post at Scholars & Rogues. Excerpt:

July 11 is the 46th anniversary of the publication of Harper Lee's iconic novel about Southern race relations, To Kill a Mockingbird.

This particular anniversary seems a bittersweet one, since the Jena 6 case suggests the central issue that Lee's novel explores - the inability of Southern whites to see blacks as fellow Americans with equal rights - hasn't changed:

Why reasonable people go stark raving mad when anything involving a Negro comes up, is something I don't pretend to understand. - Atticus Finch, To Kill a Mockingbird

The novel is something of a roman a clef, with fans, critics, and scholars having pored over Harper Lee's life to look for the real life counterparts to the novel's characters. Everyone knows that Scout Finch is based upon Harper Lee herself, that Dill is based upon Lee's cousin, writer Truman Capote, and that Atticus Finch, Scout's father and the "hero" of the book, is based on Lee's father Amasa, an Alabama attorney.

The novel's scenes of contrasting cultures - the threatening white lynch mob defused by Scout's chat with the father of a school mate among the lynchers, the warm visit by the Finch children at their black maid Calpurnia's church - paint a picture of two separate realities overlapping lovingly at some moments, colliding viciously at other moments. Lee's details evoke a South - with its mannerliness, its bigotry, its affectation of honor and its indifference to the suffering of part of its citizens - that everyone from Wilbur J. Cash to Bill Clinton has tried to suggest will disappear/is disappearing/has disappeared. To Kill a Mockingbird may be Harper Lee's only novel, but it is a masterwork.

But then we have Jena, Louisiana...

[CitizenRob]

1. Reality check please.

And under Louisiana law that counts as attempted second degree murder. The law says in section one that "When the offender has a specific intent to kill or to inflict great bodily harm;"

The six kids undoubtedly had the intent to inflict great bodily harm. That is enough to charge somebody with attempted second degree murder. If they had killed the kid it would have been flat second degree murder. This is not racism, it's application of applicable law. You do a real disservice to the cause of civil rights when you claim otherwise.


Here's the law in its entirety if you don't believe me:

Louisiana Second Degree Murder
LA R.S. 14:30.1

A. Second degree murder is the killing of a human being:

(1) When the offender has a specific intent to kill or to inflict great bodily harm; or

(2)(a) When the offender is engaged in the perpetration or attempted perpetration of aggravated rape, forcible rape, aggravated arson, aggravated burglary, aggravated kidnapping, second degree kidnapping, aggravated escape, drive-by shooting, armed robbery, first degree robbery, or simple robbery, even though he has no intent to kill or to inflict great bodily harm.

(b) When the offender is engaged in the perpetration of cruelty to juveniles, even though he has no intent to kill or to inflict great bodily harm.

(3) When the offender unlawfully distributes or dispenses a controlled dangerous substance listed in Schedules I or II of the Uniform Controlled Dangerous Substances Law* which is the direct cause of the death of the recipient who ingested or consumed the controlled dangerous substance.

(4) When the offender unlawfully distributes or dispenses a controlled dangerous substance listed in Schedules I or II of the Uniform Controlled Dangerous Substances Law* to another who subsequently distributes or dispenses such controlled dangerous substance which is the direct cause of the death of the person who ingested or consumed the controlled dangerous substance.

B. Whoever commits the crime of second degree murder shall be punished by life imprisonment at hard labor without benefit of parole, probation, or suspension of sentence.

[NOLALady]

2. Racism is charging the kids who beat the white kid

and not charging the kids who beat the black kid.

Racism is charging kids with theft when they took a loaded shotgun from someone who was threatening.

Racism is charging someone with attempted murder when the only person who "saw" exactly what happened was a person involved with the noose hanging.

This case is about unequal justice and the abuse of power.

[CitizenRob]

3. I'll go there with you, totally.

I'll totally go there with you. But the Jena 6 shouldn't get a get out of jail free card just because the DA was negligent in the other cases.

[NOLALady]

4. But maybe they should get out of jail if Malcolm Shaw

was the only boy who hit J Barker.

"Coach Benjy Lewis gave two statements immediately after the school incident in which he clearly states that Justin Barker was facing him when Malcolm Shaw (not Mychal Bell) struck Barker from behind. “I saw Malcolm Shaw hit Justin Barker with his right fist to the right side of Justin’s head, right around the temple,” Lewis wrote. “Justin went down face first, knocked out . . .” Most witnesses agree that a single punch knocked Barker out cold. The only adult who witnessed the punch says Mychal Bell didn’t throw it."

"Ms. Martin’s list
* At trial, special education teacher Kristy Martin listed off the names of the boys who surrounded Justin Barker as if they were clear in her memory. Although she was forced to admit that she never saw a single student touch Justin Barker, Martin’s ability to name names seemed very convincing. Martin is the only witness thus far who has provided a list of attackers longer than three names.
* In a written statement, given immediately after the incident, Coach Wayne Spence states that he was taking names of rowdy students in the gym during the lunch hour. “I had a list that Ms. Martin obtained from me,” he wrote. This suggests that Kristy Martin specifically asked Spence for the list of names the day of the fight. This explains why she is the only witness to remember more than two or three members of the Jena 6. Most eye witnesses can’t identify a single assailant by name. Most of the students who gave eyewitness statements after the December 4 altercation at the school make references to “a bunch of black kids”.

[noiretextatique]

5. attempted murder? please

the charge is as outrageous as the fact that only black students were charged.
the victim spent three hours in the emergency and went to a party that night. i think all involved should have been charged with assault...black and white. and since that did not happen, i don't see how anyone can defend charging only the black students, and throwing the book that them.