Thursday, September 27, 2007 the Mapleton PRESS
A year ago a black high school student in Jena, Louisiana, a town about the size of Mapleton, asked his principal if it would be alright for him to sit under a tree that white kids were claiming was only for them. The principal said it was okay, but the next day, there were nooses hanging in the tree. This was an unmistakable reference to the historical practice of lynching Black people in the South, and an unmistakable threat.
Haven't we make ANY progress? This may as well be 60 years ago. Well, not completely true, they wouldn't all be at the same school 60 years ago.
The principal wanted to expel the white kids who hung the nooses in the tree, but his superintendent decided that they'd only receive a short, in-school suspension.
At first I didn't know whether or not I'd have done more than suspend the white boys either. Of course, I'm not in the South, I'm safely sheltered here in mostly homogeneous rural Iowa. And I'm not Black.
I was thinking from the point of view of a high school teacher, someone who's been around 12-18 year olds all day long for the last 14 years. I always look for the best in kids and I'm slow to believe the worst. I also always assume that they are immature, impulsive, short-sighted, and insensitive to others and therefore not as responsible for all of their actions as adults. Of course, this side of 35, with 3 kids of my own, I'm starting to think the same way about anyone under say 32.
Droves of protesters traveled from all over the country to Jena last week to march past the high school because lawyers were calling for a sentence of up to 80 years for "attempted murder" for 6 Black kids who beat up a white kid, Justin Barker for taunting a black kid, Robert Bailey about getting hit in the head with a beer bottle in the weeks after the nooses appeared.
Barker was knocked out and got a black eye, but he was in good enough shape to go golfing the next day. Not exactly attempted murder. Personally, I'd say he was asking for it. The point is, white kids threatened murder the same way the Klu Klux Klan used to and almost nothing happened to them, it was blown off as a "prank." But when the black kids stood up for one of their own, the hammer of "justice" came down full force.
A couple of weeks ago we went to an outdoor church service at "Timber Ridge." After church was a brunch at the Timber Ridge Lodge, which used to be sort of a dance hall and saloon. It has an old west theme; they use antlers in all of their decorating, if you know what I mean.
Being an Arizona boy it was right up my alley- lots of cowboy junk and taxiderm/ trophy animals. I had fun identifying and explaining all of the deer, antelope, rattlesnakes, raccoons, bobcats, and even a wild turkey to my girls.
But thank God, they didn't seem to notice or ask me to explain the noose hanging from the wagon wheel chandelier. The thing made my blood run cold. I don't know if it was the racial implications or vigilante/anarchy aspect from our frontier history, that they're used so often in suicides, or just the brutality of the thing. But I definitely don't have the stomach for that sort of thing anymore.
Hanging a noose in that tree was far worse than most any vandalism to cars, lockers, desks, or walls that those kids could've done. It was infinitely more than just a "prank."
I'm proud that so many people traveled down there for the protest march today. I heard that Rev. Jackson challenged Sen. Obama to speak out on it. I don't know to be more frustrated with the media for not reporting their outrage- or more disappointed with ALL of the Democratic candidates for not speaking up because I haven't herd boo from ANY of them about it today.
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